Camila Sainz de la Peña, Partner, AIC Architecture

July 2026 — Invest: sat down with Camila Sainz de la Peña, partner of AIC Architecture, to discuss how Tampa Bay’s growth is reshaping conversations around resiliency, design, and local identity. “Tampa has the professionals, the designers, the architects, the engineers, we have the people here to make those investments come to life,” Sainz de la Peña said.

What key changes over the past year have had the greatest impact on the firm, and in what ways?

It is hard to identify a single factor because there is so much happening at once. The major storms that hit Tampa in 2024 continued to affect infrastructure and the surrounding area well into recent months, so there has been much more conversation around resiliency. There were concerns, both because of the broader political and economic landscape and because of the storms locally, that investment might falter. We have not really seen that happen. Instead, there has been more repositioning to better prepare for future adverse events.

I recently attended a panel on the role of resiliency and sustainability in real estate investment in Tampa through the local chapter of the Real Estate Investment Council. The conversation was really about how the private and public sectors can come together to create a stronger, more resilient fabric for the community. Much of the waterfront property here is privately owned, so it requires partnership.

That has become a bigger issue as the region thinks about how to prepare for future storms. People keep pouring into the state and into this area. From the work coming through our door, we are seeing more medical buildings in particular. There was a time when it felt like a bank was going up on every corner, and then it felt like a car wash on every corner. Right now, it feels like there is an urgent care or after-hours clinic going up on every corner. That population increase is driving a real need for more medical care, more medical professionals, and more places designed to support that growth.

What are these projects revealing about resiliency and the region’s needs?

A lot of our work is more inland, so we are not doing much coastal work. That means we are not having daily conversations about certain coastal code requirements such as setbacks and elevations, or about how to design structures specifically for direct waterfront exposure. Those are the conversations being had by the designers and engineers working on large coastal projects.

Still, the broader resiliency discussion affects everyone. One side of it is the preservation of property. Another is continuity of services and infrastructure. In St. Petersburg, for example, one issue was the wastewater system backing up. In some places that were not directly affected by flooding, sewer water came back up through shower drains because there was nowhere for the water to go and debris blocked the outlets. Those kinds of failures push the conversation beyond simply repairing what was damaged. The real question is how to strategically reinforce infrastructure so it can withstand the next major event and keep people from losing power, water, and other essential services.

Another factor has been the effect of the Surfside Condo collapse in Miami a few years ago. That sent a shockwave through Florida, especially in jurisdictions with a lot of coastal high-rise construction. We saw a spike in activity from jurisdictions, building departments, code enforcement, and fire marshals. Suddenly, projects that once would have moved through permitting with a predictable review process were subject to more stringent and inconsistent requirements.

We also began seeing what I am almost certain was the rollout of AI into drawing review. We started receiving pages of paragraph-long comments that clearly did not match the way certain reviewers usually wrote, and many of those comments were not actually relevant to the project. In theory, using AI to help review drawings could be useful, but in practice it caused months of delay because we then had to prove why a comment was invalid rather than simply address legitimate scope issues.

Like anything with AI, if you put trash in, you are going to get trash out. An educated professional still has to review that output and understand what applies to the project. The building code is layered and complicated, and AI does not know how to interpret all of that by itself. From our perspective, resiliency is also about keeping projects on schedule, minimizing unnecessary comments, anticipating the issue of the day, and preparing ourselves to address those challenges as efficiently as possible.

How do you approach designing spaces that contribute to Tampa Bay’s identity and sense of place?

That is something we think about a great deal. Tampa Bay has a strong identity, but much of the money coming in is from outside the region, and with that comes outside identities. We are seeing what is happening in many fast-growing cities, especially in the Southeast. If you are not careful, they all start to look the same because the same types of architects are designing similar buildings in market after market.

For those of us who were born and raised here, or who left and chose to come back, there is a real desire to see the region’s identity remain strong. The challenge is that many of the people making decisions on major projects are not local.

A very specific example is the former Floridan Hotel in downtown Tampa, where your conference will be held. One of the hallmarks of that historic hotel was the beautifully painted plaster ceiling in the lobby. It had flowers, color, gold, coral, aqua, green, and this incredible sculptural quality. When the property was remodeled by a nonlocal hotel group, they painted the whole thing bright white. They erased the artisanal history of that lobby. I walked in and started crying. As someone from here, and as a designer, it was heartbreaking.

In Ybor, where our office is located, there are preservation standards and architectural review processes that help protect the character of the district. That is a good thing. Downtown does not always have the same safeguards, and you can see the difference.

I have been in rooms where a major local project is announced and the design team is from New York or somewhere else, and I have asked why they are not hiring Tampa architects? There is so much talent here. Whether it is local independent firms like ours or local offices of larger firms, there are people here with the ability and experience to do major work. Tampa has the professionals, the designers, the architects, the engineers, we have the people here to make those investments come to life. Investors do not have to outsource everything when they come here.

What are your key goals and priorities for the firm moving forward, both in terms of growth and the impact you want to have in the region?

Historically, our firm built much of its portfolio around office work, corporate interiors, and interior architecture. Over the past 10 years that I have been with the firm, we have increased our new construction and ground-up architecture portfolio, and I would like to continue growing that side of the business.

We specialize in interior architecture and have a great deal of experience with adaptive reuse. We are currently working on a project in a historic Ybor building where we are essentially creating a new building inside the old one while preserving the historic features of the structure. I would love to see more of that type of work because it allows us to be good environmental stewards while also preserving character and history.

When there is an opportunity for new construction, I want us to continue designing beautiful buildings that are good for the environment and that make people feel well, safe, and inspired when they walk into them. Those of us who stay in this profession do it because we love the work. We work long hours, coordinate many moving parts, and have to stay constantly responsive, but the reward is being able to shape spaces that matter.

As a Tampa native, it has been incredibly rewarding to watch the city grow. I came back to Tampa after living in Boston and New York because I wanted to be part of that growth. I wanted to help make sure it was done well. Even though the city has changed a great deal since I was a child, it is still a wonderful place to live. I hope we can continue to build and develop responsibly and sustainably so that Tampa remains a beautiful place to live for generations to come.