Category: News

‘Diverging Diamond’ Exchange For S.R. 56 At I-75 Moved Up To 2018 Start

Above is a rendering of a Diverging Diamond Interchange, like the one planned for the S.R. 56 exit off I-75, which has been moved up to a Fiscal Year 2018 start date. Source: FDOT.

Relief is coming to the congested, frustrating and oftentimes maddening S.R. 56 interchange of I-75 sooner than expected, as the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) announced it was moving up its plans to build a diverging diamond interchange (DDI).

That project is now slated to begin in fiscal year 2018, the beginning of which is July 1 of 2017.

“That is great news,” says Mike Moore, the new Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) chair who represents District 2, which includes most of Wesley Chapel. “I thought the diverging diamond was a great idea from the start, and the other commissioners did too. I’m glad we can start it sooner.”

Moore and District 38 State Rep. Danny Burgess (R-San Antonio) played key roles in getting the project, which will cost around $18.5-million, fast-tracked. FDOT officials presented their new proposal to the Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization Dec. 8 at the Dade City Courthouse.

Construction of the DDI was originally scheduled to begin in 2024, but last November was moved up to 2020. The additional shortening of the timeframe will be good news to many travelers, especially around the holiday season, who have seen the lines of traffic to get off or on I-75 or through the interchange at S.R. 56 increasing.

DDIs, according to the website DivergingDiamond.com, are designed to create fewer conflict points when traveling through them, have better sight distance at turns, shorter pedestrian crossings and wrong-way ramps that are extremely difficult to access.

Despite looking like a confusing, diamond-shaped jumble of roads in pictures, the diverging diamond is said to cause virtually no driver confusion. A Springfield, MO, study showed a 60-percent reduction in collisions in a five-month period compared to a traditional exchange, and the website claims that in a five-year span of a DDI in Versailles, France, only 11 crashes have been reported.

Florida is building its first DDI at the University Pkwy. exit (No. 213) off I-75 in Sarasota. The Wesley Chapel location would be the state’s second DDI interchange.

The I-75/S.R. 56 junction continues to be one to avoid if at all possible for those in the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel area, and the 2.3-mile-long northbound exit routinely experiences back-ups of a mile or longer, sometimes even reaching the I-275 apex at the Pasco County line. The opening of the Tampa Premium Outlets on S.R. 56 west of I-75 last year hasn’t helped.

The S.R. 56/75 interchange was opened over a decade ago, and in 2011 a new ramp was constructed to ease congestion, to the delight of many in the community.

Roughly 100,000 drivers (combined heading east or west) pass through the I-75/S.R. 56 interchange, according to FDOT.

Steve Domonkos, the specialty leasing manager for the Shops at Wiregrass mall and a member of a Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) transportation task force, is happy to see the DDI construction moved up. But, Domonkos worries that even by 2018, with the rapid rate of development happening in both Wesley Chapel and Lutz, it still may be too late.

The sooner the better, he says, “but sooner than sooner would have been even better. It’s great to hear they are finally moving it up because traffic is already horrendous,’’ Domonkos says. “It’s a shame that the state and county didn’t get together before the Outlets opened, though. That intersection is already maxed.”

Moore, who drives through the intersection almost daily, says he has heard the same complaints from his constituents. But he thinks they will be happy to see progress considering the project was initially slated to begin in 2024.

“This shows what can happen when everyone works together to get something done,’’ he says.

Public hearings on the DDI project were scheduled around the region on Dec. 14, which was after we went to press with this issue. The Florida DOT will accept written comments until Tuesday, December 27, through D7wpph.com, by U.S. Mail (Attn: Ed McKinney, Florida Department of Transportation, 11201 N. McKinley Drive, MS 7-500, Tampa, FL 33612) or by email to D7wpph@dot.state.fl.us.

diverging diamond interchange

Election Season Ends — A Look At How New Tampa Voted

Florida’s State House District 63, which has typically swung to the Democrats in years a presidential election has been held, didn’t swing this time.

Republican incumbent and Hunter’s Green resident Shawn Harrison edged out Lisa Montelione on Nov. 8 to hang on to his seat in an hotly-contested race.

Harrison captured 50.9 percent of the 73,731 votes cast, picking up 37,547 votes to Montelione’s total of 36,168.

It is the third time Harrison has won the House District 63 seat, which represents parts of New Tampa, Lutz, Carrollwood and the University of South Florida area.

He won it in 2010, lost it to Democrat Mark Danish in 2012, and then regained the seat in 2014, when he took it back from Rep. Danish.

Harrison, who beat Montelione by 1,363 votes, held a big 7,195-4,130 advantage on the ballots cast in Lutz. He also can thank his neighbors in Hunter’s Green, who helped offset New Tampa’s preference for Montelione by voting 1,511 times for Harrison, compared to just 954 for the former councilwoman.

The loss was stinging for Montelione, considering she was running in a Democrat-leaning district, the wide advantage Hillary Clinton held over president-elect Donald Trump in Hillsborough County (58-38 percent), as well as Democrat Patrick Murphy’s local success at the ballot box against Republican incumbent Marco Rubio.

Another Republican, emergency room doctor Jim Davison, also fared well, finishing first in a six-person race to replace Montelione, who resigned her position on the Tampa City Council in District 7 to the run for Harrison’s seat. He did not, however, get more than 50 percent of the vote, leading to a runoff.

Luis Viera, who was second, turned the tables by narrowly defeating Davison 2,588 votes to 2,523 Tuesday in that runoff.

In a battle of Hunter’s Green residents, the 38-year-old lawyer’s 65-vote margin of victory sends him downtown.

New Tampa Picked Hillary

Of the 13 precincts in New Tampa’s 33647 zip code, Clinton, the former Secretary of State and First Lady, ran the table, winning every one, many by surprisingly decisive margins.

Hillary In New Tampa’s 13 precincts, Clinton grabbed 58 percent of the 32,843 votes cast for U.S. President, compared with 38 percent for Trump. Early voters and those who mailed in ballots accounted for 14,400 of Clinton’s votes, compared to only 8,989 for Trump. Clinton also held a 700-vote edge amongst Nov. 8 voters.

That wasn’t enough to help Clinton blunt Trump’s surprising win, however. Despite a nearly 1.5-million popular vote advantage nationwide (62,829,832-61,488,190 as of our deadline), the New York real estate developer and former reality-TV star pulled off what was supposed to be an unlikely trifecta by sweeping Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio to pick up enough electoral college votes for a 290-232 edge, with Michigan still counting votes until after our press time for this issue, but with Trump expected to grab Michigan’s 16 electoral college votes.

Clinton’s 20-point advantage in New Tampa was buoyed by big voting advantages in some of the precincts.

In precincts 362 and 363, where 6,934 presidential ballots were cast at the Cypress Point Community Church on Morris Bridge Rd., she won 60-36 percent. Of the 6,072 voters in Precinct 367 casting their ballots at St. Mark The Evangelist Catholic Church, it was Clinton over Trump, 59-38 percent. And at Lake Forest’s clubhouse, in precincts 583 and 584, Clinton held a 65-30 percent advantage among the 2,295 voters.

The New Tampa Regional Library hosted voting for two precincts that voted very differently. In Precinct 673, which encompasses the area north of Cross Creek Blvd. to the east and west of Kinnan St., 2,647 votes were cast, with 60 percent going for Clinton and 35 percent for Trump.

Meanwhile, in Precinct 361, which is mostly Hunter’s Green, Clinton was still the choice, but only by a 49-48 edge, or 26 votes (with 2,541 cast). It was the closest vote with the exception of Precinct 355, which votes at the New Tampa Family YMCA in Tampa Palms, which went for Clinton 142 votes-140.

Voter turnout in Hillsborough County was 71.56 percent compared with just 56.8 percent nationwide. However, turnout was down from both the 2012 (73 percent) and 2008 (73.5) presidential elections.

In New Tampa, voter turnout was 73.7 percent, with Precincts 361 and 358 (Compton Park in Tampa Palms) having better than 78 percent participation.

Many voters, according to various media reports, also may have just been plain disgusted by both candidates — or perhaps an election season filled with negative political ads, name-calling and scandals — and didn’t bother to cast a vote for either candidate, despite going through the trouble of finding a polling station, standing in line and filling out a ballot.

In Hillsborough County, there were 1,388 undervotes, or ballots cast where the voter elected not to make a choice for president, more than twice the 616 undervotes in 2012. The number of undervotes in many other places also was more than twice what it was in 2012. In Michigan alone, for example, more than 87,000 undervotes were tabulated.

In the U.S. Senate race between Rubio and Murphy, it was the incumbent winning comfortably overall with 4,822,182 votes, or 52 percent. Murphy received 44.3 percent, or 4,105,251 votes. In New Tampa, though, Murphy was the choice by 54-45 percent.

In other races, Lynn Gray captured the District 7 Hillsborough County School Board seat by defeating Cathy James 50.1-49.8 percent, or a mere 1,233 votes out of almost 475,000 cast.

CDD Results

A number of Community Development District (CDD) supervisor races were held as well, and winners were Paul Meier (Easton Park CDD, Seat 2), Joe Farrell (Grand Hampton CDD, Seat 4), Stephen Stark (Heritage Isles CDD Seat 1), Frank Morales (K-Bar Ranch CDD, Seat 3), Jessica Vaughn (Tampa Palms CDD, Seat 5), Brad van Rooyen (Tampa Palms Open Space & Transportation {OST} CDD, Seat 4) & Maria Lepage (Tampa Palms OST CDD, Seat 5).

election results New Tampa

TPO & WC Nissan’s Rosario Win Awards; Cofini, Brandon Legal, Shred 360 & The Porter Family Also Honored

Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) CEO Hope Allen called it, “the top event of my 15-year Chamber career” and I don’t believe that anyone who attended the WCCC’s “Celebrating Excellence in Business” awards (held, for the first time, at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club, and sponsored by the Parks Auto Group) would even try to could argue with her.

Congrats to all of the evening’s award winners (clockwise from top left) — Stacey Nance of the Tampa Premium Outlets, which won Large Business of the Year honors; Business Leader of the Year Jay Rosario of Wesley Chapel Nissan; Small Business of the Year Brandon Legal Group; Volunteer of the Year Jennifer Cofini of the Parks Auto Group, Quinn Miller (left) of the Porter Family, which took home the Chamber’s 2016 Legacy Award (shown with WCCC Board chair Tracy Clouser of Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel); and Cam Caudle of Shred 360, which won the first “New Business of the Year.” award.

excellence in business awards wesley chapel chamber of commerce

Crist Announces New Tampa Cultural Center Delay & New Partnerships

crist3 — On Nov. 18, Hillsborough County Commissioner Victor Crist updated the New Tampa Players on the progress of the New Tampa Cultural Center at Hunter’s Green Country Club.

The New Tampa Players (NTP) non-profit community theater troupe unveiled its 2017-18 schedule on Nov. 18 at the Hunter’s Green Country Club clubhouse, but not before receiving a little bad news to kick off the festivities.

District 2 Hillsborough County Commissioner Victor Crist, who represents New Tampa’s District 2, speaking before the group of local actors and supporters, said plans to finally get NTP its new home — the New Tampa Cultural Center (NTCC), to be built across the street from Hunter’s Green on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. — had hit a speed bump.

“There’s good news and there’s bad news,” Crist told an audience of about 50. “The good news — I got the money. The bad news — I don’t like the timeline.”

Crist says that the county is now looking to have the foundation for the NTCC in place by April of 2019, meaning the center likely won’t be ready to open until 2020. The news drew a collective groan from the audience. “I am going to go back and work on that schedule and see what I can do to speed it up,’’ Crist said.

Until then, the NTP will put on its 2017 season at the University Area Cultural Development Center (UACDC) on N. 22nd St., where so many of the troupe’s previous shows have been performed. Next year’s slate of performances includes “Jesus Christ Superstar” (in Mar.-Apr.), “The Wiz” (July & Aug.) and “The Addams Family” (Oct. & Nov.).

The NTCC will be part of the tenatively-named Village at Hunter’s Lake development, which is being built on 17 acres of land by Harrison Bennett Properties, LLC. In addition to the cultural center, the project was approved in Dec. 2014 by the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) by a unanimous (7-0) vote to include a three-acre dog park, a green grocery store, shops, restaurants and 100-250 condos, townhomes or boutique apartments.

Land-use, permitting and rezoning issues have slowed the project. David Harrison, who runs Harrison Bennett Properties, was hoping the inspection and approval process would end by Apr. 2017 so construction could finally begin.

“The City of Tampa is giving (the developers) a difficult time and that’s where I think I might be able to help,’’ Crist said.

He also said that because the NTCC has to be self-sustaining, he is working on bringing in multiple partners who will be able to create those revenue streams. While stressing that the NTP will be the primary resident of the NTCC, Crist said he has negotiated a deal to bring the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts and the Patel Conservatory on board as well. He said the NTCC would serve as an annex for Patel in North Tampa.

“This will be Patel North,’’ Crist said.

That is a huge partnership, Crist added, because, “it brings ethos, huge credibility to the facility and elevates it from just being a neighborhood cultural clubhouse to a real, high-scale, quality arts-based programming center.”

The hope is that the notoriety provided by such partnerships will help lure the deep-pocketed residents of South Tampa north for additional cultural opportunities. Crist also said that he sees that relationship as being reciprocal.

Crist also announced a third partner, the Prodigy Cultural Arts Program, which reaches more than 3,000 Hillsborough County youth annually who live in high-risk neighborhoods or have been diverted from the Juvenile Justice System.

And, while Crist told the NTP that he doesn’t want the NTCC to be a place where people just walk in off the street, he stressed that it needs to be inclusive, not exclusive.

The NTCC itself will still be a 25-35,000-sq.-ft. facility that will cost $10-million (according to the county), although Crist thinks the figure should be closer to $15 million.

He said the county currently has $5.5-million to spend, and is looking for the rest.

“Let me assure you, it is going to be something you’re very proud of,’’ Crist said, even if it gets built in stages. Crist noted that when he was spearheading the construction of the UACDC, where NTP currently practices and performs, it was built in five phases, while he raised money throughout the three-year construction phase to get it finished.

As for where he will get the money, Crist simply said: “I’ll find it.”

One of the only concerns raised during the 15-minute presentation was how the partnership with the Straz and Patel centers at the NTCC would impact local dance studios like New Tampa Dance Theater and America’s Ballet School. Crist, however, said that he thinks there are more than enough aspiring performers in New Tampa to support everyone.

And, Adam Shoemaker, one of the NTP performers, asked if once the NTCC is completed, will his group of local thespians finally have their own home to practice and perform on their own schedule?

Crist wrapped up his comments by promising him they would.

“You are a guest at the UACDC, a second thought,’’ Crist said. “It was built for Prodigy. But, this will be your permanent home. You will be the lead tenant in that space, and anybody else would have to work around you.”

That final line drew the loudest applause of the night.

For additional information about the NTP and their schedule for 2017, visit NewTampaPlayers.org or Facebook.com/NewTampaPlayers.

new tampa cultural center new tampa players

The Passing Of LPGA Great Dawn Coe-Jones Leaves A Void In Tampa Palms

Dawn Coe-Jones’ son Jimmy Jones posted this picture on his Instagram account after his mother passed, writing, “Can’t even put it into words how much I will miss you. You are the greatest mom a kid can ask for! The DCJ name will be remembered and won’t ever change! Give your loved ones a hug cause you never know when they will be gone. Love yuh mum.”

One day, when Deanne Farrow was unable to get out of work to pick up her daughter Grace from school, Dawn Coe-Jones was there.

The former Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) standout, a golfing buddy of Farrow’s, hopped in her red convertible and scooped Grace up from her carpool drop off at the Publix in Tampa Palms, and immediately snapped a picture of her and the Tampa Prep student and texted it to Deanne.

“I have the package,” it read.

A few minutes later came another picture, this one of Grace enjoying a frosty drink.

“Her first Slurpee,’’ Farrow recalls. From that day forward, it became a tradition — whenever Coe-Jones picked up the now-14-year-old Grace, it was off to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee.

It’s moments like these that still wet the eyes of Deanne, when she looks back on the imprint Coe-Jones left on the lives of so many golfers at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club (TPGCC).

“That’s the kind-hearted person she was,’’ Farrow says. “I hope that’s what we can all take from her. How she treated Grace is how she treated everybody.”

On Nov. 12, Coe-Jones, a member of the Canadian Golf Hall Of Fame, passed away in hospice after a battle with dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer. It was discovered in March, and required full knee and partial tibia replacement surgery.

And, even though her golfing days ended after the surgery, she would still occasionally hop in a cart and ride along for a few holes with her Friday morning group at TPGCC, cracking jokes and cheering them on.

“She was a great friend,’’ said Pat Rogers, who also played in that same Friday morning group.

Coe-Jones was 56 years old when she died. She is survived by her husband Jim, whom she married in 1992, and son Jimmy, a former standout golfer for Freedom High School, as well as her brothers Mark and John Coe.

Jimmy played golf at Freedom High, as well as, naturally, hockey. His mother grew up as a big Montreal Canadiens fan in British Columbia (before converting to the Tampa Bay Lightning). Jimmy followed in his mother’s footstep on the golf course, winning the district golf title as a sophomore in 2011.

He attended Florida Southern College for two years (where he was a semifinalist for the Division II Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year award earlier this year) before transferring to the University of South Florida in June.

Born on Oct. 19, 1960 in Campbell River, British Columbia, Coe-Jones won the 1983 Canadian Women’s Amateur before embarking on a nearly-25-year career on the LPGA Tour. She won the 1992 Women’s Kemper Open, the 1994 Palm Beach Classic and the 1995 Tournament of Champions, and finished in the top 10 in 41 other tournaments. For her career (1984-2008), she earned more than $3-million.

Her best finish in a women’s major championship was third at the Women’s LPGA Championship in 1990 and at the du Maurier Classic in 1993.

A former college All-American at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX, Coe-Jones was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2003 and later played on the Legends Tour, the LPGA senior circuit.

Coe-Jones was honored as the recipient of the 2016 Colleen Walker Spirit Award during the inaugural Dawn Coe-Jones Golf Classic at Tampa Palms on Oct. 14, a golf fund raiser for the Amandalee Fund, which benefits Sarcoma Research at Moffitt Cancer Center.

The Amandalee Fund has hosted two tournaments every year, and this year’s event raised a record $51,000.

The Colleen Walker Spirit Award is presented yearly to a Legends Tour Player who best exhibits the tenacity, determination and never-give-up attitude that Walker demonstrated throughout her life and career. Walker, who won nine times on the LPGA Tour, died of cancer in 2012.

Coe-Jones was known by many on tour for her kind heart, especially for the Canadian players she would often take under her wing.

“She treated everyone equally,” Lori Kane told Golf Week magazine. “Being on tour and walking the fairways with 144 women each week, there’s not many that you can say treats everyone the same. But Dawn Coe-Jones did that.”

It was that humility that helped win Coe-Jones friends at TPGCC, where she became a fixture.

Farrow says that when she met Coe-Jones about four years ago, all the LPGA golfer wanted to do was make friends and play golf. “You would never have guessed she was a professional golfer,’’ Farrow said. “She was just one of the girls.”

She became part of a group of golfers referred to as the “Tampa Palms Girls,” and the members exchanged texts with each other all week in between rounds.

When Coe-Jones was diagnosed with cancer, Farrow said it was never discussed. “We didn’t really talk about it because we didn’t want to believe it,’’ she says.

But, month after month provided more and more bad news.

“It was heartbreaking,’’ Farrow says.

Rogers says she met Coe-Jones three years ago, but it was 20 years ago, after being transferred to Saskatchewan for work, that she would read about the Canadian golf legend in the newspapers there.

She told Coe-Jones this after a few holes of golf one morning. Duly impressed by her game, Rogers simply said, “No wonder they wrote about you.”

Dawn Coe-Jones