Tampa Bay is growing quickly, drawing new residents, new capital and national attention.
Neighborhoods are rising, districts are being redefined and the city is changing in ways that feel immediate and irreversible.
For many newcomers, Tampa can feel less like a place with a past and more like a city inventing itself in real time.
What is easier to overlook is the risk embedded in that momentum: growth without memory produces cities that move fast but struggle to cohere.
That tension sits at the center of how Audrey Chapuis views her new role as president and CEO of the Tampa Bay History Center.
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She does not see the institution as a quiet repository of artifacts but as civic infrastructure at a moment when Tampa’s identity is actively being rewritten.
“In a city like this, history isn’t nostalgia,” Chapuis said. “It’s orienting. It helps people understand where they are and what they’re shaping.”
Chapuis officially began her tenure Dec. 1 after more than a decade leading the American Library in Paris.
A Texas native who has lived and worked in Paris, London and Chicago, she arrives in Tampa with a global perspective and a clear focus on what history does for a city when growth accelerates faster than memory can keep up.
A city moving faster than its past
Tampa today often feels as though it is starting over.
Districts like Water Street have reshaped downtown in just a few years.
Much of the region’s population growth is driven by people arriving from outside Florida with little personal connection to the city’s past.
Chapuis sees the History Center as an anchor in that moment.
“To understand the identity of a city, you need to understand its history,” she said. “You don’t have to read every book. You can walk through the exhibits in an afternoon and understand why this place is special.”
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That framing expands the History Center’s role. It becomes less about preservation alone and more about orientation.
For newcomers, it offers a fast but meaningful way to understand Tampa beyond its newest towers.
For longtime residents, it reflects lived experience to them and situates it within a longer arc that explains how the city became what it is today.
History as a living process
One of Chapuis’ central beliefs is that history does not end at the display case. The present is already becoming the archive.
“How are we telling our story now?” she asked. “What are we capturing today that people will look back on 50 years from now?”
She points to the History Center’s Seminole collections as a model for how history should be presented responsibly.
Rather than treating Indigenous history as something confined to the past, the exhibits emphasize continuity and living culture.
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“There’s history there, but it’s also a story that continues,” Chapuis said. “That matters.”
Under her leadership, the History Center aims to capture and document Tampa’s current transformation, from redevelopment and cultural institutions to the people shaping the city’s civic life.
The goal is not simply to record change but to make conscious choices about whose stories are preserved and whose are allowed to fade.
What Tampa’s past reveals about resilience
Chapuis believes Tampa’s history offers a consistent lesson: the city advances when institutions work together.
“If you look back at Tampa’s periods of boom and bust, you see that resilience comes from partnership,” she said. “The railroad came here because people wanted it here and made it happen together.”
That lesson informs her leadership approach today.
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The History Center works closely with the city and county and serves as the official archive for Hillsborough County.
Chapuis sees opportunities to deepen those relationships and to use history not only as record-keeping but as a tool for civic cohesion across a rapidly expanding region.
“It’s the Tampa Bay History Center, not just Tampa,” she said. “We’re telling a regional story.”
A civic living room in a distracted city
Chapuis often describes the History Center as a civic living room, a place designed to feel welcoming rather than intimidating.
One of the most significant challenges she acknowledges is reaching younger audiences, particularly people in their 20s and 30s who are building careers and families in a city crowded with distractions.
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“They’re busy. They’re scrolling,” she said. “We have to earn their attention.”
That means designing exhibits that are intellectually serious but also social and participatory.
It also means meeting people where they already are through walking tours, partnerships and programming that extends beyond the museum’s walls.
Access and the friction of growth
One of the most immediate barriers Chapuis sees is access.
“Parking is a genuine hurdle,” she said. “People are intimidated. They don’t want to pay too much or feel unsure about how to get here.”
Having spent years in cities with robust public transportation, she views communication as part of the solution.
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Initiatives like the Dash service, which allows visitors to park outside downtown and take a low-cost ride to the History Center, are examples of existing partnerships.
“No institution solves these things alone,” she said. “You work with partners, and you communicate clearly.”
Technology with discipline
Chapuis brings a measured approach to technology.
While she sees opportunities for digital tools to enhance storytelling and improve archival work, she is wary of adopting technology without long-term sustainability.
“I’ve seen museum tech fail spectacularly because it wasn’t maintained,” she said.
Her focus is on using technology to support the mission, from improving archival processes and metadata capture to eventually developing digital experiences that deepen engagement rather than distract from the artifacts themselves.
What’s ahead in 2026
Several major exhibitions are planned for 2026, including a permanent Tampa Bay timeline spanning more than 10,000 years of history, a horse-racing exhibition tied to Tampa Bay Downs’ centennial and a traveling exhibition that tells the story of America through the guitar.
Another upcoming exhibition will explore Tampa from above, tracing how aerial technology has reshaped how the city is seen and understood.
“These stories are local,” Chapuis said. “But they also place Tampa within a national and even global context.”
Growth guided by memory
As Tampa Bay continues to evolve, Chapuis believes history can help residents make better decisions about the future.
“People shaped this city before us,” she said. “They had visions, and they worked together.”
In a region defined by momentum, the Tampa Bay History Center’s new leader sees memory not as a brake on growth but as the framework that allows growth to last.
For more information on the Tampa Bay History Center, click here.
