Temple Terrace's Downtown Is Turning to Face Springdale Pond
Most talk about downtown Temple Terrace is about North 56th Street: the traffic, the frontage, the empty lots the city has been trying to fill for years. The more useful landmark is behind the storefronts. Aker Sweets opened in the back of Enigma Plaza, on the side facing Springdale Pond. The rooftop lounge proposed for the city's south parcel would overlook that pond. The first phase of Riverside Park is planned as a concrete path around it. Downtown is turning to face the water, and the businesses that got there first already set its hours.
This fall, that means you can get Yemeni coffee and late-night dessert on the corridor before the city's rooftop dining, promenade or boardwalk exists. Here is what's open, how the planned pieces line up with it, and what's on the November calendar.
Within a short drive on 56th Street, several cafes and dessert shops have opened over the past two years. Ordered by address from north to south, with the Enigma Plaza tenants grouped together:
A short drive east of the corridor, Socotra Yemeni Coffee & Co., 6860 E. Fowler Ave., opened in 2025. According to FOX 13 reporting cited by Hoodline, it has an on-site meeting room and weekend hours that run to midnight.
Aker Sweets lists hours of 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to midnight on Sunday, and 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. With Socotra open to midnight on weekends, two businesses near the planned downtown already stay open later than most of what the city's renderings show.
Enigma Plaza is a useful case because it shows how downtown is actually being built. The Tampa Bay Times reported in January that Enigma Events LLC, led by Bhavandeep and Dolly Singh, bought the 2.44-acre site for $1.5 million in May 2019. By January 2026, the paper said, permits were taped to storefront windows. Aker Sweets had filed for signage and electrical work in a space "planned for the rear of the square-shaped building facing the Springdale pond area."
That orientation is the detail that carries forward. A storefront facing a pond instead of 56th Street makes sense only if foot traffic will someday come from behind the building. Every public project the city now has in motion would bring that traffic.
The same January report named three restaurants that appeared to have started interior work. Nashmi is a fast-casual Jordanian street-food concept built around kebab and shawarma sandwiches. Meat Moot is an international smoked-meat chain whose Temple Terrace location would be its first in Florida. Al Manakeesh serves Palestinian flatbread and has a location in Bridgeview, Illinois. All three should still be treated as announced. A nail salon was also in permitting at the time.
On June 2, 2026, the Temple Terrace City Council voted to open negotiations with developers for two city-owned parcels on 56th Street. The Tampa Bay Times called it the council's "most definitive steps in years" toward a walkable downtown. Both projects connect to what's already open.
South Gate, 8447 N. 56th St. The 1.74-acre south parcel sits on the former site of the Steak and Ale and Curry Bowl restaurants, near the planned Riverside Park. Enigma Events LLC, the same owner as Enigma Plaza, proposed it at $1 million. Developer Baba Singh described about 20,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, offices, an outdoor gathering area, and rooftop dining and a lounge overlooking Springdale Pond. According to the Times, some council members were especially drawn to a planned pedestrian corridor linking a 56th Street bus stop to the pond.
Fountain Square TT, 8901 N. 56th St. For the 1.75-acre parcel, the council picked a plan that extends the Fountain Shoppes of Temple Terrace, which Fountain Square TT recently bought next door. The plan calls for a two-story, Mediterranean-style building with a shopping promenade, rooftop dining and about 12,000 square feet of public gathering space. The developer said it would match a competing high bid of $1.65 million. Architect Rachel Marshall said the building's "360-degree architecture" is meant to face both 56th Street and the interior corridor of Bertha Palmer Way, because it "needs to speak to the community that has been developed behind it."
Both winning designs look past the highway frontage, toward the pond and toward the neighborhood streets behind the corridor.
Both remain at the selection stage. ABC Action News reported on July 1 that negotiations were underway and final proposals would come back to the council for a vote. The Times reported that Mayor Andy Ross asked for completion timelines, performance milestones and clawback provisions that would let the city take back a parcel if the obligations aren't met, and that the council wrote all three into its instructions to staff. "This is not our property, this is the people of this city's property," Ross said. When Bay News 9 covered the same plans in June, it said the city hoped the projects could be finished within about two years.
Riverside Park is the piece that would make the pond a destination in its own right. In January, the Tampa Beacon reported that the council had agreed to build it in phases because the full design cost more than the city could pay at once.
The proposed first phase in that report:
Later phases were to include a fishing and observation pier, a kayak launch, a large gathering lawn, picnic areas and fitness equipment. The observation tower was described as at risk of being pushed back. The January schedule projected permitting by midsummer, possible construction by the end of 2026, and completion of the first phase in 2027, all depending on final plan approval. Those were the targets as of January.
Put the plans side by side and the pond is where they meet. The city's first phase puts a path around it, the South Gate proposal would run a walkway to it from the bus stop and add a rooftop above it, and Aker Sweets, open until 1 a.m. on weekends, already faces it. The private businesses arrived first and picked the side of the building the public projects are heading toward.
While the construction pieces wait on contracts and permits, the community calendar for the next few weeks is already set:
The Arts Council meeting is the one on 56th Street itself. Lightfoot is north of Enigma Plaza on the same street, so a Tuesday evening there can end at Arwa or Aker Sweets on the way home.
The next update on downtown will come from the City Council, when the Fountain Square TT and South Gate agreements return for a vote. The council has directed that those contracts include the timelines, milestones and clawback terms the council asked for in June, and they will show how soon the rooftops overlooking Springdale Pond could open.
If you own near the 56th Street corridor and want to talk through how the pond-side projects could affect your street, we're glad to go over the timeline with you. You can reach Aquamarine Real Estate any time to Schedule Your Complimentary Consultation.
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