Palace Drug Store, 1002 E Scott St

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Isaac Gardner opened the Palace Drug Store in 1921 at the corner of Scott Street and Central Avenue, in the heart of Tampa’s Central Avenue business district. More than a place to fill prescriptions, Gardner intended the store to serve as a center for social life and recreation in a neighborhood where many African American residents lived in poverty. It became a popular gathering place, especially on weekends, when customers came for ice cream sundaes and banana splits.

The Central Avenue business district emerged in the late 1800s and flourished into the 1950s, during an era when strict Jim Crow laws shaped nearly every aspect of life in Tampa. Central Park, previously known as "The Scrub", was Tampa's first African American Neighborhood located between downtown Tampa and Ybor City. Segregation limited where African Americans could live, shop, eat, gather, and find entertainment. Central Avenue developed into the commercial and social heart of Tampa’s Black community, offering businesses and institutions that provided both opportunity and a sense of community.

Among them were the Palace Drug Store, the Pyramid Hotel, Cozy Corner—operated by Moses White, who later moved his operation to West Tampa—and the Harlem Colored Branch of the Tampa Public Library, one of the few places in Hillsborough County where African American patrons had access to library services before desegregation. The nearby Central Park Village housing project would also become an important part of the neighborhood.

Newspaper accounts indicate that Gardner closed the Palace Drug Store in 1929 because of a lack of patronage. Ownership changed hands several times in the decades that followed, and by the middle of the century, the business was owned by Daniel Valido and C.G. Ferlita.

In 1967, Central Avenue became the center of four days of unrest following the fatal police shooting of 19-year-old Martin Chambers, one of three African American young men suspected of burglarizing a camera supply warehouse. During the unrest, the Palace Drug Store and numerous other businesses were looted or burned.

In the aftermath, the Tampa Police Department faced criticism over its response. A year later, Valido and Ferlita joined other area business owners in suing the city for damages, alleging that police had failed to intervene while businesses were being looted and burned. The following year, the pair filed a fictitious-name registration for Palace Sundries, which they intended to operate a block away. Records indicate that it never opened.

By then, Central Avenue was already disappearing. Interstate construction just a block away had further diminished property values and accelerated the decline of a district already weakened by urban renewal and displacement. The former Palace Drug Store property remained vacant for decades.

In the early 2000s, city leaders began envisioning a new future for the area. The aging Central Park Village public housing complex was demolished, clearing the way for redevelopment, which received a major boost from a $38 million federal stimulus grant. In 2010, ground was broken on the first of several buildings in the ENCORE! redevelopment project, a $425 million, 40-acre master-planned, mixed-use community.

By 2021, Meacham Urban Farm, in partnership with the Tampa Housing Authority, had transformed the vacant site of the former Palace Drug Store. Named for Christina Meacham, the first principal of the Harlem Academy—Tampa’s first African American school—the 2.1-acre organic farm features three greenhouses, an educational facility, and a popular farmers market open to the public. It is once again a gathering place for the community.

© Chip Weiner. All rights reserved