Category: Featured

Firm Picked To Design New Tampa Performing Arts Center!

In one of the more significant steps in the long, sometimes-tortured history of a proposed cultural arts center in New Tampa, the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has approved the hiring of a firm to design the facility.

Last month, the BOCC awarded a $598,413 contract to Fleischman Garcia Architects to draw a plan for the long-awaited facility, which is now officially being called the New Tampa Performing Arts Center (NTPAC), after years of being referred to as a “cultural center.”

“It’s an extremely significant and critical step in the process,’’ said District 2 county commissioner Ken Hagan, who represents New Tampa and has been involved in the project in various forms since it first sprouted in 2001. “It’s an important move.”

The design of the center — which will be located directly across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the main entrance to Hunter’s Green, in the new Village at Hunter’s Lake development — is expected to be completed by the end of the year, with bidding for the construction services tentatively scheduled for May of 2020.

It is hoped that the $6-million construction of the NTPAC will begin sometime by November 1, 2020, and is expected to open by Jan. 1, 2022.

The facility — long-heralded to be the centerpiece of the New Tampa community — will be 20,000 square feet on its first floor, with the capability to have a 10,000-sq.-ft. second floor added later.

The building will include a 350-400-seat theater/multi-purpose room and stage to be used for community theater performances. It will be the home of the New Tampa Players (NTP) acting troupe, which currently stages its performances at the University Area Cultural Development Center (UACDC) on N. 22nd St., just south of Bearss Ave.

The stage area at the NTPAC will be more than 2,000 square feet, and Hagan said it will include an orchestra pit that he helped add after meeting with the NTP and addressing some of their requests.

The center also will host cultural/arts education classes, as well as meetings, banquets and other events.

There will be 1,040 square feet dedicated to NTPAC operations and education programs employees, including an office for the NTP.

The education wing will feature two studios with ballet and dance floors, mirrors and movable walls.

Hagan made note that the NTPAC also will be sustainable, incorporating solar power and electric vehicle stations.

Plans for the NTPAC date back to 2001, when a Connecticut firm was paid $27,000 by the City of Tampa for a study that determined New Tampa could support a small cultural center of its own.

A nonprofit group, called the New Tampa Cultural Arts Center, was offered the six acres of land it requested for the project, but the city requested the group come up with a $10-million endowment to pay for it, which killed the effort back in 2005.

Doug Wall, who was involved with those initial efforts, revived it again in 2007. But Wall, the New Tampa Players president and founding artistic director, could not secure the funding and he passed away in 2017.

Former county commissioner and Tampa Palms resident Victor Crist helped keep the project alive as he worked on finding funding. In 2014, the larger Village at Hunter’s Lake project, of which the NTPAC is a central part, was approved.

In a 2016 meeting at Hunter’s Green, Crist told the NTP he had secured partner-ships with the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, the Patel Conservatory and the Prodigy Cultural Arts Program to bring gravitas to the project and elevate it to a high-level arts center.

THE BEST

The first truck pulled up to Wharton High in 1997, and head custodian Tirso “Junior” Cintron was waiting.

He pulled the first chair off the truck. The first desk.

“The first everything,” says Carmen Aguero, one of the first teachers at the school.

Junior set the desks and chairs up in the classrooms and offices. He made sure the bathrooms had toilet paper and soap. The lawn was mowed. The floors were shined.

Wharton was ready.

And every day, for the next 22 years, before any teachers and students arrived for the day, thanks to the diligence, determination and dedication of Junior, you could count on one thing.

Wharton High was ready.

* * *

Junior’s last day at Wharton was August 26. To say he will be missed hardly does his legacy justice.

“I’m telling you, and this is no exaggeration, he is the most beloved person ever to walk the halls of Wharton High,” says Tommy Tonelli, a guidance counselor and the school’s long-time, beloved boys basketball coach. “He has done more for Wharton in the history of our school than any other person that has ever worked here.”

That’s high praise from Tonelli, who isn’t prone to hyperbole. He was one of hundreds of friends that Junior made at Wharton over the years. Junior’s retirement party on Sept. 12, Tonelli says, will be the most attended retirement party ever at New Tampa’s oldest high school.

A school custodian can be a thankless job, and rarely does one rise to the level of hallway celebrity, but Junior somehow did just that.

He was always affable, earnest, positive, productive and those who knew him say he never had a bad day.

He arrived every morning at 5 a.m., checked the air conditioning, swung by the kitchen to make sure the cooks had gas, went building to building turning off all 16 alarms, and made a sweep of the school to make sure everything was safe and ready for another day.

During the day, he answered calls on his radio for assistance, never saying no, never sighing, never hanging his head. When the school served as a hurricane shelter, it was Junior who made sure everyone was as comfortable as possible.

Even the dreaded call to clean up after a sick student — the one task he liked least — was hastily handled.

“I am an easy person,” Junior says. “I always had a good attitude, that’s why I win so many people. If a teacher saw me in the hall and said she needed a new board in her room, when she showed up the next morning, the board was there.”

Wharton career counselor Magda Rodriguez has a student take a picture of her and Junior, one of her best friends at Wharton.

Junior, 67, was born in Puerto Rico and moved to The Bronx, NY, when he was 18. He worked as a waiter in a hotel for 17 years, met and married Rosa, his wife of 42 years, and started a family — daughters Elaine and Jennifer, who are now teachers in Hillsborough County, and son David, who is a U.S. Marine.

In 1989, the Cintrons moved to Tampa, where Junior started work at Hillsborough High from 2:30 p.m.-11 p.m., while holding a second full-time time cleaning floors at Tampa General from 11:30 p.m.-8 a.m.

Those at Wharton can thank Aguero for Junior. The two met when Junior was the head custodian at Hillsborough.

When she was promoted to the athletic director at Wharton, and the new school was looking for a custodian, she had one word for principal Mitch Muley: Junior.

Aguero lured him to Wharton, where Junior soon became indispensable.

“He was the heart and soul of Wharton,” she says.

Aguero chuckles recalling the time Junior helped chase away the biggest squirrel either of them had ever seen, and the time he had to remove a dead alligator from the tennis courts.

When Aguero left Wharton to become principal at Webb Middle School, she had her head custodian sit down with Junior, “to teach him how to do the job right.”

Junior had his own way of dealing with problems. When parents complained that their kids said there were no soap dispensers in some of the bathrooms, Junior explained that the school couldn’t replace the ones student were destroying fast enough.

When the parents showed up to discuss the issue a second time, he was ready with a pile of smashed and broken soap dispenser. “After that, they never call me again,” Junior says.

When some kids made fun of him for being a custodian, he pretended not to understand or would just ignore them. Those that didn’t, he would fist bump or salute.

“I was like that with them all time; they would say ‘he’s cool,” Junior says, smiling proudly. “They like me because I’m cool.”

Junior loved joking with students and teachers, and wasn’t above the occasional prank. One of his favorite victims was Tonelli.

Despite the basketball coach’s fear of frogs and snakes, that didn’t stop Junior one time from putting a frog in a bag of donuts he left for Tonelli. Junior waited in an adjoining room with some other teachers, all eagerly waiting to hear the reaction. Junior leans forward as he tells the story, slapping his knee.

And yes, Tonelli was still Junior’s biggest fan.

“They should rename the school after him,” Tonelli says. “That’s how much he has meant to Wharton High School.”

On Junior’s last day at Wharton, he was summoned to the auditorium where the school’s teachers were waiting for him. He received a standing ovation, two sweaters for the winter — he hates the cold — and lunch.

He got a second lunch later when the ladies who work in the cafeteria made him his favorite — pork, rice and black beans.

“Two big lunches,” Junior says, grinning ear to ear.

However, even the happiest guy in world couldn’t escape the sadness on that last day. At 2:30 p.m., he took his radio and told everyone it was time for his final call. He thanked current principal Mike Rowan and all the teachers, and it was as if the entire school wept along with Junior.

Then, he walked out the front door, turned around, and gave the school he had served for 22 years one last glance.

“I looked at everything, and I say, ‘Okay. That’s it.’”

Wharton

Run/Walk To Kick Off 9/11 Memorial Saturday at TPO

Every year when the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel is handing out miniature American Flags on the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, current club president Chris Casella is moved to tears.

People who lost a brother, sister, loved one or a friend thank Casella and his fellow Rotarians, and share their heartbreaking stories.

“It never fails,” says Casella, who, due to an injury, was on limited duty as a sworn officer with the New York Police Department (NYPD) when the World Trade Center towers crumbled to the ground.

The latest project hatched by Casella and his fellow Board member Troy Stevenson and the Rotary Club is Pasco County’s first permanent 9/11 Memorial, which will be dedicated at the Tampa Premium Outlets on Saturday, September 7, at 8:46 a.m., the time the north tower was struck in 2001.

Stevenson is a 13-year first responder with the National Disaster Medical System and U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services. Casella and Stevenson have received a lot of help from not only their fellow Board members, but especially from Wesley Chapel resident Stephen Spelman, a retired Fire Department of New York (FDNY) emergency medical technician who was at the foot of the north tower when it collapsed.

The dedication of the new memorial will follow a one-mile Memorial Run/Walk at TPO — which will begin at 7:30 a.m.. The run/walk is open to all ages and is $10 per person to participate. All net proceeds will go to fund local scholarships for graduating high school students in Pasco County who intend to pursue careers as first responders.

The centerpiece of the 9/11 Memorial will be a 2-foot piece of the ladder from FDNY Ladder Truck 18 (photo), which will be framed and hung on a 25-foot stretch of wall at TPO’s food court. The wall will have a vinyl wrap depicting images from that day, as well as the names of everyone who perished.

According to Casella, FDNY Ladder Truck 18 was destroyed by falling debris, but the firefighters on the truck were all spared.

“Everybody on that truck survived by jumping under the ladder,” Casella says.

The ladder segment belongs to Spelman, who received it for being a scheduled guest speaker at a ceremony on 9/11/17 at the Motts Military Museum in Ohio, which he was unable to attend, due to Hurricane Irma.

For the past two years, Spelman and Casella have discussed what to do with the piece of ladder. Ideas ranged from donating it to a library or local firehouse to building a memorial, which wasn’t financially feasible.

While organizing the Memorial Run/Walk with TPO, one of the mall’s executives mentioned that he had been approached by a guy looking for help with a possible memorial. Casella asked if the guy’s name happened to be Steve…and it was.

Once TPO agreed to host the 9/11 Memorial by donating the space, plans took off and eventually came to fruition.

Casella also has been active in organizing events to benefit first responders, such as having Rotary Club members serve breakfast at all of the Fire Rescue Stations in Wesley Chapel and the Pasco Sheriff’s District 2 office in Dade City each year on 9/11.

The 9/11 Memorial and run/walk, however, may be his proudest achievement. “It’s emotional for me, and I know it is for Steve as well,” Casella says, his voice cracking. “Memorializing it is a big deal for, I think, everybody. It’s something we’ll never forget.”

Casella says the response to the Memorial Run and 9/11 Memorial has already been “incredible.”

Spelman has been in contact with two women who lost their husbands on that terrible day who also will share their stories at the dedication. Surviving first responder John Berrang also recently emailed Casella to applaud the Rotary Club’s efforts and said he’d like to participate in the one-mile run, despite currently undergoing treatment for stage 3 cancer contracted at the World Trade Center site. It was an email that Casella says was both inspiring and difficult to read, but a reminder that Sept. 11 remains a terrible day with a lot of meaning to many people.

“Thanks again,” Berrang wrote to Casella, “for remembering the heroes we lost on 9/11.”

For more information or to sponsor the Walk/Run, visit WCRotary.com/911-Memorial-Mile, or email Casella at Cdcasella@me.com or Stevenson at Troynyc65@aol.com.

9/11 NYPD tampa premium outlets

A Playground For Everyone

Mike Moore spends a lot of time at the Wesley Chapel District Park (WCDP) on Boyette Rd.

Sometimes he is coaching. Other times he watches his three kids participate in other activities. And other times, he has noticed the absence of children with disabilities, who don’t get the same opportunities his kids do.

“A void,” he calls it.

A few years ago, Moore, the Pasco County Commissioner for District 2 and Seven Oaks resident who represents most of Wesley Chapel, started out on a mission to fill that void.

On Aug. 6, Moore revealed his work to his fellow county commissioners, as plans to build an inclusive playground that is welcoming to those with physical disabilities — and to those who care for them — sprang to life.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research the last couple of years, looking at other inclusive parks around the country,” Moore says. “I thought it was something we should do here. I wanted to figure out a way to make that happen.”

With help from the local community, including the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel and the Lennar Foundation, the county commission accepted a total of $120,000 in contributions towards building the new playground — with $5,000 more in contributions expected — and agreed to kick in $215,000 of public money as well.

The $340,000 is expected to cover the entire cost of building the inclusive playground.

Moore says that work could begin on the park in about six months.

The response from the community since the announcement has been overwhelming, Moore says, noting that he has even received calls from others looking to make donations, and parents of children with disabilities who are overjoyed.

The playground is not just for children with disabilities. The goal is to build a playground that is available to everyone, and isolates no one. It will be the first of its kind in Pasco County, but not the last, Moore hopes. He says that for every 1,000 children in Pasco County, there are 85 who have some type of special needs. The Pasco County School District says there are 16,000 children with special needs countywide.

“We want a place where kids have the opportunity to participate and not just sit on the sidelines, no matter what their abilities are,” Moore says.

While many area parks may be compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines, few truly meet the standards of what proponents consider to be inclusivity.

To meet those inclusive standards, many of these playgrounds incorporate wider pathways and easier-to-navigate surfaces, activity panels that are at ground height, larger swings with more back support and sensory elements that include touch and music.

While the local playground may focus on physical activities, Moore says promoting socialization is a significant benefit of inclusive playgrounds, which bring kids who might otherwise shy away from others due to their disabilities together by promoting active play.

“We want a place that takes away the social barriers and gives parents an opportunity to participate as well,” Moore says. “Parents don’t always feel they are part of something, because their kids can’t take part.”

Getting The Ball Rolling

Once Moore hatched the idea, he went to Keith Wiley, the director of the county parks department. With a new indoor recreation center on the way to the WCDP as well, Moore had synergistic goals.

Wiley’s reaction? He says he was thinking the exact same thing.

“Our team realized the need for more special needs summer camps, but where would they go?,” Wiley says. “That I got that call (from Moore) was an amazing coincidence.”

There are few offerings within 30 miles for area residents to take their children to. At the park at the New Tampa Recreation Center, some swings were outfitted last year to accommodate children in wheelchairs. And, in another part of Tampa Palms, an autism-friendly sensory park is in the design phase, although no money was included in the recent fiscal 2019 City of Tampa budget to begin construction.

To help raise the needed funds, Moore reached out to some reliable community partners.

As a former member of the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel (and still an honorary member), Moore presented a proposal to the club, whose Board thought it was in line with their mission and agreed to donate money from a special charitable fund the club created.

“Years ago, when I was president, (former club president) Dane Parilo, Mike and I got together, and we had this vision — what if we could (start a special fund); what if we could raise money for future projects?,” says Eric Johnson, the past president of the Rotary Club. “And, it’s all coming to fruition right now. We are very excited about this opportunity.”

According to Johnson, Rotary District 6950 (which includes about 40 Rotary Clubs) is giving a $10,000 grant to match the Wesley Chapel Rotary’s donation of $35,000, and the club plans on donating $5,000 more to be raised from their Casino Night fund raiser being held tonight at Lexington Oak Golf Clubs, bringing their total donation to $50,000.

That is one of the club’s biggest donations to date.

The Rotary Club will maintain a butterfly garden adjacent to the playground.

The Lennar Foundation also is donating $50,000.

“We are very excited and grateful (to be involved),” said Arcadia Solesky, director of marketing for the Lennar Foundation.

Meanwhile, AdventHealth contributed $25,000 to the project.

“Our brand promise is to feel whole,” says AdventHealth chief financial officer Tyson Davis. “I can’t think of a better way to apply that brand promise in our community than being a part of this project.”

Perhaps no one, however, was more pleased than Moore. He says the inclusive playground will go down as one of the highlights of his career.

“It’s not always the government doing things, it’s the community coming together for the betterment of all of our kids,” he said. “After this project is done and complete…this will rank as one of the top things we’ve ever done.”

inclusive playground wesley chapel district park