Category: Business

JD Porter isn’t looking to develop Wiregrass Ranch with just anything.

He wants earth-shakers and difference-makers. He wants heart-stoppers and jaw-droppers.

He wants unicorns.

AdventHealth Wesley Chapel? That was a unicorn. 

“No one believed that was happening,” he says of Wesley Chapel’s first hospital.

The Shops at Wiregrass? 

“I don’t think our family thought that was possible,” he says of Wesley Chapel’s first mall.

Pasco Hernando State College? The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus? Raymond James Financial (which chose Wiregrass Ranch out of 78 different sites, according to Porter)? And, most recently, Orlando Hospital (see story on pg. 4)?

Unicorns.

“Every time there’s been something that would be the holy grail, whether by chance or we’ve just done things the right way or a combination of both, we’ve gotten them,” Porter says. “Then, when you get them, you’re like, ‘okay, what’s next?’”

Those unicorns, which have provided jobs and people to the area, now surround what will be the centerpiece of the 5,100-acre Wiregrass Ranch Development of Regional Impact (DRI) — the long-awaited Wiregrass Ranch Town Center.

Porter says the Wiregrass DRI, which is being developed by his family’s Locust Branch, LLC, and extends from S.R. 56 north to S.R. 54, and west to east from Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. to Meadow Pointe Blvd., will soon have its biggest missing piece.

While it doesn’t have any publicly announced tenants just yet, Porter and Scott Sheridan, the chief operating officer of Locust Branch, LLC, are making the kind of careful choices that will cement the roughly 100-acre Town Center as what they expect to be the downtown area of not only Wesley Chapel, but north Tampa as well.

“We are laying the groundwork,” says Sheridan. “We are having active conversations with users who will be a key part of the Town Center. It’s all about finding the right blend.”

There are plenty of options, and Porter and Sheridan are in no rush to make any of them.

“No town center, no downtown has had this much space set aside ahead of time,” Porter says. “In today’s environment, there’s nobody that would sit on property that valuable in order to let it grow We’ve already started planning by how we’ve oversized it in order to see what it actually could be, versus what can we throw in here just because we sold everything around it. That, to me, makes it much more attractive as a canvas. Nothing is forced.”

One major component of the Town Center, which Porter hasn’t mentioned before, will be a potential four-year college, keeping with the education corridor concept hatched years ago along Mansfield Blvd. (home to an elementary and high school and Pasco Hernando State College, a two-year institution).

“I think (a 4-year college) would be a great fit,” he says. “It would benefit everyone in the county.”

Porter also says that he’d like to see an ethnic grocery store, maybe a local butcher, baker and seafood guy, among a large assortment of small family-run businesses.

“I want it to be somewhere you go if you want something authentic,“ he says. “Where people don’t mind paying a little extra for something real.”

Porter wants plenty of civic uses. He says he’d like to see someone relocate their Master’s degree, MBA or nursing programs to the Town Center. According to Porter, Pasco County already has asked to reserve 75,000 sq. ft. of office space at the site in order to build a county center.

Also exciting are the possibilities – and there’s already been talks — of mid-rise buildings with structure parking. 

“That changes the skyscape,” Porter says. “It changes what we’re going to look like. It’ll be done better than anyone else in the county….and in North Tampa, by far.”

Restaurants, Too

When it comes to restaurants, high-end establishments like Cooper’s Hawk, which will open next year, will be chosen over many of the national chains you see on the west side of I-75. In fact, Porter says he can see another 5-6 restaurants coming to Wiregrass Ranch in the same category as Cooper’s Hawk.

Although he can’t say which ones until later this year and early next year, he says to get a good idea, take a look at some of the more upscale restaurants along Boy Scout Rd. in the Westshore area of Tampa, where you’ll see at least two or three restaurants that will be coming to Wiregrass Ranch in the future.

“We’re looking at higher caliber and quality,” says Sheridan. “We’ve turned down quite a few places and elevating who we’re talking to.”

Sheridan says some smaller restaurants that will bring a more local hometown feel also fit into the plans. Both Porter and Sheridan say finding the right balance between big and small, and local and national, is the key to building a successful Town Center.

And, for those who worry that brick and mortar is going to one day envelop the remaining country charm of Wiregrass Ranch, Porter says he is not just giving lip service to making sure plenty of the land he grew up on survives.

“There’s going to be programmed green space throughout the Town Center,” he says. “We will create something everyone talks about, but never delivers. We’ve probably spent as much time planning that out as what the streetscape will look like. It’s ever-changing. We’ve got the ability to do some really creative stuff. It will shine in a way that nothing else has, I think that’s fair to say.”

With careful direction — “It’s critical that it comes off as well-designed,” Sheridan says  — Wiregrass Ranch’s Town Center is set up to succeed.

With housing developments like Esplanade 55+ (860 homes), Estancia (1,184), Persimmon Park (450) and an entirely new, yet-to-be-named 2,000-home subdivision to be built east of Wiregrass Ranch Blvd. behind the proposed Town Center, there will be plenty of customers for whatever Porter brings to town.

“The most important aspect of getting this stuff is making sure that you’re not only successful on a Thursday and Friday night, but that you’re staying busy as hell all the time,” he says. “When your doors are open, you’re all packed up. That’s the thing we’re addressing way more than anybody else in the county.”

To feed those future retail and commercial tenants, the Town Center will receive the benefit of foot traffic from Orlando Hospital and Raymond James Financial employees, which will number more than 5,000 once both places are built, a sports campus that already attracts thousands of athletes and their parents every month, not to mention the schools and a mall that will be walking and biking distance away.

And, that doesn’t even include the rest of the Wesley Chapel, Zephyrhills and New Tampa residents that are within a short drive. In fact, from K-Bar Ranch in New Tampa to the proposed Town Center will be less than a 10-minute drive.

Patience, Porter says, will soon pay off for everyone in Wesley Chapel.

“As soon as you see Orlando Hospital start doing stuff, you’re going to start seeing the infrastructure in the Town Center come at the same time,” Porter says. “Then, it becomes a reality vs. we have cow pens there now. It becomes easier to sell it. Now that we have an announcement, now that we have permitting, we’re actually set up to start telling a significant story.”