The Tampa Convention Center is located directly across the Harbour Island Bridge and Channelside is just across Beneficial Drive, both walking distance.

Seddon's plans were adopted and soon his company dredged a channel and established a port facility on what was then called Grassy Island.

The Seaboard Coast Line later sold the 177 acres (72 ha) island to the Beneficial Land Corporation in 1979 for residential, office and retail development purposes.

[1] Beneficial's chief executive, Finn M. W. Caspersen (1941-2009) envisioned transforming the island into a bustling waterfront with offices, shops and restaurants, much like Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

[citation needed] Between 1985 and January 1999, Harbour Island was linked to Downtown Tampa by the Harbour Island People Mover, an automated rubber tired tram manufactured by Otis Transportation Systems that ran on an elevated concrete guideway connecting the Knights Point shopping center on Harbour Island, to the Ft Brooke Parking Garage half of a mile to the north, adjacent to the downtown core on the mainland.