Although we don’t know exactly when, New Tampa is getting yet another non-chain restaurant.
After years of being home to a Beef O’Brady’s and then, for a short time, the ill-fated Chefs of Napoli (and for about a minute, Regina Margherita), the westernmost corner location in the Cross Creek Commons plaza on Cross Creek Blvd. at Morris Bridge Rd., will apparently be home to The Grill at Morris Bridge.
Located to the west of Great Expressions Dental Center (photo) and just two doors down from Publix, which owns the 18-year-old plaza, The Grill at Morris Bridge is currently under construction, a $250,000 job that, according to plans filled with the City of Tampa, will include a restaurant and bar.
We’re also not sure what kind of food the new place will be offering, but the new restaurant will be about 2,400 sq. ft. inside, and will have seating for roughly 145 customers. The Grill also will have a 240-sq.-ft. outdoor patio on the far west side parallel to Meadows Rd. (facing Heritage Elementary), as well as a bar with 16 seats.
Here’s hoping The Grill at Morris Bridge will be opening sooner than later. — JCC
The Bean Bar Co. Coffee & Artisanal Eats
The new The Bean Bar Co. Coffee & Artisanal Eats is now open in the Shoppes at The Pointe at Tampa Palms plaza, near Koizi Endless Hibachi and Palms Pharmacy at 17018 Palm Pointe Dr.
The place looks awesome inside, with a hip and artsy interior and casual seating for customers. If you’ve ever enjoyed The Bean Bar’s coffee drinks from their mobile unit, you know you’re in for a treat.
So, go check them out in person, or visit BeanBarCo.com or call (814) 442-7699 and please tell them I sent you.
• Speaking of beverages, both the second location of Provisions Coffee & Kitchen and the new Mint Cocktail Lounge are expected to open soon in the Palms Connection plaza on E. Bearss Ave., just west of BBD.
As mentioned above left, the first Provisions is now open at the KRATE at The Grove container park. The second Provisions is expected to open a week or two before Mint, which is owned by the same owner as the Bearss Tavern & Tap in the same plaza. Mint will have full liquor and bar snacks and it is beautiful inside.
• And, although it’s only an unconfirmed rumor as we went to press, we’ve been told that the end cap in the Shoppes at Amberly plaza in Tampa Palms previously occupied by McNatt’s Cleaners (and Cotney’s Cleaners before that) will be a drive-through bagel place. — GN
While many New Tampa parents can sign their kids up for leagues in sports like baseball, basketball, football and soccer that they themselves played as kids, the same opportunity hasn’t existed for the area’s large Indian population.
But now, that has changed.
Nagesh Nayak and Prahlad Madabhushi, the president and managing director, respectively, of the Tampa Premier League (TPL) — which is based at Wesley Chapel District Park on Boyette Rd. — have begun holding youth cricket camps at New Tampa’s Community Park on Thursday nights. The hope is to take younger kids and spark interest, and provide the tools and knowledge, in a game that is near and dear to the hearts of their parents and their Indian culture.
“The reason we started it was there was a great deal of interested parents, asking if there was any cricket coaching for their kids,” said Madabhushi. “There is a large Indian population in New Tampa, so there was a lot of demand.”
Nayak and Madabhushi reached out to City of Tampa Council member Luis Viera for a place to hold their camps, and Viera helped secure the New Tampa location.
While you can find kids learning how to play in the streets and playgrounds in India (like American children learn baseball, basketball and soccer), that is not the case for cricket in the U.S. Nor are there any leagues for younger players, like Little League baseball or Pop Warner football.
Nayak says he would like to provide something close to that for interested players in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel. The goal is to develop new players who could then advance to playing actual matches in local adult leagues.
Roughly 40 eager players showed up on Sept. 23 for the first New Tampa camp, which has 4-6 coaches available to teach each week. The kids, who range in age from 5 to 16, are shown how to throw and hit the ball, while also learning the rules of the game.
“I think everyone liked what they were experiencing,” says Nayak, an accomplished cricket player himself. “Hitting the ball, throwing the ball, catching the ball….especially hitting the ball…they enjoyed it.”
Madabhushi has been pleased with the early reception to the camps.
“It’s been amazing,” he says. “The kids are so into it, some of them don’t want to go home. And, the parents appreciate it as well.”
While the first camp hosted all children of Indian parents, Nayak says the camps are open to everyone. In fact, he says, because of the similarity to baseball — both sports involve a pitcher (called a bowler in cricket) throwing to a batter whose goal is to hit the ball — he’d be interested to see current and former baseball players take a shot at cricket.
“I think that would be a good transfer of talent,” he says.
Nayak and other adult players in the area typically play on Saturdays and Sundays on a makeshift pitch on some extra, unused land at the Wesley Chapel District Park, roughly five miles north of New Tampa. Their hope is to eventually secure a regulation field, level and well-maintained, at the same park, for future matches and tournaments.
As the new players at the New Tampa camp develop and learn the game, they could graduate to games in Wesley Chapel with the better players.
“Out of the kids we had out there, 25 are between the ages of 5-12,” said Madabhushi. “But, there’s also about 8 or 10 of them who are ages 13-16, who we can take it to the next level. The first step is to move up to the adult league, and when they get familiar with that level, to take them to tournaments.”
Weather permitting, the camps are held every Thursday from 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. and cost $70 for eight weeks of training.
For more information, email tampapremierleague@gmail.com, or visit Facebook @TampaCricket.
After years without a permanent home, the New Tampa Players could soon have two homes — at the University Mall, where the theatre troupe celebrated signing a lease (above), and at the forthcoming New Tampa Performing Arts Center in the new Hunter’s Lake development.
Although the New Tampa Players (NTP) have big plans for when their permanent home at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center (PAC) opens behind the Village at Hunter’s Lake plaza (off Bruce B. Downs Blvd.), the theatre troupe isn’t missing a beat in the meantime, as it brings the performing arts art to the community in and near New Tampa.
Last month, NTP officially cut the ribbon on Uptown Stage, its black box theatre at the University Mall on E. Fowler Ave.
Moving from space to space is nothing new for the local community theatre troupe, which is made up of performers from all over the Tampa Bay area. In the nearly 20 years since New Tampa Players were founded in 2002 by Doug Wall, it has never had a permanent home.
While NTP signed a lease for the Uptown Stage in early 2020 and began performances and activities there earlier this year, the troupe held off on an official ribbon cutting until September 14.
“We used Covid to remake the space,” which used to be a Radio Shack, says Nora Paine, NTP’s producing artistic director. “We did a soft opening through the summer, just to get our bearings and get used to producing stuff in that space. Then, we scheduled the ribbon cutting for September so more people could attend after summer vacations.”
Paine’s role as producing artistic director is new. After serving as NTP’s volunteer president since 2017, and volunteering for the organization for 13 years overall, NTP named her its first official employee.
Because of NTP’s growth and expanded vision, the organization agreed to a governance change and chose Paine to serve in a role that functions as both the troupe’s CEO and artistic director.
She oversees all of the activities at Uptown Stage and is looking forward to when NTP can move into the PAC, as well.
“We will keep Uptown Stage even when we move,” says Paine. “It’s a good space for small shows.”
She says the PAC will be a big stage with 350 seats, allowing NTP to bring back big musicals that are loved by the community, such as “Annie” and “The Little Mermaid.”
At the Uptown Stage ribbon cutting, Hillsborough County commissioner Ken Hagan said the PAC will be ready to open sometime between Aug. 2022 and Jan. 2023.
“But, if we want to do smaller shows with less name recognition, or do some things that are normally not done, Uptown Stage will be a great spot,” says Paine, “so we intend to keep both going.”
The Uptown Stage space also allows NTP to stage smaller productions, where people who have never been in a show and would like to try can gain a small experience to help them develop their acting “chops.”
Uptown Stage keeps NTP close to the audience they’ve developed while performing at the nearby University Area Community Center the last few years. As the Center’s own programming grew, however, the performances could no longer be supported and NTP had to find a new location.
The first show at Uptown Stage was held in May. For NTP’s summer season, small groups performed “The Amish Project,” “Motherhood Out Loud,” “Bloom” and “Polka Dots.”
The space also is used for Saturday morning arts classes for students at nearby Muller Elementary. These often bring in guests to connect kids to the arts, and range from puppet theatre to acting to painting.
“Uptown Stage allows us to continue to pursue our mission to give as much access to the arts to as many people as possible in Tampa,” says Paine.
More than a half-dozen additional shows remain for NTP’s 2021-22 season. In January, for example, the troupe will present “Black Butterfly, Jaguar Girl, Pinata Woman and Other Superhero Girls Like Me,” in cooperation with Tampa City Ballet, combining the arts of theatre and ballet for the audience. Tampa City Ballet’s Paula Nuñez will choreograph pieces especially for the NTP production.
Coming up next is a production called “The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later,” which is a follow-up to “The Laramie Project,” a show about the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. “10 Years Later” is from the same creators, looking at what happened in the decade after that tragedy.
“Lots of people do ‘The Laramie Project,’” explains Paine, “but I haven’t seen ‘10 Years Later’ done anywhere in this area.”
“The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later” opens on Friday, October 15, at Uptown Stage. Tickets are available at NewTampaPlayers.org /tickets.
In addition, this fall will mark Season 2 of NTP’s “Amazing Arts Challenge,” a reality show modeled after “The Amazing Race” on CBS-TV. It sends teams all over Tampa as a way to bring arts organizations together and share with the community all the “cool arts stuff” in the area.
Last season featured well-known spots like the Tampa Theater and Straz Center, along with lesser-known murals, dancing companies, and more.
“We were looking for a way to brings arts organizations together during Covid,” Paine explains. “We wanted to be outside and not have people packed closely together, and give people the opportunity to watch from home but not be sitting in front of a computer for hours.”
Last season’s Amazing Arts Challenge can be viewed on the website, as well.
Anyone interested can learn more on the NTP website at NewTampaPlayers.org or by emailing Nora.Paine@NewTampaPlayers.org.
District 7 Tampa City Council member and New Tampa resident Luis Viera was happy that so much of the City of Tampa’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget benefits our area.
The City of Tampa’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget includes money for things like fire stations and better roads, but the process, for a change, didn’t involve having to put out any proverbial fires nor did it even encounter any bumps in the road.
Instead, it was smooth sailing, as the Tampa City Council unanimously approved Mayor Jane Castor’s $1.8-billion budget on Sept. 28.
There was nothing but praise and back slapping as the budget passed its final challenge, and few Council members were happier than District 7’s Luis Viera, whose district includes the city portions of New Tampa.
Not only did Viera help secure millions for fire rescue overhauls in the North Tampa area of his district, but there were also millions more included for a number of New Tampa projects, like a future Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) Station (No. 24) in K-Bar Ranch and $1.6 million for the completion of the New Tampa Inclusive Playground, as well as almost $3-million for the repaving of Tampa Palms Blvd. (see story on pg. 4).
“I want to highlight that this is a really historic public safety budget,” Viera said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people, and they tell me they have never seen a budget like this.”
While maintaining high standards of public safety is arguably the most important task of City Council members, issues related to fire rescue reached a boiling point late last year, when a report released by the International Association of Fire Fighters showed major issues with the city’s fire rescue network.
While Fire Station No. 13, located near Busch Gardens and the busiest station in Tampa, also is located in Viera’s district and was of the greatest concern, the four Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) stations currently located in New Tampa are all among the six with the slowest response times in the City.
New Tampa’s four TFR stations include: No. 20 (located on Bruce D. Downs Blvd. in Tampa Palms), Nos. 21 and 22 (both located along Cross Creek Blvd.), and No. 23, which opened in 2019 on Trout Creek Ln., just south of County Line Rd.
The budget includes about $5 million to fix the issues in North and New Tampa. Roughly $3.5 million will go towards building and staffing Station No. 25, a few miles west of the beleaguered Station 13.
The rest will go towards Station No. 21 upgrades ($160,000), a heavy duty rescue vehicle for 21 ($810,000) and $650,000 towards the design and planning of a new station, No. 24, in the K-Bar Ranch area.
“I know the people of District 7 are very, very thankful to the Mayor and the Council for their collaborative leadership,” Viera said at the Sept. 28 Council meeting. “That means millions of dollars for North Tampa. And a brand new fire station, that is a major thing….as well as millions for New Tampa which has 4 of 6 longest response times in the City of Tampa.”
The new budget went into effect at the start of Fiscal Year 2022 on Oct. 1.
This and other portions of Segment 1 of Tampa Palms Blvd. will be resurfaced and restriped, but city planners have bolder plans for the failing road, like reducing it from two lanes in each direction to one. (Photo provided by the City of Tampa)
Tampa Palms Blvd. is getting repaved, thanks to nearly $3 million in the City of Tampa’s 2022 budget, and planners would also like to put the failing roadway on a… well, diet.
That was the suggestion at a Sept. 28 virtual presentation and Q-&-A session, as the city kicked off the public input portion of the planned redesign of Tampa Palms Blvd.
Cal Hardie, P.E., the City of Tampa’s capital projects manager, said the best solution to the main concerns raised in past meetings about Tampa Palms Blvd. — namely pedestrian safety and speeding along the arterial roadway — would be to reduce it from four lanes to two lanes, while adding other safety enhancements.
“There is a need for traffic calming and there is speeding along the corridor,” Hardie said. “The fact that you can’t enforce the speed limit makes us look for other means of controlling speeds. With that in mind, we developed a concept to take out a travel lane (in each direction).”
According to a recent study, the average driving speed in the corridor is 47 mph, and 43 mph in school zones. The current speed limit is 40, which would be reduced to 35 mph under the new design.
The loss of a lane didn’t seem to sit too well with some of the residents on the virtual meeting call, where they were able to ask questions and make other suggestions.
Most of those who submitted questions offered other their own solutions, like keeping the four lanes and just narrowing them, worried that reducing the roadway to one lane would cause bottlenecks.
“The prospect of taking (a lane) away from Tampa Palms Blvd. seems to be something of a stretch,” said District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents New Tampa. “But I’m certainly here to listen.”
Hardie said traffic calming could be accomplished by narrowing the existing lanes, “but it’s not nearly as effective as actually removing a travel lane.”
Tampa Palms Blvd. is being resurfaced in two segments – the south loop (or Segment 1, see map on next page), which runs from the north intersection of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. to the south intersection through Tampa Palms Areas 3 and 1), and the north loop, or Segment 2, which runs from the south intersection of BBD to Ebensburg Dr. In Tampa Palms Area 2.
Both segments are great candidates for a “road diet” according to Hardie, based on current ADT (average daily traffic) numbers. Segment 1’s ADT number is 9,515 daily trips, a number expected to rise to 11,611 by 2040.
Segment 2, the shorter of the segments, has 3,455 daily trips and is projected to have 4,216 by 2040.
Hardie says anything under 10,000 is considered a great candidate for reduction, and 10,000-15,000 is considered a good candidate. Because Tampa Palms is mostly developed out, those numbers aren’t expected to fluctuate or change much, he added.
Hardie unveiled a rather expansive plan, called a Complete Street Project, that goes far beyond just repaving the cracking road from Ebensburg Dr. to the south intersection with BBD, and then continuing on to the northern intersection.
The portion of Tampa Palms Blvd. north and east of Ebensburg Dr. to BBD was previously resurfaced in 2012 and is not included in the project.
A two-lane Tampa Palms Blvd. will reallocate right of way space for buffered bicycle lanes, enhanced crossings, additional school pickup lanes for Tampa Palms and Chiles elementary schools and even include roundabouts at the northern and southern intersections at Compton Dr.
Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs), or pedestrian-activated warning devices, would be installed at the highest volume crossings at Amberly Dr. (west & east of BBD), Treeland Ct., Tampa Palms Trail and the northern intersection of Compton Dr.
The intersections at BBD themselves would remain untouched.
Hardie is aware that there will be resistance to the initial plan.
“This is the beginning of our public input,” he said. “This is not the not final design. This is basically our first stab at what we think is possible, based off some of the feedback we initially received. This is just the beginning of the dialogue.”
And, by the way, none of it is funded, he added. Only the resurfacing and restriping of Tampa Palms Blvd. is accounted for in the city’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget at this point. Hardie said more meetings will be planned in early 2022, before the resurfacing begins.
