FROM THE FIRST TIME I tried the true New York-style pizza at my friend Willie Lopezâs La Prima Pizza (it was called by another name at that time), I felt it was the closest thing to the pizza places I grew up with in Long Island and Manhattan, NY.
Since then, in addition to a few first-place finishes in our annual Reader Dining Survey & Contest, La Prima has been named my Favorite Pizza Place in New Tampa & Wesley Chapel all 16 years it has been in business. It also has been one of my favorite restaurants in Wesley Chapel and one of my favorite Italian restaurants in either of our distribution areas.
It therefore isnât easy for me to say â or even think â that Willie would even consider selling his place, but the former executive at Salomon Bros. and his wife Lucretia say they are tired and want to be able to retire, so Willie can concentrate on his thriving baseball memorabilia business. The lifelong New York Mets fan has adopted the Tampa Bay Rays as his American League team and he has had Rays season tickets for as long as Iâve known him.
Hereâs The Skinny
Established in 2003, La Prima Pizza has been family owned and operated and a staple in the Wesley Chapel and New Tampa communities for the past 16 years.
Willie and Lucretia also say they are prepared to provide an âopportunity of a lifetimeâ to any individual/family dreaming of owning and operating their own business. This turn-key establishment offers a huge existing customer base and tremendous future growth opportunities for the appropriate fit.
And, just because there are really so many very good pizza places in our area, I felt I owed it to myself and my staff to order the amazing meat lovers pizza (left) before writing this story. Senior video producer Gavin Olsen also raved about his pepperoni calzone and sales/office assistant Janet Levins loved her cheesesteak.
In other words, if youâre not going to buy La Prima Pizza (1211 BBD Blvd., next to Super Target), you should stop in, call (813) 907-2878 or visit ThatsGoodPizza.com and place an order today. But, Willie says if you are interested, you should call him at the restaurant â whether or not you have any prior restaurant experience. Willie says he will help in the transition of the business and transfer all of his knowledge to any qualified party. But, do it soon so Willie and Lucretia can retire and I can continue to enjoy the pizza I love!
After being removed from the Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) during the economic downturn in 2008, the widening of Old Pasco Rd. will be getting a fresh look.
The countyâs Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) voted unanimously last month to put the idea of widening the two-lane road back on Pascoâs LRTP.
While still a long way from any concrete design and plans, transportation projects can only be funded if they are on the LRTP, so itâs a start.
âNow, we can figure out how to get it funded, what it might cost and look at a newer study of the road,â said Pasco Commissioner Mike Moore, who represents District 2, which includes most of Wesley Chapel.
Moore says he has been pushing for an examination of Old Pasco Rd. for the past two years.
Old Pasco Rd. is no longer simply a minor roadway that winds through a sleepy part of Wesley Chapel from S.R. 54, past Overpass Rd., into San Antonio, and all the way to S.R. 52. Instead, it is evolving into is a main arterial roadway that goes by the new Cypress Creek High Middle/High School and future performing arts center, new housing developments and a soon-to-be-built business park.
âI personally feel itâs a priority to get it done,â Moore says. âItâs a pretty skinny road the way it is, and with a new school and additional homes, I have concerns about the traffic and the safety of those who live and drive in that area.â
It was during the summer of 2018 that Moore and District 1 Commissioner Ron Oakley ignited the debate, following the re-zoning request that cleared the way for 2,250,000 sq. ft. of office and light industrial entitlements to be built on roughly 91 acres of land on the east side of Old Pasco Rd., just south of Overpass Rd., near Cypress Creek Middle/High.
With plans already underway to widen Overpass Rd. and the addition of a new intersection with I-75, more traffic on Old Pasco Rd. â including big trucks coming to and from the Overpass Business Park, as it will be called â is a certainty.
Coming Soon: More Traffic
While portions of Old Pasco Rd. will be widened during the construction of the soon-to-be-built Overpass Rd./I-75 intersection, Moore would like to see a plan to widen Old Pasco Rd. all the way from S.R. 52 to S.R. 54.
He says he knows it will be expensive, but adds that the area is quickly growing. In addition to the school, there are 400 new homes approved for construction in Quail Hollow, and a 264-unit Arbours at Saddle Oaks residential development at the intersection of Old Pasco Rd. and Country Club Rd.
Commissioner Moore says he has met with local residents on a number of occasions over the past two years, and says a large majority of the people heâs spoken with want to see the road widened. But they want it done right â with a median and sidewalks and bike paths, all things that make it safer for pedestrians and vehicles.
âThey want it done right,â Moore says, âand I agree.â
HDR Engineering, Inc., is currently conducting a road safety audit (RSA) and study for Old Pasco Rd., to determine if there is a need for the widening. That study is looking at the Old Pasco Rd. intersections with S.R. 54, Post Oak Blvd., Foamflower Blvd., Dayflower Blvd., Country Club Rd., Bonnie Blue Dr., Deedra Dr., Sonny Dr., Lindenhurst Dr., and Overpass Rd.
It will be years before the project comes to fruition, and the amount of right-of-way land that would need to be purchased will make it an expensive endeavor.
âIt wonât be easy,â Moore admits, âbut I really think it needs to get done.â
A mock-up of a proposed indoor athletic facility for Wesley Chapel District Park from 2004.
Plans to build a $3-million indoor athletic facility at the Wesley Chapel District Park (WCDP) are moving forward, following some heated debate at the Jan. 22 Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BOC) meeting about whether or not the commissioners should delay it.
At the BOC meeting, where commissioners were expected to approve the choice of the construction company tabbed by county staff to build the facility, District 4 commissioner Mike Wells seemed put off by the lack of notes by evaluation committee members in the committeeâs final recommendation of Wannemacher Jensen Architects.
Comm. Wells said he wanted to see the notes the staffers took to make their final decision, which was unanimous. And, because those notes werenât available, he suggested, âthat all of the proposals be rejected and that the project be re-solicited.â
Requiring that every company that submitted bids and presentations do so again would delay the project by as much as six months.
The Consent Agenda is usually a list of items that the county staff has recommended for BOC approval. Sometimes, but rarely, items are pulled from the Agenda to correct a mistake, or to be debated. Wells pulled the Wesley Chapel facility item from the Consent Agenda, something he said he has done only one other time in his career as a commissioner.
âItâd be nice to be able to go back and look at the notes,â Wells said.
County purchasing director Stacy Ziegler told the BOC that proper procedure was followed during the selection process, and that tapes of those meetings are public.
âWe followed a process that we have been following for the last six months, since we updated our purchasing manual,â Ziegler said. âWe feel weâve done our due diligence and our recommendation should stand.â
Wells, as well as District 5 Commissioner Jack Mariano â who originally seconded Wellsâ motion to reject the selection â seemed miffed that Spring Engineering, Inc., wasnât chosen.
Spring Engineering and its CEO, Richard Bekesh, each donated $1,000 to Wellsâ reelection campaign in 2017.
Located in Holiday, FL, Spring Engineering was ranked as the seventh choice out of nine by the countyâs evaluation committee, which was made up of assistant county administrator Erik Breitenbach, director of facilities management Andrew Baxter, chief project manager of the facilities management department TJ Pyche, director of parks, recreation & natural resources Keith Wiley and Brian Taylor, the manager of parks, recreation and natural resources.
Comm. Mariano said the county should be pushing local companies, and he had a problem with Spring Engineering, a local company, not making the top two, even though he did not attend any of the evaluation meetings. In fact, he and Wells both hinted at including county commissioners on the evaluation committees in the future, and later Mariano even suggested the companies should re-present to the commission.
Mike Moore, the commissioner for District 2, which includes most of Wesley Chapel, was visibly frustrated by Wellsâ maneuverings, and argued that redoing the entire process would be a waste of time, and unfair to the companies bidding â as well as to the Wesley Chapel residents awaiting the new facility.
âIf you go through the whole process and they write comments down and the results are exactly the same, then what?,â Moore asked.
Moore has been a proponent of building the indoor facility at WCDP, where the Wesley Chapel Athletic Association runs youth leagues in a variety of sports. The WCAAâs basketball leagues are currently held on outdoor courts, a less-than-ideal setting considering Floridaâs hot and often rainy climate.
An indoor gymnasium would allow the basketball leagues to be played indoors. It also would create an opportunity for gymnastics and volleyball leagues to be played, as well as adult recreation sports like pickleball.
The 13,000-sq.-ft. recreation center would also have meeting rooms and offer local residents a place to gather for meetings, exercise classes and parties.
Moore said he thinks more than 1,000 local athletes and residents will be impacted by the facility.
âThere are a lot of people waiting for this to be done,â Moore told his fellow commissioners. âThey need this to happen on the timeline we said it was going to happen.â
The idea for an indoor facility at the WCDP, which is currently just a collection of lacrosse, soccer, baseball and softball fields, with outdoor basketball courts and three tennis courts, has been bandied about since 2005, but the money hasnât been available to build it.
The county has allocated $2.5-million towards the project, which comes from developer impact fees, Moore said, and could be completed by summer 2020.
Last October, the county officially solicited bids for the project, reaching out to 551 vendors via email, including 34 from Pasco County. Nine responses were received, and Spring Engineering was the lone bidder from the county.
On Nov. 29, the evaluation committee independently scored the proposals, settling on a final four of two firms from St. Petersburg and two from Tampa. On Jan. 3, the remaining firms gave presentations to the committee, and all five members ranked Wannemacher Jensen Architects, Inc., of St. Petersburg, No. 1.
Harvard Jolly, Inc., also based in St. Petersburg, was named No. 2 by four of the five committee members.
Wells seemed perturbed that there was a wide difference in rating points between some of the firms during the process, seeming to suggest that those results somehow made the process flawed. Mariano hinted at some sort of bias. Spring Engineering, for example, was scored an 82 by one committee member, but only 46 by two others.
âThis is about picking the most qualified person, and I donât think we did that,â Wells said.
Following the debate, Wells again motioned for the recommendation to be rejected, but Mariano declined to second it and it passed 4-1.
Congratulations to the Cypress Creek Middle/High girls soccer team, which won the Sunshine Athletic Conference East Championship.
The Cypress Creek girls soccer team played its inaugural season last year, and like you might imagine any first-year program with a first-time coach working with a roster of freshmen and sophomores would, struggled and won only three matches.
While that first season may have created modest expectations for this year, the Coyotes blew those to smithereens this past season, which they put a stamp on with a regular-season ending win over a 16-4 Wiregrass Ranch squad.
That win gave the Coyotes the countyâs Sunshine Athletic Conference East championship. It is the first title, and sports trophy, for the second-year school.
âWe just kept winning and the stakes kept getting higher,â says Coyotes coach Jennifer Richardson. âWe were hoping to have something to put in the trophy case.â
Right now, the trophy case at Cypress Creek has a picture of the team and a ball in it. Thanks to goals from juniors Abby Murphy and Sophia Mitchell, who combined on a corner kick with two minutes left to beat the Bulls 2-1, that is about to change.
âBecoming conference champions wasnât an expectation for us in the beginning of the season,â said Mitchell, who scored nine goals this season. âI honestly would have been happy with just a winning record. We started out our season with an 8-1 win over Gulf, and both Emily Dominguez and I had hat tricks in the game. There couldnât have been a better season opener. After that, we just kept on winning.â
Sophia Mitchell battles for a loose ball during a game this season.
The Cypress Creek girls were 7-0 in conference games â including a 3-2 win over Wesley Chapel and the 2-1 title clincher over Wiregrass Ranch â and 13-4 overall.
It was a 3-2 win in December, over county powerhouse Land OâLakes, which had advanced to the state final four the previous three seasons, that convinced the young Coyotes something special might be in store for this season.
âThat was a tough, physical game,â Richardson said. âAfter that, we realized that we could really accomplish something this season.â
While expectations were low to start the season, they grew quickly, as the wins piled up and Regan Bourne (team-high 13 goals), Mitchell (9) and Dominguez (9) began to rack up goals.
The teamâs success in Pasco County, however, couldnât be duplicated elsewhere, due to the misfortune of being placed in a brutal district, Class 2A District 9, with the likes of Berkeley Prep, Academy of the Holy Names and Clearwater Central Catholic. The Coyotes lost to all three during the season by a combined 15-1 score, but took Berkeley Prep the distance in the district playoffs, falling 1-0.
Of the 17 players on the varsity roster, only three are seniors and only senior Katelyn Leavines was a starter. The Coyotes are hoping to jump out of 2A-9 and into 3A-7 with Wesley Chapel and Pasco, or even 3A-8 with Land OâLakes and Sunlake.
âIâm hoping they re-do the numbers and move us out of the classification,â Richardson said. âWeâre sitting at around 1,100 students now for high school, and weâd like a chance to be more competitive in 3A.â
An FHSAA meeting in March will determine re-alignments for winter sports teams. Currently, the parameters for student population in 2A are 432-1,199 students. Class 3Aâs range is 1,200-1,720.
âI canât wait to see what next season will look like,â Bourne said.
Running a textile business in Baroda, India (500 kilometers south of Bombay), Dinesh Patel never considered a career in early childhood education. He loved children, their smiles and their laughter. But, aside from the joys of raising his own children, the possibility hadnât crossed his mind.
He moved to the U.S. in 1987, by way of Fort Pierce, FL, and got into the retail business, running a convenience store and later a motel. Then, a close family friend invited him out to Houston to look at a franchise heâd just obtained â The Goddard School.
The rest, as they say, is history, as he now owns The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel, located on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. across the street from the AdventHealth Wesley Chapel hospital.
Patel says his business experience and his love of kids made him a natural fit for a Goddard School, which uses a dual management system, incorporating both a business manager and an education manager at each school.
Also to Patelâs liking was the schoolâs track record â The Goddard School is a 30-year old national franchise with 500 schools in 37 states (and in Washington, D.C.).
â(Goddard) gives you knowledge and all directors have to go through the training,â Patel says. âGoddard (corporate) even assigns someone to your school for support.â
The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel opened in May of 2017. Patel brought on his second education director, Christie Lemar, in August of 2018.
Lemar was the Director of Youth Development at Brandon Sports & Aquatic Centerâs child care center, where she ran a Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) and after school programs, which consisted of roughly 180 children. The skill set lined up perfectly with the direction Patel was already taking the school.
The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel added VPK classes in 2018, and recently acquired a small bus in order to expand into after-school care.
âThis spring, we hope to have three VPK classes,â Patel says. âVPK is important to prepare a child for kindergarten. It helps make for a soft transition. They go (into kindergarten) with computer time, sight words and math (knowledge) already.â
VPK is a free program for any family in Florida. All parents need to do is fill out an application with the Department of Stateâs Office of Early Learning. Patel also has applications at the school.
âThe classes are for three hours, Monday through Friday, and the state pays tuition for anyone,â Patel says. âNormally, middle class people donât qualify for any benefit, so this is a great opportunity.â
The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel offers three different times for VPK classes to accommodate parentsâ schedules. Thereâs also a wraparound program that offers hours beyond the VPK time.
There are even full-day options, that go from 6:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. The school also is open during many public school holidays.
Patel says the summer camps, which were offered for the first time by The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel in 2018, will be expanded in 2019.
The Education Side
âI believed in the quality of the instruction and I saw the activities that were planned,â says homeroom mom Faye Adams. âI saw how well organized they were. They had fun things for the kids to do. Itâs not just child care; you know that theyâre learning.â
Adamsâ son Christian, who is 5, took VPK at The Goddard School last fall. Even as a third-grade teacher with more than a decade of experience and teacher ambassador & spokesperson for the Foundation for Excellence in Education, Adams was impressed with what Christian got out of his experience at Goddard.
Now, Adams is the local Goddard Schoolâs education specialist.
âI help teachers with their lesson planning, and help make sure they are hitting their standards,â Faye says. âThere are seven domains, including science, math, motor skills, art, music and movement and our task is to find engaging activities, books and resources that will help target those skills and meet state standards.â
There are 14 teachers at The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel, and every lead teacher must have a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential, and oversight from the The Goddard Schoolâs Quality Assurance program can be rigorous. The program stays in contact with the school on a weekly basis, assisting in every aspect, from the building to staffing to curriculum.
Goddard representatives also stop by to ensure corporate standards are being met and to offer hands-on assistance.
âAt any level, if we have a problem or need guidance, they (Goddard) can always help us get through it,â Patel says.
Additionally, there are bi-annual assessments from the state for the VPK program. Three months ago, Patel joined the Accredited Professional Preschool Learning Environment (APPLE) program, a national early learning program accreditation. In Florida, APPLE is accepted as one of Floridaâs Gold Seal Quality Programs.
âAPPLE has monthly training for teachers, helps with restructuring classrooms and also strengthens academics,â Patel says.
Having Fun With It
Enrichment programs specific to Goddard include Spanish, sign language, yoga and B.A.S.E. (Balance, Agility, Strength and Endurance) for Fitness, which is specifically designed for preschool children with those four curricular goals, all of which address physical fitness.
Lemar and the teachers come up with fun ways to teach the programs.
âYou wouldnât even know weâre working on it,â Lemar says. âFor instance, in our 12-to-18-month-old class, we use the word, âaguaâ instead of âwater.â We use signs for, âmore foodâ or âIâve had enough.â This works particularly well for those who are non-verbal.â
It works well for those in between verbal and non-verbal, as well, she adds.
âFour months into the program and Iâve already noticed the progression,â Goddard Wesley Chapel mom Brittany Williams says. âShe (daughter Savannah) was pretty much non-verbal when she got here. Now she knows all her colors and numbers.â
The FLEX Program, a Goddard standard, stands for Fun Learning EXperience. In the program, teachers are given the freedom to create their own lesson plans.
âThey can create fun activities to achieve those goals,â Patel said.
Extras…
The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel also uses the Tadpole app, an application parents can download to their computer or smartphone that shows lesson plans, snapshots of what their child did during the day, even on down to what they ate for lunch.
âThe parent can still ask how the childâs day was but now they can actually look at the report,â Patel says.
For additional costs, Mr. Tommyâs Mobile Music Bus comes to the school every Tuesday.
Soccer Shots, a soccer program that is, according to its website, consistently recognized by Entrepreneur magazine as the top Childrenâs Fitness Franchise in the U.S., also comes in once per week.
And, this past December, the school hosted its first Angel Tree Program, providing gifts for nearly 20 needy children.
The Goddard School of Wesley Chapel is located at 2539 Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. The schoolâs hours are Mon.-Fri., 6:30 a.m.-6 p.m. and prospective parents are welcome any time during business hours to schedule a tour of the school. For more information, call (813) 603-6100, or visit http://www.goddardschool.com/Tampa/Wesley-Chapel-Bruce-B-Downs-Boulevard-Fl. Or, see the ad on pg. 28.
