Howard Avenue

Some local restaurants in Hyde Park, including Bern's Steak House, are suing the city of Tampa over their massive stormwater project because they aren't on board with those plans.

Plan is to install large box culverts under South Howard Avenue to carry water out of the streets and into Tampa Bay.

And the project is a solution to flooding in an area that does get flooded very easily.

However, a group of businesses and business owners say this project could ruin their business and livelihoods.

So just tell us more about this lawsuit.

Who are you representing? Who's named in the lawsuit?

So, uh, we're representing, uh, six, uh, property owners, uh, uh, along, uh, uh, South Howard Avenue.

They, they include, as you mentioned, Bern's, uh, uh, Steak House, uh, and, uh, the owners of The Epicurian Hotel, and then, uh, the owners of several other, uh, restaurants, uh, uh, that are owned by the Ciccio, uh, Restaurant Group.

The owners of Bern's Steak House and some other South Tampa businesses have filed a couple class action lawsuits saying Tampa's recently approved stormwater project will hurt their livelihoods for years.

One lawsuit says the project underneath South Howard extends beyond legal rights to use the street, and another claims the city is using money that was already earmarked for other projects.

The city approved the plan last month to carry stormwater from flood-prone neighborhoods to Hillsborough Bay, and you can read the actual lawsuits yourself at wusf.org. Now, this story's wild.

A computer error kept the city of St. Petersburg from getting 173 million bucks in federal money to help recover from Hurricane Milton.

[laughs]

On, on, on, on, on South Howard.

That's where she just rolled in from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right? [laughs] The little main street on, and then Howard Avenue and all that.

Um, so you remember, of course, as a little boy being in the downtown district.

Oh, God, yeah.

The-

The, the, the, the...

Well, a- and when my dad bought that first building, we lived on, we lived there on Howard Avenue i- in an apartment.

And, uh, and it, it was really funny.