Here at the Neighborhood News, we get an inordinate number of phone calls asking โIs this Aldi?โ and โAre you open yet?โ
Weโre not sure why, other than Google must be taking many a curious reader to our website, where at least a handful of stories about the Germany-based discount-grocer reside.
Finally, however, we can give the next caller an answer: Wednesday, July 1.
So, why the question mark in the leadline?
In our next issue, which will be hitting your mailboxes any day now, we say the Aldi, located at 2215 Sun Vista Dr. (on the southeast corner of S.R. 56 and Wesley Chapel Blvd.) is opening June 17 because that’s what the Aldi website had posted the day we sent the issue to the printers. Oops!
Official plans for the Grand Opening should be coming soon.ย
ALDI says it has nearly 2,000 stores across 36 states, and is on track to become the third-largest grocery retailer by store count by the end of 2022. It carries mostly lesser known brands, and many products can be had at deep discounts compared with other stores.
The Aldi store has been a long time coming for the Wesley Chapel area. The company first approached Pasco County planners about a site near The Grove on S.R. 54 back in 2015. Those plans were scrapped for a different location on the north side of S.R. 56, before being altered again for its current location on the south side of 56, in front of Costco.
Sprouts Farmers Market is preparing to open its latest location on Aug. 12.
Sprouts Farmers Market, the healthy green grocer anchoring the new Village at Hunter’s Lake development off Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in New Tampa, has announced the store’s grand opening for Wednesday, Aug. 12 at 7 a.m.
The Phoenix-based grocer says it will announce details about the grand opening at a later date.
The 30,000-sq.-ft. store, located at 8620 Hunters Village Rd. across from the entrance to Hunter’s Green, specializes in natural and organic foods. Sprouts opened its first store in 2002, and now has more than 300 stores in 20 states.
The market for a large organic grocer in the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel area is wide open after the last green grocer to open, Earth Fare, opened on S.R. 56 across from Tampa Premium Outlets and closed within a year.
The New Tampa location will be bringing approximately 110 full- and part-time jobs to the area. Sprouts will host a virtual hiring fair with video interviews on July 1 and 2. If interested, you are encouraged to apply online at sprouts.com/careers.
Sprouts will be hiring department managers, assistant department managers, clerks, cashiers and other positions.
As the Pasco County Commissioner representing District 2, which encompasses most of Wesley Chapel, it is a big part of Mike Mooreโs job to help local businesses that are struggling during the current Covid-19 pandemic in a variety of ways โ from forming committees to find relief to helping engineer, and vote on, small business grants to making plans for an uncertain future.
But, one of the more unique and fun ways Moore is helping out is by giving social media shout-outs to local businesses with the requisite #SupportPasco hashtag.
Moore began encouraging area restaurants to send him their T-shirts โ he promised to return them โ so he could wear them in videos he has been posting on his Facebook and Twitter pages. Whatever shirt he is wearing that day, Moore shares a little about the business and encourages viewers to stop by and grab some takeout.
He started with Alโs Famous Pizza in San Antonio, and has also featured 900ยบ Woodfired Pizza, Buttermilk Provisions and The Brass Tap.
Not only does Moore get to shine the spotlight on local businesses, it also gives him the chance to show off his new Grizzly Adams-style โquarantine beard.โ
โIt was just a fun thing that kind of started just to get the word out about these places,โ Moore says. โItโs tough right now for them to spend money on advertising, so this is a big help. Every little bit you can do to help these small businesses is worth it.โ
His videos generally receive more than 1,000 views, and he says his Facebook inbox is jammed with requests.
โI canโt even get to them all,โ he says. โI sit there in bed at night trying to get through them.โ
Mooreโs video spotlights have been such a hit that he has opened it up to small businesses other than restaurants, and increased his output to two videos a day.
Social media has become a popular way to support local businesses, by sharing various specials and news about restaurants and other businesses. Moore has lots of company when it comes to promotion โ the Wesley Chapel Community page on Facebook has open threads where small businesses can advertise, and here at the Neighborhood News (also promoted by Moore), we have done a series of videos and Facebook posts promoting local businesses, with more to come.
As businesses begin reopening under new rules and new hours, getting the word out will be more important than ever.
Pure Florida Watersports owners Natalie Manrique and Derick Burgos did not receive any government aid in the first round of PPP funding & feared for their business, but say they are thankful that customers are slowly returning.
Derick Burgos and Natalie Manrique (photo) are the co-owners of Pure Florida Watersports off S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel. They are small business owners. They are the people that the grants and loans from the federal government, in response to the economic hardships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, were supposed to help.
Like many small businesses in Wesley Chapel, however, that help never came for the Meadow Pointe residents.
Despite applying for money through the Small Business Administration (SBA)โs Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Burgos and Manrique, who are engaged, received nothing. The first time. And, at our press time, they hadnโt heard anything yet about the second round.
โItโs hard,โ Derick says. โWe are a mom-and-pop, family-owned business. Weโre pushing hard to make this work. That (PPP loan) would have helped. Our business is lucky to be alive still.โ
When it came to getting an infusion of funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief & Economic Security (or CARES) Act, a glimmer of hope was snuffed out for many Wesley Chapel businesses.
The most coveted loan/grant sought was the PPP, which wouldnโt need to be paid back if the business showed that 75-percent of the funds were used to retain employees. But, that first $349 billion ran out quickly, and then news that bigger, well-known brands like Shake Shack, Ruthโs Hospitality Group (the parent company of Ruthโs Chris Steakhouse)Inc. and even the Los Angeles Lakers were among the businesses that received checks.
And, even though they eventually returned the money amid bad press, it did little to reduce the sting felt by area small businesses.
โIt was a very confusing process,โ says Hope Kennedy, the CEO of the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. โWe heard from many of our members. They werenโt happy.โ
Nyree Bland, the co-owner of PROtential Sports, says PROtentialโs after-school sports programs for kids have been closed for six weeks. She is praying the company can still offer its popular summer camps, โbut we havenโt received PPP for our staff yet,โ she says.
To help fill the void for county businesses, the Pasco Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously on April 21 to approve $2 million for an aid package to help the countyโs small businesses. The Pasco Economic Development Council (Pasco EDC) partnered with the county to get the $2 million in grants in the hands of as many as 400 area small businesses affected by Covid-19.
The vote was held at 11:20 a.m., and the website to apply went live a minute later. Luckily, says Pasco EDC CEO Bill Cronin, the county had purchased additional bandwidth to handle the crush, but even so, the EDC received 1,439 applications in 36 hours before cutting off the process.
โWe (the county and the EDC) wanted to try and help and make sure there was some cash moving around in the economy,โ Cronin says. โIt went a little faster than we thought.โ
The Pasco EDC has begun distributing the money, the limit of which was $5,000 per applicant. Some small businesses asked for less than that, so more than 400 applicants are receiving at least some assistance.
But, many others are still waiting for that federal help, and trying to decide if they can survive without it. Businesses throughout Florida were allowed to reopen on May 4, but social distancing guidelines and stringent rules limiting the number of customers inside restaurants and retail establishments may not provide the boost those businesses need to survive. A second round of PPP, and more aid down the road, will help โ if it ever comes.
Burgos says he was โscared craplessโ during the early stages of the coronavirus. He has a rosier outlook now that the quarantine restrictions have been eased.
โI had some insider scoop that businesses under 50 employees were just going to have to brace themselves,โ Burgos says. โWe donโt expect to get anything from PPP, but a lot of people are getting stir crazy from being inside. I know a lot of them are on the fence still, but Iโm hoping they will be coming back out.โ
This is the view from the end of Kinnan St., which runs north from Cross Creek Blvd. Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe is on the other side of the barrier, about 40 feet away. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
For New Tampa residents hoping that one day Kinnan St. in New Tampa would be connected to Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe at the southern county line of Pasco County โ allowing locals an alternate route to Wesley Chapel โ news that work has already begun on connecting the roads for emergency vehicles only might be a bit of a letdown.
Luis Viera, however, says he will take it. The Tampa District 7 City Council member (see pg. 6) and New Tampa resident likened the final result to โa single, maybe a doubleโ but praised the decision to move forward and provide that emergency access.
โThe firefighters at Station No. 23 (on Cross Creek Blvd.) that Iโve talked to are very excited about it,โ Viera says. โThis is something all of New Tampa should celebrate. The Kinnan-Mansfield stalemate literally hasnโt moved even an inch forward in two decades.โ
The connection was orignally expected to be completed by the end of the summer, but a finishing date is unclear, due to the coronavirus outbreak. Viera says some final meetings between the City of Tampa and Hillsborough and Pasco counties to put the finishing touches on the agreement have been postponed, and may be rescheduled via phone.
The deal calls for the developer of K-Bar Ranch to pave the connection, while Hillsborough County addresses the design and construction of the remaining infrastructure, which will include an emergency access gate and paths for pedestrians and bicyclists.
โWe want to have control over that,โ said Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore, a longtime opponent of connecting the two roads to through traffic.
Moore says that while the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has voted to grant access to first responders only, it remains opposed to ever opening to local traffic and that will be codified in an agreement coming before the Pasco County Board of Commissioners in the near future, where it also will vote on the maintenance agreement for the connection.
So, say goodbye to the most infamous patch of untended, overgrown, garbage-infested grass and bushes in our area, as the agreement ends years of bitter fighting between the two counties, with Hillsborough County and Tampa seeking numerous times to connect the road and Pasco County, which at one time wanted was the entity that wanted it connected, refusing to budge in its opposition.
