Kress building

Kress in late 2010 when the plywood came off the windows.

I recently did a post for Creative Loafing's Daily Loaf blog regarding the recent happenings, or non-happenings, at the Kress building in downtown Tampa.  You can read the post here.  While public safety is of the utmost importance in planning events and permitting events, bringing a long vacant early 20th century building up to today's fire and life safety codes is a long and expensive process.  The owners of the Kress building and the City of Tampa have been caught up in a preservation / development battle that is going on 5 years now.  The battle started after the loss of the historic Gary school to neglect.  After that event the city turned its eye to other threatened landmarks and the former Kress department store downtown was #1 on the list.  Below is a list of links that provides a rudimentary timeline of major events over the past 4 years:

http://www2.tbo.com/news/metro/2008/sep/11/me-city-urged-to-fix-kress-building-ar-125793/

http://www2.tbo.com/news/metro/2009/oct/08/na-repairs-being-made-at-kress-building-ar-66226/

http://www2.tbo.com/news/metro/2010/aug/23/na-the-cost-of-keeping-facades-ar-37501/ 

http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/news/story/owners-of-woolworth-and-newberry-buildings-back-mulhern-challenger/

I should be providing a few more posts for Creative Loafing.  I'll be focusing on local architecture and related events, so stay tuned.