City Council Puts Hold On K-Bar Expansion

Craig Margelowsky says he is one of many residents of K-Bar Ranch that would prefer to see more roads built before allowing more homes.  The Tampa City Council agrees. (Photo: John C. Cotey)

 

Stop!

That’s the message from Tampa’s City Council, which is tapping the brakes – something quite familiar to New Tampa residents trying to get around our already congested roads — on allowing any more new homes to be built in K-Bar Ranch, at least until there is a way for the people that buy those homes to leave the community in their automobiles.

Ideally, the city says, connector roads into Pasco County would help reduce some of the transportation issues facing New Tampa.
At the City Council’s May 3 meeting in downtown Tampa, District 7’s Luis Viera led the charge have the Council postpone a decision to allow 698 more homes to be built in K-Bar Ranch, located in the northeast corner of New Tampa between Kinnan St. and Morris Bridge Rd.

A final vote is scheduled for Thursday, June 28.

Pasco has concluded it’s Wesley Chapel Roadway Connection study by then, which is expected to clarify some of Tampa’s issues.

That study, commissioned more than a year ago, is looking at three connections between Tampa and Wesley Chapel — at Kinnan St.-Mansfield Blvd., at K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. and Meadow Pointe Blvd., and at a two-way connection where Wyndfields Blvd. would connect to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. as well as to Morris Bridge Rd.

Until they are agreed to, Viera says new homes will just exacerbate a major problem in the area, where residents currently only have one road (Kinnan St.) out of K-Bar Ranch.

Any connections are dependent upon the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County finding a solution to the decade-long standoff with Pasco County, which has been resistant to the idea of connecting Kinnan St. to Mansfield Blvd.

Negotiations have been, at times, very contentious.

“The way I see this is, we have a constant crisis in the New Tampa area and it’s not just the things we’ve heard today (about traffic),” Viera said at the May 3 meeting. “This is really a crisis of governments not really working together.”

Viera was the only council member who opposed the plan to build more homes in K-Bar Ranch when the first reading of the plan was held in April. But, between then and May 3, he gained an ally in District 2 councilman Charlie Miranda.

“Although I supported this the first reading, I was hoping between the first and second reading Pasco would come out of its coma,” Miranda said. “Evidently, it has not.”

Miranda lamented the speed of development in the current economic environment, without the sufficient infrastructure to support it. Those two things, he said, need to go hand in hand.

“It’s a problem for the whole area, the whole city, they whole county, the whole state, the whole country,” Miranda said. “When you do not invest in infrastructure, something is going to give….we can’t continue to have prosperity with no parking or transportation.”

The decision to delay any further development in K-Bar Ranch was greeted with a clap of the hands by Craig Margelowsky, the president of Heron Preserve in K-Bar Ranch.

“Nobody wants it,” he says of more development. “Not without the roads.”

K-Bar Ranch already has 700 homes built, with another 500 or so already approved and coming. If M/I Homes, the developer, is successful in gaining approval for another 700, more than 2,000 homes will complete K-Bar and add thousands of cars to New Tampa’s already congested roads.

A member of the New Tampa Council, Margelowsky has long been a proponent of making the connection between Kinnan St. and Mansfield Blvd., as well as pushing for speedier construction of K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., which will run from Kinnan St. east to Morris Bridge Rd. Because morning traffic currently only has one road out of K-Bar Ranch, it backs up to the point of taking residents 10-15 minutes just to get out of their neighborhoods.

An accident last month near Pride Elementary blocked traffic for 45 minutes. And last summer, Margelowsky said there were traffic jams during Hurricane Irma evacuations.

“There’s a choke point there,” he says. “There was nothing anyone could do.”

Margelowsky says he warned the city and developers last year that the roads in and around K-Bar Ranch cannot support any new homes. He told the Tampa City Council, “We can’t get out”, and asked that before issuing any more certificates of occupancy (COs), that K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. should first have to be completed out to Kinnan St.

COs, however, were issued in March of 2017 he says, but the parkway wasn’t completed to Kinnan until two months ago.

“We have 1,200 homes, and we still don’t have two exits out,” Margelowsky says. “We have Kinnan. What are we supposed to do?”

Connecting Kinnan St. and Mansfield Blvd. has been argued as one solution, but the City of Tampa is now demanding that all three connections be made.

If not, no more homes in K-Bar Ranch.

“We need to connect them all,” said Melanie Calloway, the senior transportation planning engineer for Tampa. She said the city is stipulating that if Meadow Pointe Blvd. is connected to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy — as they believe Pasco desires, — “then Kinnan gets done at the same time.”

If Pasco does not agree, then the Wyndfields Blvd. extension connections to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. and Morris Bridge Rd. — connections that Pasco officials want to see built — will not be considered.

“We hope that it gets done,” Calloway said. “We can’t make another municipality connect to our roadways. But, we try our best to let them know we are open. All connections. Not just pick and choose. It is important for traffic distribution.”

No one on the Tampa side seems overly optimistic that all of the connections can be agreed to, but all fingers at the May 3 meeting pointed to Pasco County for being at fault.

Attorney Donna Feldman, who is representing M/I Homes, the developer, said the City of Tampa has gone out of its way to get the connections made, but Pasco “is really standing in the way.”

Feldman pointed out that the two counties were able to work together on a Sunlake Blvd. extension from Land O’Lakes in Pasco County into Hillsborough a few years ago, but can’t solve their current quandary.

“That was done cooperatively,” Feldman said. “Okay, Pasco, so what’s wrong with these? That’s the question.”

Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, who says he has worked on connecting Kinnan-Mansfield for a decade, said that years ago, Pasco County commissioners agreed to make the Kinnan-Manfield connection.

He said at the time, he had stats showing that large numbers of Pasco County residents were flocking to New Tampa to use the recreation center, library and parks.

However, as Pasco County Dist. 2 commissioner Mike Moore has noted, the tide has turned. Because of the massive growth along the northern end of Mansfield Blvd., in Wiregrass Ranch and along S.R. 56, he doesn’t think Meadow Pointe’s residents desire or need the connection to be made anymore.

And despite the City of Tampa’s claims, he says it is Tampa that has declined to work with Pasco in the past, perhaps missing its chance.

Even at a time when metropolitan planning organizations and transportation boards in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties seem to be urging regional cooperation and connectivity, the gap between Kinnan St. and Mansfield Blvd. continues to be more of a cavernous valley than the 30-foot patch of grass, dirt and trash that remains there.

North Tampa Bay Chamber First To Get Behind Effort To Keep Rays

Former Rays manager Lou Piniella is on the Tampa Bay Rays 2020 team.

For years, Major League Baseball (MLB)’s Tampa Bay Rays have drawn sparse crowds. Many in the Bay area have questioned the local support for the team and the Rays as an organization have apparently concluded that the team can not survive in its current St. Petersburg home at Tropicana Field.

The non-profit group Tampa Bay Rays 2020 (TBR2020), however, is working quickly to show the Rays that things will be different if the team moves to Tampa, by organizing community and business support for the Rays’ possible future move to Ybor City.

TBR2020 has enlisted the help of the North Tampa Bay (formerly Wesley Chapel) Chamber (NTBC), which was the first Chamber of Commerce to pledge its support.

“It was very strategic on their part,” says NTBC CEO Hope Allen. “They sought us out, they came to us, they knew we were a vital key to the whole corridor. A chamber like ours that represents Pasco County can help them.”

Having the NTBC sign on was just the beginning for TBR2020.

“Just in the last couple of weeks here, we’ve had four chambers sign on formally to support this initiative,” said Mike Griffin, senior managing director at Savills Studley Occupier Services and the immediate past chair of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. “The exciting thing about that was the first one that got behind us was the North Tampa/Wesley Chapel group. The excitement we’re seeing outside of downtown and outside of the city is really, really important. It’s good getting folks that normally aren’t at the table for major regional issues.”

Founded by Chuck Sykes, CEO of Sykes Enterprises, and Ron Christaldi, a partner at the law firm of Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick, the TBR2020 group held a standing room-only press conference last month at the Tampa Baseball Museum in historic Ybor City to announce its plans. Also last month, Jason Woody, the President/CEO of the Lions Eye Institute for Transplant & Research, Inc, and a member of the Advisory Board of Tampa Bay Rays 2020, was the featured speaker at the NTBC’s April 3 Business Breakfast.

The goal of TBR2020 is to help keep the Rays in the Bay area, by raising awareness and rounding up local community and businesses willing to pledge their support to the team’s proposed move to Ybor City, where the selected 14-acre stadium site is expected to breathe new life into that area, as well as into what is becoming a lifeless baseball franchise.

TBR2020 also announced the Rays 100, a select group of businesses and corporations willing to pledge financial support in the form of corporate boxes and sponsorships.

“This has opened up a dialogue,” Griffin said. “The biggest questions we hear now are what’s next and how can we help. The ultimate goal is to have a very diverse and vast coalition of supporters that ultimately leads to a conversation about sponsorships and tickets. It’s tough to get there, though, if we don’t know and haven’t identified our supporters.”

Rumors have swirled for years about the Rays possibly moving to a city that might offer more support. Allen is one of those who thinks that such a move would be devastating to the Tampa Bay area.

“My opinion is we need to fight hard to keep them here in the region,” Allen said. “Major league sports franchises have a huge economic impact on a region. Very significant. You don’t want to lose that.”

One issue that TBR2020 won’t be addressing, just yet anyway, is the thorniest – how to pay for a new stadium. The price of a new stadium could range anywhere from $600-800 million, though it is hard to zero in on a figure without a design. The Rays owners have pledged $150 million to the project.

“Right now, we are all about building engagement, awareness and excitement,” Griffin said. “If we couldn’t fill the Rays 100, if we couldn’t get the local organizations to endorse, it would be a totally different conversation with the county and the team. The reality is, we’ve been able to demonstrate it is the complete opposite.”

Those willing to participate can sign the online petition at TampaBayRays2020.com. 

Wesley Chapel Roadways Study Released

The long-awaited and 450-page traffic study requested by the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has been posted here.

The year-long study looked at the pros and cons of connecting New Tampa’s Kinnan St. with Meadow Pointe’s Mansfield Blvd., as well as making connections from Meadow Pointe Blvd. to the not-yet-completed K-Bar Ranch Blvd., and Wyndfields Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Blvd.

Kinnan-Mansfield was not under study to be the lone connection. The study primarily considered three connections: Kinnan-Mansfield and Meadow Pointe Blvd.; just Meadow Pointe Blvd.; and all three connections.

The study also dealt with myriad of other suggested road improvements such as repaving, widening and additional traffic signals — roughly $13.8 million worth — in the area bordered by Bruce B. Downs Blvd. to the west, Morris Bridge to the west, S.R. 56 to the north and County Line Rd. to the south.

If any connections are made, that would increase the costs to $15.4 million.

We are still making our way through the detailed and thorough report. You can read it all for yourself, or just wait until Tuesday, May 29, from 6-8 p.m. when an open house will be held at Pasco-Hernando State College, Room B-303.

Pasco County District 2 Commissioner Mike Moore and MPO Staff will provide a brief introduction, followed by a condensed version of the report that hits on the major points, and public comment session.

You also can comment here through June 15.

 

 

 

Dueling Petitions Getting More Residents Involved In Kinnan-Mansfield Debate

Meadow Pointe II resident Chris Dillinger is trying to rally support to stop a connection at Mansfield Blvd. in MP & Kinnan St. from being made.

Meadow Pointe II resident Chris Dillinger has been anxiously awaiting the results of a Wesley Chapel Roadway Connections study, which is expected to issue its findings on three potential connection points between Pasco and Hillsborough County on the county line separating them.

That report could be published as soon as today.

The one connection Dillinger fears the most is the one everyone is talking about — from Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe to Kinnan St. in New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch

Dillinger thinks he has a good basis for that fear, and he wants to know who else agrees with him. To that end, he has started an online petition Change.org in an effort, however unscientific as online polls can be, to find out.

“I really wanted to wait for the Roadways Connections study to come out (it is scheduled to be published online May 15), so I could include their data,” he says. “Basically, we’re running out of time.”

As of May 11, 361 people had signed it — you can find it by clicking here — with many sharing the same concerns that have been debated for the past few years — dangers of increased traffic in school zones, the frustration of more cars on already clogged Meadow Pointe roads and fears that Mansfield’s two lanes are just not equipped to handle more than it already does.

For Dillinger, a 39-year-old high school counselor at Sunlake High in Land O’Lakes, it’s also a personal matter. He has two young children who spend their days on Mansfield Blvd. — one attends daycare, the other attends Wiregrass Elementary.

He would rather see a connection made three miles east of Mansfield at Meadow Pointe Dr., a road that doesn’t have any schools on it. Mansfield Blvd. runs by Dr. John Long Middle School, Wiregrass Elementary and Wiregrass Ranch High.

However, there is currently no road in K-Bar Ranch to even connect to Meadow Pointe Blvd.

“I just want to raise awareness of this issue,” he says.

On the other side of traffic barriers that stand between the connection is another Change.org petition, one which is in favor of the connection.

That petition, started by New Tampa realtor Gary Vermani two months ago, had 500 signatures after the first few days, and now is closing in on 800. To find it, click here.

Like Dillinger, Vermani has his reasons for wanting the connection made — to create another pathway for emergency service vehicles or in case of evacuations, to provide easier access to local businesses and to help reduce commute times as well as traffic on both Cross Creek Blvd. and Bruce B. Downs Blvd.

(Not to be outdone, and maybe for comic relief, there is actually a third online petition concerning Kinnan-Mansfield, which has 28 signatures of people who oppose those who oppose the connection. (“There is a group petitioning to stop the road from being completed between Kinnan and Mansfield,” the petition says. “They are stupid. Stupidity should be stopped, not roads.”)

But, it’s no joke to Dillinger, who says the proposed expansion of K-Bar Ranch, which sits along the Pasco-Hillsborough border right off Kinnan St., should be enough of a reason for all Meadow Pointe residents to oppose any connection.

The Tampa City Council held a second hearing May 3 on a proposal to build 700 more homes in K-Bar Ranch, and decided to postpone any decision until June 28 in the hopes that Pasco County can be persuaded to make three connections — one at Meadow Pointe Blvd. and K-Bar Branch Pkwy., one at Wyndfields Blvd. and K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., and a third one at Kinnan-Mansfield.

Dillinger has no problem with the first two connections, which he says would be made into less populated areas along the county line.

However, with three schools, a popular mall on S.R. 56, and plans for things like the Raymond James Financial Complex, a movie theater, sports complex, green grocer and other businesses and restaurants, Dillinger sees a Kinnan-Mansfield connection as disastrous.

“That’s a lot of cars driving through our neighborhood,” he says. “It has to stop.”

While online petitions are unlikely to sway any politician’s opinions — they will likely rely more on public meetings and more official government-run surveys to gauge the public mood — Dillinger has had success with them in the past.

Earlier this year, his online petition to stop the county from considering allowing a 7-Eleven to be built on Mansfield Blvd. and County Line Rd. — right in front of his son’s daycare — attracted more than 1,100 signatures. He also got the support of Pasco County District 2 Commissioner Mike Moore.

The county’s Development Review Committee elected to postpone a decision until a later, and as yet, unscheduled date.

He says he is hoping for similar success this time around.

Quail Hollow Kid Cooks Ready To Take Their Talents To The ‘Gridiron Challenge’

(L.-r.) Lindsey Overland, Madison Gulley, Gracie Evans and Katelyn O’Neil show off their Alfredo Smothered Roasted Red Pepper & Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Swirls.

Quail Hollow Elementary (QHE) students Gracie Evans, Madison Gulley, Katelyn O’Neil and Lindsey Overland will be competing in a “Gridiron Challenge” on Saturday, May 19, at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ training facility at One Buc Place.

But, don’t expect the 10- and 11-year-old fifth-graders to be knocking anyone down with ferocious hits.

Instead, they will be trying to knock some people out with their Alfredo Smothered Roasted Red Pepper & Sun Dried Tomato Pasta Swirls.

The Wesley Chapel girls will take part in a culinary competition against students from three other schools in the annual Gridiron Cooking Challenge, part of the “Fuel Up to Play 60” initiative, an in-school nutrition and physical activity program run by the National Dairy Council and the NFL.

The event is free and open to the public to attend. And, while it’s still a few weeks away at our press time, the girls say they are already getting nervous.

“I think about it a lot. I’m very excited,” Katelyn says, with her teammates nodding in agreement.

At the competition, the Quail Hollow quartet will have an hour to prepare their signature dish for a panel of judges, including a Florida dairy farmer, the Bucs’ executive chef, a representative from Publix and teenage culinary whiz Zac Kara, a former MasterChef Junior competitor on FOX-TV.

The QHE team has its own culinary whiz and former television competitor in Gracie. In 2016, when she was just 9-years-old, she battled against nine other kid cooks from across the country on Food Network’s “Star Kids” cooking show.

On that show, Gracie had to present a live audition to judges, prepare dishes on the fly and incorporate social media — such as a Snapchat cooking tip — into her cooking presentation. She still maintains a popular Instagram page, where she posts her most current dishes.

It’s a skill set she picked up from her mother, Juliana, a well-known dessert maker who has appeared on NBC-TV’s “The Today Show,” as well as the Food Network and local TV. She describes herself as a “freelance food stylist,” and her daughter is following in her footsteps.

It was while both were giving demonstrations at the Southern Women’s Fair last October that Gracie was introduced to the Florida Dairy Council, which suggested she take part in the council’s upcoming competition.

The idea of a team competition appealed to Gracie, as opposed to the kid-to-kid cooking combat she went through at Food Network. She decided to team up with Madison, Katelyn and Lindsey, with fifth-grade teacher Alysha Moscarelli and Juliana helping to guide the girls.

“It will definitely be better than my first time,” Gracie says. “You will be able to rely on other people. It helps you relax more. You won’t be as nervous.”

The Power Of Teamwork

In fact, each girl has her own role to play on the team, forming a finely-tuned unit.

Gracie started brainstorming immediately after finding out about the competition. She pitched the Council with one of the recipes she served on the Food Network, modifying it by replacing the recipe’s marinara sauce with Alfredo sauce, as the competition calls for dairy-based recipes.

“I changed it a little bit,” Gracie says. “It was really easy to make and it is an interesting dish because it has a lot of components that, all together, taste really good.”

One of those components, which provides a secondary dash of dairy, could be called the “secret sauce” — yogurt.

“It made it a little creamier, and yogurt has that tart kind of a bite,” Juliana says. “It plays very nicely.”

Katelyn also helps with the Alfredo sauce. “We put a lot of work into it and practice and tasting, making sure it’s real smooth,’’ she says. “And, we have a lot of back-up plans, in case it’s not perfect.”

Lindsey’s job is the lemon ricotta filling, which she says she makes with ricotta cheese (still more dairy), zested lemon, salt and black pepper.

“We mix it all up and put it (on the noodles) and roll it all up,” she says.

Madison is responsible for the roasted pepper sun-dried tomato, which is blended with pesto, baby spinach, parsley and olive oil before being incorporated into the lasagna noodles.

“It’s very delicious,” says Madison, who is dubbed the “Pesto Queen” by her teacher.

Lindsey and Madison both say that since joining the Gridiron Challenge team, they have taken a greater interest in cooking and now make more dishes around their homes.

“I really enjoy doing the cooking,” Lindsey says. “But, I think it all started with this competition.”

The team has been practicing for three months now, sometimes at home, other times at school, where they push three desks together and set up their stations.

Moscarelli, a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) teacher who has all four girls in two separate math and science classes at Quail Hollow, says she has enjoyed watching them work together in preparation for the upcoming competition, not to mention all the taste-testing she has been able to indulge in.

“It’s nice to see them use their critical thinking skills, communication skills and teamwork in everyday life,” she says. “And, the recipe is delicious.”

The girls are all friends and have each brought their own special talents to the cooking table — with a mix of brainstorming and experimentation.

“They started to talk about it at lunch,” Moscarelli says, “and they would say, ‘Ooh, what if we added this to the recipe?,’ and then would go home and try different things and alter the ingredients. They all jumped right in.”

The recipe is finalized, and the team is now working on the little things, like plating and timing. They will have to plate and present four dishes for the judges, and also are responsible for producing 50 samples for the audience.

The girls are confident they will do well and deliver a hit at the Gridiron Challenge. The delicious kind.

“We have been working hard,” Madison said. “It will be good.”