Dick Greco was born in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, where his Italian-American father owned a hardware store.
He beat incumbent and fellow Ybor City native Nick Nuccio in an election that was seen as a transfer of power from one generation to the next[4][5][6] In his first term, Greco balanced issues such as simmering racial tensions, crime, and extremely limited tax revenue.
Owing to his years in the commercial development industry, Greco pushed for many large projects, often joint ventures involving both private and public funding.
Some (such as the Tampa Marriott Waterside) were widely praised, while others (such as the Centro Ybor shopping center and Raymond James Stadium) were more controversial and would cost the city budget millions of dollars over subsequent years.
Despite some controversy during his last years in office, Greco was still widely popular in Tampa and was the second former mayor (after Nick Nuccio) to be honored with a public statue.