A new roundabout for Highwoods Preserve Pkwy., a new coat of paving for New Tampa Blvd. and a number of new enhancements for Tampa Palms Blvd. remain in the New Tampa/District 7 pipeline for Fiscal Year 2021, according to Tampa City Council member Luis Viera.
Issues like lawsuits and Covid-19 have slowed some of the projects down.
“They’re coming, though,” Viera says. “They’re coming.”
One project that likely already would have been done, or certainly would’ve been underway by now, are the long-awaited repaving and enhancements of New Tampa Blvd., from the New Tampa Gateway Bridge to Bruce B. Downs Blvd.
Long a prickly point with many West Meadows residents, the repaving was on the list of items that were supposed to be expedited after the All For Transportation (AFT) referendum passed in 2019, with 57 percent of voters agreeing to a one-cent sales tax increase to be used for transportation projects.
The New Tampa Blvd. project was slated to receive $1.3 million of the $280 million a year for 30 years the tax was expected to yield. However, Hillsborough County Commissioner Stacy White challenged the referendum language and it is now tied up in the Florida Supreme Court, which has yet to make a decision. A back-up plan for another referendum this fall has been postponed until 2022, as Covid-19 has taken precedence.
There is some good news — the New Tampa Blvd. project concept design is being funded by the City of Tampa.
“However, it can’t be completed without AFT funds, which really stinks,” says Viera, who pushed hard for New Tampa to receive some immediate improvements due to its support for the referendum, only to see it get tied up in litigation. “Moving forward with the design means they are married to the idea. So, if the AFT money doesn’t come through, it will still be funded. It’s just going to be on a longer timeline.”
The same goes for Tampa Palms Blvd., which had a total of $700,000 earmarked for Complete Streets programming, which is a Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) plan for improving pedestrian and bicyclist safety and “building the right road in the right place for the right purpose.”
The Tampa Palms Blvd. project is supposed to include operational improvements to its two Compton Dr. intersections — namely potential roundabouts to replace four-way stops — as well as roadway improvements like enhanced crosswalks, sidewalks and bulb-outs (also called curb extensions) along the roadway’s 4-mile loop.
One project that won’t be held up by AFT funds is a roundabout currently being designed for the intersection of Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. and Highwoods Palm Way/Bridle Club Dr.
The roundabout will help calm traffic at the busy intersection that leads out of the Highwoods Preserve Corporate Campus (home to thousands of employees at MetLife, Syniverse and T-Mobile) and, on the other side of Highwoods Preserve Pkwy., the Equestrian Parc at Highwoods Preserve apartment complex.
The design is expected to be completed by the end of this year, with construction expected in 2021.
Schools are not just re-opening this fall, they have to re-open.
The President tweets it; the Governor repeats it.
With the rising and record number of positive Covid-19 cases and deaths in Florida seemingly finding no ceiling, that leaves parents with one of the toughest decisions — whether to send their children back to brick-and-mortar schools or have them learn online — many of them have ever had to make.
Jaclyn Lewis-Croswell, the parent of a fourth-grader at Turner/Bartels K-8 school, will be keeping her daughter home in the fall to learn online. It’s not ideal, she says, but for her, the risk of infection outweigh the benefits of social interaction and classroom learning.
She certainly understands anyone who chooses the opposite for their kids, sympathizing with those who trust the safety measures and some studies that say children aren’t as affected by the virus, while also worrying their children’s mental health may suffer in a detached, online setting.
But, when Jaclyn looked at the rising numbers, “I felt like there is a potential risk of losing my child,” she says. “And that’s not a chance I’m willing to take.”
If Covid-19 continues to rage at its current rate, there remains a chance that schools will not open by August or will be completely online, at least until January. But, as of now, school is moving forward with an expected start date of Aug. 24, with Hillsborough County’s schools offering three different options:
• Option A: A return to traditional, face-to-face, brick-and-mortar schooling, with special social distancing and enhanced disinfecting measures implemented, as well as requiring all students, teachers and staff to wear masks at all times.
• Option B: eLearning full-time through the students’ assigned schools. Students will participate in a distance learning program from home, taught by teachers at their school through Canvas, a new Learning Management System which will replace Edsby. Daily log-ins and attendance will be required.
• Option C: Hillsborough Virtual K-12, a web-based curriculum taught by teachers from Hillsborough County, but not the same as the eLearning program. For grades 6-12, Hillsborough Virtual K-12 and Florida Virtual School (FLVS) are the same, except Hillsborough Virtual K-12 will follow the District’s 2020-21 school calendar, meaning they have more stringent start-and-stop deadlines.
Earlier today, Hillsborough County Schools tweeted out declaration-of-intent results so far. With 115,001 responses tallied, 56,488 families have selected on-site learning, 48,410 have chosen eLearning and 10,103 have picked Hillsborough Virtual K-12.
The Neighborhood News spoke with multiple New Tampa families about their respective decisions. Here are three stories about how some of those parents made their decisions.
Cindy and Connor Kelly both feel the decision to stick with online learning is the safest way forward
Cindy Kelly – eLearning
When schools abruptly closed in March due to the coronavirus, teachers and students were thrown into an online system of learning that ended up receiving mixed reviews.
While some found the spring experience underwhelming and ineffective, others, like Wharton’s Connor Kelly, thrived in that environment.
So this fall, Connor plans to spend his senior year again learning outside of the classroom as he prepares for college.
“He had no desire go back to the bricks and mortar,” his mom Cindy says. “I was kind of surprised by it myself.”
Cindy says that if Connor had expressed a desire to return to school, the coronavirus would have definitely caused her some concern. In fact, Connor says a big part of his decision stems from his own concerns about passing anything onto his parents.
“It really does seem like people are really concerned about the virus and weighing it with the social aspect and the isolation (of online) learning,” Cindy says. “It’s a miserable, tough decision to make.”
Thankfully, Connor found the flexibility of online learning to his liking last spring, and looks forward to continuing it. He says, however, that a slight majority of friends in his social circles say they are returning to brick and mortar.
“They want to be able to have that social interaction,” he says, “although, the way it sounds, there probably won’t be too much social interacting allowed anyway.”
He regrets having to miss some, or, depending upon the virus, all of his senior year. He is serving as president of Rho Kappa, the social studies honor society, and isn’t sure he’ll get to make his induction speech, and says he also had roles in other clubs he will miss, as well as the other social benefits of his last year in high school.
“It kind of sucks,” Connor says. “I had a whole meticulous plan laid out for the last three years…I spent a lot of time designing my senior year, and then a rock was thrown through it. But that’s okay, it’s a life lesson.”
Lisa and Eric Ling, with their kids Elijah and Ethan, think its time to get kids back to school, with increased safety standards.
Lisa Ling — Traditional School
Lisa Ling is sending her kids back to school.
While the mother of a first- and fourth-grader at Hunter’s Green Elementary (HGE) understands the risks associated with the brick-and-mortar option this year, she also feels better about her decision now that masks are going to be required.
“Getting kids back to school is what needs to happen,” she says.
Ling and her husband Eric aren’t alone. A recent thread on Facebook she participated in showed more than a dozen parents who agreed with them, and she says many of her friends are following suit.
Ling says it wasn’t really that tough of a decision. “Well, I really did not consider Hillsborough Virtual K-12 or Florida Virtual, because we love our school and didn’t want to disconnect from it,” Ling says. “The (Covid) numbers are going up, but it’s a very low percentage of the population. We feel that there also is evidence coming out that young kids just don’t transmit it as much. Our whole family is healthy, no one has a compromised immune system or lives with an elderly grandparent. God forbid, if one of us gets it, we’ll be okay.”
Lisa has been a stay-at-home mom for nine years. When her children were forced to learn from home in the spring, she says she didn’t find it to be a fruitful experience.
Her third grader was fairly independent unless he would click on the wrong thing while working from his computer, and her youngest, who was in kindergarten, needed constant support.
She didn’t find the quality of the education to be what it should either, but understands it was a difficult, thrown-together situation for everyone.
“It wasn’t the same as being at school,” she says.
Lisa will no longer be a stay-at-home mom this fall. She is returning as a school psychologist at Benito Middle and Clark Elementary schools. She says her new job did not affect her decision.
“Even if I hadn’t taken that job, I was sending them back,” she says.
(l.-r.) Hector, Grayson and Laurie Gonzalez decided eLearning will work best for them this fall.
Laurie Gonzalez — eLearning
As a teacher, Laurie Gonzalez isn’t sure how she would keep her students safe from the spread of Covid-19, much less her son Grayson, who would be attending sixth grade at Benito Middle School on school choice this fall if she hadn’t decided to keep him home for eLearning.
“I made the choice to do eLearning for my child because I don’t think it is safe for anyone to return at this point,” says Laurie.
By choosing school-based eLearning through his assigned school, as opposed to the other online options, Grayson can keep his seat and if Covid-19 is ever brought under control, he can return after the fall semester.
“Of course I worry about social interaction, but at what cost?,” she says. “At least today, kids have video games and phones so they can keep in contact with their friends. It isn’t the same but, for now, it will have to do.”
Laurie has read the CDC guidelines and imagines what she and her co-workers’ classrooms would look like in the Covid-19 age. She doesn’t like what she sees.
“I know first-hand that it will be impossible to follow the CDC’s guidelines to keep kids safe from Covid, especially if we reopen schools at full capacity,” she says. “There is not enough room in most classrooms to space kids 3 feet apart for testing, so 6 feet is just not going to happen.”
A mask mandate is a great decision, Laurie says, “but I don’t believe it will be enough. As soon as we open schools, I anticipate the number of Covid cases will skyrocket.”
Laurie, who teaches at Turner/Bartels K-8 School, says she has an auto-immune disease, and is nervous about the impact Covid-19 would have on her if she were to get it.
With so many unknowns, Laurie and her husband Hector have no idea when it will be completely safe again to return to school — for her or her students. She feels fairly certain that August won’t be it.
“Yes, I am very confident that coronavirus will still be a problem in August,” she says. “We haven’t seen the numbers (of deaths) that will correlate with the 4th of July yet, but I don’t have much faith that they will be good.”
The RADDSports team that will open the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County includes (front, l.-r.) Stuart Campbell, Jannah Nager, Nicole Baker, Lyric Hill & Arika DeLazzer; (back row, l.-r.) Ronnie Outen, Richard Blalock, Eric Praetorius & Matt McDonough. (Photos by Charmaine George)
In June, more than 300 teams from around the country competed in youth baseball and softball tournaments at Champions Park in Newberry, FL, a baseball/softball complex which features 16 fields on 40 acres, with plenty of room for social distancing.
Parents were seated beyond the outfield fences, many watching from beneath 10’ x 10’ tents. Dugouts were sprayed with disinfectant, and precautions were taken against the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which had shut all sports down from March to May.
So, when you ask Richard Blalock — the CEO and founder of RADD Sports, which is managing the nearly complete Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County — if youth sports tourism (see story on next page) is ready to bounce back in Wesley Chapel, he is predictably bullish.
“The youth sports travel industry is the most resilient tourism industry out there,” says Blalock, a 40-year veteran of the business and the former parks director for the City of Newberry. RADD Sports also manages Champions Park.
“In 2008 (when the last recession hit), Mickey Mouse was down 38 percent,” he says, “but youth sports was only down three percent. When it comes to parents’ discretionary spending, they most often choose sports.”
Based on the first few months for the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County, parents and athletes definitely are eager to get back at it.
The first event Blalock has scheduled for the new, 98,000 sq.-ft. indoor facility is only six weeks away — on Sunday, August 23 — a Blue Star Basketball event that will feature some of the best girls basketball players in the country.
The following week will be the NIKE Volleyball championships, which will have more than 60 teams in different age groups, and the week after, a 40-team high school volleyball tournament is scheduled.
The campus also is pretty much booked for September, and also already has multiple events planned in October and November as well.
Blalock says his staff is working closely with Pasco County officials on local programming protocols for the weekdays, and hopes to launch a wide variety of recreational and competitive local basketball, volleyball, cheerleading and soccer programs in September.
While recent spikes in positive cases of Covid-19 — including amongst the younger demographics — were again rattling many in Florida as June drew to a close, Blalock is confident youth and adult sports can return safely.
“We’re all just trying to do what we have to do to keep everyone safe, so we can keep allowing the kids to play,” he says, adding that the campus likely will have to limit spectators — where, for example, mom can only come watch her kid play in the morning, while dad gets the afternoon shift.
Covid-19 presents a complex set of unique challenges, and Blalock says the sports tourism industry is undergoing a massive shift to meet those challenges head on. “We have to bob and weave a little bit to figure this out,” he says.
Whatever that transformation will be, it will not only require providing a safe environment, but it will have to assuage parental fears about the dangers of Covid-19 transmission. He says the entire industry is communicating about best practices and sharing ideas, and those have been passed on to his staff during their training for the opening of the new facility.
Regardless, the interest clearly hasn’t waned for cabin-fever-stricken athletes and their families. “We’re booking the thing up pretty quick,” Blalock says.
For registration and other information about the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County (3021 Sports Coast Way), visit Wiregrass-Sports.com or see the ad on pg. 3 of this issue. For sponsorship information, email Jannah@RADDSports.com.
At the SVB Tennis Center VIP preview on June 27, (l.-r) Bo Sun, Mark Shepherd, Gary Blissett and CEO Pascal Collard were among those who greeted dozens of well-wishers.
Pascal Collard has been pitching an exciting vision for the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center just outside of Wesley Chapel in Zephyrhills for some time, but on June 27, he was able to show some people how that vision is shaping up.
Collard and his staff hosted a VIP event, complete with beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres, to announce that Advent Health has come aboard as a major sponsor and to show off the new center, which he says should open in August.
While none of the rooms are filled just yet and the tennis, pickleball and padel courts haven’t yet been surfaced, Collard filled in the empty spots with his excitement.
And, with Covid-19 cases in Florida rising sharply in recent weeks, Collard promised one thing — it will be safe.
“I hate to say ‘most sanitized place in America,’ but that’s what we’re shooting for,” Collard said, adding that the center bought 1,000 face masks and put the staff through hours of classes and presentations to keep the facility virus-free.
The indoor portion of the facility will have plenty of space and feature an indoor restaurant focusing in healthy foods — think air-fried fries and bento boxes with edible flowers — with popular local Chef Mark Vesh of Vesh Catering designing the menu.
There also will be yoga, cryotherapy, a salt room, an exercise room and licensed massage tables. The all-around focus of the facility is on health, from exercise and playing tennis to recovery to refueling the body.
Collard also helped create a school — United Global Academy — offering an accredited curriculum for athletes training in tennis, golf, soccer and one of Collard’s own personal passions — skydiving.
And of course, there will be plenty of racquet sports. The SVB Tennis Center will have four padel courts, eight pickleball courts, two hard tennis courts with U.S. Open surfaces, and eight Har-Tru tennis courts with underground irrigation. Collard says there also will be a grass court: “It’s like a little garden.”
A drone shot of the progress on the center, which has a planned Aug. 15 opening date. Photos by Charmaine George.
There will be a viewing court with seating up to 1,000, and able to expand for bigger tournaments to more than 3,500.
The 30,000-sq.-ft. indoor facility with have four tennis courts but can be converted to accommodate soccer, weddings and even concerts.
If everything goes as Collard hopes, the facility will open Aug. 15.
“It’s really starting to come to together, you can just see it,” Collard says. “We’re pretty excited about it.”
For more info SVB Tennis Center (6585 Simons Rd., Zephyrhills) memberships and how to join, please visit svbtenniscenter.com or call (813) 361-6660.
Matt Joyce (above) has played 12 seasons in the major leagues, signing most recently to play this year for the Miami Marlins, but he knows he can’t play baseball forever.
A big part of his transition into expanding his post-baseball portfolio kicked off June 13, with the Grand Opening of F45 Training off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. in The Walk at Highwoods Preserve, next to some new restaurants (see page 34).
Joyce, an opening day starter in the outfield for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2009 and a Rays All-Star representative in 2011, his wife Brittany and business partner Blair Johnson have bought into the F45 Training franchise, and the New Tampa location is the first of theirs to open. Another location at Sparkman Wharf in downtown Tampa is just beginning construction, and Joyce expects to open another three by the summer of 2021.
Although the New Tampa F45 Fitness has been open since May 23, with attendance limited by Covid-19 restrictions, the Grand Opening capped the first week at full throttle for the fitness center, which stresses Functional 45-minute workouts; hence, F45.
The music was booming, instructions were barked out and dozens of fitness-minded folks went through high intensity workouts throughout the day, as Joyce expressed delight at the turnout.
“Getting it open is really the silver lining in all of this,” said Joyce, who has been a constant presence at the center since Major League Baseball postponed spring training Mar. 12. “It’s been a whirlwind offseason.”
During spring training with the Marlins, Johnson was making sure the build-out at F45 was going smoothly as Joyce handled the administrative duties. But, with no baseball, Joyce became a fixture at the New Tampa location and currently works out alongside members.
Joyce and Johnson met by chance at Armature Works (north of downtown), where they ended up having a discussion about fitness. Johnson asked Joyce if he had ever heard of F45, which piqued his interest.
After a few workouts at the Land O’Lakes location, the former Ray was hooked. The idea of owning a franchise (or a few) was appealing, and the New Tampa location was an 18-month project.
“I’m wired more for stuff like business, real estate and finance,” Joyce says. “I enjoy that side of things. So, it was a perfect combination.”
Founded in Australia in 2011, F45 is high-intensity, low impact training and, according to its website, is the fastest-growing fitness franchise in the world. The smaller, more specialized instructor-led group workouts are similar to what competitors like Orangetheory and Row House do, but with what Joyce says is a greater variety of exercises, as F45 boasts more than 35 programs consisting of more than 1,300 different exercises.
Joyce says the new location is continuing to grow an already solid membership base, and many of the classes, even the 5 and 6 a.m. classes, have had great turnouts.
“We’ve crushed it,” Joyce says. “We really believe in it, people are enjoying it and we are getting fantastic reviews. I think a lot of people are going to like it.”
Tell Joyce, Johnson and the staff at F45 (18035 Highwoods Preserve Pkwy.) that you read about them in Neighborhood News. For more info, call (813) 560-4047. There also is a separate new F45 Training located at 10701 Cross Creek Blvd. For info, call (813) 522-5332.
CRACKING THE CODE: While Grain & Berry has the distinction of being the first business to open in the new Villages at Hunter’s Lake plaza, TheCoderSchool New Tampa (8632 Hunter’s Village Rd.) wasn’t far behind.
Although TheCoderSchool didn’t begin its summer camps until June 22, the learning center held its sneak preview event on June 13, the same day Grain & Berry opened.
Owned by Mike and Lesly Ramirez Olavarria, TheCoderSchool is a franchise focused on teaching kids to do computer coding year-round. Founded in 2014 with its headquarters in Silicon Valley, CA, the school offers after-school classes and summer camps for those interested in learning computer languages like Scratch, Python and Java.
At the New Tampa location, there are classes for kids ages 7-18, who will learn to code and do things like build apps and present their projects at a Coder Fair.
The teachers are professional coders, professionals who teach coding and computer science students at the University of South Florida, depending upon the level of class in which the student enrolls.
Many of the classes have a 2-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, to enhance learning.
“We’re both in the IT field,” says Lesly (far right in photo above), “and coding has helped in our careers. We want to pass that on….it’s another tool for your tool belt.”
While the summer classes are in person, Lesly says the fall classes will depend upon what happens with the Covid-19 situation. The school has been able to hold online coding classes, and may continue to do so if the pandemic causes another disruption during the 2020-21 school year.
That hasn’t stopped people from calling to sign up, however. “The phone has been ringing off the hook since we scheduled the Grand Opening,” Lesly says.
Those who do call can get 25-percent-off their first month of classes, and a discount is available for summer camps as well. Lesly says she understands many have been affected by Covid-19, but she will try to work with anyone who is interested in classes.
For more info, call TheCoderSchool New Tampa at (813) 422-5566.
TAAZA INDIAN MART OPENS: Taaza Mart is now open in the Market Square at Tampa Palms plaza, occupying the former Staples location.
The first thing you notice when you walk in? It’s spacious, and feels much larger than its 16,500 square feet.
The all-Indian grocery will be a welcome addition for New Tampa’s large Indian population, with its wide selection of fresh produce like Indian eggplant, dosakai, dudhi and others.
It also offers Halal meats and there is an ample supply of various spices, as well as the largest selection of multiple varieties of basmati, sona masoori and ponni rice around.
In the back of the store, a small café serves hot food from a South Indian menu that includes a dozen different types of dosa and an Indo-Chinese menu with various chicken and chili dishes, as well as curry fried rice and curry noodles. There also is a bakery.
Taaza Mart (6260 Commerce Palms Dr.) has been open for just over a month, and is open Mon.-Thur., 11 a.m.-7 p.m., and 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Fri.-Sun. For more information, call (813) 564-8100 or visit taazamartfl.com.
