How easy is it to win a $25, $50 or $100 gift card? Just fill out the form below and if you’re one of the first 100, you’ll get a free square. Before the Feb. 12 Super Bowl, we’ll post the squares so you can see what number to root for. Good luck!
Wiregrass Ranch developer JD Porter says that athletics have always been important to his family, so when the chance came to play a significant role in helping the University of South Florida add a state-of-the-art training facility, Porter said it was impossible for him to resist.
On Jan. 10, Porter and his family were on hand to celebrate the opening of the Porter Family Indoor Performance Facility on USF’s Tampa campus. The 88,000-sq.-ft. facility features a 100-yard turf field, an observation deck, scoreboards, locker rooms, a reception lobby and more.
“We think it’s going to be a difference maker,” said Porter, echoing the sentiment of everyone involved.
For decades, the lack of quality on-campus facilities has been a detriment to recruiting, particularly for football, which also has been saddled by the lack of an on-campus stadium.
But, the Porter family’s $5.1-million donation is the first step towards correcting those deficiencies, and a new on-campus football stadium is right around the corner, perhaps as soon as fall 2026.
At the event on Jan. 10, new USF football coach Alex Golesh said that not having this type of training facility is a huge disadvantage, “but I think a facility like this puts you on a level playing field.”
The Porter family has steadfastly supported USF. The James H. and Martha M. Porter Endowment for Alzheimer’s Research was established to benefit the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s pursuit of collaborative Alzheimer’s research with the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute. In addition, the Porter family started the James H. & Martha M. Porter Alzheimer’s Research Equipment Operating Fund to support equipment purchases for use in that collaborative research.
Porter said his family, which founded a branch campus of Pasco-Hernando State College in Wiregrass Ranch and donated the land for the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, was happy to help, and applauded the team that helped make it happen, which included Wesley Chapel resident (and former Speaker of the Florida House) Will Weatherford, who currently is the chairman of the USF Board of Trustees.
“It was a natural fit,” Porter said. “Athletics and education have always been important to our family, and this was just a great opportunity. Knowing that the right team was at the helm to actually execute the plan made it a fairly easy decision for us.”
AdventHealth Wesley Chapel (AHWC) marked its 10th anniversary late last year, but due to bad weather that canceled its big party, the hospital’s administration and staff, and the Wesley Chapel community, never got to celebrate the big event.
On Sunday, February 5, the official ten-year celebration will finally be held. The hospital, Wesley Chapel’s first, promises a “free, fun-filled day of family-friendly activities and health & wellness for every age” from 1 p.m.-4 p.m.
The celebration will be held in the parking lot behind the hospital, which is located at 2600 Bruce B. Downs Blvd.
AHWC has been a well-known and active fixture in Wesley Chapel, since opening in 2012 as Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, coming along at a time when there was not nearly as much in the area.
“I think we were really the catalyst for the growth here in Wesley Chapel,” Connie Bladon, the director of community outreach for AHWC, told us last October when the hospital turned 10. “You always want a good hospital, (as well as) good schools, safety and security, things like that….Everything (else has) sprung up around us.”
Since opening in 2013, the hospital’s popular 100,000-sq.-ft. health & wellness center building, which is now called the AdventHealth Wellness Plaza Wesley Chapel, also opened, and a major expansion in 2016 saw the number of beds double (from 83 to 169) and the hospital went from having just four operating rooms to its current 12, and from 20 emergency room beds to 35.
There is still room for AHWC to expand to 300 total beds. Since it opened, the hospital’s doctors have performed more than 56,000 surgeries and delivered more than 5,000 babies.
In 2021, AHWC teamed up with the Moffitt Cancer Center on a new three-story, 100,000-sq.-ft. medical office building, a new oncology unit with 24 in-patient rooms and two new operating rooms.
To register to attend, visit AHWesleyChapel.com/Events. — JCC
BayCare Preview Feb. 18!
Meanwhile, BayCare Hospital Wesley Chapel, an 86-bed, state-of-the-art hospital that will open in March is hosting a Community Event preview of the new hospital on Saturday, February 18, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
BayCare Hospital Wesley Chapel will contain comprehensive medical services and health care resources including: Breast health, diabetes and endocrinology, diagnostic services (including imaging and lab), ear, nose and throat, emergency room, gastroenterology, heart and vascular, intensive care unit with virtual-monitoring beds, interventional radiology, orthopedics, primary care, pulmonology and respiratory, rehabilitation, surgery (including robotic surgery), urology, wound care and more.
The family-friendly event will include hospital tours, cuisine from local restaurants, wellness screenings, a local market, live music and entertainment and a kids village with games, activities, puppets and more.
For more information, and to register to attend, visit baycare.org/baycare-is-growing-in-wesley-chapel. — GN
Considering that New Tampa has had its own full-service U.S. Post Office for more than 20 years, it was hard for me to understand why Wesley Chapel has only had a Contract Postal Unit (CPU). In fact, it wasn’t until after I moved out of the community around Saddlebrook Resort in 1995, that Kelly Rossi, who has had the contract to run the CPU in Wesley Chapel for 26 years, took over the operation of the local CPU.Â
But, I have been one of the most frequent customers there ever since, especially since Kelly moved the unit to its current location on Boyette Rd. (after a short stint in a trailer where the current Kia dealership on S.R. 54 is located) a couple of years later.
I can’t even tell you how many times I heard Kelly and her long-time “right hand” Gini Ruggiero explain to customers that if they received notices from the U.S. Postal Service about a piece of Certified or Registered mail or anything they had to sign for, they would have to make the 25-minute (or more) drive to the Zephyrhills Post Office to do so.
Even so, Kelly, Gini and the rest of the staff at the Wesley Chapel CPU, which also had a variety of cute gifts for sale, sold stamps, taped up and accepted Express Mail and Priority Mail packages for mailing and did virtually everything else a “real” post office does other than actually deliver the mail.
The bottom line is that Kelly says she notified the Zephyrhills Post Office in October that it was finally time for her to retire and that Dec. 31, would be her last day. She and Gini are probably still packing up the remaining items in the converted trailer as you’re reading this, so they can vacate the building by Feb. 1.
“It was a very hard decision (to leave),” Kelly said. “I have loved serving the people of Wesley Chapel and I have received such wonderful feedback and made so many really good friends that have become like family to me. But, I haven’t been able to spend much time with my husband and ten grandchildren. It’s just time for new adventures.”
So, What’s Next For The CPU?
David Walton, who is in Corporate Communications with the U.S. Postal Service, told me in an email that although there are still no plans for Wesley Chapel to get its own full-service post office, there is still an opportunity for someone to become a new Wesley Chapel CPU contractor, although he notes that it may not necessarily be in the same location.
“The previous CPU was located in a leased facility,” Walton wrote in his email. “CPU operators need to provide their own space. I bet if (interested parties) contact the previous CPU operator, she would gladly share the name of her former landlord.”
And, even though I had been previously told that a new Wesley Chapel CPU contractor had already been selected, Walton said at our press time, “It’s my understanding things never materialized with the other party who had expressed interest. If (anyone) is still interested, I would highly recommend they reach out to the Zephyrhills Postmaster.”
Kelly believes the earliest a new CPU can open here is the end of Feb. or the beginning of March, but until that happens, Wesley Chapel residents will have to travel to Zephyrhills, Land O’Lakes, Lutz or New Tampa for postal services without additional convenience charges.
As to why Wesley Chapel isn’t getting its own full-service post office, Walton said:
“The Postal Service closely monitors growing communities. We expand service when necessary to meet our customers’ needs and to maintain a quality level of service. However, community growth in itself is not sufficient cause to establish an independent Post Office. We generally consider establishment of an independent Post Office when present postal facilities fail to meet the needs of the community.”
We will keep you posted about the CPU.
Most Saddlebrook residents are aware the once-prime development they live in is showing signs of age, and has been badly in need of a refresh for years.
However, what new owners Mast Capital have planned for the resort and surrounding community isn’t quite clear, residents argued on Jan. 5 at a Pasco County Planning Commission meeting in New Port Richey.
While Mast Capital’s plans to redevelop Saddlebrook by changing the county’s comprehensive plan and producing a new Master Planned Unit Development (MPUD) managed to pass the planning commission by a 5-2 vote and will eventually require approval by the Board of County Commissioners (BCC), most of the 100 or so opponents that showed up to the nearly four-and-a-half hour meeting left scratching their heads.
The issue for most of them was clarity.
What the plans were clear about was adding apartments, townhomes and more than 100,000 sq. ft. of retail and commercial space outside the gates of the resort, on the undeveloped land along S.R. 54. However, the details were murkier regarding what is actually going to happen inside the gates of Saddlebrook, particularly with the renowned golf courses, tennis courts and resort.
“We were very disappointed,” said JoAnn Barbetta, who along with husband Larry formed the Save Saddlebrook Coalition last month. “I was really surprised that they (the Planning Commission) could move forward to recommend something that seems so lacking in detail.”
Eran Landry, the managing director of Mast Capital, told the Planning Commission members that the resort would receive a significant upgrade “and be much more upscale than what it’s been.”
Plans include 5,000 sq. ft. of retail, a new 12,000-sq.-ft. clubhouse, renovated restaurants, new outdoor amenities, improved dorms and additional parking.
Landry mentioned ice cream shops, splash pads and a more family-friendly environment, upgrading the “underwhelming” pool and improving resort rooms “that just aren’t competitive” in today’s market.
But, the plans for the two Arnold Palmer-designed golf courses and driving range (which is currently located near the entrance of the resort and serves as the training center for Saddlebrook’s golf academy) riled opponents.
While Mast’s original plans to add 60 single-family homes and 100 townhomes over one of the golf courses were scrapped, Landry said the 36 total golf holes would be reconfigured to 27 holes, and the driving range would be relocated.
He did not say who was going to redesign the newly configured golf course, saying Mast was in talks with the late Arnold Palmer’s design company and another golf course designer, and did not say where the driving range would be moved.
Also, there were questions over what would fill any space remaining in the aftermath of reducing the number of holes, and how that would affect home owners who bought their homes for the golf course views.
Jacqueline May, a teacher at Pasco-Hernando State College, held back tears as she told the Planning Commission members that her and her husband’s home was their retirement nest egg, and that they purchased it because of the view and the natural beauty surrounding it.
“We love nature and it hurts my heart when developers come in and mow down every tree to get every dollar out of every inch of land,” she said. “That’s why we bought in Saddlebrook.”
There also was no mention by Landry about whether or not there were any plans for the tennis courts in the same area. Saddlebrook has notably been the training ground for professional tennis stars like Martina Hingis, John Isner, Jennifer Capriati, Jim Courier and many others.
Changes Along S.R. 54
Plans for the two outer parcels were clearer.
Mostly west of the main entrance at Saddlebrook Way on S.R. 54, a 35-acre parcel will include 75,000 sq. ft. of commercial, 465 apartments and 35 townhomes. An additional road, the long-rumored Vision Rd. which is eventually supposed to connect to both Wiregrass Ranch Blvd. and Bruce B. Downs Blvd., will be built to accommodate additional traffic in and out of the new development.
Justina Gale of Florida Design Consultants told the Planning Commission this area would become a true mixed-use integrated and multi-story project, with retail on the bottom and offices above it, with the apartments further back off S.R. 54. It will include trails, neighborhood parks, plazas and will “create a sense of place.”
An additional 19-acre parcel further west will include another 25,000 sq. ft. of commercial as well as 120 townhomes.
Opponents cited traffic as a concern — there is only one way in and out of Saddlebrook, which they say will create traffic jams. They also said replacing the green space along the resort’s entrance with apartments and restaurants was incompatible with the nature theme the resort has cultivated for more than 40 years.
“Saddlebrook is a gem and needs to be treated that way,” JoAnn Barbetta said. “Growth and development is a part of our life and I understand that. But, there comes a time when we need to take a pause, step back and ask whether we want to completely alter the character of a beloved, historic community like Saddlebrook.”
The Planning Commission had concerns with the lack of detail in the plans, as well as a few errors and omissions. Chief assistant county attorney David Goldstein, who did not have a vote, questioned whether that lack of detail “would put the Board in a bad spot.”
Planning commission member Jon Moody was the most outspoken against approving the plans. He had originally flagged them when they hadn’t been seen by residents and somehow ended up on a consent agenda, which recommends approval without debate, leading to the Jan. 5 meeting where residents could hear about and finally see the plans and voice their concerns.
“I will tell you I would not feel comfortable today denying this application,” Moody said. “But I would feel more comfortable if it were brought back to us with more detail at a later date.”
Planning Commission chair Charles Grey sympathized with the concerned residents, especially those who fear losing the golf course views they paid a premium for decades ago, but also told them they needed to understand that, “if you don’t do something, your beautiful development is going to die.”
He voted against forwarding the plans to the BCC, but urged the residents to work with Mast.
After some consternation, the Planning Commission moved the plans forward, with a hopeful request that more details are provided will be by Mast Capital in the proposed MPUD before the BCC has its say next month.