Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park — Tampa, Florida

Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park is the City of Tampa's main downtown event lawn, set on the east bank of the Hillsborough River at 600 N Ashley Drive. According to Tampa Parks and Recreation, the park attracts over one million people annually to its special events and is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. It forms one of the central stretches of the Tampa Riverwalk, and the Pirate Water Taxi stops at its boat dock.

The park's layout is built around a great lawn with sloped and terraced edges, designed so crowds can watch festivals and concerts from a distance. The City lists two splash pads, a shaded playground for children ages 2 to 12, and a fenced dog run that admits one large dog or two small dogs per person. Two museums bracket the lawn: the Tampa Museum of Art, which holds one of the largest Greek and Roman antiquities collections in the southeastern United States, and the Glazer Children's Museum.

The park carries the name of a mayor. The City Clerk's biography records that Curtis Hixon, born November 23, 1890, moved to Tampa in 1914 as a pharmacist, served on the Tampa City Council from 1929 through 1937, and sat on the Hillsborough County Commission before running for mayor in 1943. He served as the 45th mayor of Tampa from November 3, 1943 until his death in office on May 21, 1956.

Hixon's years in office reshaped the city's edges. Under his administration Drew Field was transferred to the City on October 15, 1947, and became Tampa International Airport; in 1953 the City annexed Sulphur Springs, Rocky Point and the surrounding areas up to Fowler Avenue, adding 91,000 residents; and the 1949 charter revision expanded the mayor's budget and contracting powers. After his death, the City named an auditorium and convention center beside the Hillsborough River in his honor, and the City Clerk notes that the area is now known as Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.

For almost three decades the riverbank held Curtis Hixon Hall. As St Pete Catalyst reported in August 2023, the City of Tampa spent $5 million, financed through the sale of municipal bonds, on the boxy 62,000 square foot convention hall on Ashley Street, which opened Jan. 25, 1965 with the Benny Goodman band. Its formal name was Curtis Hixon Convention Hall, and its main hall seated about 8,000.

The hall was Tampa's catch-all venue. Until the larger Tampa Convention Center was built in 1990, Curtis Hixon Hall hosted trade shows, boat shows, graduations, the circus, ice shows, basketball and wrestling. It also became the city's mid-size concert stage, and St Pete Catalyst lists the Tampa Bay area debuts of Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, the Eagles, Bob Marley and David Bowie among the shows held there. Movable grandstands and curtains let promoters shrink the room, an advantage over the similar Bayfront Center across the bay in St. Petersburg. Through the 1970s the hall was rarely dark, and it outranked smaller Tampa stages such as McKay Auditorium at the University of Tampa, the USF Gym and Fort Homer Hesterly Armory. The drift away began in 1974, when the Lakeland Civic Center opened halfway between the Tampa and Orlando markets.

Newer arenas and the convention center left the building without a role. St Pete Catalyst reports that the hall was demolished in 1993, and that the land was given over to the Tampa Museum of Art, the Glazer Children's Museum and Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. ENR later described the riverfront parcel as overgrown and underutilized before the current park was built, with remnants of the old buildings, underground plumbing and concrete piers still in the ground.

The present Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park dates from January 2010. 83 Degrees Media reported that the park, a project of Mayor Pam Iorio's administration, officially opened in late January 2010 along the Hillsborough River, served as the terminus for that year's Gasparilla Parade a week later, and preceded by two weeks the February 6 opening of the new Tampa Museum of Art. The publication described the Ashley Drive project at $43 million and noted views across the river to the University of Tampa and its Plant Hall minarets.

ENR, the construction trade journal, reported in January 2011 that the $13.5 million park was designed by Thomas Balsley Associates and RS&H, with Skanska USA hired to build the park and both museums and to repair the Hillsborough River seawall, NCNB Plaza and a parking garage. Work began in July 2008. The design team filled and graded the 8-acre site around the old foundations and added tiered seating that overlooks the grand lawn, which ENR reports can hold 10,000 people for concerts and civic events. Hiring one contractor for the park and both museums, ENR adds, saved the City of Tampa enough time and money to restore features from the original master plan, including the dog park, a shade pavilion and a concession stand.

The park also tested new systems for downtown Tampa. ENR notes that it uses reclaimed water for irrigation and that its fountains have a water collection and filtration system. The AIA Tampa Bay architecture guide, which lists the park at 12.5 acres, states that it was the first completed expansion segment of Tampa's reclaimed water system into downtown, and that its NEOS360 play structure was the first in the Southeastern United States. The guide also describes the Great Lawn with its family rafts, terraced lawns, two interactive fountains and a dog run surfaced in K-9 artificial turf, all planned around power and infrastructure for stages, lighting and sound along the Tampa riverfront.

The AIA Tampa Bay guide describes Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park as the focal point of a Riverwalk that connects many of the city's cultural assets, and ENR notes that the park links Tampa's two newest museums with the downtown arts district and entertainment destinations. Boaters can tie up at the public dock, and the Pirate Water Taxi stop gives riders a view of downtown Tampa and the Riverwalk from the Hillsborough River. City Parks and Recreation runs park administration and maintenance, while the Office of Special Events handles the large festivals and concerts staged on the great lawn.