This one took some digging. The 1923 Burgert Brothers photograph of the Sevilla Building clearly shows signage, placing it at the corner of Francis Ave. and Cherry Street. Yet modern maps show Francis Avenue running east-west in Tampa Heights on the east side of the Hillsborough River, and it does not intersect Cherry Street in West Tampa. Complicating matters, the USF photo archive lists the road as Francis Street.

The answer lies in the street renumbering that followed West Tampa’s annexation in 1925. Before annexation, Francis Ave. existed on the west side of the river as a short local street. When Albany Avenue was later extended north from South Tampa after annexation, that stretch of Francis was absorbed into the expanded corridor and renamed North Albany Avenue.

As a result, the Sevilla Building—originally addressed as 1904 Francis Ave.—became 2306 North Albany Avenue. The badge on the building's crown dates the construction to 1910, confirming that it predates both the annexation and the street realignment that erased Francis Avenue from modern West Tampa maps.

Its design reflects a classic cigar city mixed-use structure: retail storefronts on the ground floor, with residential units above. The upstairs units likely housed cigar workers. The corner storefront was probably a café, while the shop to the right—hinted at by the stripes visible in the 1923 photograph—appears to have been a barbershop, serving the daily rhythms of West Tampa’s working-class neighborhood. In 1925, S Fernandez & Co, a cigar manufacturer, was in the building. By 1935, the F&G Macaroni Factory was there. It was renamed the Florida Macaroni Factory by the mid-1940s. Several other businesses and residents are listed in city directories in the following years.

The building has been demolished, and modern houses now occupy the block. The Humap Tampa Through Time Portal at the University of South Florida has the former location pegged at the northwest corner of Palmetto St and N Albany Ave., one block north of where the building stood. According to online records, the home that still exists at Palmetto and Albany was built in 1923, the same year the Burgert photo was taken.  

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved