A thriving, bustling medical school smack in the middle of downtown Tampa? As Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn puts it, this would be a game changer. (If you don't mind a sports analogy about downtown that has nothing to do with actual sports, or baseball, or baseball downtown.)

A very big buzz about downtown Tampa's future has long been baseball specifically how to land the much-loved Tampa Bay Rays here from across the bay one day.

Lightning owner Jeff Vinik made things more immediately interesting recently with his vision for reshaping his own 24-acre chunk of downtown with a sweeping urban district of hotels, shops, commercial space, restaurants and entertainment.

Things are happening. So, about that med school buzz.

The University of South Florida medical school on its main Tampa campus is bursting at the seams and in need of new digs.

Do they expand at the campus or make a big, bold move to give the school urban cachet and help transform downtown along the way?

Imagine students helping to fill a downtown that once slowed to tumbleweed pace when 5 p.m. rush hour hit, living in hipster high-rises, filling pubs, restaurants and stores, taking citified dogs to dog parks on the Riverwalk. Yes, Tampa's newly energized downtown has actual dog parks.

And no, Tampa has not quite reached the breezy, buzzy easiness of living in downtown St. Petersburg, which had a whole lot of historic mindfulness about its waterfront and green spaces. But earlier this year, Buckhorn was at a ribbon cutting for not just another downtown restaurant or hotel these days you can't walk down the street without tripping over one of our fancy hotels but at a veterinarian's office.

Hello, downtown grocery?

The mayor loves the idea of a medical school in our midst, a 24-7 changeup for his city. USF's medical school dean has allowed that it could be an "exciting" option. Vinik's people see its potential in this recent statement: "We admire that USF is dreaming big, and we are doing the same thing!"

The rest is here:

Medical school just what the doctor ordered