WATER STREET TAMPA UNVEILS INNOVATIVE DISTRICT COOLING FACILITY 

SPP CEO James Nozar, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor Celebrate Opening of District-Wide Cooling Facility with Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony 

TAMPA, FL (January 15, 2020) – Tampa-based real estate developer Strategic Property Partners, LLC (“SPP”) today celebrated the official opening of the innovative district cooling facility at Water Street Tampa with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Kemp. As one of the first buildings to open inside Water Street Tampa, the completion of the cooling plant, which will produce and distribute chilled water to air condition the majority of the buildings in the neighborhood, signifies a major milestone for the transformational, 56-acre masterplan located in the heart of Downtown Tampa. 

“Today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony is another symbol of the monumental progress of the Water Street Tampa neighborhood,” said James Nozar, CEO of SPP. “We are proud to open this inventive district cooling facility that is providing an efficient centralized utility solution to the neighborhood. The facility is also making our neighborhood infrastructure more resilient and fulfilling our commitment to promoting sustainability and wellness through the built environment.” 

Supporting SPP’s desire to provide more publicly-accessible open space throughout the neighborhood, the intelligently-designed centralized cooling plant reduces redundant mechanical systems and energy consumption, making it upwards of 30- to 40-percent more efficient than traditional individual building chiller systems. The district cooling plant also frees rooftops that would typically include cooling towers to instead make roofs available for use as shared amenity spaces. As the first anticipated WELL-certified neighborhood in the world, Water Street Tampa honors a commitment to implement design and policy strategies meant to improve the lives of residents through the concepts of Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Fitness, Sound, Mind, Temperature, Materials and Community. The new district cooling plant contributes to the WELL Community Standard requirements by creating resilient neighborhood infrastructure and reducing noise levels throughout the community. 

Located on the corner of East Cumberland Ave. and S. Nebraska Ave., the district cooling facility will initially serve nine buildings throughout Water Street Tampa, including the new USF Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute, which officially opened its doors to over 2,000 students, faculty and researchers this month. With 8,500 linear feet of underground insulated steel piping infrastructure, the plant centralizes noise pollution to one concentrated building and reduces sound interruptions district-wide while supplying chilled water to the development. The plant has an initial capacity of 8,000 tons, but was built with an eye toward future capacity expansion for the neighborhood. 

“As our city continues to grow, we have to make sure we’re doing so in a thoughtful way. This district cooling facility will play a big role in reducing our energy consumption while we work to create a more sustainable and resilient city,” said Mayor Jane Castor. “This is a big step forward in the right direction as we continue transforming Tampa together.” 

Designed by Florida-based architect Baker Barrios, the 12,500-square-foot cooling plant was built with concrete masonry units and structural steel, while the façade was artistically designed to celebrate its surroundings, offering a nod to the iconic cigar factories in nearby Ybor City through utilization of a custom pattern of bricks. Tampa Bay Trane is responsible for the design, construction and installation of the cooling plant, as well as the installation of the underground chilled water piping system throughout the neighborhood. 

One of the largest urban real estate developments currently under construction in the United States, Water Street Tampa is creating an entirely new neighborhood in Tampa that reconnects the city’s central business district with the waterfront and surrounding communities. Connected by pedestrian-oriented streets and 13 acres of new public spaces, Water Street Tampa encompasses over nine million square feet of new commercial, residential, hospitality, entertainment, cultural, retail and educational spaces and introduces a dynamic, walkable lifestyle to Tampa’s urban core. 

For additional information on Water Street Tampa, please visit www.waterstreettampa.com. 

About Strategic Property Partners 

Strategic Property Partners, LLC (“SPP”) is a full-service real estate developer, owner and operator focused on world-class execution, innovation and creating high-quality experiential places. SPP’s first project, Water Street Tampa, is being developed on over 50 acres of contiguous land the company owns in downtown Tampa along the waterfront. The phased Water Street Tampa development project commenced vertical construction in 2018 and is revitalizing the downtown Tampa core into an urban, mixed-use waterfront district consisting of approximately 9 million square feet of new commercial, residential, hospitality, cultural, entertainment, educational, and retail uses, totaling over $3.5 billion in investment from SPP. The company is owned and capitalized through a partnership between Cascade Investment LLC, and Jeff Vinik. For more information on Water Street Tampa, visit www.waterstreettampa.com.