The allure of Ybor City

Riddle me this…

A group of customers gathers at one of Tampa’s trendiest breweries. There’s a young man, a competitive cheerleader turned marketing strategist. A man in his early 50s is a college dean, a Quaker, and a regular transit rider who went carless year ago. A woman in her mid-30s is a web designer and coder who works remotely and lives with her maltipoo. Finally, there’s a couple with three adult kids who moved from Chicago during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Everyone in the group is at different ages and stages of life, with different careers and different backgrounds. But they all live in the same part of Tampa. Which neighborhood is eclectic enough to appeal to all of them?

It’s not South Tampa or Seminole Heights; it’s Ybor City. And that trendy local brewery is Sky Puppy Brewing, located inside historically renovated Casa Bomberos on the 1300 block of Eighth Avenue.

Returning to residential roots

Since the days of its first settlers, Ybor City has had an undeniable appeal. 

Newly arrived immigrants from Cuba, Spain, Italy, and Germany found their footing in Ybor. Businesses like J.C. Newman Cigar Company, La Segunda Bakery, and the Columbia Restaurant became local institutions. Ybor’s long been  the nucleus of Tampa’s creative, music, and entertainment scenes. Today, it’s evolving beyond its reputation of recent decades as the city’s nightlife district to become a live, work, play, shop, dine neighborhood with a growing residential base.

Ybor’s edge might give suburbanites pause, but it’s precisely why some people like living there. Dustin Lemke, an academic dean at Hillsborough Community College who’s lived in Tampa about 20 years, says he moved from Tampa Heights to Ybor to take a break and reset himself.

“Ybor is really the core of the city,” he says. “It’s walkable, and electric on a Saturday night. But on a Tuesday morning, it’s surprisingly peaceful. The roosters have a grounding effect, like witnessing nature in the middle of Tampa.”

For those who love urban life, Ybor is eclectic in a way that few, if any, other parts of the Tampa Bay region can approach. Coffee shops, rumbling streetcars, art galleries, sneaker stores, and the marble lobby at Hotel Haya give the district a cosmopolitan downtown vibe.

“There’s too much to do in Ybor, people don’t realize!” Lemke exclaims.

And redevelopment projects like the 50-acre mixed-use Gasworx district and the renovation of Ybor’s Sanchez y Haya building will bring more residents and activity.

The draw of urban living

Moving from Chicago’s north side to Tampa, Christina Ranvik and her husband, Allan Mellske, an architect at Interform, decided to build their new home in East Ybor City.  Just as Tampa Heights and West River redeveloped over time, Ranvik and Mellske feel  Ybor City and East Tampa will undergo a makeover and reemerge as hip, forward-thinking urban neighborhoods attracting growth and investment. Already, Ranvik likes being able to make connections just walking around Ybor.

“When I moved here, someone said to me, ‘you can make a difference in Tampa,’ and I really liked that I could step into life here and do good things,” she says. “I make friends everywhere I go.”

Ranvik and Mellske’s older son, Morgan, came down from Chicago to visit recently. During his stay, he loved walking to Reservoir Bar to play pool and drink $4 beers. The family likes the amenities and things to do in Ybor, but they would like to see a better connected transit system with buses running more frequently.

“We’re urban people,” Mellske says. “We like walking, biking, and taking buses and trains. We love the weather here, and our neighbors have been very welcoming. We like being involved in our community.”

Ranvik is a commercial flooring sales executive for Bentley Mills. Outside work, she serves on the board of directors of the Tampa Bay Community Design Center, a nonprofit organization that champions historic preservation, sustainability, and  innovative design solutions.

Kathryn Reina, the designer and coder in her mid-30s, grew up in West Tampa’s Wellswood neighborhood. She lived in Los Angeles for a decade before returning to Tampa about a year ago to be closer to family. Her top-floor apartment at Gasworx’s La Unión Residence and Social Hall overlooks Ybor City. She says she loves sitting on her balcony on cool days and watching the construction cranes build the next phase of Gasworx.

 Living at La Unión, Tampa fine dining institution Mise en Place’s new home at Casa Gomez is just a short walk up Nuccio Parkway. Reina is also close to the eclectic mix of retail shops, eateries, and arts and entertainment venues clustered at Nebraska and East Seventh avenues on the western edge of Ybor. 

Grayson Tummings, the former cheerleader, is another transplant to Ybor City. He grew up in Washington, D.C. and went to college in the D.C. area. After graduation, he relocated to Tampa to work in marketing, first with the Tampa Downtown Partnership, then with Embarc Collective. Tummings opted to live in Ybor for its urbanism and its nightlife district. He lives at Lector 85, across from IKEA at Ybor’s southeast corner. He loves the convenient location.

“Between the Selmon Expressway, I-4, and the streetcar, I can get anywhere in town in a flash,” Tummings says. “But I’d feel safer walking at night with better sidewalks, crosswalks, and lighting.”

Lemke, the dean at HCC, hops on the streetcar to get to the Channel District and downtown. It’s free and he doesn’t have to worry about finding and paying for parking. The Ranvik-Mellske family bike from place to place on the city’s  Green Spine cycle track, which connects Ybor, the Riverwalk, downtown, and North Hyde Park.

Ybor City may actually be the center of Tampa’s cultural identity, not because of various institutions and businesses, but because of its people, its residents.

Not everyone who loves Ybor City lives there, and it’s likely that not everyone who lives there loves it. But Ybor draws a diverse blend of personalities from different walks of life to its brick streets and historic buildings. 

While other mixed-use redevelopments like Water Street and Midtown might have a similar look and feel to Miami or Austin, Ybor City remains a dynamic blend of old and new, of longstanding institutions and trendy newcomers. Its diversity is its strength, and may also be the secret to its lasting cultural significance in Tampa.