S.H. Kress & Co. Building

The Kress company was renowned for commissioning elaborate commercial architecture, and its Tampa location was no exception. Designed in the Renaissance Revival style, the building's imposing façades feature pale terracotta, colorful glazed ornamentation, soaring arched windows, and intricate decorative details. Above the entrance, a bronze marquee bearing the company's distinctive K remains a reminder of its former identity.

For decades, the store was a familiar part of downtown life, welcoming generations of shoppers through its doors. When the five-and-dime closed around 1980, it marked the end of an era. The building eventually fell vacant, its once-bustling storefronts falling silent.

Time has taken its toll, but the craftsmanship endures. Ornamental shells, elaborate scrollwork, and richly detailed terracotta still distinguish the Kress from the surrounding streetscape. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and designated a local historic landmark in 2006, it stands as a testament to a time when beauty and permanence were considered worthy investments, even in everyday commerce.

Today, the long-shuttered Kress remains one of Franklin Street's most distinctive architectural survivors. Its entrances are closed, its windows dark, yet above the quiet storefronts, much of its original elegance remains. The building offers a striking contrast to the changing downtown landscape, preserving the architectural ambitions of an earlier Tampa.

Though no longer open to visitors, the Kress is a landmark worth pausing to appreciate. Look upward, beyond the shuttered storefronts, and discover an extraordinary piece of Tampa's architectural heritage—a reminder that even the most ordinary places were once designed to be beautiful.