Welcome back.

To all of my loyal RSS subscribers, thank you for sticking with me while I took a brief hiatus from Jcyreus dot Com to complete my relocation from Wisconsin to Florida.

This past week marked the end of a 10 month period in the lives of my family and I that started with the listing of our home in Nashotah, WI in June 2007 and ended with the move into our new home in Tampa, FL. While that transition period was tough, there is no doubt that it could have been worse. KC and I count our blessings daily and couldn’t feel more fortunate for what we have been able to accomplish, what the future holds for us, our good health, overall stability and the fact that we all made it here safely.

Throughout the 2 years that we spent in the Lake Country area (region of WI west of Milwaukee), we made some great friends and will miss them until they are able to make it down to see us this winter. In the meantime, we are really excited about getting re-acquainted with the Tampa friends that we left 5 years ago when we moved to Birmingham, AL.

Though most of the past 8 days since returning to Tampa have been mired with moving in, painting (thanks to the guys from MD Custom Painting!), cleaning and trips to various home improvement stores, there are several changes around town that I’ve had an opportunity to observe and I thought I would share the most significant of my first impressions since we have arrived:

New Construction -

Several new residential high rise structures have gone up in the downtown / central business district area (close to where we live). Not surprisingly, the Simdag / Trump Tower project has not broken ground yet. The Towers at Channelside look impressive, but don’t seem to be more than 25% occupied. The SkyPoint Condos are equally impressive and driving by on Tampa Street it is evident that small businesses around the building are clamoring to capture the new residents’ attention. There is another building going up about a block away from SkyPoint called Element, which looks to be very similar to SkyPoint in appearance and size.

Since we haven’t really had time to venture outside of the central / south Tampa area, I haven’t had an opportunity to witness what has gone up recently in the northern sectors of town, but I am looking forward to seeing the great improvements to the USF (my alma mater) campus that I’ve heard so much about.

Infrastructure & City Streets -

The i-275 - i-4 interchange is undoubtedly 100% better than it was 5 years ago. Getting from downtown to i-75 is a breeze now compared to what it used to be.

I find the walls that have been erected along i-275 on the north side of town to be interesting, although I can’t figure out if they are intended as sound barriers or as a means to hide the neglected neighborhoods that sit behind them. Maybe it is both.

While the streets downtown seem to be in pretty good shape, the bridges over the Hillsborough River are rough and Bayshore Blvd could really stand to be repaved.

People -

Though I really don’t think this has changed much since we left, coming from the places we lived outside of FL it appears as though the economic gap between extremely poor people and area residents who are exceptionally well-off is a bit wider than average. This is a little concerning for me because it is an indication that the middle class is becoming somewhat of an anomaly, which is fine for those who live on the bright side of the street. For the “have nots”, it will certainly lead to desperation and inevitably an increase in crime rates, which is a bit scary for me.

Overall, the people that we have met and interacted with since arriving just over a week ago have all seemed open and friendly. This is still very much like we remembered.

It will be exciting to see what the next few weeks brings us.