The Scrub, once Tampa's oldest and largest African American neighborhood, traces its history to just after the Civil War, when newly-freed enslaved people built homes in a scrub palmetto thicket just to the northeast of the Town of Tampa. The heart of The Scrub was the Central Avenue Business District.
Between 1900 and 1930, the black population of Tampa quadrupled (from 4,382 to 21,551). A 1927 report co-authored by the Tampa Urban League entitled, "A Study of Negro Life in Tampa", addressed the unequal conditions in The Scrub and Tampa's other segregated neighborhoods, including unpaved streets, inadequate water and sewer service, and a lack of parks and playgrounds.
Construction of I-4 and the Urban Renewal projects in the 1960s disrupted business along Central Avenue and dislocated customers. Federal funding allotted to so-called slum clearance programs led to the demolition, in 1959, of the single family homes in The Scrub and the construction of the Central Park Village housing project. Central Park Village was itself replaced by Encore!, The first building of the new development, The Ella, opened in December 2012.