The Tampa Box Company was created in the mid-1890s and produced Cuban cedar boxes for the burgeoning cigar industry in Ybor City. It was located in the heart of the cigar manufacturing district at 7th Ave. and 16th St. and took the entire block between 16th and 17th streets. The process of box making was almost entirely mechanized. Early on, the eighty-five employees could produce 6,000 boxes per day. This undated photograph is probably circa 1900, after Henry Leiman purchased the company. In 1906, they incorporated and bought a new tract of land on 22nd St. for a new location. That building is now the Box Factory Lofts at the northwest corner of 22nd St. and Adamo Dr.

They sold the building, and in 1907, the Gutierrez building, a 3-story brick building, began construction on the site and opened in 1909 with the Dixie House Hotel on the second floor. Eventually, Ybor City, including this block, would fall on hard times from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1997, with a push from then Tampa Mayor Dick Greco, plans for Centro Ybor, a controversial 4-block, 220,000 sq. ft., $40-million retail development were made. It was to house national retail brands and revitalize the historic district with a prediction of 3 million visitors annually. While the national brands moved in, including a 20-plex movie theater and an arcade built by movie director Steven Spielberg, they all folded. In 2004, the City of Tampa was forced to assume the loans for the complex. The movieplex, after closing 10 of its theaters in 2004, finally shut its doors in 2019. 

https://theclio.com/entry/32570 01/06/2022

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