A drumbeat of recent departures has hollowed out senior leadership in Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s housing and economic development teams a little more than a year into her second term.

Now, Castor has tapped someone to help fill the void, at least until permanent replacements are hired.

Abbye Feeley, a longtime city employee who most recently held the title of deputy administrator of development and growth management, will soon become the interim head administrator of economic opportunity and development, the Tampa Bay Times confirmed Friday. She is considered among the mayor’s most trusted confidants.

Her position change has not yet been formally processed, city spokesperson Adam Smith said, and likely won’t take effect until next week.

Feeley steps into the shoes of Nicole Travis, Tampa’s top staffer overseeing economic development who left the city earlier this summer. She announced her resignation in April.

A slew of other senior officials have since said goodbye.

Feeley’s “appointment will relieve some concerns in the business community, and go a long way toward answering questions about where we go from here with all the recent resignations,” Tampa-based governmental relations consultant Stephen Michelini told the Times.

“It’s a start,” he said, praising her work ethic and institutional knowledge. “She’s going to need a lot of support.”

Less than two months after Travis announced she was leaving, her deputy, Alis Drumgo, handed in his resignation. Then the director of the city’s community redevelopment agency, Erica Moody, decided she would leave after just a year of working for the mayor’s administration.

In mid-June, Kayon Henderson, director of housing, submitted her resignation. Later that month, city planning director Stephen Benson resigned, too.

“I know that it makes a good story to connect all of these because they were all in close proximity but there is no connection,” Castor told the Times in a recent interview, adding that the cluster comprises a slim proportion of the city’s overall workforce.

She pointed to the advisory teams she convened early in her first term — teams that gave reports and recommendations Castor said offered roadmaps to keep the city moving forward, despite the staffing reshuffle.

“We have well-laid plans,” Castor said.

The city has remained mum on concrete rehiring plans, stirring concern among some of the city’s business and development crowd. Castor told the Times that her administration would be conducting a national search to find Travis’ permanent replacement — and possibly looking nationally for the deputy position, too.

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In September 2020, Castor tapped Feeley, a former city planner who left in 2018, to direct a reimagined planning and development office to keep on top of growth and steer it in the right direction in a newly named city department called Development & Growth Management.

At the time, the mayor called the department “key to the success of my administration’s key focus areas.”

Of Feeley, she added: “Her expertise will be instrumental in transforming Tampa’s tomorrow.”