Category: News

New Tampa YMCA Hosting Healthy Kids Day Saturday!

YMCAWEB The New Tampa Family YMCA will host Healthy Kids Day on Saturday, April 30, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. For 25 years, this event has been celebrated at YMCAs across the nation. This year, the focus of this free event – open to everyone in the community – is to inspire more kids to keep their minds and bodies active, especially as the summer months approach.

This year, after several years of participating in one central event for all nine Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA branches, the New Tampa Family YMCA will host its own Healthy Kids Day celebration. Located just off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. next to Compton Park in Tampa Palms, the New Tampa Y will open its doors to the community for a variety of fun activities, all encouraging families to focus on an active lifestyle.

“The New Tampa YMCA is here to support families in healthy lifestyle choices,” says membership director Jill Godfrey Rupp. “Everything you will see and experience at Healthy Kids Day will reflect that.”

Godfrey Rupp says there will be a bounce house, face painting and lots of crafts and activities for kids. They can sample activities to get a feel for some of the Y’s summer day camps, as well as camps offered by vendors, including LEGO learning activities provided by Bricks 4 Kids.

There also will be games led by camp counselors, and sports led by youth coaches. The day will include water safety information and activities, and the chance for families to sample wellness classes, such as the popular “family boot camp” classes. The childcare area for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, known as the “Kid Zone,” will have a parachute activity for those ages.

Vendors such as doctors, dentists – including New Tampa Pediatric Dental – and even the New Tampa Regional Library, will help families see how to make healthy choices in many areas of their lives.

“We look at it from a whole healthy lifestyle perspective,” explains Godfrey Rupp, saying that healthy kids need to both be active and make healthy food choices, and also be actively engaged in learning in a way that’s fun. “We want to show families how they can make those choices.”

Since Healthy Kids Day is open to the entire community, non-members can get a glimpse of the amenities available to those who join the New Tampa Y. Members were recently emailed a survey asking about their experiences and the improvements they would like to see. Last year, those survey results led branch leadership to add an additional group exercise room and expand group exercise classes to include Barre, boot camp, Active Older Adults and more. This year’s survey will help drive the next round of improvements at the Y.

The New Tampa Family YMCA is located at 16221 Compton Dr. For info, call 866-9622 or visit TampaYMCA.org/locations/New-Tampa. — CM

Those Who Serve Again Benefit From Noon Rotary’s Bike Rally

More than 60 riders turned out March 19 at the Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. entrance to Flatwoods Wilderness Regional Park for another successful “Cycling for our Vets, Military & First Responders” — the third annual bicycle “rally” hosted by the New Tampa Noon Rotary Club.

“It was another great turnout,’’ says current club president and longtime member Valerie Casey, whose club meets Wednesdays at noon at Café Olé on Cross Creek Blvd. “We had a lot of new riders and interest, and more than last year. There were riders of all ages, and, as always, it benefited a great cause.”

This year’s event, which took off from Chili’s Grill & Bar, located at 17643 BBD Blvd. (just south of the BBD entrance to Flatwoods), raised $3,500 to help benefit the Navy Seal Foundation, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, Support the Troops and the Stay In Step Spinal Cord Injury Recovery Center.

Romy and Gabriela Camargo, who run the Stay In Step Spinal Cord Injury Recovery Center (located at 10500 University Center Dr., south of E. Fowler Ave.) were on hand to encourage the riders, who had their choice of distances to bike — 4, 18 or 39 miles. Also participating again was long-time New Tampa resident and former Stanley Cup-winning Tampa Bay Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk.

In three years, the event has attracted nearly 200 riders and raised about $18,000. “We’re already planning for next year’s event,’’ Casey says. “We’re hoping to tie it in with the return of the Taste of New Tampa.”

For more info about the great organizations that were the beneficiaries of this year’s bike ride, visit NavySealFoundation.org, HCFRFoundation.org, OurTroopsOnline.com or StayInStep.org. For more info about the New Tampa Noon Rotary, check out Facebook.com/NewTampaNoonRotary.

Our Biggest Post Ever & Other Exciting News

So, first, the BIG news. After two years in a row of winning the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Adult Spelling Bee, yours truly reverted to his usual choking-in-spelling-bees ways, as the Neighborhood News Horrific Spellers finished in a tie for about 10th (of 23 teams) on Apr. 8, when “Kount Drakyoula” himself (see photo below, courtesy of OurTownFla.com, of one of the 20+ words we spelled correctly) misspelled the word “onomatopoeia” (I spelled it “onamotopoeia”… missed it by thatmuch). The two sad facts were that:

1) I believe our team was the only one to spell all 20 words correctly during the first two rounds of this year’s bee (held again at the Tampa Bay Golf & Country Club in San Antonio), when you can “bribe” your way back into the competition by paying $10 (we got to trade in our prepurchased bribes, which you can not use in the third round) for non-winning raffle tickets) — thanks again to another couple of great assists on medical words from my teammate, event co-chair Karina Azank, M.D..

2) I actually practiced that word only a couple of hours before the event and really thought I remembered it correctly. Old age?

It was still a great event to benefit the Pasco Education Foundation and the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon Fund (our club’s nonprofit foundation)…and hey, even the Golden State Warriors didn’t win them all this year.

And The ‘Magic’ Continues…

GarykayakWEB The photo was the happiest I was the day after the Spelling Bee, as the organizers of the 13th annual Sharkbite Challenge off Honeymoon Island in Dunedin called off the “official” race on Apr. 9 due to high winds (20-30 knots) and seas (3-4-ft. waves).

I did return to the Dunedin Causeway the next day, when the winds were down to 10-15 knots and the waves down to 2-3-ft., but I never quite finished the 4-mile race, at least not without swimming the kayak about a half-mile to shore after a wave knocked me out of it. It’s a long, crazy story (to which my fellow WC Rotarians can attest), but I’m still planning to do another race soon…just not without the proper kayak. Most of the 100+ competitors at the race I didn’t finish were in sleek 14-18-ft. composite racing kayaks that look like Olympic sculls. I was in a borrowed, 9-ft. plastic kayak that I now realize I was probably lucky to be able to swim to shore.

Lucky? Heck yeah. After all, no one else at the race did a marine biathlon that day, right?

OK, Here’s Some Actual News…

Until Apr. 7, the single “biggest” post we ever had on our “Neighborhood News” Facebook page was viewed about 28,000 times, with about 4,000 click-throughs to read the actual story on our website.

But, Apr. 7 was the day we posted the map on page 12 of this issue, which shows what’s both officially coming and rumored to be coming to the area around the Tampa Premium Outlets mall off S.R. 56.

The map was on page 1 of our Wesley Chapel issue the following day, but it already had created a record stir (for us, of course) when it received 63,000+ views on our Facebook page — more than doubling our previous best — and an even more staggering 51,000+ click-throughs to our NTNeighborhoodNews.com website! That’s more than 12 times the number of people who had clicked through to our site in any single day!

The second map — of the area near our office on S.R. 54 near I-75 and Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in Wesley Chapel — was no slouch, either, although it “only” garnered 18,200+ page views and a few thousand click-throughs to our site.

What’s WCNT-TV?…

It’s the fun and informative web-based “TV” magazine show all about Wesley Chapel (WC) and New Tampa (NT) that’s launching soon. I can’t tell you much about it just yet, other than it’s a joint venture between yours truly and Full Throttle Intermedia (FTIntermedia.com), in association with the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce.

Dermatology Institute Has Plans For New Tampa

Dermatology Site — The land adjacent to the Legacy at Highwoods Preserve has been purchased by Dr. Debra Shelby, who plans to build a state-of-the-art dermatology practice and school at the site shown in red.

On a visit to Singapore’s acclaimed National Skin Centre in 2012, where she was invited to lecture the nursing staff and meet with the medical staff, Dr. Debra Shelby, Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and Ph.D., witnessed a state-of-the-art, comprehensive dermatology facility that treats 1,000 patients a day, while also serving as a home for continuing education for doctors, new technologies and research studies.

Making a place like that became one of her dreams, and soon, it may become a reality right here in New Tampa.

Shelby, a Tampa Palms resident, is the CEO and Clinical Director for Florida Specialty Medical Services (FSMS), LLC, located on Amberly Dr. in Tampa Palms, where she currently sees patients.

She will soon begin building a new facility, to be called the National Institute for Dermatology: Dermatology Education, on the corner of Highwoods Preserve Pkwy. and New Tampa Blvd. in West Meadows.

“I wasn’t even aware the property was for sale,’’ said Shelby. “I had been looking around the New Tampa area and didn’t find anything I really liked, and this was right in front of me the whole time. It’s a beautiful piece of property.”

The 7-acre property, most of it conservation and wetlands, with 2.5 acres of usable land, has been dormant for years, following a failed attempt to build a charter school on the site in 2012. Sold for $300,000, it was originally zoned for three 2,500-sq.-ft. offices or medical buildings. Shelby said an architect is currently “reconfiguring” that plan to instead include just one 8,000-sq.-ft. building, “with a nice flow.”

Dermatology Care From Start To Finish

Board-certified in dermatology (DNC) through the Dermatology Nursing Association, Shelby’s plan is to build and staff with qualified doctors a facility modeled after the one she visited in Singapore, offering a variety of services, including things like a pharmacy, a shop with sun protective clothing, laser-care, skin cancer treatments, aesthetics as well as a training center for doctors.

The project is currently in permitting.

“It will be a unique concept,’’ Shelby said. “We’re very excited about it.”

Dr. Debra Shelby has big plans for dermatology care.

Shelby, who has a number of specialties but says she has a love for geriatric dermatology, developed the country’s first Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) Dermatology Residency at USF and became the first resident to ever complete the program in 2008, and has learned from the best doctors while serving as a Perioperative Clinical Specialist at the Moffitt Cancer Center on the USF Tampa campus.

Shelby spent 15 years at a practice, mostly in Hudson, at the Center for Dermatology, before scaling back to part-time while she founded FSMS, LLC, which provides dermatology care and education.

Shelby visits most of her patients at senior-assisted facilities.

“It was always my vision to do this, but being part of a practice, it wasn’t something I could make come to fruition,” she said.

Shelby, who says she will start law school in January to study elder care health policy, said she has received so many requests from patients for a land-based facility to visit, creating one in New Tampa only made sense. To that end, the National Institute for Dermatology will be located right next to the Legacy at Highwoods Preserve assisted living facility.

Florida Specialty Medical Services, LLC, is located at 15243 Amberly Dr. For more information, visit FSMSLLC.com, or call 765-0688.

Massage Franchise Set To Open In New Tampa Center

Massage Green Spa, a national spa chain, is opening a new location in the Publix-anchored New Tampa Center plaza at the site formerly occupied by Dine or Dash and La Cubanita Café.

Live Oak resident Todd Phillips is one of the owners. He says he hopes to have the new spa open by mid-June or early-July.

Massage Green Spa bills itself as an affordable luxury spa offering massage therapy, skin care, nail care and “internal care with the latest technology of our infrared saunas.” Phillips says infrared saunas are “all the rage in California” because they offer all the health benefits of a sauna without the stifling heat and atmosphere of traditional saunas. “A little bit more modern,’’ Phillips said, “with greater effect.”

For additional information, visit MassageGreenSpa.com.

dermatology New Tampa

Serenity & 55-plus Community To Meadow Pointe

Anand Vihar 55-plus community — Anand Vihar is already transitioning in preparation for construction in Meadow Pointe, which will include a 17,000-sq.-ft. clubhouse

When good friends and Tampa Bay-area doctors Krishna Nallamshetty M.D., and Seenu Sanka, M.D., envisioned a place their parents could live their later years in, they imagined a calm and peaceful setting. People in a 55-plus community with shared interests, an active and vibrant community with trails to walk.

Fitness rooms to exercise in, places where they could worship and meditate and partake in the vegetarian lifestyle they have enjoyed their entire lives.

Beginning in June, that’s exactly what the two physicians plan to build in Wesley Chapel’s Meadow Pointe community.

Anand Vihar, which means “Blissful Living” (according to its website), promises to be the premier 55-plus community in Tampa Bay. It will be one of the only 55-plus adult communities in Wesley Chapel.

It will be built on a 50-acre site on Mansfield Blvd., less than 100 yards north of where the road currently dead ends (as we reported about again last issue) and is surrounded by large conservation and ponds.

55-Plus Community Coming Together

Drs. Nallamshetty and Sanka, who searched for the right place for two years before enlisting the help of another friend, Santosh Govindaraju, the CEO of Convergent Capital Partners (CCP), hope to break ground on Anand Vihar this summer.

Eric Isenbergh, the CEO of Oxford Homes, has joined the team as the property’s builder.

“I think it’s a phenomenal area to be in,’’ said Govindaraju, whose company focuses on development and repositioning of commercial real estate. He said CCP has put more than half a billion dollars into redeveloping places like Carrollwood Golf Club (previously Emerald Green Golf & Country Club) and a number of hotels and commercial properties. This is the company’s first foray into Wesley Chapel.

Govindaraju said he was able to secure a great price for the property. The deed, he says, will show the partners paid $25,000 for the land itself, but because the previous owners chose not to pay taxes on it — the recession stalled a previous project on the property — the new owners had to pay off liens on 87 lots, at a cost of $11,000 per lot.

According to Govindaraju, multiple banks owned parts of the parcel, but none had any interest in developing it and allowed it go delinquent.

“It was a very fragmented ownership,’’ he said. “We diligently put it back together.”

The roads, parking areas, utilities and detention ponds were all constructed in 2006, after the previous owners had received approval for 330 townhomes and condos.

Three of the buildings in the southeast portion of the project were constructed, with 24 apartments that currently have residents and eight townhomes that don’t, but any further development came to a halt.

The existing buildings and roads will remain, with a new one planned near Anand Vihar’s soon-to-be-built, 17,000-sq-ft clubhouse. CCP plans to invest $5 million into the 55-plus community, building 280 units and incorporating more green space.

“We are very excited,’’ Govindaraju said. “There’s so many great things happening in this area. We want to contribute to the success at Meadow Pointe by creating more upscale opportunities, and increase the value of them by investing more in these properties.”

Although the project appears to be targeting the existing Indian community in our area, Govindaraju says it’s more about a lifestyle than people of any particular origin.

“We will be targeting more of a healthy living lifestyle,’’ Govindaraju says, noting that the Anand Vihar clubhouse will have an exclusively vegetarian kitchen (non-vegetarian meals will be catered on a weekly basis), a yoga room, a multi-faith prayer and meditation room and a theater room to watch the latest Bollywood (and other) movies.

“We will also have a full-time activities director, and I think that will also set us apart,’’ Govindaraju says.

Anand Vihar already has 30 reservations, he added.

For more information, visit AnandViharTampa.com, or call 534-4127.