Tampa City Council, meeting this week as the city's Community Redevelopment Agency board, is staring down a big-dollar decision: whether to commit up to $50 million in CRA money to the Ybor Harbor waterfront project at the head of the Ybor Channel. On the same agenda, council members will also sort through mid-year budget changes for Drew Park and a slate of neighborhood upgrades in West and East Tampa.
According to The Tampa Monitor, the application asks the Channelside district's CRA fund to put in as much as $50 million toward what the documents describe as a roughly $211.5 million mixed-use project. CRA staff recommended cutting that to $35 million, and the applicant has told the board it is willing to accept the smaller figure. Those numbers appear in the agenda backup and in the Channelside CAC recommendation that will sit in front of the CRA board at vote time.
Developer and project background
Ybor Harbor is the latest in a string of major Ybor-area ventures from Tampa developer Darryl Shaw. The 33-acre mixed-use waterfront concept was first laid out in detail by the Tampa Bay Business Journal, which described a long-term plan to reshape the industrial channel frontage.
Coverage from WUSF notes that the proposal has already cleared initial zoning reviews and is pitched as a way to open up currently restricted shoreline. Supporters say the concept would knit Ybor City, the Channel District and downtown together with new parks, promenades and mixed-use buildings along the water.
How the CRA money would be used
Project documents reviewed by Creative Loafing Tampa show most of the requested CRA funding earmarked for public infrastructure and open space rather than private construction. The packet outlines roughly 1,100 linear feet of new public waterfront inside the Channel District and about 2,500 linear feet across the full Ybor Harbor footprint.
The materials lay out a proposed payout schedule that starts with $7 million in 2029 and then continues in yearly installments through 2033. Those dollars would be targeted to seawalls, boardwalks, wider sidewalks and a grab bag of pedestrian and waterfront improvements meant to make the shoreline actually usable for people who do not own a hard hat or a crane.
Other items on the CRA agenda
The morning CRA docket is not all about Ybor Harbor. It also features FY26 reprogramming for Drew Park, a $300,000 feasibility study for a community opportunity center at the so-called Gator Building site, and a move to shift more than $8 million into that same project line. The board is set to weigh an additional $1 million for West Tampa's Rey Park streetscape work, along with a $1,192,418 request for renovations at the Dr. Walter L. Smith Library, where staff has recommended covering $800,000 of the tab. These agenda items and figures are detailed in the city's official agenda materials.
What’s next
The CRA board is scheduled to take up the Ybor Harbor funding request at its regular meeting on May 14, 2026. The city has also set a first reading of the Land Development Code rewrite for May 21, with final reading slated for June 4.
Supporting documents and the clerk's draft agenda are available to the public through the city's OnBase system. For the official agenda and full packet, see the City of Tampa CRA Regular Meeting Agendas.
