10 Tampa Bay places to watch in 2014 – By:Chris Wilkerson Deputy Editor-TBBJ

Sourced by Tampa Bay Business Journal

1. Hyde Park Village sold for $45 million in 2013 to WS Development in Boston. Expect to see the new owners begin to put their fingerprint on the retail and restaurant destination in 2014.

2. St. Petersburg’s iconic waterfront has been under the microscope of city planners and the Urban Land Institute is expected to present a final report in January 2014.

3. Florida State Fairgrounds’ governing board is considering developer pitches and could choose one this summer that would allow for some construction on the valuable land to help raise money to repair existing infrastructure.

4. Channelside Bay Plaza looked like it was on the road to recovery in 2013 when the Port of Tampa agreed to buy the property outright for $5.75 million and then see what could be done to reinvigorate it. A new lawsuit from Liberty Channelside LLC alleging that the port purposefully spiked Liberty’s offer on the plaza will likely delay any resolution at Channelside while the court considers the suit.

5. Nathan Benderson Park’s world-class rowing facility is complete and boosters already have booked national and international regattas in 2017 and 2018. The park’s management is working to fill the calendar between now and then to help show that the $40 million investment can pay economic impact dividends.

6. A well-rested piece of dirt on Westshore Boulevard just north of Gandy Boulevard that once was home of Georgetown Apartments has the potential to sell in 2014. It has been seen for years as one of the most valuable development parcels in the region. If it sells, how the parcel develops bears close watching for insights into current trends in commercial and residential real estate locally.

7. A proposed site for future Raymond James Financial Inc. expansion in Pasco County is worth watching in 2014. The company has an agreement to purchase 65 acres that could hold as many as six four-story office buildings, and the project has seemingly been slow to evolve.

8. Bill Edwards bought St. Petersburg’s defunct Baywalk downtown shopping center with dreams of bringing it back to life. It’s hard to argue that Baywalk is the center of his attention since he had to significantly scale down his Mortgage Investors Corp. in the face of new federal regulations and he just bought the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Edwards and his team have been methodical in its search for the right tenant mix with the hope of turning things around.

9. The Mall at University Town Center opens in October 2014 and will change Sarasota’s retail landscape. Several anchor department stores will leave other malls in the area for UTC.

10. The long-stalled Cypress Creek Town Center in Pasco County could be under construction as early as summer, 2014 – this time as an outlet mall, published reports show. Environmental litigation held up the project at State Road 56 and Interstate 75 for years. Simon Property Group could have the mall ready to open in summer 2015.