Here's an essay (abridged)  by a Flashpoint viewer that will either encourage you with a vision of what could  be- or depress you with what has yet to be done.

Oozing Schmooze

By Thomas McGowan

I was lucky enough to get a table for four at Shmooze last Saturday where the eight course tasting menu had won national acclaim within three months of the grand opening. My wife and I met our friends Peter and Mary Anne at Schmooze for a pre dinner drink and a bite of their famous tapas. The waiter brought our cocktails and Mary Ann took a healthy sip and  sighed. “Oh nothing, we’re just beat. Its been a long day.

This morning Peter had a board meeting at our condo and there was some talk about developing a second tower right across the river.” “Wow,” I said, “Another Trump development in Tampa?” “Well,” Peter said, our building sold out so quickly even with all those investors flipping units and doubling the prices, apparently The Donald himself wants to put up money for the new one. Some people are against it because they think it will dilute the brand, but others see it as a rising tide raises all ships kind of thing.”

And of course while Peter was doing his thing, I went over to the Performing Arts Center to check on the progress of the Ballet. Neither my wife nor I had been very knowledgeable about ballet until a few years ago when that Guggenheim fellow came into town and bestowed all that money on the company. Since then he and some of his friends from New York  gave the University of Tampa an enormous endowment, and of course now  Baryshnikov comes here about six weeks per year to teach master classes. Since then we’ve become great fans, with season tickets. Mary Ann, who studied some dance in college threw herself headlong into the project, and now worked for the Tampa Bay Ballet Company. Last year they toured Europe with the centerpiece being a performance in Moscow that is said to have brought tears to the eyes of the most hardened critics.

“After that we had our workout, and then we took the water taxi over here to St. Pete to go shopping and then meet up with you guys.” “We didn’t do all that much,” my wife said, “just went shopping Bay Plaza.” Gucci and Louis Vuitton are having sales, and I got a few things while Tom wandered off to have a look at the Stadium progress. I told them the new waterfront ball park was going splendidly, and that I was amazed not only at how well it blended in, how they were putting the finishing touches on the two Metro stations that would bring thousands of fans to the field, but also how well the stadium would integrate itself into the whole Southside waterfront development. 

Since that gambling ship and the two upscale dinner cruises boats that followed it, along with the docks for the half dozen or so cruise ships that come to St Pete every year, I really wondered how so much would fit in such a relatively small space, but I must say they pulled it off.

“What’s the deal with the windmills?” Peter asked. “Progress Energy agreed to put up three of them in th water near the stadium to show their commitment to alternative energy. There’s always a breeze coming off the bay and those three windmills along with the solar panels they are putting around the stadium will produce enough energy to run the whole facility for nothing, and will even provide a kind of out-door air conditioning if the  weather gets too hot or muggy in the summer time.”

Peter and I continued to chat about the amazing turn around the Rays had made and we were pretty certain that there would be no repeat of last year’s heartbreaking American League playoff game in which we lost on the last play of the last inning to the Red Sox.