South TampaVA Real Estate & MacDill AFB Commute Guide

Hyde Park, 1886

On February 13, 1886, O.H. Platt of Hyde Park, Illinois bought 20 acres west of the Hillsborough River and named the new subdivision after his hometown. That same year, railroad and steamship magnate Henry B. Plant extended his rail line across the river. The bridge changed everything. Tampa's first true suburb wasn't downtown anymore. It was Hyde Park. By 1910 Hyde Park was the most desirable neighborhood in the city — a mix of Georgian and Mediterranean estates set behind oak canopies. The Hyde Park Historic Districts (560 acres, 1,264 contributing buildings) were placed on the National Register on March 4, 1985.

Davis Islands, 1924

Hyde Park's quieter cousin showed up almost forty years later. D.P. Davis returned to Tampa in 1924 after watching what Carl Fisher had done in Miami. He bought two small natural islands at the mouth of the Hillsborough River — Little Grassy Key and Big Grassy Key — and dredged the bay floor to enlarge them. Within roughly two years he had built 875 acres of new ground, a yacht basin, a hotel, a community pool, and an airport. He opened land sales on October 4, 1924, and sold 300 lots in three hours for $1,683,000. The architecture went heavy Mediterranean Revival — red tile roofs, stucco in cream and ochre, arched doorways, wrought iron, the occasional bell tower. D.P. Davis was lost at sea on a transatlantic voyage in October 1926.

Bayshore Boulevard

The seawall and the boulevard built on top of it changed how Tampa related to the water. The sidewalk runs 4.5 miles long and 10 feet wide — one of the longest continuous urban sidewalks in the country. On any Saturday morning the boulevard runs strollers, dogs, runners, and active-duty members in PT gear from the same direction. It's a public square that happens to be linear.

MacDill — from Drew Field to a combatant command

The base everyone in South Tampa orbits started in 1939. The site was selected near the southeastern tip of the Continental U.S. for geopolitical reach. Originally Southeast Air Base, Tampa, it was renamed MacDill Field on December 1, 1939 and dedicated April 16, 1941. The namesake is Lt. Col. Leslie MacDill, a World War I aviator and aeronautical engineer killed in a North American BC-1 crash at Anacostia on November 8, 1938. During WWII MacDill became the Army Air Forces' major B-17 Flying Fortress training center in the southeast, later transitioning to B-29 Superfortress training. Drew Field — the old Tampa municipal airport leased to the Air Corps in 1940 — handled fighter command. Drew Field is now Tampa International Airport.

In 1948 MacDill became MacDill Air Force Base under the new independent Air Force, and the base joined Strategic Air Command. After multiple mission shifts, the base settled into what it does now. MacDill is the headquarters of two unified combatant commands — U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. The CENTCOM AOR runs 21 countries across the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa. SOCOM coordinates U.S. special operations forces worldwide.