Scallop season for Pasco County, which runs July 17-26, is a great way to get outside while social distancing. (Photo: Florida Sports Coast)
To use a sports metaphor, you might say that the Florida Sports Coast, from the moment it was created as Pasco County’s new tourism “brand” in 2018, jumped out to a huge lead, outscored the opponent, boasted a deep bench and an impressive farm system and was on top of the world.
Then, it was as though every single player got injured.
That pretty much describes Pasco County’s tourism in the era of Covid-19.
But, players heal from injuries and so, too, is the Florida Sports Coast ready to get back on the field. Despite rising numbers of positive cases of the virus in June, Pasco County tourism director Adam Thomas has been eyeing July as a launching point for a major comeback.
“July will be big,” Thomas says.
The Tohrs Roller Hockey National Championships accounted for 1,800 hotel room nights in 2019, although those numbers were expected to be down in the current Covid-19 environment. The tournament was held last week at AdventHealth Center Ice; according to the event’s schedule posted online, roughly 130 teams competed.
On the leisure tourism side, scalloping season (July 17-26) is one of the county’s more popular events. Thomas says more than 300,000 people took part or were impacted by the bay scallop season last year.
“People look forward to that,” he says. “It’s a seasonal activity. And, you can practice social distancing in the water. It’s a fun, family activity…like a great underwater Easter egg hunt.”
This will be the third season for scalloping in the county. In 2018, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) finally granted Pasco County an annual scallop season following a 25-year hiatus.
Participants can collect up to two gallons of the bay scallops per day. There are a number of areas on the west coast of the county from which to collect them, from Anclote Village Marina to Hudson Beach Marina, as well as a number of local fishing guides who will be happy to help you catch your limit.
Thomas is hoping both events can begin the reboot of what was expected to be a record-setting year for tourism in Pasco.
In late March, hotel occupancy dropped to 18-20 percent, and is only now back up to around 44 percent. In April of 2019, the county pulled in $430,000 worth of tourist tax revenue, compared to just $93,000 this past April, which is typically Pasco’s biggest tourism month.
The county and private facilities like AdventHealth Center Ice, had to cancel a number of events that typically fill local hotel rooms, like the 2020 Adult Men’s and Women’s National Ice Hockey Championships on back-to-back weekends in April.
“It impacted our revenue stream greatly,” Thomas says.
The county was projected to pull in $3.2 million in tourist tax dollars in 2020, which Thomas says would have been the largest total ever. And, Pasco’s tourism was on pace to hit a number of historical marks.
“In a matter of three months, we went back three-and-a-half years,” says Thomas, who adds that a full recovery could take 20-24 months.
There was some good news —while many events were outright canceled, 13 events have been rescheduled or postponed to a later date.
The county has launched a Get Back To Adventure recovery marketing plan, hoping it encourages people to visit and leave their homes.
“We’re now seeing additional booking that is going to increase our economic impact and demand for visitor and consumers alike to come and enjoy what our destination has to offer,” he says.
For more information about scallop season and other tourism plans, visit FlSportsCoast.com.
The Pasco County Economic Development Council (EDC) is in the process of building a 5,000-square-foot SMARTstart Business Incubator office in The Village at The Grove at Wesley Chapel.
Bill Cronin says that when some people first hear the word “incubator,” they usually think of young chicks being hatched and raised in a confined environment.
That’s not exactly what the new incubator coming to The Grove in the fall is, however.
“The funny thing is, it’s not too far off from the truth,” jokes Cronin, who is the CEO of the Pasco County Economic Development Council (EDC).
Instead of eggs and chicks, though, the SMARTstart Entrepreneur Center and Business Incubator, operated by the Pasco EDC through its SMARTstart Small Business Program, hopes to take business start-up ideas and nurture them into successful enterprises that grow into companies that will stay in Pasco County and bring investment and jobs to the community.
SMARTstart is funded by the Penny for Pasco program.
The Wesley Chapel location will be the third incubator in Pasco County, joining locations in New Port Richey, which focuses on professional services, and one in Dade City that is focused on food innovation.
“They are all looking to build healthy businesses,” Cronin says. “Our goal is to help them become scalable, healthy and strong companies, and that they grow from there.”
The Dade City location, which opened in February, was previously located downtown, but Cronin said so many companies were graduating and then moving back to Wesley Chapel and Cronin says, “it was very clear we needed something in the Wesley Chapel area because that’s the area the demand was coming from.”
So, the Dade City incubator partnered with the University of Florida Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences Extension and is now an incubator kitchen, and Wesley Chapel is getting its own Business Incubator.
“We are extremely excited to be able to offer our area’s entrepreneurs a place within striking distance to all that our county and region has to offer,” says Dan Mitchell, the EDC’s SMARTstart program director. “This third center will continue to allow our start-ups to have a countywide presence with just one membership. At the same time, this doubles the capacity of our impact in Pasco.”
Located directly above the current office of Mark Gold, the developer of The Grove, and his Mishorim Gold Properties, the 5,000-sq.-ft. space will offer a plethora of tools for budding entrepreneurs.
The incubator will have 10 private offices, 32 desks, a co-working lounge, huddle rooms, an executive board room, classrooms, meeting spaces and a digital media studio, for things like podcasts.
Office rental space will be provided, as well as classes on financing, marketing and legal issues businesses may encounter. Sometimes, it’s a fresh idea that needs a helpful nudge, or it can be an already established business that is stuck and looking to get to the next level.
The Pasco EDC also offers micro loans (between $30,000-50,000 are the most common amounts), and being in the incubator offers opportunities for networking and the exchange of ideas and strategies.
The SMARTstart Small Business Program also will operate a space for food entrepreneurs out of one of the re-imagined shipping crates that are part of the innovative KRATE by Gold Box project that Gold is building in his effort to revive The Grove.
Because small businesses have a large fail rate within the first two years, Cronin says the idea behind the incubator is to give businesses the tools they may otherwise lack. Cronin says it is like taking an idea and adding the entrepreneurial approach to it.
“Inventors are good at inventing things,” Cronin says, “but sometimes not as good at getting those inventions to market.”
While many businesses are struggling during the current Covid-19 pandemic, and opening something new may seem ill-timed, Cronin says times of economic turmoil are perfect for a business incubator program.
“This is when you see a big increase in start-up activity,” he says. “This incubator offers them a great opportunity.”
For already-established businesses, the EDC has helped the county provide numerous grants of up to $5,000 per business during the Covid-19 crisis.
The RADDSports team that will open the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County includes (front, l.-r.) Stuart Campbell, Jannah Nager, Nicole Baker, Lyric Hill & Arika DeLazzer; (back row, l.-r.) Ronnie Outen, Richard Blalock, Eric Praetorius & Matt McDonough. (Photos by Charmaine George)
In June, more than 300 teams from around the country competed in youth baseball and softball tournaments at Champions Park in Newberry, FL, a baseball/softball complex which features 16 fields on 40 acres, with plenty of room for social distancing.
Parents were seated beyond the outfield fences, many watching from beneath 10’ x 10’ tents. Dugouts were sprayed with disinfectant, and precautions were taken against the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which had shut all sports down from March to May.
So, when you ask Richard Blalock — the CEO and founder of RADD Sports, which is managing the nearly complete Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County — if youth sports tourism (see story on next page) is ready to bounce back in Wesley Chapel, he is predictably bullish.
“The youth sports travel industry is the most resilient tourism industry out there,” says Blalock, a 40-year veteran of the business and the former parks director for the City of Newberry. RADD Sports also manages Champions Park.
“In 2008 (when the last recession hit), Mickey Mouse was down 38 percent,” he says, “but youth sports was only down three percent. When it comes to parents’ discretionary spending, they most often choose sports.”
Based on the first few months for the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County, parents and athletes definitely are eager to get back at it.
The first event Blalock has scheduled for the new, 98,000 sq.-ft. indoor facility is only six weeks away — on Sunday, August 23 — a Blue Star Basketball event that will feature some of the best girls basketball players in the country.
The following week will be the NIKE Volleyball championships, which will have more than 60 teams in different age groups, and the week after, a 40-team high school volleyball tournament is scheduled.
The campus also is pretty much booked for September, and also already has multiple events planned in October and November as well.
Blalock says his staff is working closely with Pasco County officials on local programming protocols for the weekdays, and hopes to launch a wide variety of recreational and competitive local basketball, volleyball, cheerleading and soccer programs in September.
While recent spikes in positive cases of Covid-19 — including amongst the younger demographics — were again rattling many in Florida as June drew to a close, Blalock is confident youth and adult sports can return safely.
“We’re all just trying to do what we have to do to keep everyone safe, so we can keep allowing the kids to play,” he says, adding that the campus likely will have to limit spectators — where, for example, mom can only come watch her kid play in the morning, while dad gets the afternoon shift.
Covid-19 presents a complex set of unique challenges, and Blalock says the sports tourism industry is undergoing a massive shift to meet those challenges head on. “We have to bob and weave a little bit to figure this out,” he says.
Whatever that transformation will be, it will not only require providing a safe environment, but it will have to assuage parental fears about the dangers of Covid-19 transmission. He says the entire industry is communicating about best practices and sharing ideas, and those have been passed on to his staff during their training for the opening of the new facility.
Regardless, the interest clearly hasn’t waned for cabin-fever-stricken athletes and their families. “We’re booking the thing up pretty quick,” Blalock says.
For registration and other information about the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County (3021 Sports Coast Way), visit Wiregrass-Sports.com or see the ad on pg. 3 of this issue. For sponsorship information, email Jannah@RADDSports.com.
School is returning this fall, one way or another, and area parents have some tough choices to make. Those decisions only get harder with each passing day.
On June 18, Pasco County schools announced that parents will have three choices when classes resume in August. The deadline to choose had been July 1, but it was extended to Wednesday, July 8, the day after this issue reached your mailbox.
The three choices are as follows:
* A return to traditional, brick-and-mortar schooling, with special social distancing and enhanced disinfecting measures implemented, as well as mask requirements.
* Pasco eSchool, a franchise of Florida Virtual School (FLVS), which writes the courses that are taught by Pasco County teachers. Students work on assignments during non-traditional hours, with contact with teachers and classmates during web-based class sessions and other technology.
* A hybrid version of traditional & virtual school, being called “mySchool, for students not yet comfortable returning to campus, but who want to remain connected to their schools.
Students will attend scheduled classes every day via their computers, with synchronous class meetings. Students will have access to teachers during regular school hours, and attendance is taken daily.
As parents wrestled with these difficult decisions, the number of Florida’s positive Covid-19 tests skyrocketed, raising new concerns and doubts, resulting in the deadline extension.
Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning, who announced the Pasco Schools plan, revealed just a few days later that he had tested positive for Covid-19. And, the coronavirus-related death of a 17-year-old Wesley Chapel High rising junior was being investigated by the Medical Examiner’s Office.
The Neighborhood News spoke with three parents, each of whom made different choices prior to today’s deadline. Each parent we spoke with stressed that they would reassess their choice as the pandemic played out, but they were each ready to move forward with what they felt worked best for their respective families.
The Willis family (l.-r.: Ethan, Chloe Alicia & Will) chose the “mySchool” hybrid option for their family for the 2020-21 school year. (Photos: Charmaine George)
Alicia Willis – mySchool
Alicia Willis considers herself an optimist when it comes to Covid-19. She’d like to think the virus will die out or become more manageable before schools re-open in August, or that a vaccine will be found.
But until then, she’s not quite ready to send either of her kids, a rising first grader and a rising fifth grader, back to Sand Pine Elementary.
Instead, she chose the mySchool option for her children, which will allow them to attend school remotely and still follow the standard school schedule and bell times.
Alicia also strongly considered Pasco eSchool, where students work on their own schedules with different teachers than they ones they had in traditional school.
“Going back to brick and mortar was eliminated (for us) immediately,” she said. “I do think they did a great job with the choices.”
Unlike Pasco eSchool. Alicia’s kids still will be learning along with their usual classmates and teachers.
“It was important to me that they get to have the teachers they are familiar with,” she said, adding that she thinks mySchool will make the transition back to regular school, should it come in January, much easier.
Alicia says her kids adapted well to online schooling this spring, and she didn’t mind doing the teaching. But, she also says that her kids asked often about their friends and teachers at school.
Even before the three choices for the fall were put forward by Pasco County Schools, Alicia had decided her kids would be staying home this fall.
And, she said, the rising number of positive Covid-19 cases in late June, just before the July 8 deadline, made her more confident in her decision.
“I believe it will make some parents think twice and possibly reevaluate their decisions,” Alicia said. “Parents going back to work may not have another choice. I’m blessed to have the choice that I have.”
Kelly McDowell, with daughters Avery (left) and Audrey (right), has chosen the traditional brick-and-mortar school option for the 2020-21 school year.
Kelly McDowell – Traditional School
Kelly McDowell started online learning at her house at 8 a.m. every day. She says her third and fifth graders were expected to be up and ready to work. It took only a few hours each day for them to complete their assignments. Sometimes, they would work a little extra so they could have Friday off.
An accountant who is happy she is fortunate enough to have a flexible schedule, Kelly enjoyed her extra time with her kids.
But, Kelly said it could never replicate the benefits of a classroom at a brick-and-mortar school. When it came to making her choice, Kelly chose a traditional setting for her children, and plans to send them back to New River Elementary in August.
“I really feel the social aspect, and face-to-face interaction, is really valuable for them,” Kelly said. “They need structure if school is going to be beneficial (for them).”
Kelly says her job is flexible enough that she could continue to work at home. So, she did seriously consider the online options, and while she says that mySchool may not be feasible for her family, Pasco eSchool (see next column) “might still be in the back of my mind,” due to its more structured format.
But, Kelly’s kids like their mom’s choice. It was what they wanted.
“The kids were very, ‘I wanna go back to school,’” Kelly says. “I told them they would have to wear masks, be extra vigilant and worry not about just themselves, but others, too. They were very adamant about going back.”
With the potential for school openings still more than a month away, and Covid-19 unfortunately dominating the recent news headlines in the Sunshine State, Kelly says she reserves the right to change her mind.
“If Florida becomes the new New York,” she says, “then that decision is going to change.”
When it came to deciding what to do for the 2020-21 school year, Samantha Billington (left, with daughter Alanah and son Travis), chose online options.
Samantha Billington – Pasco eSchool
Samantha Billington didn’t have just one decision to make, she had two.
Her son, 11-year-old Travis, enjoyed his online learning experience last spring when he could no longer attend Union Park Academy.
Her daughter, 15-year-old Alanah, not so much.
As a high schooler at Wesley Chapel High (WCH), Alanah was eager to get back to school to be with her friends. Initially, Samantha thought she would keep Travis home, and let her daughter return to traditional school.
But, the news on Covid-19 just got worse.
“As time went on and we not only had a rise in cases but also a tragic loss of a boy that went to the same school as (Alanah), we decided it was best to postpone the traditional school setting,” Samantha said. “My kids going to school, being in a building with thousands of people five days a week just doesn’t make me feel comfortable.”
That was “heartbreaking” for Alanah, who will do mySchool this fall, with the hopes of returning to the WCH campus in January. But, Travis will do Pasco eSchool, and Samantha said he already has decided he wants to do that for the whole school year.
“We chose FLVS (Florida Virtual School) because we wanted a wider range of options,” Samantha said. “It is all winging it at this point, and we will adjust as needed.”
Samantha is able to work from home, so it made sense for the kids to learn at home. She is confident her children can still have normal social lives via technology and with friends in the neighborhood.
“This virus is not going to just disappear,” Samantha said. “It will be around for a long time and until we have trusted environments, like enforced social distancing and regular sanitizing, or a medical solution, then I feel very confident it will remain an issue.”
At the SVB Tennis Center VIP preview on June 27, (l.-r) Bo Sun, Mark Shepherd, Gary Blissett and CEO Pascal Collard were among those who greeted dozens of well-wishers.
Pascal Collard has been pitching an exciting vision for the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center just outside of Wesley Chapel in Zephyrhills for some time, but on June 27, he was able to show some people how that vision is shaping up.
Collard and his staff hosted a VIP event, complete with beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres, to announce that Advent Health has come aboard as a major sponsor and to show off the new center, which he says should open in August.
While none of the rooms are filled just yet and the tennis, pickleball and padel courts haven’t yet been surfaced, Collard filled in the empty spots with his excitement.
And, with Covid-19 cases in Florida rising sharply in recent weeks, Collard promised one thing — it will be safe.
“I hate to say ‘most sanitized place in America,’ but that’s what we’re shooting for,” Collard said, adding that the center bought 1,000 face masks and put the staff through hours of classes and presentations to keep the facility virus-free.
The indoor portion of the facility will have plenty of space and feature an indoor restaurant focusing in healthy foods — think air-fried fries and bento boxes with edible flowers — with popular local Chef Mark Vesh of Vesh Catering designing the menu.
There also will be yoga, cryotherapy, a salt room, an exercise room and licensed massage tables. The all-around focus of the facility is on health, from exercise and playing tennis to recovery to refueling the body.
Collard also helped create a school — United Global Academy — offering an accredited curriculum for athletes training in tennis, golf, soccer and one of Collard’s own personal passions — skydiving.
And of course, there will be plenty of racquet sports. The SVB Tennis Center will have four padel courts, eight pickleball courts, two hard tennis courts with U.S. Open surfaces, and eight Har-Tru tennis courts with underground irrigation. Collard says there also will be a grass court: “It’s like a little garden.”
A drone shot of the progress on the center, which has a planned Aug. 15 opening date. Photos by Charmaine George.
There will be a viewing court with seating up to 1,000, and able to expand for bigger tournaments to more than 3,500.
The 30,000-sq.-ft. indoor facility with have four tennis courts but can be converted to accommodate soccer, weddings and even concerts.
If everything goes as Collard hopes, the facility will open Aug. 15.
“It’s really starting to come to together, you can just see it,” Collard says. “We’re pretty excited about it.”
For more info SVB Tennis Center (6585 Simons Rd., Zephyrhills) memberships and how to join, please visit svbtenniscenter.com or call (813) 361-6660.
