Dusted off, cleaned up and renovated by developer Mark Gold after landing on the bankruptcy heap due to coronavirus in 2020, The Grove Theater, Bistro & Entertainment has been turned over to B&B Theatres, which will take over operations of the complex.
The 16-screen theater will be renamed B&B Theatres The Grove 16 at Wesley Chapel. According to a press release, the new company plans on spending $1.5 million in upgrades, which will include replacing the seating in the downstairs theaters with reclining chairs similar to the ones used upstairs. Other renovations and amenities will be announced in the future.
Founded in 1924, B&B Theatres is a family-owned and operated theater chain based in Liberty, Mo. It is the fifth-largest theater chain in North America, with 517 screens at 56 locations in Kansas, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Georgia. The Grove will be the fifth Florida location.
SideSplitters Comedy Club will continue to offer comedy shows and Cycle Cinema, featuring spin bikes inside the theater, still plans to open.
We will have more information in our upcoming Wesley Chapel edition on Oct. 26.
Due to concrete beams being set for the new Overpass Rd. bridge on I-75 in Wesley Chapel, the Florida Department of Transportation says to expect detours this weekend.
Southbound detour
Southbound I-75 traffic will be detoured off the interstate at exit 285, or S.R. 52 between 9 p.m. Friday night, Oct. 15 and 9 a.m. Saturday morning, Oct. 16. Travelers who get off on exit 285 will turn right onto S.R. 52 and continue for approximately one-half mile. At the next traffic signal (Old Pasco Road), turn left and go south on Old Pasco Road for approximately 6.75 miles to S.R. 54/C.R. 54. Turn left at the traffic signal onto S.R. 54/C.R. 54/Wesley Chapel Blvd. and continue east about 7/10s of a mile to re-enter southbound I-75.
Northbound detour
Northbound I-75 traffic will be detoured off the interstate at S.R. 54/C.R. 54 between 9 p.m. Saturday night, Oct. 16 and 9 a.m. Sunday morning, Oct. 17. At the bottom of the ramp, turn left onto S.R. 54/C.R. 54/Wesley Chapel Boulevard and continue west about 8/10ths of a mile to Old Pasco Rd. At the traffic signal for Old Pasco Rd., turn right and go north for approximately 6.75 miles to S.R. 52. Turn right at the traffic signal onto S.R. 52 and go east about 3/4 mile. After passing under I-75, turn left onto the entrance ramp to re-enter northbound I-75.
FDOT asks drivers to be careful on Old Pasco Rd., which is one lane in each direction and will be congested during the hours of the tour. Motorists are urged to plan plenty of extra time to drive the detour and return to the interstate or consider alternate routes. Law enforcement officers and traffic management personnel will be active along the detour route to assist with traffic flow, as well as detour signs and message boards.
Construction crews, large machinery and those all-too-familiar bright orange cones have returned to the intersection of S.R. 56 and I-75, as work on the much-anticipated Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) has finally and officially resumed.
Superior Construction Company Southeast, LLC, was chosen by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and surety bond companies to replace D.A.B. Constructors, which defaulted on the project on July 1 and went out of business shortly thereafter.
D.A.B. defaulted on six other projects in Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties, including the S.R. 54 widening project from east of Curley Rd. to east of Morris Bridge Rd.
D.A.B. told FDOT on July 28 it could not afford to complete the S.R. 54 widening, due in part to penalties incurred by missing benchmarks on the DDI project.
Superior began work to complete the $36-million DDI on Sept. 13, which included mobilization of labor, equipment and materials, erosion control, survey, jobsite cleanup of debris and office setup. Full maintenance responsibility was transferred to the new contractor on Sept. 20.
The project, originally scheduled for completion before the end of 2021, is now expected to be finished within 10 months, likely in the summer of 2022, said FDOT spokesperson Kris Carson in an email.
Superior also currently is working on the realignment of S.R. 52 in eastern Pasco County. Pasco Commissioner Mike Moore represents District 2, where the DDI is located, and he said he was happy with the choice.
“I’ve heard great things about them,” Moore said. “And they are actually ahead of pace on the S.R. 52 project, so that’s a good sign.”
Stepping into a new project that already was more than halfway finished is unusual but not unprecedented in the construction business, especially considering the effect that Covid-19 and staffing issues have had on the entire construction industry.
“While this process is not how a typical FDOT project is executed, there are procedures in place for replacing a contractor,” Carson said. “It will take the new contractor some time (a few weeks) to clean up items from the previous contractor in order to complete the new work items. The new contractor evaluates the remaining work items and prices the items that are left to complete. Superior has already mobilized a staff and are in the process of mobilizing crews to complete the work.”
Meanwhile, the surety company put out an advertisement for bids for completion contractors on Sept. 9 for the $42.5 million S.R. 54 widening project, and were expecting to receive bids by the end of the month.
A subcontractor, Southern Precision, has been taking care of the S.R. 54 site in the meantime, with mowing, little control and filling potholes. Last week, work began on milling driveways and side streets, as well as some paving.
K-Bar Ranch resident Pete Radigan has a story to tell, and he’s been waiting 20 years for people to read it.
On Oct. 4, Tragedy to Triumph: The Story of Tom’s Heart will be officially released for sale by Red Penguin Books.
“Oh my God, I can’t wait,” says Radigan, who moved from New Jersey to K-Bar Ranch in 2019. “If there was ever a made-for-TV (story), this book is it.”
Decades in the making, it is the personal story of Radigan’s battle with his health, his life-saving heart transplant and Jan Mauk’s healing from the loss of her son Tom, the teen whose heart keeps Radigan alive, and the rare relationship between the parent of a donor and the donor recipient.
Radigan says he and Jan have talked about writing the book for many years. Radigan, who had kept a journal during his long hospital stays while waiting for a transplant, had written his version of it years ago, and Jan surprised him with her version at Christmas in 2018.
A friend of Radigan’s, writer Jim McGrath, weaved it all together.
“Over the last 10 years, when was the last time you heard of a major story about organ donation?,” Radigan asks. “They are few and far between. This book talks about what the experience is like from the view of the mother of a deceased donor — how she felt and went through the grieving process — and also about the recipient and what they go through together. It’s the first time something like this has been catalogued in a book. I feel like it’s a healing guidebook for those on both sides of the organ donation process.”
Born on Staten Island, NY, in 1965 and raised in East Windsor, NJ, Radigan’s story certainly is unique.
In 1987, he was first diagnosed with hypertrophic cardio myopathy, which is an enlargement of the heart. It was later discovered he was actually suffering from Emery Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, which affects the heart.
By age 30, Radigan’s health had deteriorated to the point where he was having difficulty walking up stairs. He says he was teaching a corporate class in Orange County, CA, and couldn’t even wear shoes because his feet hurt so much. He was unknowingly already in end-stage heart failure.
“I thought, ‘When did I get in such bad shape?,’” he recalls. “I was embarrassed.”
Radigan returned to the east coast and underwent a battery of tests that made it official. He needed a heart, or, his doctors told him, he was going to die.
That led to months in the hospital. His first transplant was canceled after Radigan, surrounded by his family, had been prepped for the surgery. The heart he was to receive, doctors said, was damaged.
A week later, at 7:15 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1997, a new donor heart had been found, and Radigan received his heart at the New York Presbyterian Medical Center.
Just two days earlier, 16-year-old Tom Mauk was driving his motorcycle when a car struck him and sent him flying more than 150 feet.
Jan says she struggled for a day with the decision to donate Tom’s organs, but knew that was what her son would have wanted.
Jan listening to her son’s heart. Pete described the moment as one of the most emotional of his life.
On Sept. 13, Radigan walked out of the hospital with a cane and a new lease on life.
Jan mourned.
That’s the tragedy. The triumph came more than a year later, when, after a few letters back and forth, Pete and Jan agreed to finally meet on Feb. 5, 1999, in Niagara Falls in Toronto.
Radigan says it was one of the most emotional moments of his life. He brought Jan flowers and asked her if she wanted to listen to her son’s heart. She leaned in and pressed her ear to his chest.
“It was not like listening to the quality, rhythm, or rate of a heartbeat or detecting arrhythmias, which I practiced as a nurse,” she wrote. “Listening to his heart brought a connection to Tom, joy to my soul, in contrast to the previous sadness, as tears formed in my eyes….The sound of his heartbeat was a melody to my ear, as I wanted to permanently affix my head to (Pete’s) chest to hear it continually. It brought comfort to me.”
Radigan says that the last third of the book details their friendship, and includes the letters and emails they wrote to each other over the years.
“When I asked Jan what made her want to write the book, her answer was pretty simple: ‘It gave me the opportunity to leave a legacy for my son, the man he was and the gifts he provided,’” says Radigan.
For Pete Radigan, it was another chance to say “thank you.”
To purchase the book or for more information on donor and tissue donation, visit TragedyToTriumph.net. Tragedy to Triumph will also be available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google Books.
Deputy William Mellana (left) and Wharton High nurse Alicia Robertson helped save a student’s life at the school on Aug. 17 (Photo courtesy of Hillsborough Schools)
Saving A Student’s Life: All In A Day’s Work
On any “normal” day on a high school campus, the most extraordinary things can happen.
On Aug. 17, a Wharton High student started experiencing a medical emergency, and the school’s resource officer and nurse are credited with jumping in to save the student’s life, working together until paramedics arrived.
Video from Deputy William Mellana’s body camera was released by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, showing him performing CPR on the student with the assistance of an automated external defibrillator (AED), which he continued until paramedics arrived. Prior to his arrival on scene with the AED, school nurse Alicia Robertson already had started CPR.
Thankfully, the student has since returned to school.
Alicia deflects any praise directed toward herself and Deputy Mellana, saying it was a team effort to aid the student.
“Several educators and a student who sought out an adult, who initiated help, all played roles in responding in a timely manner to assist the student that day.”
Hillsborough County Public Schools released a photo of the pair and said, “We could not be more proud and thankful to have these two incredible people at Wharton High School to protect our students and staff.”
King High Seniors From New Tampa Collect, Disperse School Supplies
Three King High seniors from New Tampa have launched the Road to Success School Supply Drive to support students and teachers in their school and throughout the wider community.
Toluwa, Onella and Emma launched the drive with collection boxes at businesses, including Mahana Fresh in New Tampa, Staples and The Salvation Army in Wesley Chapel, and the Ice Dreammm Shop in Lutz.
Their goal is to support students who need tools to be successful in school, and supplement teachers who often have to pay out of their own pockets to keep their classrooms stocked with basic supplies.
The drive was to benefit the Hillsborough Education Foundation (HEF), a local nonprofit that distributes school supplies to the county’s schools and students with the greatest needs, with some of the collected supplies directly benefiting King High, where the students attend.
Although their collection for the drive has ended, the teens invite supporters to donate to HEF online at EducationFoundation.com/programs/donate/ and note that it’s part of the “Road to Success School Supply Drive” in the instructions section.
For more information, visit RoadtoSuccessDrive.com and see the latest news about the drive on Instagram @roadtosuccessdrive.
Wharton Physics Experiments Soar To 80,000 Feet
Wharton High physics teacher Christopher Hart says his AP Physics C class jumped at the chance to develop an experiment that could be tested during the launch of a weather balloon up to 80,000 feet at an educational event held at Tampa’s MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) on Aug. 28.
The launch was organized by Space Trek, an educational company based out of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, FL, and was part of a Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) event encouraging students to get excited about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) concepts.
Hart says HCPS executive director of science education Larry Plank invited his students to design and place and experiments in the balloon, knowing of Hart’s previous experience with the type of programming required to execute them.
AP Physics C is one of four Advanced Placement physics classes offered at Wharton, and Hart says the students in the class have previously had at least one or two years of physics prior to entering the class.
But, it still wasn’t an easy feat to start school on August 10, and have everything designed and ready to launch less than three weeks later.
The class brainstormed a wide range of ideas and came up with two different experiments. One used four ultraviolet sensors to test different brands of sunscreen, while another measured how the size of different volumes of foam insulation changed with temperature changes as the balloon rose.
Hart says 80,000 feet is teetering toward the edge of space, where the highest-flying spy aircraft fly.
“There are pretty dramatic temperature changes, from below zero in some layers of the atmosphere, to spike really high when leaving the atmosphere,” Hart explains.
He says he told his students that the items they touched in designing the experiments would go to the highest point away from earth, farther than anything they’ve ever touched.
“They outsmarted me,” he laughs, saying that one of his students touched a moon rock at MOSI just to prove him wrong.
He says opportunities like this can be inspirational for students.
“It shows them the real world application of what they’re learning in the classroom,” says Hart. “They’re taking something that is very math-oriented and sometimes very abstract, and they can see it, feel it and touch it. It shows them how that math is applied, and hopefully encourages them to continue their education in this path.”
The students who participated in the event include Dillon Cao, Alex Lopez, Sean Grass, Adriana Salazar, Alex Devers, Dane Devers, Timothy Norwood, and Harshavardan Yuvaraj.
