Their friends called them crazy when Matthew and Alicia Smith left a home in Boca Raton to raise their toddler Allison in Ybor City five years ago.
These days, Alicia Smith can't picture a life outside the tiny, but growing eclectic neighborhood two blocks off of the nightlife strip. And from one visit to their home on Fifth Avenue, it's clear. They fit right in.
Cigar boxes line the walls of their renovated 1902 house. Booty beads spill over a basket in the den. Allison, now 7, practices her Italian at the nearby Italian Club.
The walls are so well-insulated, Smith said, that honking horns and blaring bass beats don't bother them on Friday and Saturday nights, though it does get loud for Gasparilla and Guavaween.
"But we just join in the mayhem," she said.
The Smiths are pioneers in Ybor City's residential renaissance. For the past few years, residents have trickled into the mostly commercial area. With about a dozen residential developments in the works, Ybor City is becoming Tampa's oldest new neighborhood.
Owners of 13 homes and condos along Fifth Avenue from 16th Street to 20th Street will open their doors for Ybor's first home tour on Saturday (4/22).
Rubber tire trolleys will take visitors from house to house. Real estate agents, bank lenders and home renovators will provide information to potential residents in the Ybor City State Museum courtyard.
To contrast the residential renewal, the museum will open its "Urban Renewal in Ybor City" exhibit, a look at the controversial revitalization efforts of the 1960s and 1970s.
Often referred to as "Urban Removal," the federally funded project began in 1965 as a solution to Ybor's residential decline in which families migrated to the suburbs after World War II. Entire blocks of homes were wiped out to make way for commerce and roads, museum spokesman Manny Leto said.
"The federal government came in and knocked everything down, and they were relying on the private sector to come in and build it back up and invest in the community," Leto said. "That never really materialized."
Until now. The residential renewal is an important time for Ybor, Leto said. That's why he is organizing Saturday's tour and museum event, to celebrate Ybor City's history along with its future.
"We want to basically show people that Ybor is more than just one street, Seventh Avenue," Leto said. "There's a lot going on here."
- Alexandra Zayas azayas@tampabay.com
