Author: Joel Provenzano

Local Tesla owners, both current and future, will soon have reason to celebrate. There are two new developments taking shape alongside I-75 in Seven Oaks, just south of the S.R. 54 exit, across Eagleston Blvd. from the existing Blue Heron Senior Living facility (see map below). 

Tesla, the electric vehicle (EV) powerhouse, recently poured the future dealership’s concrete foundation (photo, above) for a new one story building, which should be a little over 50,000 sq. ft. total on about eight acres. According to the description in Tesla’s permit, the new dealership will include a service center for electric automobiles, a showroom area, a customer lounge, a break room and office space.” 

The service area is slated to be about 41,000 sq. ft., which is downright huge for any dealership (with more than 50 service bays), leaving just 9,000 sq. ft. for all of the other functions. There will be 20 charging station parking spaces behind the building (of which half appear to be super chargers), and close to another 530 parking spaces onsite for inventory and customers’ vehicles. 

From what we’ve been told, Tesla might still get an offsite lot for additional inventory, depending upon how busy the dealership will be. Based on the number of Teslas already cruising around our area, the dealership could be one of the busiest in Wesley Chapel. 

According to a local Tesla sales representative, the dealership is slated to open by the end of this year. For those unfamiliar, these relatively new dealerships and the whole Tesla sales experience are very different from most other vehicle brands. 

How It Used To Work 

I still remember the very first time I rode in a new Tesla. Many years ago, a Tesla sales person came to my office at the time, in a silver ‘Model S’ P100D sedan. What a great-looking car it was, super clean and very modern. It also was the first time I had ever seen an almost all-white interior. 

Me and three of my coworkers piled in, with the sales person at the wheel, pulling out of our parking lot and onto the local street. He pulled slightly over to the side of the road, went to the drive settings on the touch screen, and went for a button labeled “ludicrous.” 

In my head I was thinking, “Why would anyone label a drive mode that way?” He hit the accelerator and we all found out really quickly how appropriate that name actually was! 

The instant torque from the electric motor was nothing like I’d experienced before, as both my stomach and my brain were being relentlessly pushed into the seat back until he let off at 80 miles per hour, all of us finally able to take a deep breath after what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was less than 4 seconds. 

I had raced motorcycles when I was younger at the local drag strip, but this sedan was faster than that! “What a great way to sell cars!,” I thought. The point of these early demos was to give potential customers more than just a glimpse of these EVs. The idea was to allow you to experience the difference between Tesla and vehicles by any other automaker. 

Back in those days, and for a few years after, the demos were the only way to appreciate a Tesla first hand, unless you knew someone who drove one. You could either book an appointment and drive to a small sales office (if you could even call it that) in some back lot of a corporate park, or if it was being demoed to enough people, the sales people would bring it to your group’s location, as they did in my case. 

But, you couldn’t buy the demo vehicle you tested, as the sales were online only, with a set, no-haggle price. And, in many cases, a deposit was required to secure your place in line to even begin to ‘order’ more popular or upcoming models. 

Even with the new dealerships, however, not much of that sales philosophy has changed, and the Tesla brand takes great pride in its unique way of selling its vehicles. 

How It Works Now 

Tesla sales are still technically online, which means you still can’t test drive the exact vehicle you want to buy. The vehicles are still sold at a set price, with no haggling, and a $250 ordering deposit is required to secure the specific vehicle you want to buy, although the deposit may be less depending upon the model. 

We were told that the vehicle you choose gets removed from the “available inventory” when the deposit is received, or if the deposit is for an upcoming or brand new model, it secures your place in the ordering queue. 

While this may be counterintuitive to the traditional dealership models people are used to, most customers have raved about the simplicity of the process in their Google reviews. 

From what we read in the reviews, and speaking with two different Tesla sales associates, one in the national online/call-in sales office and the other a local (Westshore) sales person we spoke with by text, we got some further clarity. 

The in-person sales associates at the dealership are there to help answer questions (they were good at answering all of mine), review vehicle inventory that may be available locally, help customers place their online order to get an inventory vehicle or a custom-ordered vehicle from the factory, provide and schedule test drives in their demo vehicles, and help customers take delivery of their vehicles when they arrive at the dealership (or if they’re already present in inventory), including providing any remaining paperwork that needs to be signed. 

The sales associates clarified that if a vehicle is in local inventory, that vehicle is assigned to one of the physical Tesla sales offices (or dealerships), and you would have to pick up the vehicle from that specific office when purchased, explaining that inventory vehicles cannot be transferred or shipped to other dealerships or offices for pickup — which can occur within three days for inventory vehicles. 

If purchasing a custom-ordered vehicle from the factory, you can specify exactly which Tesla location you want your vehicle delivered to in the app. 

One thing I’ve always heard is that Tesla can deliver to your door like Amazon, but there’s a caveat to that. The company does deliver to homes through a service called “Carrier Direct” but the Tesla website states, “This fee-based option is available for customers who prefer to have their vehicle delivered, and who live more than 220 miles from the nearest Tesla delivery location.” So basically, this service isn’t available anywhere near Tampa Bay, as the national sales rep confirmed. 

That rep also said that Tesla does take trade-ins. It’s all done over the app at the time of purchase and there’s never an in-person inspection required. They’ll give you a “take it or leave it” price quote for the trade (again, no haggling), and the rep stated that their prices are very competitive with other similar services like Carmax or Carvana. They even encouraged getting quotes from one or both of those services in advance to know whose would be the best. 

Do People Like The Tesla Dealerships? 

This is not the first full-size Tesla dealership to be built in the Tampa Bay area. The first is in North Tampa, on N. Florida Ave., near the intersection with W. Fowler Ave. The location was the former Bob Wilson, Jeep-Chrysler-Dodge that had sat vacant for years. The site already had a parking garage, so Tesla just built a new dealership building on the site in 2018, opening its doors shortly after. 

Currently, there are mixed reviews of the existing Tampa dealership; the positives were mostly those absolutely praising the super simple Tesla purchasing and delivery process, along with staff’s ability to answer questions. 

But, the negatives were mostly about how others have found that the service department was severely lacking, in both the availability of needed parts and installing them, communication with/and scheduling of customers, the exorbitant cost of non-warrantied issues and the overall quality of the services performed. 

We’ll see soon enough how this new Wesley Chapel location will stack up. 

Urbon Apartments Now Have Verve 

The Verve Wesley Chapel luxury apartment complex, formerly known as Urbon at Seven Oaks, is quickly taking shape (right photo) adjacent to I-75, just south of the under-construction Tesla Dealership, directly across the street from Blue Heron Senior Living. 

Verve is a little further ahead of Tesla, with the buildings now going vertical, and with the bare concrete elevator shafts looming like ancient monoliths next to I-75. 

The apartments are being developed by The Collier Companies, which on its website describes itself as, “a multifamily housing management and real estate development company based in Gainesville, FL, [with] 12,000 apartment homes & growing.” 

Collier’s Tampa Bay-area portfolio is situated around USF and includes traditional apartment housing called Lakeview Oaks Apartments on N. 37th St, and two student-specific apartment complexes called Reflections Apartments on E. Bearss Ave. and IQ Luxury Apartments (built in 2016), which are on Bruce B. Downs Blvd., immediately south of the Haley Veterans Administration Hospital. 

The website for Verve Wesley Chapel doesn’t have much information, but it does currently state, “We don’t just rent apartments. From the moment you walk through the front door, you’ll feel the comfort that makes our residents happy to call us home. Cutting-edge amenities, meticulously-groomed grounds and a dedicated staff contribute to a higher standard of living. Convenient shopping, award-winning schools, local museums and parks are all close at hand, with sponsored activities to develop new hobbies while getting to know your neighbors.” 

The complex will be a fairly large one, situated on 16.8 acres and consisting of six 4-story buildings with 360 apartments total — including 144 1-bedroom, 168 2-bedroom, and 48 3-bedroom units. The center of the complex will be situated around a large swimming pool, with an unobstructed pond view towards the sunsets. Other amenities and features, like elevators, a gym, meeting spaces, large common areas, and 30 rentable 1-car garages will be similar to other newer, high-end apartments in the Wesley Chapel area. Verve is expected to open sometime later this year; we did not have information at our press time about what the rents might be.