New Tampa

New Tampa is the northernmost part of the City of Tampa, grouped with the University of South Florida area, Forest Hills and Terrace Park in City Council District Seven.

The City of Tampa page for City Council District Seven describes a single member district running north from Waters Avenue to County Line Road, including Forest Hills, Terrace Park, New Tampa and the University of South Florida. County Line Road is the northern edge of Hillsborough County, so the district reaches the top of the county along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, the road that also leads to the New Tampa Regional Library, the New Tampa Center and the Flatwoods Park entrance.

The city's New Tampa neighborhood page lists two current capital projects, both in Council District 7 and both paid from the PIPES wastewater program: the Parkedge Pumping Station Rehabilitation (Year 2), estimated at $1,150,000, and the Riveredge Pumping Station Rehabilitation (Year 2), estimated at $2,140,000. The page has no history text, and no City of Tampa page re-checked for this guide gives the date or ordinance that brought New Tampa into the city limits.

New Tampa's outer edge is the city limit line that District Seven follows along Interstate 275, Interstate 75, County Line Road and Morris Bridge Road.

The District Seven description says the district is bordered on the west, north and east by the city limit line, following Armenia Avenue, Fowler Avenue, U.S.F., Fletcher Avenue, 46th Street, Interstate 275, Interstate 75, County Line Road, Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Cross Creek Blvd., Morris Bridge Road and 50th Street. It then continues south along the eastern city limit line, following 52nd Street and the west boundary of the City of Temple Terrace to the Hillsborough River.

That list of roads doubles as a guide to New Tampa's geography. Bruce B. Downs Blvd. and Cross Creek Blvd. are both named as city limit segments, and Morris Bridge Road, the next segment, is also the address of the Flatwoods Conservation Park and Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve entrances. For neighborhood associations in the district, the city points residents to its Neighborhood and Community Relations office at 813/274-8152.

The New Tampa Regional Library on Cross Creek Boulevard and the New Tampa Center on Commerce Park Boulevard are the district's two main public buildings.

The Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative lists the New Tampa Regional Library at 10001 Cross Creek Blvd., phone 813-273-3652. It records that the 25,000 square foot library was dedicated May 4, 1997; that the $4.4 million building, designed by Harvard Jolly Clees Toppe Architects, was funded by a .10-mill property tax levy; and that it stands on 3.6 acres donated by Markborough Florida Inc. Its public reading room looks over a small lake and wooded area to the south, and the building has a large community room, a story time room, four smaller meeting rooms, passport services and a makerspace called The Hive.

Art came through Hillsborough County's Public Art Program. A ceramic tile ribbon walkway titled Alphawalk encircles the building, and the back patio holds The Key Tree, a 14-branch metal sculpture created in 2005 and installed at the library in 2014, whose 1880 leaves were made from keys collected by students from Tampa Palms Elementary School.

The City of Tampa's New Tampa Center, at 17302 Commerce Park Blvd. in New Tampa Community Park, phone 813-975-2794, has a 12,500-square-foot gymnastics area with a gymnastics pit, a tumbling strip and full apparatus equipment for all competitive Olympic events, plus a multipurpose room that divides in two, a snack bar, a viewing area and a covered deck. Outside is a concrete, bi-level street skate park with pyramids, stairs, wedges, grind rails and quarter-pipe turns. Because of demand, the city keeps separate waitlists for its gymnastics and dance programs.

East of the subdivisions, New Tampa meets the Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve, a 16,000-acre water management district holding along the Hillsborough River.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District identifies the preserve's outstanding natural feature as 13 miles of the Hillsborough River, one-fourth the river's length, with land cover that is mostly riverine forests and pine flatwoods. Its primary purpose is water storage and water supply. Following severe floods from Hurricane Donna in 1960, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began the Four River Basins, Florida Project to prevent flooding in Tampa and Temple Terrace, building a levee on the preserve's western boundary, a dam on the Hillsborough River and the Tampa Bypass Canal. District lands open from 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset.

Flatwoods Conservation Park, run by Hillsborough County, has two access points, 14302 Morris Bridge Road and 18205 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., where a two-mile paved extension connects Bruce B. Downs Boulevard with the park's seven-mile paved loop road. The county notes that the Morris Bridge well-field lies within the park and that well-houses can be seen along the trail; a ranger is on duty at (813) 426-5883.

The water management district says the Morris Bridge well field was developed in the 1970s as a source of drinking water for the city of Tampa and that Tampa Bay Water manages 20 wells there. A Tampa Bay Water post written ahead of the 2022 Florida Legislative Session reports that the wellfield provides an average of 8 million gallons per day and up to a maximum of 33.75 mgd, and that an improvements project, then in design, would replace aging pumps and remove five wells no longer in service; the post gives no completion date.

The same lands carry an older story. According to the district, harvesting of pine, cypress and hardwood began on the property in the 1840s, elevated tram roads built to haul timber now serve as trails, and the Old Fort King Trail, a supply route from Tampa to Ocala used during the Seminole wars and later the Civil War, survives in part as a multiuse trail connecting the preserve to Hillsborough River State Park.

The City of Tampa Mobility Department is designing safety and traffic calming changes for the 4-mile Tampa Palms Boulevard loop off Bruce B Downs Blvd.

The Tampa Palms Boulevard Complete Streets project page, updated November 8, 2024, keeps four travel lanes with a 2-foot striped buffer on the outside of each lane, narrows travel lanes to 10-foot widths to address speeding, adds shared lane markings for bicyclists, upgrades crosswalks to special emphasis markings and sets posted speeds at 35 mph throughout the corridor, along with pavement resurfacing.

The Tampa Palms project page dates the virtual public meeting to July 12, 2022 in one place and to Tuesday, July 12, 2023 in another; July 12 fell on a Tuesday in 2022. Its cost table lists preliminary design and survey at $565,311 (2020 to 2021) and construction at $2.5 M, both paid from University North Multi-Modal Fees and ARPA Funds. The construction phase still shows a firm of TBD and a schedule of FY22 to FY23, so the city page does not say when or whether the work was built.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the City of Tampa District Seven, New Tampa neighborhood, New Tampa Center and Tampa Palms Boulevard pages, the HCPLC New Tampa Regional Library page, the Hillsborough County Flatwoods page, the water management district preserve page and the Tampa Bay Water wellfield post.