ON ON2 SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2017 TORONTO STAR⎮T5

>>TRAVEL

TAMPA, FLA.—His hands move expert-ly, precisely and swiftly, at one pointbuffing so fast that I fear he mightstart a fire. But instead of a conflagra-tion, Andre Watson puts a gleam on-to my favourite pair of Gordon Rushlace-ups, one I haven’t seen since Ipicked them up for a song a few yearsago at Nordstrom Rack.

Sitting high in his chair, we small-talk sports and news, but the con-versation inevitably turns to Tampa,Watson’s hometown. “I was born andraised here, and I wouldn’t tradeTampa for nothin’,” he says. “Could Iever leave it behind, forget it? Could atortoise ever forget its shell? Never.”

Watson talks about the changes,how even this area — now one of thecity’s wealthiest — was once a sham-bles, historic homes in disrepair, de-cay encroaching from every corner.But now?

“We’re like a bun in the oven,” hesays, with palpable exuberance.“We’re a city on the rise.”

Watson is shining my shoes in ananteroom just off the lobby of theEpicurean, a luxury hotel that focus-es on food, and a prime example ofTampa’s recent revitalization.

From massive, multi-billion-dollarprojects bringing people back down-town to the return of a number ofneighbourhoods to their glory days,this Florida city is welcoming (back)an impressive creative class — as wellas travellers looking for more fromtheir sunny vacation than just a dayat the beach.

Seminole Heights is a prime exam-ple. A four-lane strip once lined withautobody shops and other blue-col-lar businesses, its fine Spanish Mis-sion buildings have increasingly be-come home to both funky restau-rants and fine dining, includingRooster and the Till, which became afast favourite since opening its doorsmore than three years ago.

Its surprisingly chic interior is be-lied by the restaurant’s strip-mall lo-

cation, where co-owners Ferrell Al-varez and Ty Rodriguez tell methey’ve enjoyed pushing the city’spalate on food and wine, featuringlesser-known grapes for the latterand small plates for the former,which range from fried quail to har-rissa smoked carrots. (I return a cou-ple nights later for a delicious taste.)

And they plan on continuing thatwith a new, nearby project called Ne-braska Mini Mart, opening this sum-mer just off Nebraska Avenue, not farfrom their current location. Com-bining shuffleboard and bocce ball

with a modern sound and projectionsystem, they aim to attract a youngcrowd looking for a chilled-out wayto spend an evening, and Alvarez, therestaurant’s head chef, tells me thefocus will be primarily on food.

“We’ll serve food you can hold inone hand, with a beverage in the oth-er,” he says. “But we’ll do it the rightway.” For example, fried chicken willbe sourced locally — in fact, every-thing will be sourced locally — andhotdogs, that Saturday-night staple,will feature wild boar sausage.

To the east, I find the same trends

taking place in Ybor City, a distinctneighbourhood that served as bothhome and workplace for the first ma-jor wave of Cuban immigration toFlorida in the late 19th century. Backthen, tobacco was king, imported onships from Havana, rolled into cigarshere, and then placed on rail cars bythe hundreds of millions and trans-ported to smokers all the way up theEastern seaboard. The area fell intodisrepair as mechanization replacedhand-rolled operations, but Ybor isagain on the rise.

Skirting past a few chickens cluck-ing along to no place in particular, Ipass small, handsome, colourful cas-ita houses under renovation. Makingmy way toward the rich smell of ci-gars, I pass carefully restored centu-ry-old brick buildings with wroughtiron balconies on its main strip, Sev-enth Avenue, stopping in at King Co-rona.

Not here for a smoke, I simply chatwith Don Barco, the owner, as fra-grant fumes waft past us. Still hand-rolling cigars and serving up Cubansandwiches here, he remembers thebad old days. “If you want to seeseedy, you should’ve been here in the1970s,” he says, with a small smile.Now, he says, the streets are linedwith craft breweries and micro-distilleries and bars that rock into thenight on weekends.

Barco notes the changes in down-town Tampa, too. In the city’s core,condos have sprung up as a youngercrowd moves back, hundreds everyday.

Former investment banker Jeff Vi-nik has partnered with Bill Gates,breaking ground last year on a multi-billion dollar project that will includea medical school, heart institute, aswell as shops, restaurants, a hoteland office space. It will be a healthyplace: Bike lanes will take priority,community gardens will be preva-lent and buildings will have lightingtied to circadian rhythms and air-quality meters.

But while that community’s com-pletion is still as much as a decadeaway, downtown Tampa is alreadytransforming.

I stroll along the Riverwalk, a pe-destrian trail stretching almost fourkilometres, linking together parksand museums, before heading to theOxford Exchange. Once the stablesfor a long-closed hotel, its airy, skylitspace now hosts a mix of young Uni-versity of Tampa students and be-suited businesspeople, eating lunchat the restaurant or browsing thewell-curated bookstore.

After a nice lunch, I finish with an-other shoeshine. This time behoovedin just my well-worn blue Adidassneakers, I sit in Jimmie Marshall’schair. As I climb up, he taps the pad-ded, wooden chair. “This? It’s athrone,” he tells me. “And it’s a psy-chiatrist’s couch, too.”

A shoeshine, he says, is never just ashoeshine. People come in as manyas three times a week, he says. And ashe works away, buffing out the leath-er but just cleaning and brushing thecloth part of my running shoes, pass-ersby pause to clap him on the shoul-der and greet him affectionately.

Marshall explains that it’s all aboutcommunity. “You develop a relation-ship. You share things, you become apart of each other’s lives,” he says.Leaving with my footwear gleaming,having experienced some of Tampa’svery best, I know the smile on myface shines a bit, too. Tim Johnson was a guest of Visit TampaBay, which didn’t review or approve thisstory.

Tampa, a city transformed and shiningCity undergoes rejuvenation,with some neighbourhoodsback to their glory days

TIM JOHNSONSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Jimmie Marshall says that his clients come up to three times a week to gettheir shoes shined at his chair in Tampa’s Oxford Exchange.

TIM JOHNSON

Shoeshine expert Andre Watson atthe Epicurean Hotel in Tampa.

Get there: Air Canada Rouge andWestJet both provide direct flightsfrom Toronto to Tampa Bay In-ternational Airport.Stay: An upscale hotel in the his-toric Hyde Park district of SouthTampa, the Epicurean prioritizestop-quality food and drink, fromSunday brunch at Élevage, their

signature restaurant, to drinks attheir rooftop bar, Edge. Even the decor is designed toappeal to foodies, from the frontdesk made of repurposed winecrates to butcher-block style cabi-netry in the rooms. epicureanhotel-.com Learn more: visittampabay.com

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