TAMPA, Fla. – Commentary wheels are in Las Vegas, Japan, Orlando, Dubai and now Tampa may get its personal model in Channelside.
The backstory:
Developer Tony Miller is on a mission to convey the commentary wheel to downtown Tampa, calling it “Tampa WOW!” or “Wheel Over Water.”
“Each time I’m going up in a constructing, I’m going to the window, and I spend 5 minutes simply gawking round on the view. I feel it will likely be nice for significantly households to have an exercise to do downtown and one which I feel youngsters are going to actually love. Dad and mom are going love,” Miller stated. “Should you look, and also you rise up to 250 toes, you are going to have the ability to see the Hillsborough Bay, the Tampa Bay, Bayshore, you are going to have the ability to see Davis Island. There’s the entire downtown space.”
Tampa WOW! is presently a proposal, all of it privately funded. Renderings present it will go up within the car parking zone throughout from the cruise port by the trolley cease, subsequent to the Florida Aquarium.
“These commentary wheels are way more important than a Ferris wheel. A Ferris wheel is supposed to place up at a state park, take it down, and go. This can be a everlasting construction. It’s one thing that’s engineered to be rated for the hurricane,” stated Miller.
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Dig deeper:
A 20- or 30-minute journey within the gondola may change your perspective and the town skyline.
“Consider what cruise passengers will see once they drive to Tampa to take a cruise ship, and now this factor is there, this lovely factor they usually’re like wow that’s fairly cool,” stated Santiago Corrada, the president and CEO of Go to Tampa Bay. “In our enterprise, everybody’s on the lookout for the brand new factor, proper? Conventions, vacationers, leisure vacationers, enterprise vacationers, what’s occurring in Tampa? What’s new? What’s modified for the reason that final time we had been right here?”
Tourism leaders like Corrada stated the wheel would add to Tampa’s evolution from Water Road to the Riverwalk and extra.
“Take a look at the sport changer the JW Marriott has been, or the Tampa Version or the Pendry. There’s personal cash being invested in our metropolis,” stated Corrada. “Having one thing like this places us in the identical class with Atlanta and Chicago and Orlando and plenty of different cities, Lengthy Seaside, which have added these wheels to their leisure areas, to their downtown areas.”
Miller stated the venture, privately funded by his group Tampa Bay Wheel, has the help of downtown stakeholders, particularly the Florida Aquarium and Go to Tampa Bay. It probably provides one other exercise downtown with a 250-foot overview of the town.
“We expect the overwhelming majority of individuals which are going to take a journey on the wheel, they’re already down right here for one more goal. In order that they’re already sourcing their parking as a result of they are going to go to a hockey recreation. They will be down right here at Water Road for dinner. They’re already going to be on the town for a conference. They will the aquarium,” stated Miller.
What’s subsequent:
Tampa Metropolis Council should first log off on the venture. The proposal goes earlier than council members on October 9 after which once more on October 23 for 2 public hearings, Miller stated.
If it’s accredited, the developer stated they plan to open someday in fall 2026.
The Supply: The knowledge on this story was gathered from Go to Tampa Bay and the personal developer Tony Miller by FOX 13’s Briona Arradondo.
