Three years after the Tampa City Council unanimously rejected a land-use change for Showmen’s Rest, a Tampa Heights cemetery, that would have allowed developers to build out the land, the parcel is up for sale again.
This time, the cemetery isn’t looking to change its zoning. But the City Council and nearby residents are still torn over a central question: Are there unknown bodies buried beneath the land?
Owners of Showmen’s Rest have said the portion of land up for sale has not been used for burials. But the City Council passed a motion Thursday to have city staff contact the property owner and ask if they could use ground-penetrating radar to address concerns about lost graves.
“Should there be graves there, individuals there, then we can look at steps forward,” said council member Guido Maniscalco, who made the motion.
Maniscalco also requested a written report from city staff to update the council, which is due June 26. Although he did not mention the name of the property during the motion, Maniscalco confirmed with the Tampa Bay Times after the meeting that the report is about Showmen’s Rest.
Listed on Zillow for $750,000, the parcel of land at 3541 N. Boulevard is adjacent to the city-owned Woodlawn Cemetery.
Showmen’s Rest Cemetery hired a firm during the initial controversy more than three years ago that conducted two seismic studies that didn’t find any lost graves. The Zillow listing states the seller will do another survey.
“The people that are going up against us keep insisting that there are bodies buried on this vacant parcel of land that we’ve never developed,” Showmen’s Rest President John Perzia said. The cemetery has presented its seismic studies to the City Council, “but nobody wanted to pay attention to it.”
Perzia said the cemetery wants to sell this parcel, which was purchased from the city in 1971, to put it in a trust to keep up maintenance. They don’t care who buys it, Perzia said, but they want to ensure their cemetery is preserved.
“I’m almost 70,” he said. “When I pass away, who’s going to take care of this place?”
He said the city is welcome to buy the property, but city spokesperson Adam Smith said the administration is not looking to purchase.
Perzia said Monday afternoon that neither he nor his real estate broker had heard from the city.
Maniscalco’s motion on Thursday came after a previous council discussion of the cemetery on May 22. At that meeting, council member Bill Carlson also introduced the idea of setting aside city funds for ground-penetrating radar and addressing lost graves.
“What role can the city play? Because not everyone can pay for ground-penetrating radar, and not everyone can afford just to give up their land,” Carlson said last month.
The Tampa Bay Times reported in 2021 that there were 1,200 missing graves in the city, mostly those of influential Black residents, and the city is attempting to acknowledge and correct its role in erasing Black history.
This year, the city erected a historical marker at Zion Cemetery, which was a Black burial ground before it was developed over.
The city can’t go onto privately owned land without the owner’s permission to look for graves. If it does, the surveys are expensive.
“I was happy to hear the City Council is considering creating a fund for ground-penetrating radar,” said Rachael Kangas, director of the west central and central regions of the Florida Public Archaeology Network. “That’s usually the biggest issue we run into.”
Kangas reviewed documents sent to her by Aileen Henderson, founder of The Cemetery Society, regarding the cemetery and its history, as well as research files her organization has on Woodlawn Cemetery and Showmen’s Rest.
“According to the records I see, that entire block, including this parcel, were part of the original footprint of Woodlawn Cemetery, and there is documentation from the newspaper that burials when the cemetery was first established were haphazard,” Kangas wrote in an email to Henderson that was shared with the Times.
Additionally, Kangas wrote, the northwest corner of Woodlawn Cemetery was originally set aside for African American graves. She said the documentation she read doesn’t have details on the size of that area or where exactly the burials were.
“There is no reason to think this parcel of land is not part of a cemetery or that it doesn’t contain unmarked burials,” Kangas wrote.
Henderson said she also thinks Showmen’s Rest could have lost graves and said she was excited to see the City Council take steps toward addressing the citywide issue.
“I don’t blame the owner for doing what he has the right to do,” Henderson said. “The reality is we have the supporting documentation that that is a cemetery.”
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