As work continues on the Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) at S.R. 56/I-75 and the widening of S.R. 54, some lanes will need to be closed at times to finish the job. Here’s a few upcoming things to keep an eye on, from the Florida Department of Transportation:
S.R. 54: The $42.8-million widening project from east of Curley Rd. to east of Morris Bridge Rd. (above) will have some around-the-clock lane shifts (essentially the closing of lanes in one direction while all traffic will use the lanes going in the other direction) scheduled from Monday, July 25 to Wednesday, July 27. The lane shifts are not represented on the map above, as they will be from just west of Curley Rd. to west of Meadow Pointe Blvd.
This project is widening the existing two-lane road to a four-lane highway with medians. A sidewalk will be built on the north side of the road and a 10-foot wide multi-use trail will be built on the south side. The sidewalk and trail will run the entire length of the project, from east of Curley Rd. to east of the Morris Bridge Rd./Eiland Blvd. intersection.
DDI
The S.R. 56 entrance ramp onto northbound I-75 may be closed from 10 p.m. Tuesday, August 2 to 5 a.m. Wednesday, August 3, weather permitting. Drivers will be detoured to enter from Wesley Chapel Blvd. The ramp could also be closed Wednesday, August 3 and/or Thursday, August 4 nights.
Here are the detour routes:
Eastbound S.R. 56 onto northbound I-75: Continue east past the closed ramp to S.R. 581 / Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. Turn left and go north on S.R. 581. At S.R. 54/Wesley Chapel Blvd., turn left and go west to the entrance ramp onto northbound I-75.
Westbound S.R. 56 onto northbound I-75: Continue west past the closed ramp to C.R 54 / Wesley Chapel Boulevard. Turn right and go northeast on C.R. 54. After passing under I-75, turn left onto the entrance ramp to northbound I-75.
Southbound I-75 exit to SR 56 to be closed Monday night, August 1
The southbound I-75, exit 275 ramp to S.R. 56 may be closed from 10 p.m. Monday, August 1 to 5 a.m. Tuesday, August 2, weather permitting. If necessary, this ramp could also be closed any night from Tuesday, August 2 through Thursday, August 4.
Detour Route to S.R. 56: Use Exit 279 to S.R. 54/C.R. 54. At the bottom of the ramp, turn left and go east on S.R. 54. Turn right onto S.R. 581 (Bruce B. Downs Blvd.) and go south to S.R. 56.
Nazeraeh Montrond (back row, center) is raising her three siblings and going to school full-time as she tries to continue her mother’s legacy. A new home from PulteGroup’s Built to Honor® Program and Building Homes for Heroes® will help. (Photos courtesy of Nazeraeh Montrond)
Nazeraeh Montrond has thought about it a lot, and the first thing she says she is going to buy for her family’s new Wesley Chapel townhome is a nice wooden table, or maybe a wooden chest.
On it, she will place side by side the urns of her parents — U.S. Army Sergeant Alberto Montrond, who was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device in Afghanistan in 2006, and Christl, who died in 2021 from several health issues.
“It will have to be nice,” Nazeraeh says. “It will have to be something I know she would put in her living room. My mommy had high standards.”
The three-bedroom townhome in the Wesley Reserve community at Chapel Crossings, which Nazeraeh and her three siblings will move into next month, is being built and provided mortgage-free by PulteGroup’s Built to Honor® Program in partnership with Building Homes for Heroes®, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has provided 300+ homes for injured military veterans and their families since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
PulteGroup’s program, launched in 2013, thanks returning military personnel who have been injured during their term of service by providing mortgage-free homes to veterans and their families. The program has built and donated more than 70 homes across the country, including five in the Tampa Bay area since 2016.
“We are honored to provide Nazeraeh and her siblings a home of their own,” said Sean Strickler, President of the West Florida Division of PulteGroup. “Their story truly touched all of us….We hope this home will not only provide comfort and make life easier for the Montrond family but will also be the source of many joyful memories.”
Alberto and Christl Montrond.
Nazeraeh was only six years old when Alberto was killed during his fourth tour of Afghanistan. She remembers riding bikes all day long with him, going to the park and stopping at Krispy Kreme along the way, where he would drink his coffee black, just like she now does.
Nazeraeh grew up fast. She helped Christl take care of the home, looked after her siblings, cooked and cleaned and became a rock for the rest of her family.
“I loved it, changing diapers, and cooking and cleaning the house,” Nazeraeh says. “I just loved making my mom happy.”
But, when Christl got sick in late 2020, the combination of kidney failure and Covid-19 giving her limited time left to live, Nazeraeh couldn’t help but fear for the future.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” she says, “but I just knew she wouldn’t leave this earth if she didn’t think I could handle it. I just had to keep my composure, because of my siblings. I’m their only person.”
She was only 21, and was trying to balance life as a full-time college student with a full-time job, and had three younger siblings — 10-year-old Bentley, 14-year-old Arabella and 18-year-old Kevyn — that would be her responsibility.
And then, in March of 2021, Christl passed away.
“They told us in September 2020 she had three months to live, but she lived three months longer than that because she was a fighter,” Nazeraeh says.
Nazeraeh is continuing that fight.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s tough,” she says. “You go from fun sister to parental mode. “I’m responsible for how they turn out as adults. They learned everything that my mom taught them, and now everything else is up to me. It has been tough, but it works. We all make it work, we’re a team, and we get things done as a team.”
Christl had been friends with Sally Farrell of the Military Warriors Support Foundation, that has helped other military veterans and their families in the past receive homes, helped pass along the family’s story. Nazeraeh says she was encouraged by Farrell to apply for housing. Nazeraeh did so, but didn’t think much of it, knowing there were lots of other families in similar predicaments.
But, while on a cruise in March with her siblings on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s passing, Nazeraeh received a call from Gina Cerami with Building Homes for Heroes, which works with PulteGroup’s Built to Honor program by identifying recipients.
Cerami said there was some property in Wesley Chapel she wanted Nazeraeh to look at, and she took her siblings to check it out.
“I told them not to get their hopes up,” Nazeraeh says. “I told them we were just window shopping for the future.”
The home, just a mile from where Christl last lived, was already under construction. As they walked in between the home’s framing, they were told, “This is where a bedroom will be”…”This will be the kitchen,”….and so on.
Ten minutes later, they let Nazeraeh know – “This is your home.” She and her siblings were handed sharpies to write messages on the wooden frame. Nazeraeh started crying, writing her messages while wiping away tears.
“For He will order His angels to protect you where you go.” (Psalms 91:11 NLT)
“Peace be to you and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.” (1 Samuel 25:6)
“My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever.” (Psalms 73:26)
Nazeraeh and her siblings also doodled some drawings of their parents.
“It was really an emotional moment,” she says. “My siblings, they don’t really understand, it was just a house, ‘Why is this girl crying; what is wrong with you?’ But in reality, this alleviated a huge stress of mine, because when I graduate college next summer, my benefits from my father that helped me pay for our living right now will be cut off. I won’t have to scramble next summer thinking about where we were going to live…those tears were real, so real, my siblings laughed but I didn’t care. I just bawled my eyes out because I really didn’t know what I was going to do. This genuinely has saved me and my family.”
Nazeraeh couldn’t help but think her mother had something to do with it all. Not only did she make an impact on someone who was willing to help her children, but the townhome was so close to where they used to live, and in a school zone that was so important to her mother.
“It’s like she brought us back to where she wanted us to be from the beginning,” Nazeraeh says. “It’s like she chose that house.”
And, not that Nazeraeh needed any more convincing that her mother had a spiritual hand in the family’s good fortune, it’s very likely the move-in date will be August 25, Christl’s birthday.
Nazeraeh, who graduated from Tampa Catholic High, is expecting to graduate from USF next summer with a degree in Health Sciences. She currently works in database management with Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay, a nonprofit that teaches financial literacy to elementary, middle and high school students.
She continues to stay focused on her siblings, while planning for the future. She is burdened by responsibilities that most 22-year-olds don’t have to deal with, and she is tackling them all head-on. Having a place to live has opened the door to a brighter future for everyone in her family.
Sometimes, for fun, she and her family will visit the model home and just look around. Her siblings have picked out the colors of their rooms and can’t wait to start painting, and Nazeraeh is determined to find that perfect table to honor her parents. Moving day is coming up fast. Nazaraeh may have wondered how she was going to make it all work in the past, but now she is certain brighter days are ahead.
“This really is so life changing,” she says. “This is our last home. We have moved around a lot. We’ve never been at a school for more than two years. It’s nice to know that this is permanent. I love that feeling knowing that they know this is their space and it’s not going anywhere.”
For more information about Building Home For Heroes®, visit BuildingHomesForHeroes.org, and for more information about PulteGroup’s Built to Honor® Program, visit PulteGroupCares.com
Schools like Wesley Chapel (above) and Wiregrass Ranch high schools are slated to receive upgrades paid for with Penny for Pasco proceeds if the renewal of the one-cent tax passes in November. (Photo: Charmaine George)
It’s officially campaign season and one of the most noteworthy items on the ballot isn’t a Democrat or a Republican.
It’s the Penny for Pasco sales tax referendum.
By a 5-0 vote, the Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BOC) voted to put the referendum on the Aug. 23 Primary Election ballot, hoping for it to be renewed for another 15 years.
The current Penny for Pasco tax expires in 2024. If renewed for a third time, the penny tax is expected to produce $1.9 billion from 2025 through 2039.
The Penny for Pasco revenues are used for a number of quality of life improvements throughout the county — for things like fire rescue services, roads and sidewalks, new schools and parks and economic development.
The money is split between the Pasco School District (45 percent), the county (45 percent) and Pasco’s municipalities, including Dade City, Zephyrhills, New Port Richey and others (10 percent).
Wesley Chapel’s Jennifer Seney told the Pasco BOC not to get complacent when pushing for the Penny for Pasco renewal. Seney was one of the community leaders in 2004 who pushed to get the first referendum passed by advocating for it and rounding up support. It wasn’t easy. The referendum passed 52-48 percent but it was a hard and bitter fight.
“This campaign needs a lot of money now this time around,” says Seney, who serves on a Penny political action committee that supports and seeks to educate people on the sales tax. “Not due to opposition, per se, but because there are so many new people to Pasco County that have not heard about this Penny for Pasco and don’t understand it.”
Seney also suggested a citizens’ oversight committee for the Penny for Pasco projects, similar to what the school district has in place.
The first Penny for Pasco produced $320 million in revenue. In 2012, economic development was included in the revenue usage and it passed easily with almost 70 percent of the vote. It is expected to bring in $700 million by the time it expires in December 2024.
A formal Penny for Pasco project list is expected to be presented on July 12. A draft of that list includes projects that would impact Wesley Chapel residents, like new fire rescue and sheriff’s office vehicles, school sidewalk projects at Curley Rd. affecting Wesley Chapel Elementary, Weightman Middle School and Wesley Chapel High, improvements on Old Pasco Rd. and others.
The Pasco School Board already has its list of projected projects, and it includes school renovations at Wesley Chapel High ($35.8 million), athletic facility renovations at Wesley Chapel ($1.7 million) and Wiregrass Ranch ($1.8) high schools, cafeteria renovations at Wesley Chapel High ($2.7 million) and several other improvements.
Three major projects promising to transform Wesley Chapel have been in the works for years.
One of them, the KRATE container park at the Grove, launched last month to great reviews and is, arguably, the hottest spot in Wesley Chapel at the moment. Another, the Town Center area in Wiregrass Ranch, is still more than a year off.
Next up: Downtown Avalon Park Wesley Chapel.
Avalon Park Group/sitEX announced in June it has entered into an agreement with Lema Construction to start construction at Downtown Avalon Park Wesley Chapel. The budding community will break ground on Thursday, July 14, on the first phase of its downtown area.
The groundbreaking ceremony, to be held from 4 p.m.-6 p.m., will feature refreshments as well as performances and entertainment by Jazz Under the Starz, The Wesley Chapel Theater Group and the Pasco County Fine Arts Council.
The three-story, 73,067-sq.-ft. mixed-use building will include 40 multi-family apartments and 23,720 SF of commercial/retail space on the ground floor.
The commercial/retail space will include a 12,000-sq.-ft. food hall to be called the Marketplace at Avalon Park, as well a co-working space called “The 5th Floor.”
Both concepts already exist at the flagship Avalon Park Orlando. The 5th Floor in Orlando includes 22 private offices, 12 dedicated desks, unlimited virtual offices, three conference rooms, and presentation/event, wellness, podcast and mail rooms, as well as a café.
“This phase of construction really helps us move even closer to that vision of building a place where families can build memories and traditions together in a town they can call their own,” said Beat Kahli, the CEO of Avalon Park Group/sitEX, in a press release. “And, while this may not be the most cost-effective time to begin construction, we feel like it is important to continue on to the next step in developing our vision for Avalon Park Wesley Chapel.”
Additionally, a 2-acre community park with an amphitheatre will begin construction later this summer, following permitting. Construction of both the mixed-use building and the park are scheduled for completion in late 2023.
Kahli says he is investing more than $700 million in the downtown project — with a $33-million incentive package from Pasco County.
Upon completion, Avalon Park Wesley Chapel will include more than 1,800 acres hosting roughly 400,000 square feet of retail and 100,000 square feet of office space in its downtown area.
Construction of Downtown Avalon Park Wesley Chapel actually began in 2018, with the addition of the Pinecrest Academy K-8 Charter School, which is currently under construction in its second phase. With nearly 600 students already enrolled, the current construction will add approximately 600 6th-8th grade student stations.
The Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BOC) was busy in June.
During meetings on June 7 and June 28, the commissioners voted unanimously, and without any debate, to approve performance-based incentive deals for two large projects expected to completely transform the one-time sleepy I-75/S.R. 52 intersection known previously for its truck stops.
The first deal approved was the big one — on June 7, the BOC paved the way for a new development on 965 acres at the southeast corner of 75/52.
The project, called the Pasco Town Centre, is expected to generate 5,988 jobs and will include 4 million square feet of industrial uses, 725,000 sq. ft. of office uses and 400,000 sq. ft. of retail uses, plus room for 300 hotel rooms and 3,500 homes.
According to the agreement, the mixed-use project will be, “The I-75 corridor’s gateway project into Pasco County.”
The county is contributing $55.8 million in incentives to project developer Columnar Holdings, $46.2 million from ad valorem tax rebates and $9.6 million from the Penny for Pasco fund. All of the payments will be deferred and accrued in a county escrow account for the company until 1 million square feet of industrial/office space has been built.
Thanks to the Pasco Town Centre project, the county is expected to gain more than $386 million in estimated property tax revenue through 2061 (40 years) and a total economic output of $604 million.
The benefits to the county are “profound,” David Engel, Pasco’s director of the Office of Economic Growth, told the BOC.
“This is the most productive agreement that I’ve brought forth to date to the Board,” he said.
Engel said this project comes in at $9.60 per square foot, while the Rooker project, two 200,000-sq.-ft. Industrial warehouses approved for I-75 and Old Pasco Rd. in San Antonio that broke ground in 2021, was $9.80 a square foot.
As part of the deal, Columnar will have to provide $70 million in infrastructure, like roadways and sewer and water lines.
“When you put it all together — the road, the utilities — that’s well over $200 million before the developer can even get $1 out of the escrow account,” Engel says. “That’s a very significant gesture and a commitment to the project the developer is making.”
County commissioner Ron Oakley calls the projects a “win-win” for the county.
Engel also said the new development will be a boon to the area and to companies that are looking to move to Pasco County. The county is eager to accelerate the project because, “We do not have suitable space for companies to come in to that area right now, and we have tremendous demand for that,” he said.
The Pasco Town Centre is within the Connected City at the north end of Wesley Chapel, and Michael Wolf of Columnar Holdings said the goal is to make his project synergistic with the Connected City when it comes to local travel.
“We think it’s so important to truly get that activation, to have folks be able to run, bike, golf cart, what have you,” he said. “If we don’t have those components, we won’t be able to activate that space.”
The Town Centre still has to go through the rezoning process, but Phase One is expected to be completed by June 30, 2024, with the final two phases finishing up by the end of 2026 and 2028, respectively.
Northpoint Project
A second, smaller project was approved by the BOCC on June 28, with commissioners voting unanimously in favor of a $6.3-million incentive package for a project on roughly 218 acres near the northeast corner of Interstate 75 and State Road 52.
Northpoint Development LLC is building a 1.4-million-sq.-ft. build-to-suit site expected to yield 2,400 jobs when completed.
Build-to-suit projects are typically facilities specially constructed to meet the specifications of a particular user, who currently is unnamed.
According to Clark Hobby, who represents Northpoint, the original site was smaller but the developer acquired an additional 56 acres to the north.
With nearly $10-million in costs just for road improvements, the developer asked for $6.3 million in assistance.
“This is an exciting project,” Hobby said. “It is being designed and will be constructed for a major regional distribution center that will include a significant number of jobs.”
If the end-user backs out, the county won’t lose any money. But, Hobby said his client is so confident in the deal, “we’re planning on starting construction in late August, to early September.”
Hobby said the building will be a half-mile wide, and Engel said the total size will be roughly equivalent to two football fields.
The county’s Office of Economic Growth calculates that the Northpoint project will generate $19.1 million in ad valorem taxes over 20 years, and inject $282 million into the Gross County Product (GCP) during construction.
Once completed, the county says the annual recurring benefits to the GCP will average $227 million, and the return on investment is 195:1 for every dollar the county is providing in assistance.
Both 75/52 projects are in Commissioner Ron Oakley’s District. He supports both projects and called them a win-win for the area.
