The former Beaux Arts-style Federal courthouse started out life in 1905 as a post office and U.S. Customs office. Having the Customs office here made sense given the proximity to Ybor City and the influx of immigrants coming to the area to work in the cigar industry in the early 1900s. It also housed judge’s chambers. Soon thereafter, it converted into a courthouse. Pictured here is the rear of the building. Over the next 100 years, those walls would see some notorious cases, including organized crime, the civil case involving the ship the Summit Venture that collided with and took down the Skyway Bridge in 1980, and a case where Tampa resident Steven Weeks tried to escape federal custody by jumping through a second story window. Weeks had been charged with involvement in a bank robbery. He was hospitalized but recovered.

In 1998, the Federal Court moved two blocks north to the newly constructed Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse, abandoning the aging building. In 2003, the Federal Government deeded this building to the City of Tampa. After a failed attempt to convert it into a new home for the Tampa Art Museum, by 2012, city administrators chose Tampa Hotel Partners to resurrect it into the boutique hotel Le Méridien. The builders conserved much of the original structure, including turning the large upper-floor courtroom into a ballroom and the first-floor judge’s chambers into the Bizou Brasserie restaurant.

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved