AdventHealth & Moffitt Partner Up In WC!

A rendering of the new outpatient center for cancer patients is to the right of the main AdventHealth Wesley Chapel hospital (while the existing AHWC Wellness Plaza is to the left). (Rendering courtesy of AdventHealth Wesley Chapel)

Plans to expand the services at AdventHealth Wesley Chapel (AHWC) have been in the works for more than a year, but for hospital president and CEO Denyse Bales-Chubb, the most important thing was finding the right partner.

She is convinced the hospital has done just that.

On May 21, AHWC and the Moffitt Cancer Center officially broke ground on a new outpatient center to serve cancer patients as part of a new medical office building on the AHWC campus.

The new medical office will be the bookend on the south side of the hospital along Bruce B. Downs Blvd., with the similarily-sized, existing Wellness Plaza  on the north side.

AHWC president and CEO Denyse Bales-Chubb

“We believe that the community here in Wesley Chapel is in need of having some cancer specialists they would be able to access, so it was natural we would go and talk to Moffitt,” Bales-Chubb said at the packed groundbreaking event. “They have the expertise, the awards and the skills we are looking for in our community.”

According to Bales-Chubb, the second medical office on the hospital’s campus also is necessary because the first one is full and cannot add anymore physicians. One of the pressing needs AHWC was looking to fill was cancer treatment. “It’s a natural fit,” she said.

The groundbreaking for the three-story, 100,000-sq.-ft. medical building was attended by more than 100 community members, local leaders and officials from AHWC and Moffitt. It was heralded as a breakthrough moment for medical service in Pasco County.

Nearly a third of that space will be used for the cancer outpatient center. AHWC’s own spine institute, which has outgrown its current space in the Wellness Plaza, also is moving the services moving into the new building.

A close-up artist’s rendering of the new medical building at AdventHealth Wesley Chapel.

The rest of the space will be used for other services and Bales-Chubb hinted that more partnerships could be on the way.

“The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered and, in order that the sick may have the benefit of advancing knowledge, a union of forces is necessary,” said Dominic Sarafin, the vice president of strategic alliances and network for Moffitt, quoting something Dr. William J. Mayo, M.D. (founder of the original Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN) said in 1910. “It is a sentiment we share today.”

The outpatient center will offer medical and radiation oncology services and will be designed to accommodate oncologists to deliver chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy to patients, said Dr. Lewis Harrison, chair & senior member of radiation oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center.

Dr. Harrison also said the center at AHWC will have 20 examination rooms, 22 infusion suites and will accommodate two linear accelerators —which customizes the radiation treatment to focus on the tumor or cancer cells without damaging surrounding tissue — for radiation therapy services.

Full-length glass will provide patients the opportunity to look outside and see trees and nature, contributing to the overall patient experience.

The new $44-million facility also will offer cancer screenings and survivorship programs for post-treatment patients.

The building is expected to be completed by the fall of 2020.

A Little History…

The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer & Research Institute was founded as the state’s cancer center when it opened on the campus of the University of South Florida in Tampa in 1986. As one of only 50 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, Moffitt has gained national acclaim over the years for its research and patient care.

“The mission has remained the same — to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer,” said Sarafin. “It drives everything and everyone at Moffitt. As the state grows and ages, the ACA estimates more than 130,000 (Floridians)…. will learn they have cancer this year. We are joining with AdventHealth, in the hopes that this project will make a difference in their lives.”

Bales-Chubb also noted that it is a big step for Moffitt to be able to bring its renowned cancer treatments and access to clinical trials closer to patients in our area who need it. 

“To me, it says they want to make sure they are taking care of the community,” she said. “Instead of just saying you come to us, it’s more of we are going to come to you…we want to bring our services to you, where you live and where you work.”

AHWC, formerly Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, opened in 2012 as Wesley Chapel’s first hospital, and in 2016, doubled its emergency department from 18 to 35 rooms and went from 83 private patient rooms to 143 while adding three floors and 111,993 sq. ft. of new space during a $78-million expansion.

On To The Next Buyer For Pebble Creek Golf Club Owner

The price simply wasn’t right for the developers Bill Place chose to buy and turn the Pebble Creek Golf Club (PCGC) into new homes, so the PCGC owner is turning to a new development group.

13th Floor Homes, a Miami-based investment management firm, was chosen late last year from a group of bidders interested in razing New Tampa’s oldest golf course in favor of a new housing development. Following months of inspections and meetings with homeowners, 13th Floor has withdrawn its interest.

“They got to end of the inspection period and wanted to change a lot of the terms,” says Place. “We didn’t want to change the terms.”

Place and his wife Su Lee own Ace Golf, which bought PCGC in 2005. 

While the exit of 13th Floor from the process was a disappointment for Place, he said there were seven developers that had originally submitted bids to purchase the 6,436-yard golf course, which opened in 1967. So, it’s on to the next group of potential suitors, which Place would only describe as “major homebuilders.”

Despite the lack of a sale to 13th Floor, he says the months of examination and feedback have helped guide what will be acceptable in the future.

Place also said that while the zoning exists to build 600 homes on the 149 acres he is selling, he wouldn’t even consider allowing that much development. 

And, according to what he learned from focus groups organized by Pebble Creek’s two homeowners associations, there also is opposition to multi-family units and homes being built in close proximity to existing homes in the community.

“We’ve excluded all that from this next round,” Place says. “We’ll tell the next developer that these are things that have already been worked on with the homeowners and that we don’t want to backtrack.”

Place said that he didn’t originally choose the highest bidder because they wanted to come in and build rental homes. “We don’t feel that would be appropriate for the community,” he says.

Although there is a large contingent of residents opposed to the sale of the golf club (and what they fear will be a resulting loss of wildlife and green space) for any reason, the inspection period, which included lots of meetings with Pebble Creek’s HOAs and focus groups, was not acrimonious. 

“Not at all, surprisingly so,” said 13th Floor corporate counsel Dan Daley. “The community, particularly the HOA members and leadership, understood the reality of the situation.”

Mulligan’s Pub

That reality, Place says, is that the golf course is losing money — he has said that 2018 revenues were down 33 percent, and profits were down 50 percent — as the golf course industry struggles nationwide.

The club currently has only 20 members, and competition is stiff. In New Tampa alone, Pebble Creek has to compete with private country clubs at Hunter’s Green and Tampa Palms, as well the recently revamped Heritage Isles on Cross Creek Blvd. 

Place even said that since Ace Golf bought Plantation Palms Golf Club — which had been closed for two years and is located only 10 miles from PCGC (in Land O’Lakes) —  in 2015, with the hopes of reviving it, Plantation Palms also has drawn additional business away from Pebble Creek.

While the sale of PCGC remains imminent, Place says that it currently is still business as usual. Mulligan’s Pub continues to be a popular hangout, and the club itself is booking weddings and other events through the end of next year. 

“It’s physically impossible to get through the zoning and public input before then,” he says, “so we are still booking events through 2020. The one thing I have refused to do is operate like a business that is going out of business.”

Nupur Lala reflects on her National Spelling Bee win 20 years ago

THE WORD was “logorrhea.”

Nupur Lala bought some time by asking for it to be used in a sentence. A hint of a smile crossed her bespectacled face. Inside, she was bursting.

Meena Lala watched her 14-year-old daughter intently. There had been one scare during the Scripps National Spelling Bee, but that was a few rounds back, on the word “poimenics,” maybe the only time she had gotten nervous. 

But not now. Not on this word.

“L-O-G…”

Odalys Pritchard remembers the moment like it was yesterday. She was on the edge of her seat, watching her Benito Middle School eighth grader on ESPN trying to spell her way into history.

“I remember seeing the smile and the confidence when they gave her the word,” Pritchard says. “I knew she knew it.”

“…O-R-R…”

Right before she was given the final word, Nupur caught a glimpse of the event organizers preparing the trophy for the winner.

“It felt like a dream,” she says, and she wasted no time, quickly spelling the winning word.

 “…H-E-A!” 

When Nupur nailed the final word at the 76th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee on June 3, 1999, she jumped as high as she could two times, stopped to tuck her shoulder-length hair behind each ear, and jumped again, her yellow placard designating her as Speller No. 165 flailing about with her arms.

She grabbed the big trophy, raised it up to the sky and smiled the widest of smiles.

 “It didn’t feel real,” says Nupur, now age 34. “I remember jumping up and down, and wondering ‘Is there going to be ground beneath me when I land?’”

***

Twenty years later, she remembers every detail, from the hero’s greeting she received at Tampa International Airport to receiving a key to the city to a slew of television cameras eager to record her every move.

There were banners declaring “Busch Gardens Spells Champ N-U-P-U-R” and local daily newspaper headlines calling her “The goddess of spelling.” The Neighborhood News (see pg. 36) called her “Super Nupur.” 

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner invited her to New York and gave her tickets to see “Phantom”  on Broadway. Even Hooters put up a sign congratulating Nupur.

Her parents, Meena and Nupur’s father Parag, had her write the restaurant a thank-you letter.

“In hindsight, thinking back, it was extraordinary,” she says. “I’ll never forget the way that Tampa treated me.”

Nupur is greeted at Busch Gardens after her win.

However, when she felt the most famous, she says, is when her mother was driving her home to Hunter’s Green one day, and the guard at the gate asked if that was the Spelling Bee champ in the back seat.

Meena said yes, and he asked if she could hop out and say hi. This was a time before cell phones, so he didn’t want a picture. He just wanted to congratulate her and share his admiration for her accomplishment.

“That might have been the moment I felt really famous,” Nupur says.

***

It was just the beginning, though. In 2002, the documentary “Spellbound” was released, to critical acclaim. It followed Nupur and seven other Regional champions through the 1999 Scripps Spelling Bee competition. It earned $6-million and was nominated for an Oscar, giving Nupur a second round of fame.

She never thought she would always be the Spelling Bee champ from Benito Middle School in Tampa.

“I’d say it’s the one accomplishment in my life people are still interested in,” she says. “It has stayed with me more than anything I’ve done.”

There were times, she says, that fact chafed Nupur. To be defined by something you did at age 14, when you barely knew then who you even were, and then to have so much more expected of you as a result, was frustrating at times. 

“I’ve had different feelings at different points in my life about all of it,” Nupur says. “Definitely early high school, early college, I felt that there were such massive expectations from winning the Spelling Bee at 14. I was still trying to figure out who I was and where I wanted to fit in in the world. It was very difficult.”

Today, however, Nupur has found her path. As a result, it is easier to embrace being noticed by someone who recognizes her name or face. 

***

Nupur attended high school in Fayetteville, AR, where her family had moved just a few months after the Spelling Bee victory. She graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2007 with a B.S. degree in Brain Cognitive and Behavioral Science, and worked for three years at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) in Cambridge doing functional MRI research in cognitive neuroscience

She graduated with a Master’s degree in Cancer Biology from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2015. And, after earning her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, she is now doing her residency in Neurology at the Rhode Island Hospital in Providence.

She hopes to do a fellowship in neuro-oncology, specifically Glioblastoma multiforme, the brain cancer that killed U.S. Senator John McCain.

***

Millions of students from all 50 states battle each year to make it to The Scripps National Spelling Bee, scheduled this year for Sunday-Friday, May 26-31, in Washington, D.C.

A Benito newsletter recognized Nupur, as well as her stiffest competition.

Nupur remembers the grind. She did her first spelling bee in Kaye Whitehurst’s seventh grade English class, merely to earn extra credit. She hadn’t even heard of the Scripps Spelling Bee, but once she discovered she was good at it, winning it became a goal.

Few remember that she actually made it to our nation’s capital for the first time as a seventh grader, when she was eliminated in the third round on the first day in 1998.

She was happy and proud, but she remembers while she was almost universally praised for her efforts, a classmate taunted her by reminding her that she didn’t win.

“I still remember that feeling. One moment you can be on top, and the next moment, you’re back to being a regular kid,” she says. “I didn’t realize how much it bothered me or how much I internalized that feeling. It fueled me for years.”

Nupur says it was Whitehurst, who had gone to D.C. with her student in 1998, and Pritchard, who is now interim deputy director for Hillsborough County’s Achievement Schools, that helped lift up her spirits. 

“Teachers don’t even know the impact they make,” Nupur says. “I hope they read this and know they made a tremendous difference.”

***

With Meena (who spent many hours reading the practice words to her daughter), Whitehurst and Pritchard in her corner, Nupur was determined to get back to the National Spelling Bee in the eighth grade, and her goal was to make it to the televised portion of the event. She competed in a half dozen regional events to qualify, but says the stiffest competition was actually at Benito. 

There were 249 competitors from around the country who survived Regionals and made it to Washington and 144 of them were eliminated on the first day.

But, not Nupur. She had made it to the televised portion on Day 2, and when she did, she says a strange calm came over her.

“I met my goal,” she remembers thinking. “It was still the most surreal moment of my life.”

Nupur’s parents moved to the U.S. from a small town in central India in 1984, where Parag worked as an engineering professor at Syracuse University in upstate New York, where Nupur was born. They moved to Tampa in 1997.

Nupur’s win marked a historic shift in the Spelling Bee. Since her win, 19 spellers of Indian descent have either been champion or co-champion.

Since her win, Nupur says she did not watch the Spelling Bee every year. She confesses to a rebellious period where she didn’t want to be the “goddess of spelling” anymore.

But, when she does watch it, she says she finds herself moved by the reactions of the winners, as well as her own memories.

“It was the culmination of a lot of hard work, by me and my family,” Nupur says. “I did something very few people have, and I will forever be grateful for that moment.”

So will those who knew her, like Pritchard. Nupur’s picture commemorating her win still hangs in the front office at Benito. And, for a long time, there was a large photo portrait of Nupur displayed at the Hillsborough County School Board boardroom auditorium, until the boardroom was renovated in 2017.

“It was always nice seeing that picture,” Pritchard says. “I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. Nupur was a shining star. There’s probably a lot of people who remember her vividly.”

Tampa Palms teen Drew Falkowitz is the youngest graduate in USF history

Drew Falkowitz (Photo courtesy of Tacy Briggs-Troncoso)

HE PRETENDED to be typing on a laptop for the television cameras. He stood in the middle of the University of South Florida’s Marshall Center, a bright ray of sunshine cutting through his green graduation robe as an array of cameras click-click-click-clicked.

When he was asked to walk from one end to the other, he did, as more cameras followed him, photographing and filming his every move.

“It’s kind of hard to look natural doing this,” Drew Falkowitz said, sheepishly smiling. 

On this day, though, it was the price of celebrity. In the center of campus, while his classmates studied while sipping from Starbucks cups, Drew was famous for a few hours — as he became the youngest graduate in the 63-year history of USF — and the story everyone wanted to tell.

The 16-year-old Tampa Palms resident, who graduated on May 3 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Cellular & Molecular Biology — and still doesn’t have his driver’s license — found the whole experience even stranger than he had anticipated.

“I figured, eventually, there would be press that would be generated around this,” said Drew, adding, “I’m not a very public person. I like staying low and not being in the spotlight all the time and having my three years of college and no one’s even talked to me until now has definitely been a breath of fresh air.”

The son of Tracy and Steven Falkowitz, who have lived in Tampa Palms since 2000, Drew is a true wunderkind, although he doesn’t seem to think all that much of it.

He’s smart. Super smart. And always has been.

His trajectory to becoming USF’s youngest graduate is different from your average student, but not so different from other gifted children who simply had outgrown their peers the moment they entered pre-school.

Drew was 3 years old in this picture and already knew not only all of the U.S. states and their capitals, but also every U.S. President — in order — and could add, subtract and divide. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Falkowitz)

In Drew’s case, he started kindergarten at a Montessori school, and by the time he was in the first grade, they had moved him to the upper class, which was for grades 4-6.

He devoured course work, exhausting nearly everything available in middle school, and started taking high school classes online when he was a 9-year-old 6th grader being home schooled by Steven, who worked out of their house.

Steven remembers Drew completing workbooks faster than other kids his age finished coloring books. In fact, Steven says Drew’s first word, fittingly, was “book.”

When he went for his two-year-old pediatric check-up, Steven told the physician that Drew was already reading. The doctor scoffed, and then handed Drew a pamphlet about asthma to read aloud.

He did.

The doctor called in another doctor, because he couldn’t believe it, and Drew read another pamphlet for them.

“These kinds of things kept happening,” says Steven.

“At 20 months, he started reading, and no one had ever taught him how to read,” Tracy says. “We’re not entirely sure how he learned. He was writing essays by four years old. He learned division on a car ride to pre-school.”

Steven and Tracy knew they had something unique on their hands, but raising a boy genius isn’t exactly something found in the parenting manual. The learning took care of itself, and they knew their son was headed for a different academic track than most kids his age.

But, how would he develop socially and emotionally while being surrounded by older kids or, in the case of being home-schooled, by no kids?

Finding Help…In Reno?

They sought the help of the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Reno, NV, that was formed in 1999 and says it “serves profoundly gifted people” ages 18 and under.

Steven says Drew was the last 4-year-old accepted there (the age limit has since been raised to 5). Davidson offers programs, summer camps in Reno, databases and resources for families raising gifted children.

Drew qualified for Davidson’s Young Scholars program, which assists parents and students with support, and he attended three summer camps.

“They talked us off ledges sometimes,” Steven says. “We reached out to them a number of times.”

Photo courtesy of Tacy Briggs-Troncoso

His parents got Drew involved in activities at the New Tampa Recreation Center and in their neighborhood. He joined his synagogue’s youth group, volunteered for the Joshua House and took part for a few summers at Camp Jenny, a “Mitzvah Corps” project that helps children from an impoverished Atlanta community learn.

He could have entered college at 10 or 11 years old, but Steven and Tracy resisted.

“What do you do with a 13-year-old college graduate?,” Tracy asks.

Even so, Drew bristles at the suggestion he was denied a “regular” education, or that he missed out on many of life’s rites of passage that come with attending middle and high school.

“I have a high school experience,” Drew says. “I have friends my own age. I have friends in college. I hang out and do basically the same things you do in high school or college…I would not give it up if it meant giving up everything else I have been able to do from skipping ahead…I wouldn’t give that up for a couple of parties.”

Drew says he is not that much different than any other teenager. He plays video games — “I can smoke anyone in Mario Kart 8” — and watches YouTube and Netflix and tweets.

In December, he took up the electric bass and has fallen in love with it. 

While he said school was always boring to him until college, his last semester was his most gruelling. He took 18 credit hours of mostly 4000- level classes, had to complete a senior thesis and also had to conquer Bio Medical Physiology, which he says is the toughest class he has ever taken. 

“It’s one of these classes you walk in and say, ‘There’s no way I’m getting an A in this class,’” says Drew, who, by the way, got an A. 

In fact, he got all As his last semester, and boosted his overall USF grade point average to 3.93.

Maybe some of the credit should go to the rock band Metallica. To relieve stress, Drew spent his free time during the semester teaching himself how to play the instrumental version of the group’s “The Call of Ktulu” on his bass guitar.

“I set a goal to be able to play (it) and even bought an overdrive pedal so I could do it,” he says. “In five months, I managed to do it. It’s really a technical piece and one of the things I’m most proud of.”

Drew will start working on his Master’s degree in cancer research when he returns to Tampa after his internship at Yale University in New Haven, CT, where he will do autism serotonin research.

He says that after he earns his Ph.D. degree, he hopes to pursue a career in medical genetics, with a focus on mood disorders like schizophrenia, bipolarism and schizo-affective disorder. He says he finds the genetics behind the disorders “extremely interesting,” and he hopes it will provide him a chance to help people.

And, as uncomfortable as the attention for being the youngest-ever USF grad may have been, Drew will try to enjoy his moment in the spotlight. After all, he knows it won’t last forever.

 Last year, 11-year-old William Maillis graduated from St. Petersburg College, earning his Associate degree, and transferred to USF to study astrophysics for his Bachelor’s degree.

“I guess I’ll have the title for a couple of years,” Drew says, chuckling, “then William is going to come in and steal my throne from me.”

And that will just fine by Drew.

New Tampa Tries To Drum Up Answers To Connections Stalemate

“People on the other side like the idea of living on a dead-end street,” says the City of Tampa’s Bob McDonaugh. (Photo: John C. Cotey)

The Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) asked county residents last month to complete an online survey involving the Wesley Chapel Roadways Connections study, which took a detailed look at traffic improvements mostly within Meadow Pointe, as well as three potential connections to the City of Tampa’s New Tampa area.

The survey, which ran from April 1-30, drew more than 2,700 responses, said Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore, whose District 2 includes most of Wesley Chapel.

The online survey asked a handful of simple questions about whether you approved of the following:

• A connection at Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe and Kinnan St. in K-Bar Ranch.

• A connection at Meadow Pointe Blvd. and the Meadow Pointe Blvd. Extension, which hooks up with K-Bar Ranch Blvd., also in New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch development

• A connection at Wyndfields Blvd. and the Wyndfields Blvd. Extension, which would connect to both K-Bar Ranch Blvd. and Morris Bridge Rd.

• All three connections.

The survey also asked after each question if the respondent’s answer would be different if all of the improvements identified by Wesley Chapel Roadways Connections are committed to be done prior to, or concurrent with, the connection(s).

Along with looking at the connections, the study identified $13.8-million worth of road improvements in and around Meadow Pointe, such as repaving and widening roads, making intersections safer and improving traffic signals.

In anticipation of the results and because the Pasco side has dominated the debate over the proposed roadway connections, District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents those in K-Bar Ranch and the rest of New Tampa, held a forum in April at Cypress Pointe Community Church to discuss the thorniest of the proposed connections: Kinnan-Mansfield, where a 20-foot stretch of dirt and shrubs is all that stands in the way of linking the two roads. 

Roughly 40 people attended the meeting, along with the city of Tampa’s administrator of economic opportunity Bob McDonaugh, who has negotiated on the city’s behalf with Pasco’s MPO regarding the Kinnan-Mansfield connection.

McDonaugh lamented that despite negotiating with Pasco County for years, a deal has never been struck, even though he says promises were made by Pasco officials to connect the roads years ago.

“I wanted to get some ideas from you and would like to hear what’s important,” McDonaugh said at the meeting at Cypress Point. “I’m certainly willing to go back to the table and bring our legal staff and transportation people.”

However, McDonaugh admitted that the Wesley Chapel side has been very well entrenched, and has the support of Moore and other county commissioners as well.

“People on the other side like the idea of living on a dead-end street,” he said. “Not in my backyard, they say, and they are very vocal.”

Their were few new ideas put forth, as the smattering of New Tampa residents took turns expressing their frustration. One resident likened the debate with Wesley Chapel to negotiating with a hostage taker; others suggested taking their concerns to the state legislature.

And, K-Bar Ranch resident Cindy Gustavel  even echoed what Wesley Chapel residents have argued — stop building homes in K-Bar Ranch if the needed connections aren’t made.

Last summer, M/I Homes received City of Tampa approval to build 700 more homes in K-Bar Ranch, where residents are already complaining about having only way out of their community and the difficulty in receiving timely police and fire assistance, or what an evacuation in the case of a major emergency might look like.

“It is irresponsible to keep building houses if we only have one point of egress,” Gustavel said. “It is irresponsible to let M/I Homes keep building homes without proper infrastructure.”

Many in attendance seemed to agree that the hopes of connecting Kinnan and Mansfield are as dim as they have ever been. 

“We’re beating our heads against the wall,” said one New Tampa resident, which may have summed up the feelings of the people in the room perfectly.