Historic Board Presses Live Nation on Its 4,300-Seat Ybor Venue as Petition Tops 13,000

Tampa's Barrio Latino Commission opened its 9 a.m. public hearing Tuesday at Old City Hall to the question that has hung over Ybor City since April: whether Live Nation's proposed 4,300-seat concert hall belongs in a protected historic district. Four months after the plan was announced, the project still does not have the certificate of appropriateness it needs, and the room again filled with people who came to speak against it. Among them was Tom DeGeorge, who ran Crowbar on Seventh Avenue for two decades before closing it on July 31.

The seven-member commission reviews new construction inside the Ybor City historic district. Its job is architectural: does the building fit the neighborhood's fabric? That narrow mandate has collided with a much broader fight over who gets to book live music in Tampa.

What's actually on the table

The application is for a three-story commercial venue at 1419 E. Fourth Ave. and 1402 N. 15th St., inside the Gasworx district between Ybor and Channelside. Developer KETTLER would build it. Live Nation would operate it. The renderings lean historic: brick exterior, marquee lighting, a second-level balcony, with a proscenium stage inside sized for touring acts too big for a club and too small for an arena.

It would sit steps from the Seventh Avenue entertainment strip and near a planned TECO Streetcar stop. Opening is targeted for late 2028.

The development team's projections for the venue:

The same estimates put roughly $6 million a year in state and local tax revenue tied to the venue, most of it from visitor spending at nearby restaurants, bars and hotels. Gasworx as a whole is planned to reach about 5,000 homes, more than 500,000 square feet of office and 120,000 square feet of retail, with a 28,000-square-foot marketplace due in 2027.

The opposition has gotten organized

Tampa resident Angel D'Angelo started a Change.org petition against the venue earlier this year hoping for 100 signatures. It has passed 13,000. His argument, repeated at hearing after hearing, is that Ybor's character cannot be reproduced by a national operator, and that a corporate room turns a scene into a brand.

DeGeorge, now president of the Save Our Stages Southeast chapter, made a different case to the Community Redevelopment Agency last week. He said dozens of small venues around the country have closed as larger operators moved in, and he has told Congress that a company with revenue across ticketing, promotion and venues can afford to lose money on a room until competitors are gone. Live Nation's answer has been consistent: a 300-capacity club and a 4,300-seat hall serve different artists at different points in a career, and the company says the two can coexist here.

That argument now lands in a harder context. A federal jury in April found Live Nation and Ticketmaster acted as an illegal monopoly that overcharged ticket buyers. The company has said the verdict is not the last word and that it will appeal.

A tree is still holding things up

Before the design question comes the oak. A grand oak on the site is protected, and removing it requires a variance the commission has not granted. In May, commissioners voted unanimously to postpone that decision after chair Rich Simmons said the development team had not exhausted its alternatives and that he was not in favor of removing the tree. An arborist working for the developers rated the oak a B-6, described at the hearing as essentially good condition.

The case was continued from May 26 to July 28, then continued again to Tuesday's hearing. Delay has become the pattern.

What happens next

City Council member Luis Viera has floated creating an advisory council to help independent venues stay open, whether through marketing help or incentives. Nothing has been drafted, and no funding has been identified.

The Barrio Latino Commission meets at Old City Hall, 315 E. Kennedy Blvd., in the third-floor council chambers, and its hearings are broadcast on City of Tampa Television. Residents who do not want to speak in person can email written comment to HistoricPreservation@tampagov.net, but it has to arrive at least 24 hours before the meeting to make the official record. Agendas are posted in advance on the city's Barrio Latino Commission page.

For more on Ybor, Gasworx and City Hall, keep up with us at Tampa Community Website and follow along on Facebook. Have a take on the venue, the oak, or what Ybor should look like in 2030? Join the conversation in our Community Forum. You can read more government and politics stories and more local music and entertainment coverage any time.

Header photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)