TAMPA — As construction begins on Water Street Tampa's buildings — 10 in the coming year — the street grid near Amalie Arena is changing, starting with E Brorein Street.

Workers have closed Brorein from Channelside Drive to S Nebraska Avenue.

The closure is part of tens of millions of dollars in road, water and sewer work that started within Water Street Tampa's 55-acre footprint in August 2016.

"This initial realignment represents a significant step forward in creating the new, more functional street network throughout the area and in creating the actual building blocks for Water Street Tampa," project spokeswoman Ali Glisson said in an email.

In addition to Brorein, one westbound lane of Channelside Drive has been closed from S Meridian Avenue to Old Water Street, and the four lanes of traffic that remain open on Channelside have shifted a bit south. To keep westbound traffic moving during the morning rush hour, no left turns will be allowed from westbound Channelside onto Old Water street from 7 to 9 a.m. on weekdays.

In coming months, Channelside itself will become a two-way road between Nebraska Avenue and Old Water Street. North of Channelside, Nebraska will become a one-way road going north.

Before it's done, the infrastructure work will resurface more than 2 miles of roadway, replace pipes that are 65 years old and add 3,269 feet of bike lanes at Water Street Tampa.

The first phase of vertical construction at Water Street Tampa — a $3 billion partnership between Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and Microsoft founder Bill Gates' private capital fund, Cascade Investment — will encompass an estimated 3.5 million square feet of construction costing $1.5 billion.

Inside a construction zone bounded by Channelside Drive, E Cumberland Avenue, S Meridian Avenue and S Morgan Street, an estimated 2,800 construction workers will build:

• A JW Marriott with 26 stories and 519 rooms, plus Tampa's highest rooftop bar in the city and biggest hotel ballroom. A ground-breaking for the project, which has a cost of more than $200 million, took place last week.

• A mixed-use building known as 815 Water Street. It will feature a pair of apartment and condominium towers that both will rise more than 20 stories from a base building that includes a grocery store.

• A separate centralized cooling plant that will pump cold air to buildings throughout Water Street Tampa so that rooftops can be used for bars, pools, urban gardens and dog parks.

• One new office building at the corner of Morgan and Channelside, a second at Water Street and Channelside, next to the new medical school building already under construction for the University of South Florida College of Medicine, and a third project with about 150,000 square feet of offices in the space once occupied by the old theaters at Channelside Bay Plaza. The Channelside offices are expected to include an innovation hub that Vinik plans to create to nurture tech startups.

• About 1,500 residences. Along with 815 Water Street, three new apartment buildings will rise on Water Street. More condos will be built atop a third upscale hotel, a 173-room Marriott Edition announced on April 19. For those new residents, Water Street Tampa's first phase will include a new gym and about 50 stores and restaurants.

Phase 1 buildings are projected to start opening in summer 2020, and construction is expected to be done by late 2021.

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Contact Richard Danielson at rdanielson@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times