Packard Florida Motors Company,1 702 Grand Central Avenue
Corner view of Packard Florida Motors Company at 1702 Grand Central Avenue. 1925. Burgert Brothers. Courtesy, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System
Primrose School, 1700 W Kennedy Blvd, .2021. © Chip Weiner
According to the Florida Department of Corporations, Packard Florida Motors Company was established in Tampa in 1920. The economy was booming, cars had become more affordable to the middle class, and Packard produced some of the most luxurious autos in America. The company started in Detroit in 1899. One of the interesting things about this photograph taken in 1925 is that Seaboard Investment Co, a real estate firm, also has an office in the building. It is a testament to the land boom of the first half of the 1920s as dozens of realtors opened offices to get a piece of the action. By 1927, anxious America had paid particular attention to the new car market as evidence of economic trouble began to surface. In 1927, D.D. Gilmore, a well-known real estate and automobile businessman, purchased the property. Thereafter, advertising in newspaper archives disappeared. By 1929, the Great Depression hit Tampa hard.
The lot sat empty for years. In 2012, construction began for the Primrose School of South Tampa, a nationally franchised private daycare and preschool that opened in 2013.
© Chip Weiner. All rights reserved
From Burgert Brothers: Look Again, Vol.2