About Virginia Park

Virginia Park, established in the 1950s and named for the wife of developer Palmer Potter, is absorbing its first big wave of new residents, many of them younger and wealthier than the neighborhood's pioneers. They're drawn by low crime, good schools - including top-tier Plant High - and the glow that comes from being mistaken for Palma Ceia.

It hums in the geographic heart of South Tampa, surrounded by neighborhoods with contrary personalities. The modesty of South Westshore and Fair Oaks/Manhattan Manor tugs at it from the south. The more finicky tastes of Palma Ceia and Bayshore Beautiful push from the east.

In Virginia Park, bungalows with porch swings jostle with long, lean ranches, postage-stamp brick homes and, increasingly, 4,000-square-foot homes that flex on 50-foot-wide lots.