Tampa leaders announce major project to redevelop downtown's north end
The Brief
Tampa leaders announced a major project to redevelop the north end of downtown.
They want to transform the area into an urban housing district.
City leaders have viewed this part of downtown as a barrier to connecting Tampa's developing areas.
TAMPA, Fla. - Tampa leaders announced a major project on Tuesday to redevelop the north end of downtown, eventually transforming it into an urban housing district.
The area is the northern section of Tampa's Central Business District, between N. Tampa Street and E. Ashley Drive. The plan is to redevelop three or four blocks that are currently home to the old Army-Navy Surplus Market and three parking lots.
What they're saying
"The ability to really transform this area is just staring us in the face," Mayor Jane Castor said during a news conference.
Castor said the goal is to use this land for mixed-use development, with at least 50% of it earmarked for affordable housing.
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Many city leaders have long viewed this part of downtown as a barrier to fully connecting the city's developing areas. The plan is to fix that by finally connecting several roads currently cut off by the I-275 on-ramp.
"We're not just putting a building up here and there, we're creating entire neighborhoods," Castor said.
"This is just one project that's going to be a catalyst for redevelopment across this entire north end of downtown, continuing beyond the interstate," added Tampa City Councilman Alan Clendenin.
Big picture view
According to the mayor, the city will simultaneously extend the Tampa Streetcar, while connecting the northern downtown area to other new developments, including the Riverwalk extension, the Encore and Gasworx districts, Tampa Heights and other parts of downtown.
RELATED: Get an up-close view of Tampa's highly anticipated Gasworx project
Click here to watch a video the city released showing the plan for this project.
The Source
FOX 13's Aaron Mesmer collected the information in this story.
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an hour ago
- Yahoo
The only ‘Made in America' smartphone maker has a message for Apple about manufacturing in the Trump tariff era
Todd Weaver has an important message for Apple as it faces growing demands by President Donald Trump to reshore some of its smartphone production: Don't listen to the conventional wisdom. Experts have long said that manufacturing iPhones in the U.S., rather than Asia, as Apple does, would be logistically impossible and ridiculously expensive. But Weaver argues companies can indeed do it successfully, and at a similar or only slightly higher cost—if given several years to navigate the inevitable complications. Weaver should know: His startup, Purism, is among the few, if not the only business, that assembles smartphones in the U.S. In fact, the U.S. pedigree is the main selling point of his company's Made in America device, the Liberty Phone. 'It is challenging to do this in the U.S.,' Weaver acknowledges. 'It's probably the reason I'm the only one.' And yet, he says his company has managed to make it work and has been profitable for the last two years—a real world example of what's possible on a hot-button topic in which political talking points and vested interests often dominate the debate. President Donald Trump recently put U.S. smartphone production in the spotlight as part of his global trade war. On May 23, he used social network Truth Social to publicly attack Apple for importing iPhones into the U.S., rather than making them domestically, and then threatened the company with a 25% tariff if it continued to do so. Whether any of the import taxes will become permanent is unclear given Trump's whiplash decision-making and court challenges by third parties. Still, Apple has long assembled its iPhones overseas, mainly in China, and has resisted relocating any of that production to the U.S. In April, when Trump announced his tariffs, Apple went so far as to shift the sourcing of most U.S.-bound iPhones to India, which faced lower import taxes. U.S. assembly was never publicly mentioned as a possibility. In the past, Apple CEO Cook explained the reluctance by saying the abundance of skilled labor and top-notch suppliers overseas would be difficult to reproduce at home. Weaver's company, of course, is no Apple, which has sold more than 2 billion iPhones globally since introducing the first models in 2007. The devices unleashed a new era in the tech industry in which mobile devices became the prime focus. Purism, in contrast, has sold just tens of thousands of phones since debuting its first model in 2018, according to Weaver. And the company is barely-known outside the world of tech nerds. Its Liberty Phone, manufactured near San Diego, comes with U.S.-made electronics installed on a metal chassis from China. It retails for $1,999. Another phone, the Librem 5, is mostly the same design, except it's made in China with Chinese parts, and costs $799. The company also produces tablet computers, laptops, and servers. Purism pitches its Made in America device as more secure and privacy friendly than those from major manufactures like Apple. Because all the critical parts and assembly are domestic, it's easy to verify that they haven't been tampered with by a foreign adversary that wants to snoop or stuff them with explosives. The phones also run on a Linux-based open source operating system. Anyone with technical know-how who is worried about the security can review the code—unlike with more popular phones, which come with operating systems that can't be easily inspected. Additionally, Purism's phones come with three kill switches that lets users physically disconnect their device from cell service, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, along with its microphone and camera. When turned on, the switches sever the electrical circuit to the features they control and make it impossible for them to be accessed by hackers, Weaver said. Toggling on Airplane Mode, as users often do on more mainstream phones, is less secure, he said, because it's a purely software feature that doesn't cut power to the device's chips. Customers who are especially security conscious can pay extra to have their devices shipped with 'tamper evident tape' on the packaging, among other options, to flag any monkey business during transit. Purism's biggest customers are government agencies, many of which require high security, and individual consumers. The company's clients, Weaver said, include the FBI and the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Weaver said the cost of manufacturing the Purism's two phones is largely the same, despite one being made overseas and the other domestically. The phone that's made in China costs around $600 for parts, manufacturing, and assembly while the U.S.-made one comes in at $650. 'Producing goods in China vs. the U.S. is the same plus or minus 10%,' said Weaver, based mostly on automation. The difference between what Purism charges customers for its two phones is partly due to the higher profit margin the company collects for its U.S.-made device. People who want stronger security are often willing to pay extra for it, Weaver said. It also covers the extra overhead from some customers wanting to verify that Purism's supply chain is secure and the small additional cost of U.S. manufacturing. Purism's assembly line is in Carlsbad, Calif., where up to a dozen workers put together devices. The area is home to a pool of skilled labor thanks to the local defense industry and manufacturing for other mobile carriers. That relatively modest assembly line is a major contrast to the factories that make iPhones, operated by contract manufacturers, mostly in China. Those facilities can be the size of several football fields and employ over 100,000 people who work around-the-clock shifts. Weaver said the U.S. is at a huge disadvantage to China when it comes to skilled workers, who make up a significant part of the workforce in smartphone factories. The only way to reverse the shortage and lay the groundwork for companies to reshore their production is to encourage more people to learn skills that are useful in the manufacturing process, he said. 'If you go over to China you can find buildings and buildings of thousands of electronics engineers. If you look here, you can find maybe five total,' Weaver said. Apple, for example, would risk a catastrophe if it suddenly, in 2026, needed to ramp up staffing in the U.S. to produce millions of iPhones, he said. Training enough people for such a massive undertaking would take years. Weaver said Purism, founded in 2014, took several years to develop its domestic supply chain. The company's small size means it only needs limited quantities of components, which makes it impossible to achieve the economies of scale that come from producing huge numbers of devices. Manufacturing in the U.S. also comes with higher labor costs than in China. But with the help of automation, those extra costs can be kept to a minimum by reserving human labor for tasks performed after production is complete, such as soldering, assembly, repairs, and testing. Apple, on the other hand, would need vast amounts of components to keep its assembly line humming. While the company would likely be able to cut deals with domestic suppliers for most iPhone parts, some, such as high-quality cameras, may be impossible to quickly source in the U.S. and it would therefore have to import them, Weaver said. One analyst has said iPhones could end up costing $3,500 if made in the U.S., to account for the extra costs and hassles. Weaver agrees that it would cost Apple substantially more to produce iPhones in the U.S., if it had to move production quickly. But given enough time, Apple could substantially reduce the cost after developing a new supply chain, finding enough workers, and by relying on extensive automation. For Apple, opening a domestic manufacturing plant would therefore need to be a years' long process, Weaver said. That's why he criticized Trump's tariffs for taking effect almost immediately. Yes, many of those tariffs have since been delayed. But the takeaway for businesses is that they can't plan ahead. And yet, that's exactly what's required for something as complex as shifting manufacturing to the U.S. Trump's tariffs would be far more effective if phased in over many years, Weaver said. In that scenario, companies would have a clear and increasing incentive to reshore production—without being punished right off the bat. Weaver argues his U.S. manufacturing effort is already paying off and that it will gain momentum over time. He hopes the recent scandal involving U.S. officials using the chat app Signal to discuss a military strike against Yemen, and then accidentally inviting a journalist to join them, will help lift sales by encouraging the federal government to focus more on security. Weaver wouldn't get into the specifics of Purism's financials other than to say it has millions in annual revenue and turned profitable in 2023. The Liberty Phone is its biggest seller. Wayne Lam, an analyst with market research firm TechInsights, gave a mixed take on Purism's prospect. In an email, he said: 'They can be a successful niche player, but the odds of success are lower thanks to the bigger brands. They won't be able to compete in the consumer market but government/enterprise/military are all niche markets they can address.' To fund the expansion of his business, Weaver is trying to raise additional investment after taking in $16 million in funding over the years. Some of that money would go to fixing a shortcoming with his phones. Because they don't use Apple's iOS or Google's Android operating systems, they are incompatible with many of the most popular mobile apps like Uber. To get such apps work on its devices, Purism must make technical tweaks for each one. Purism can at least claim one small advantage over the giant companies that dominate the smartphone industry. If Trump's tariffs become permanent, it won't feel much impact from its U.S.-made phone, while the big players and their foreign-made devices could be hammered. 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VATICAN CITY -- As a bishop in Peru, Robert Prevost was often on the lookout for used cars that he could buy cheap and fix up himself for use in parishes around his diocese. With cars that were really broken down, he'd watch YouTube videos to learn how to fix them. That kind of make-do-with-less, fix-it-yourself mentality could serve Pope Leo XIV well as he addresses one of the greatest challenges facing him as pope: The Holy See's chronic, 50 million to 60 million euro ($57-68 million) structural deficit, 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall and declining donations that together pose something of an existential threat to the central government of the 1.4-billion strong Catholic Church. As a Chicago-born math major, canon lawyer and two-time superior of his global Augustinian religious order, the 69-year-old pope presumably can read a balance sheet and make sense of the Vatican's complicated finances, which have long been mired in scandal. Whether he can change the financial culture of the Holy See, consolidate reforms Pope Francis started and convince donors that their money is going to good use is another matter. Leo already has one thing going for him: his American-ness. U.S. donors have long been the economic life support system of the Holy See, financing everything from papal charity projects abroad to restorations of St. Peter's Basilica at home. Leo's election as the first American pope has sent a jolt of excitement through U.S. Catholics, some of whom had soured on donating to the Vatican after years of unrelenting stories of mismanagement, corruption and scandal, according to interviews with top Catholic fundraisers, philanthropists and church management experts. 'I think the election of an American is going to give greater confidence that any money given is going to be cared for by American principles, especially of stewardship and transparency,' said the Rev. Roger Landry, director of the Vatican's main missionary fundraising operation in the U.S., the Pontifical Mission Societies. 'So there will be great hope that American generosity is first going to be appreciated and then secondly is going to be well handled,' he said. 'That hasn't always been the circumstance, especially lately.' Pope Francis was elected in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Vatican's opaque finances and made progress during his 12-year pontificate, mostly on the regulatory front. With help from the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, Francis created an economy ministry and council made up of clergy and lay experts to supervise Vatican finances, and he wrestled the Italian-dominated bureaucracy into conforming to international accounting and budgetary standards. He authorized a landmark, if deeply problematic, corruption trial over a botched London property investment that convicted a once-powerful Italian cardinal. And he punished the Vatican's Secretariat of State that had allowed the London deal to go through by stripping it of its ability to manage its own assets. But Francis left unfinished business and his overall record, at least according to some in the donor community, is less than positive. Critics cite Pell's frustrated reform efforts and the firing of the Holy See's first-ever auditor general, who says he was ousted because he had uncovered too much financial wrongdoing. Despite imposing years of belt-tightening and hiring freezes, Francis left the Vatican in somewhat dire financial straits: The main stopgap bucket of money that funds budgetary shortfalls, known as the Peter's Pence, is nearly exhausted, officials say. The 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall that Pell warned about a decade ago remains unaddressed, though Francis had planned reforms. And the structural deficit continues, with the Holy See logging an 83.5 million euro ($95 million) deficit in 2023, according to its latest financial report. As Francis' health worsened, there were signs that his efforts to reform the Vatican's medieval financial culture hadn't really stuck, either. The very same Secretariat of State that Francis had punished for losing tens of millions of euros in the scandalous London property deal somehow ended up heading up a new papal fundraising commission that was announced while Francis was in the hospital. According to its founding charter and statutes, the commission is led by the Secretariat of State's assessor, is composed entirely of Italian Vatican officials with no professional fundraising expertise and has no required external financial oversight. To some Vatican watchers, the commission smacks of the Italian-led Secretariat of State taking advantage of a sick pope to announce a new flow of unchecked donations into its coffers after its 600 million euro ($684 million) sovereign wealth fund was taken away and given to another office to manage as punishment for the London fiasco. 'There are no Americans on the commission. I think it would be good if there were representatives of Europe and Asia and Africa and the United States on the commission,' said Ward Fitzgerald, president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation. It is made up of wealthy American Catholics that since 1990 has provided over $250 million (219 million euros) in grants and scholarships to the pope's global charitable initiatives. Fitzgerald, who spent his career in real estate private equity, said American donors — especially the younger generation — expect transparency and accountability from recipients of their money, and know they can find non-Vatican Catholic charities that meet those expectations. 'We would expect transparency before we would start to solve the problem,' he said. That said, Fitzgerald said he hadn't seen any significant let-up in donor willingness to fund the Papal Foundation's project-specific donations during the Francis pontificate. Indeed, U.S. donations to the Vatican overall have remained more or less consistent even as other countries' offerings declined, with U.S. bishops and individual Catholics contributing more than any other country in the two main channels to donate to papal causes. Francis moved Prevost to take over the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. Residents and fellow priests say he consistently rallied funds, food and other life-saving goods for the neediest — experience that suggests he knows well how to raise money when times are tight and how to spend wisely. He bolstered the local Caritas charity in Chiclayo, with parishes creating food banks that worked with local businesses to distribute donated food, said the Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, a diocesan spokesperson. In 2019, Prevost inaugurated a shelter on the outskirts of Chiclayo, Villa San Vicente de Paul, to house desperate Venezuelan migrants who had fled their country's economic crisis. The migrants remember him still, not only for helping give them and their children shelter, but for bringing live chickens obtained from a donor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prevost launched a campaign to raise funds to build two oxygen plants to provide hard-hit residents with life-saving oxygen. In 2023, when massive rains flooded the region, he personally brought food to the flood-struck zone. Within hours of his May 8 election, videos went viral on social media of Prevost, wearing rubber boots and standing in a flooded street, pitching a solidarity campaign, 'Peru Give a Hand,' to raise money for flood victims. The Rev. Jorge Millán, who lived with Prevost and eight other priests for nearly a decade in Chiclayo, said he had a 'mathematical' mentality and knew how to get the job done. Prevost would always be on the lookout for used cars to buy for use around the diocese, Millán said, noting that the bishop often had to drive long distances to reach all of his flock or get to Lima, the capital. Prevost liked to fix them up himself, and if he didn't know what to do, 'he'd look up solutions on YouTube and very often he'd find them,' Millán told The Associated Press. Before going to Peru, Prevost served two terms as prior general, or superior, of the global Augustinian order. While the order's local provinces are financially independent, Prevost was responsible for reviewing their balance sheets and oversaw the budgeting and investment strategy of the order's headquarters in Rome, said the Rev. Franz Klein, the order's Rome-based economist who worked with Prevost. The Augustinian campus sits on prime real estate just outside St. Peter's Square and supplements revenue by renting out its picturesque terrace to media organizations (including the AP) for major Vatican events, including the conclave that elected Leo pope. But even Prevost saw the need for better fundraising, especially to help out poorer provinces. Toward the end of his 12-year term and with his support, a committee proposed creation of a foundation, Augustinians in the World. At the end of 2023, it had 994,000 euros ($1.13 million) in assets and was helping fund self-sustaining projects across Africa, including a center to rehabilitate former child soldiers in Congo. 'He has a very good interest and also a very good feeling for numbers,' Klein said. 'I have no worry about the finances of the Vatican in these years because he is very, very clever.' Franklin Briceño contributed from Lima, Peru.
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
Can an American pope apply US-style fundraising and standards to fix troubled Vatican finances?
VATICAN CITY (AP) — As a bishop in Peru, Robert Prevost was often on the lookout for used cars that he could buy cheap and fix up himself for use in parishes around his diocese. With cars that were really broken down, he'd watch YouTube videos to learn how to fix them. That kind of make-do-with-less, fix-it-yourself mentality could serve Pope Leo XIV well as he addresses one of the greatest challenges facing him as pope: The Holy See's chronic, 50 million to 60 million euro ($57-68 million) structural deficit, 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall and declining donations that together pose something of an existential threat to the central government of the 1.4-billion strong Catholic Church. As a Chicago-born math major, canon lawyer and two-time superior of his global Augustinian religious order, the 69-year-old pope presumably can read a balance sheet and make sense of the Vatican's complicated finances, which have long been mired in scandal. Whether he can change the financial culture of the Holy See, consolidate reforms Pope Francis started and convince donors that their money is going to good use is another matter. Leo already has one thing going for him: his American-ness. U.S. donors have long been the economic life support system of the Holy See, financing everything from papal charity projects abroad to restorations of St. Peter's Basilica at home. Leo's election as the first American pope has sent a jolt of excitement through U.S. Catholics, some of whom had soured on donating to the Vatican after years of unrelenting stories of mismanagement, corruption and scandal, according to interviews with top Catholic fundraisers, philanthropists and church management experts. 'I think the election of an American is going to give greater confidence that any money given is going to be cared for by American principles, especially of stewardship and transparency,' said the Rev. Roger Landry, director of the Vatican's main missionary fundraising operation in the U.S., the Pontifical Mission Societies. 'So there will be great hope that American generosity is first going to be appreciated and then secondly is going to be well handled,' he said. 'That hasn't always been the circumstance, especially lately.' Pope Francis was elected in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Vatican's opaque finances and made progress during his 12-year pontificate, mostly on the regulatory front. With help from the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, Francis created an economy ministry and council made up of clergy and lay experts to supervise Vatican finances, and he wrestled the Italian-dominated bureaucracy into conforming to international accounting and budgetary standards. He authorized a landmark, if deeply problematic, corruption trial over a botched London property investment that convicted a once-powerful Italian cardinal. And he punished the Vatican's Secretariat of State that had allowed the London deal to go through by stripping it of its ability to manage its own assets. But Francis left unfinished business and his overall record, at least according to some in the donor community, is less than positive. Critics cite Pell's frustrated reform efforts and the firing of the Holy See's first-ever auditor general, who says he was ousted because he had uncovered too much financial wrongdoing. Despite imposing years of belt-tightening and hiring freezes, Francis left the Vatican in somewhat dire financial straits: The main stopgap bucket of money that funds budgetary shortfalls, known as the Peter's Pence, is nearly exhausted, officials say. The 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall that Pell warned about a decade ago remains unaddressed, though Francis had planned reforms. And the structural deficit continues, with the Holy See logging an 83.5 million euro ($95 million) deficit in 2023, according to its latest financial report. As Francis' health worsened, there were signs that his efforts to reform the Vatican's medieval financial culture hadn't really stuck, either. The very same Secretariat of State that Francis had punished for losing tens of millions of euros in the scandalous London property deal somehow ended up heading up a new papal fundraising commission that was announced while Francis was in the hospital. According to its founding charter and statutes, the commission is led by the Secretariat of State's assessor, is composed entirely of Italian Vatican officials with no professional fundraising expertise and has no required external financial oversight. To some Vatican watchers, the commission smacks of the Italian-led Secretariat of State taking advantage of a sick pope to announce a new flow of unchecked donations into its coffers after its 600 million euro ($684 million) sovereign wealth fund was taken away and given to another office to manage as punishment for the London fiasco. 'There are no Americans on the commission. I think it would be good if there were representatives of Europe and Asia and Africa and the United States on the commission,' said Ward Fitzgerald, president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation. It is made up of wealthy American Catholics that since 1990 has provided over $250 million (219 million euros) in grants and scholarships to the pope's global charitable initiatives. Fitzgerald, who spent his career in real estate private equity, said American donors — especially the younger generation — expect transparency and accountability from recipients of their money, and know they can find non-Vatican Catholic charities that meet those expectations. 'We would expect transparency before we would start to solve the problem,' he said. That said, Fitzgerald said he hadn't seen any significant let-up in donor willingness to fund the Papal Foundation's project-specific donations during the Francis pontificate. Indeed, U.S. donations to the Vatican overall have remained more or less consistent even as other countries' offerings declined, with U.S. bishops and individual Catholics contributing more than any other country in the two main channels to donate to papal causes. Francis moved Prevost to take over the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. Residents and fellow priests say he consistently rallied funds, food and other life-saving goods for the neediest — experience that suggests he knows well how to raise money when times are tight and how to spend wisely. He bolstered the local Caritas charity in Chiclayo, with parishes creating food banks that worked with local businesses to distribute donated food, said the Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, a diocesan spokesperson. In 2019, Prevost inaugurated a shelter on the outskirts of Chiclayo, Villa San Vicente de Paul, to house desperate Venezuelan migrants who had fled their country's economic crisis. The migrants remember him still, not only for helping give them and their children shelter, but for bringing live chickens obtained from a donor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prevost launched a campaign to raise funds to build two oxygen plants to provide hard-hit residents with life-saving oxygen. In 2023, when massive rains flooded the region, he personally brought food to the flood-struck zone. Within hours of his May 8 election, videos went viral on social media of Prevost, wearing rubber boots and standing in a flooded street, pitching a solidarity campaign, 'Peru Give a Hand,' to raise money for flood victims. The Rev. Jorge Millán, who lived with Prevost and eight other priests for nearly a decade in Chiclayo, said he had a 'mathematical' mentality and knew how to get the job done. Prevost would always be on the lookout for used cars to buy for use around the diocese, Millán said, noting that the bishop often had to drive long distances to reach all of his flock or get to Lima, the capital. Prevost liked to fix them up himself, and if he didn't know what to do, 'he'd look up solutions on YouTube and very often he'd find them,' Millán told The Associated Press. Before going to Peru, Prevost served two terms as prior general, or superior, of the global Augustinian order. While the order's local provinces are financially independent, Prevost was responsible for reviewing their balance sheets and oversaw the budgeting and investment strategy of the order's headquarters in Rome, said the Rev. Franz Klein, the order's Rome-based economist who worked with Prevost. The Augustinian campus sits on prime real estate just outside St. Peter's Square and supplements revenue by renting out its picturesque terrace to media organizations (including the AP) for major Vatican events, including the conclave that elected Leo pope. But even Prevost saw the need for better fundraising, especially to help out poorer provinces. Toward the end of his 12-year term and with his support, a committee proposed creation of a foundation, Augustinians in the World. At the end of 2023, it had 994,000 euros ($1.13 million) in assets and was helping fund self-sustaining projects across Africa, including a center to rehabilitate former child soldiers in Congo. 'He has a very good interest and also a very good feeling for numbers,' Klein said. 'I have no worry about the finances of the Vatican in these years because he is very, very clever.' ___ Franklin Briceño contributed from Lima, Peru. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
