Tampa was once considered the cigar capital of the world.
Cigar-rolling peaked in the city in the 1920s. In the 70s and 80s, the industry largely moved to Latin America, where labor was cheaper.
As tides changed, hundreds of cigar factories, businesses and other buildings were left vacant in Tampa and Ybor City.
Some fell into disrepair.
One of them — the Sanchez y Haya building, in Ybor City’s historic district — is being restored to its former glory.
Restoring a historic gathering place for cigar workers
The 115-year-old building, on the corner of Columbus Avenue and 16th Street, is entering the final phase of an $18.7 million restoration project.
It’s expected to be completed by October 2026.
ALSO READ: Renovation will begin on the historic Ybor City Sanchez y Haya building
Spearheading the effort are the owners of the J.C. Newman Cigar Company, whose El Reloj cigar factory sits directly across the street from the Sanchez y Haya building.
Drew Newman, the fourth-generation owner of the cigar factory, said the two buildings have a shared history.
"Our El Reloj cigar factory opened on March 31, 1910, and the Sanchez y Haya Building opened a few months later. The buildings were built independently, but...they were designed to work together,” he said.
The Sanchez y Haya building — once a 15-room hotel, cigar lounge and cafe — was a popular gathering spot for cigar workers in the city more than a century ago.
It was built by Ignacio Haya — the first man to roll cigars in Tampa — and his business partner, Serafin Sanchez, in 1910.
Since then, it’s taken many forms — a grocery store, a coffee mill, a knitting store and even a Prohibition-era speakeasy — before falling into decline, according to a City of Tampa release.
In 2020, the Newman family bought the building for $650,000 with the intention of restoring the building to its original purpose.
Local, state and federal partners are investing in the vision, too.
The Newman’s restoration recently received a $5 million grant from the East Tampa Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), as well as a $600,000 historic preservation grant from Hillsborough County and a $2.3 million federal tax credit from the National Park Service, according to the budget summary.
Once complete, Newman hopes the project will enshrine an important chapter in Tampa’s history — one that earned it the nickname of “Cigar City.”
How Tampa became 'Cigar City'
During the heyday of the cigar industry in Tampa, there were around 200 factories, like El Reloj, producing more than 700 million cigars a year.
“Cigars are to Tampa, just like cars are to Detroit and wine is to Napa Valley. Cigars are so important to the history of our community because it was the cigar industry that fueled Tampa's economy and its growth from a tiny village into the city that it is today,” Newman said.
Between 1880 and 1930, the population in Tampa jumped from around 700 to more than 100,000 people.
Many of them were immigrants from Cuba, Spain, Italy and Germany who came to work in Tampa’s burgeoning cigar industry.
"When Mr. Ybor decided to come to Tampa in 1885 the rest of the cigar industry followed, and Tampa was filled with waves of immigrants from all around the world,” Newman said.
Vincente Martinez Ybor, for whom Ybor City is named, is revered as the godfather of the cigar industry in Tampa. But, famously, he was not the first to roll a cigar in the city.
That title belongs to Ignacio Haya, and his business partner, Serafin Sanchez, who opened the first cigar factory, Sanchez y Haya Co., on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City.
And later, in 1910, they opened a hotel and cafe near Columbus Avenue and 16th Street.
Keeping the legacy alive
More than a century later, the building is getting new life.
Last week, local leaders, cigar workers and other community members gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony at the historic site.
Christian Klein, a descendant of Serafin Sanchez, was there to witness the big moment in his family’s history.
“We’re standing…in the shadow of a building from 1910 that my great-great-grandfather built to support the cigar workers…and now the Newman family is continuing and restoring it, which is great,” he said.
Klein said it feels like a full-circle moment to witness the owners of the last operational cigar factory in the country restore his family’s building, which represents an early chapter in the city’s cigar industry.
Newman said it’s been a long process to get to this point.
This has included purchasing the building, securing financing, reinforcing the integrity of the concrete-and-rebar structure and even rehoming 5,000 fruit bats.
“It would have been far easier and cheaper and faster to knock the Sanchez y Haya building down and build a replica of it in its place, but I was afraid doing so would cause us to lose the building's character and spirit and history,” he said.
Like the cigar-making process, Newman said doing things right takes time.
Gabriella Paul covers the stories of people living paycheck to paycheck in the greater Tampa Bay region for WUSF. Here’s how you can share your story with her.
