As the Straz Performing Arts Center celebrates its 30-year anniversary, it has never been more popular.
That’s part of the problem.
With three new museums, a busier-than-ever Curtis Hixon Park, and area construction continuing, the Straz — in the heart of downtown Tampa — is suffering from a serious lack of parking, a problem that’s only getting worse.
It’s become so bad, longtime patrons are telling the Straz they will no longer attend events there.
“We are truly and deeply concerned that we, along with our city, we’ll suffer significant economic reputational harm if this trend continues,” Straz Center President Judith Lisi told the Tampa City Council Thursday.
It’s not hard to figure out why the area is being so stressed. The Poe Garage — sitting across the street from the Straz — was able to handle the 30,000 people who attended events at the facility when it was built in 1987.
Now more than 600,000 people visit the Straz annually, while the Poe remains the only nearby parking garage.
Perhaps the worst night for parking was Valentine’s Day 2017, when a 20-minute delay for a performance of “Wicked” still wasn’t long enough for 547 ticket buyers to make it by showtime.
Recently, the Straz convened a task force of board members, community advisers, venue leaders and an engineer to work with Tampa officials (including the Tampa Police Department) to come up with solutions.
The long term solution, task force chairman Doug Dieck said, is ultimately more parking spaces and a new parking garage somewhere in the vicinity of the Straz.
Straz officials said that on a short-term basis, “optimizing” the Poe and the nearby Royal Street Regional parking lot “functionality” was a top priority, as well enhancing ways to provide signage for cars and those walking to the center.
Although there are no plans to build a parking garage anytime soon, Councilman Charlie Miranda said that garages always ended up paying for themselves.
Other council members discussed the notion of having Straz customers have greater accessibility to the Downtowner, the free on-demand ride service available exclusively in downtown Tampa.
Tampa City Councilman Harry Cohen mentioned the possibility of Straz patrons parking in the Channelside area and taking a water taxi over to the Straz.
Cohen said he recently attended a performance of the Florida Orchestra at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, where he said he saw a significant number of Tampa residents who preferred traveling across the Howard Frankland Bridge to dealing with traffic at the Straz.
Bob McDonaugh, the city’s administrator for economic opportunity, said a lot of potential remedies were “on the immediate horizon” to relieve the parking issues at the Straz, but admitted that “doesn’t cure things today.”
The Council will pick up the conversation on solutions at their June 22 meeting, where heads of the city’s parking, transportation, stormwater and economic development agencies will be asked to discuss possible short-term remedies.
