Category: News

Commissioners Spar Over Need For More Apartments

More and more apartment communities are being built in or proposed for the Wesley Chapel area, and Mike Moore doesn’t like it.

The Pasco County Commissioner, whose District 2 includes most of Wesley Chapel and some of Land O’Lakes, is leading the fight against building more apartments, in contrast to his fellow commissioners who also represent parts of Wesley Chapel — District 1 commissioner Ron Oakley, whose district includes much of Wesley Chapel north of S.R. 54, and District 3 commissioner Kathryn Starkey, who represents a sliver of the southwest corner of Wesley Chapel.

Moore and Starkey clashed at a Jan. 12 commission meeting over a proposal to build apartments just north of the future BayCare Hospital on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) and Eagleston Blvds. Moore and Starkey disagreed about whether or not to approve the proposal by the developer, Mass Capital, with Moore motioning to have it denied. and both Starkey and Oakley voting against it, as did new Dist. 4 county commissioner Christina Fitzpatrick.

The commission then voted 5-0 to continue the debate over the proposal — which would build 240 multi-family dwellings on 16.24 acres — for 60 days.

The commissioners picked the argument back up at a workshop scheduled on Feb. 9, moving towards a temporary moratorium on approving new apartment complex projects.

Moore has long opposed the proliferation of new apartments in the county and, in particular, in his district. His reasons are clear — apartments are taking up land that could be better used generating employment, and because he believes there are already enough multi-family properties to fulfill the need in the area.

To prove he wasn’t alone, he funded a poll conducted by Spry Strategies in December of 400 residents in District 2.

“I’ve beaten this drum for years about apartment complexes in Pasco County, but especially in District 2, so I went ahead and did something,” Moore says. “It was not funded with county dollars, it was $1,700 and I used my own account…I wanted to show it’s not just coming out of my mouth, it’s coming out of citizens’ mouths, too.”

The results, however unscientific, reveal that more local residents agree with him than not, with 154 (or 38.5 percent) saying they don’t approve of the number of apartment buildings in their communities. Almost as many (149) were unsure or didn’t have an opinion; Moore chalked that high number up to the poll being conducted during the holidays. And, 97 (24.2%) of those polled approve of the amount of apartments in their community.

The poll also revealed that 196 (or 49%) would prefer to see more office and commercial development than more apartments, with 59 (14.7%) not having a preference. Again, a high number, 145 (or 36%), were unsure or didn’t have an opinion either way.

Asked whether they believed that more apartments should be built in Pasco County, 231 (57.75%) replied no and 73 (18.3%) replied yes, with 96 (24% unsure).

“Not a day goes by, especially in Land O’Lakes and Wesley Chapel, that someone comes up and starts talking to me and doesn’t bring it up,” Moore says. “I get emails about Covid and in it they bring up the subject of apartments. It shows you how frustrated the community is when it comes to the amount of apartment complexes built in that area.”

According to Nectorious Pittos, AICP, Pasco County’s director of Planning and Development, there are 68 Master Planned Unit Developments (MPUDs) in District 2, and 25 allow for multi-family apartments to be built. Recently, more than 1,000 units have been approved, constructed or are under construction at four new communities — Charleston at Wesley Chapel (on the southwest corner of S.R. 54 and New River Rd., just past Avalon Park West), the new Parc at Wesley Chapel in Lexington Oaks, the Cypress Creek Town Center and in the Aiken MPUD in nearby Land O’Lakes.

Moore says there are dozens of parcels in the area that already have the entitlements dating back to the 1980s to build apartments, and he has no interest in taking those away. But, developers hoping to rezone areas that would be better used for job-creating commercial spaces is where he wants to draw the line.

Moore also cited traffic issues, lack of the space generating employment and revenue for the county, and the effects more apartments will have on nearby schools.

The county received 24 emails about the Mass Capital project, all opposing it. However, Barbara Wilhite, the lawyer representing the developer, said those emails were all from Seven Oaks residents, and despite its proximity, the proposed apartment complex is not located within the Seven Oaks DRI. She said there was support for the proposal from actual future neighbors like BayCare Hospital, Blue Heron Assisted Living Facility and nearby townhomes.

While Moore, who lives in Seven Oaks, was adamantly opposed regardless, Starkey was supportive of developer Mass Capital’s proposal.

She says she heard apartments in the area were at 98 percent capacity — Moore says he disagrees with that number — and she didn’t feel the number of apartments already in existence were oversaturating the area. She also felt it was a good location for apartments, and argued there would be less traffic added to the area with an apartment complex than any other use.

Starkey argued against Moore’s motion to deny by disputing his points and suggesting he was arguing from a privileged perspective.

“It’s elitist and improper,” Starkey said. “Not everyone can live in a $500,000 (home in a) gated community. We are going down a path that is really dangerous, rude and inappropriate.”

Oakley said he felt the project was a good idea and “fits a puzzle.” He voted against Moore’s motion to deny it.

Moore, who says he has spent a good amount of time researching the subject of apartments and the good and bad effects they can have on communities, said he was hoping to change some minds at the Feb. 9 workshop.

apartments Mike Moore

Wesley Chapel District Park To Offer More Options

The new indoor sports and recreation center being built by Pasco County at the Wesley Chapel District Park (WCDP) will have indoor courts for basketball, volleyball, pickleball and other sports, plus the flexibility to host meetings in additional rooms and the opportunity for summer camps. That may not be all that unique for such a facility, but this is:

It’s going to finish on time.

The Neighborhood News went on a recent tour of the new $4.8-million facility, which Pasco County project manager Curtis Franklin proudly says will open as expected in June. That’s big news coming off a year where so many projects have been slowed due to Covid-influenced difficulties in getting building materials on time.

“If you get this done by June, I really need to get you on more projects,” District 2 Pasco Commissioner Mike Moore quipped.

*Pasco Commissioner Mike Moore tried out his slapshot at the Tampa Bay Lightning-funded outdoor roller rink during a recent tour of the county’s new indoor gymnasium at WCDP.*

The new facility, located at 7727 Boyette Rd., has gone vertical and is taking shape. Located right next to the Tampa Bay Lightning street hockey rink — Comm. Moore and parks director Keith Wiley fired a few shots before the tour (and we can neither confirm nor deny whether they put any in between the pipes) — the long-awaited recreation facility will have 18,000 square feet of indoor space, including 10,000 for a court that will be used for a variety of indoor sports.

The court is large enough for a regulation size basketball court and can be converted to two 3/4 length perpendicular basketball courts for youth leagues, two volleyball courts or six pickleball courts. Cheerleading and dance also can be held inside, and plans also may include indoor soccer, also known as futsal.

With the push of a button, a partition can even separate the gymnasium in two, allowing for a multi-purpose room on one side and a court on the other.

The facility will use the additional 8,000 square feet of space for two multipurpose rooms (one of them large enough to convert to two rooms) for meetings, as well as a full kitchen and offices.

The facility opens up in the back to a large seating area overlooking a grassy area, which can accommodate parties, small concerts and even movies in the park.

With the new gymnasium, plus tennis courts, 20 fields for soccer, lacrosse and flag football fields, a first-of-its-kind inclusive playground for children with disabilities, a regular playground, the Lightning street hockey rink, fishing, fitness trails, picnic areas, a pavilion and still plenty of leftover space on its 144 acres, WCDP will be the premier park in Pasco County.

“This is kind of the model for future district parks,” Wiley said during our tour.

The facility at WCDP also will be able to host summer camps, which will be a big deal, Wiley says. Currently, campers hoping to take part in the county’s popular summer programs have to drive to the Land O’Lakes Recreation Complex on Collier Pkwy., which Wiley says fills up within minutes once registration is opened each year.

Meanwhile, the much larger Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County, located just a few miles south of WCDP, was completed in July as a public-private partnership between the county and RADDSports, Moore says, but the new indoor facility at WCDP will serve a different audience.

The future front entrance to the indoor gym at WCDP.

“When it comes to the county, tourism has always been the focus for Wiregrass Ranch — holding events and bringing people into town on weekends who will be spending money in the community,” Moore says. “This is more for local residents, a place for the community to congregate.”

Wiley said the county’s Parks & Recreation Dept. controls six sites for future parks in Pasco County, and three of those will be built in Wesley Chapel in the areas of future master planned developments in Wyndfields, Two Rivers and the Village of Pasadena Hills (VOPH) once concurrency calls for it and the funding can be found.

Those three projects will add a combined 50,000 or so homes to Wesley Chapel. Those projects, however, are years away from being built.

Until then, WCDP’s expansion will widen the scope of what can be offered to Wesley Chapel residents.

“The gymnasium was always the plan (when the park was originally built), we just needed to get the funding,” Wiley said. “The more residents, the more services you need, and Wesley Chapel is booming.”

More Detours on I-75

If you’ll be up late and driving north on I-75 this weekend, you might want to leave a little extra time for a detour as the result of construction on the Overpass Bridge between S.R.s 54 and 52.

According to the Florida Department of Transportation:

All northbound I-75 traffic will be detoured off the interstate between SR 54/CR 54 (Exit 279) and SR 52 (Exit 285) between 9 p.m. Saturday, February 20 and 10 a.m. Sunday, February 21. No later than 10 a.m. Sunday, at least one lane of traffic will be restored on northbound I-75 and the detour will be removed. Work will continue on northbound I-75 and all northbound I-75 travel lanes will be open to traffic no later than noon on Sunday, February 21.

The detour is necessary for the safety of the traveling public as the existing Overpass Road bridge section is removed over northbound I-75.

DETOUR ROUTE for northbound I-75: Traffic will be directed off northbound I-75 at Exit 279. At the bottom of the ramp, turn left onto SR 54/CR 54/Wesley Chapel Boulevard and continue west about 8 tenths of a mile to Old Pasco Road. At the traffic signal for Old Pasco Road, turn right and go north for approximately 6.75 miles to SR 52. Turn right at the traffic signal onto SR 52 and go east about 3/4 mile. After passing under I-75, turn left onto the entrance ramp to re-enter northbound I-75.

CAUTION: Old Pasco Road is a two-lane road (one lane in each direction) and will be very congested during the hours of the detour. The posted speed limit along Old Pasco Road must be observed. Motorists are urged to plan plenty of extra time to drive the detour and return to the interstate or consider alternate routes. Law enforcement officers and traffic management personnel will be active along the detour route to assist with traffic flow. Detour signs and message boards will be placed along the detour route for guidance.

For more information, visit FDOTTampaBay.com/project/457/432734-2-52-01\.

overpass rd. traffic

Miss New Tampa Is Aiming Higher

Udeme Ikaiddi (Photos courtesy of Udeme Ikaiddi)

New Tampa’s Udeme Ikaiddi (pronounced Oo-DEM-ee A-Ky-dee) didn’t grow up in the world of beauty pageants. She grew up playing violin, reading books and hanging out with friends.

It wasn’t until she was in college that she ever considered entering one herself, and that was only after producing different pageants at the University of South Florida, like the Miss Africa USF event, and others.

At the age of 25, with some prodding from a friend, Udeme entered and won her first beauty pageant. A year later, she was named Miss New Tampa. In July, at the age of 26, she will vie for the title of Miss Florida in Coral Springs, although a date has not been set.

“It’s been a fun adventure,” she says.

Udeme, a Cross Creek resident and 2012 Wharton High graduate, didn’t win an actual pageant to earn the title of Miss New Tampa. While she has modeled and taken part in Tampa Bay and Orlando Fashion Week events and various bridal and wedding expos, she only had to apply to become a hometown delegate by sending in pictures and a resumé to the Miss Florida USA organization. She was one of many chosen to represent their area — there also is a Miss Brandon, Miss Riverview, Miss Hillsborough, and so on. “When we all come together in July, there will be roughly 100 girls (vying to be Miss Florida),” Udeme says.

The winner will be determined by the highest scores from three competitions: fitness (athletic wear/swimsuit), evening gown and interview. The winner will represent Florida at the Miss USA competition, and the winner there will represent the U.S. at the Miss Universe pageant.

It’s still all so new for Udeme.

“I literally just jumped into it when I was 25,” she says. “To me, it’s a really huge deal because my No. 1 goal is to go to Miss Universe and represent the United State of America, and this is like the first step. So, instead of just being super excited, there’s a lot of nerves, but also a lot of determination.”

Although she’s no shrinking violet herself, Udeme basically honed her pageant skills while producing them. She trained and conditioned participants by making them feel good about themselves, giving them confidence, and assuring them that public speaking was not so scary.

“I helped them find that confidence and that fire to step on the stage,” she says.

And now, she has ended up lighting her own fire.

Her first pageant was the Miss Akwibo USA pageant, which she won in 2019. Although she was born in Tallahassee, FL, Udeme is of African descent, with her parents coming to America in the 1980s from their birthplace in Akwa Ibom State, located in southern Nigeria. There is an annual convention in the U.S. for Akwa Ibom natives, which draws nearly 2,000 people. Udeme compares it to a convention of Florida natives being held in Germany.

The pageant is held during the convention. Her platform was “Live. Love. Learn.” It focused on preventing malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS and promoting healthy life choices (“Live”), documenting Akwa Ibom traditions and culture online (“Love”) and educating Akwa Ibom youth (“Learn”).

As part of her duties as Miss Akwibo USA, Udeme visited Nigeria in 2019, met the Akwa Ibom governor and worked on projects related to her platform.

“It was such a humbling experience, I cannot stress that enough,” Udeme says. “It really made me see the good things I could do, and made me think about other ways to do even more with this platform.”

Udeme started to look into other opportunities, to see if pageants and the platform they afford might be something she’d like to spend more time pursuing. She says she was moved when she watched the 2019 Miss Universe pageant on YouTube, which was won by Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa, as well as the Miss USA 2020 event, where Asya Branch, the first ever black contestant from Mississippi, earned the crown.

“I said, ‘Yep, this is what I want to do,’” Udeme says. “I was like, ‘These beautiful black women are so smart, so intelligent, so humble and so loving, I want to try and do this.’”

While she waits for her opportunity at the Miss Florida pageant, Udeme is pursuing her passion for hospitality and tourism. She got her Bachelor’s degree in Organizational Management from USF and may apply for the Master’s program. She also is a sales coordinator at the Hilton Tampa Downtown and owns her own event-planning business, Gifted Engagements, which she says is currently on hiatus, due to Covid-19.

In her role as Miss New Tampa, Udeme already has forged a collaboration with the Hillsborough branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She hopes that relationship is just the beginning.

“I’m really excited about July,” Udeme says. “Sure, the goal at the end of the day to is to win, 100 percent, but even now, if I didn’t try, I wouldn’t have been connected with NAMI (as Miss New Tampa). Even before Miss USA, I’ve accomplished something that warms my heart, and I just want to do more.”

Miss America Miss Florida

Helping Pasco Sports Tourism Rebound in 2021

If tourism is going to bounce back from the Covid-19-ravaged 2020, a series of spikes, dunks, cheers and racquet sports will have a lot to do with it.

At least that’s how it looks to Pasco County tourism director Adam Thomas, who says that after a tough year for tourism around the world, events are returning to Pasco’s “sports tourism” sites, including the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, Advent Health Center Ice and the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center — all part of the county’s “Florida’s Sports Coast” branding.

Thomas says the three facilities have 14 events scheduled for the first two months of the year, with many more to come, as national governing bodies like USA Volleyball, USA Wrestling, USA Powerlifting and others look to take advantage of Florida’s open-for-business status and have eyed the Wesley Chapel-area to hold events.

“We are just now getting back to normalcy,” Thomas says, despite rising Covid numbers in Pasco, in Florida and around the nation. “We are looking at sports tourism in 2021 to really get us back to where we need to be.”

One event that won’t provide as much help as originally expected is Super Bowl LV, which is being played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on February 7. Generally, a huge event like the Super Bowl would have a major economic impact on nearby Wesley Chapel, with visitors staying in local hotels and eating and shopping at local restaurants and stores.

But, Covid-19 protocols will limit the crowd at Raymond James Stadium, which can hold 65,890 fans, to roughly 20,000 for the Big Game.

Thomas thinks Wesley Chapel will still enjoy some benefit from the Super Bowl, but in October, Pasco backed out of plans to spend $250,000 on a Super Bowl sponsorship and instead use that money for something more likely to bring a bigger return to the county.

So, while the Big Game won’t make as much of an impact, hundreds of little ones will — and that’s fine with Richard Blalock, the CEO of RADDSports, which runs the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, thanks to a public-private partnership between Pasco and RADD Sports.

The 98,000-sq.ft. AdventHealth Sports Arena will host a variety of club sporting events in 2021, bringing hundreds of teams and players and their parents’ wallets to Wesley Chapel.

The January calendar was filled with volleyball tournaments and gymnastics meets. Volleyball and gymnastics club seasons will roll into a basketball club season in the spring, and then the camp season over the summer. The Sports Campus is already proving to be responsible for a lot of hotel room nights and money spent at Wesley Chapel restaurants, malls and shopping centers, as nearly every weekend is booked through August and even Covid-plagued 2020 proved to be a success.

“We are not one-sport-specific, and that helps us,” Blalock says. “We made that decision by design. We can run a multitude of events here. As one season ends, another is starting.”

Blalock says in August and September of 2020, the first six weeks the Sports Campus was open, its events were responsible for 1,800 hotel room nights and just over $150,000 in sales, resulting in a $1.2-million indirect impact on the local economy.

He doesn’t have numbers yet for the rest of 2020, but Blalock says he expects to exceed those numbers in 2021. He says this while staring out his office window at construction workers laying masonry blocks on the fourth floor of the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel, which is being built adjacent to the arena on the Spots Campus site and is expected to open around the first week in August.

But, 2021 also is planned to include an NFL-style combine for pro football hopefuls, organized by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Yo Murphy, as well as the possibility of European soccer teams camping here prior to their fall 2021 seasons.

Hockey Tourism, Too

Thomas says the Sports Campus isn’t the only local venue to have a slew of events booked to meet pent up demand. AHCI currently is hosting a six-week United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL) camp — a college and pro showcase with hundreds of players staying at Saddlebrook Resort and playing games at AHCI — as well as in Ellenton and Brandon.

The USPHL’s Hub City concept is designed in part to make up for the loss of games and exposure events for players last year, especially from hockey areas hit particularly hard by Covid-19, like the northeastern U.S.

Because so many events were cancelled last year and so many seasons went unfinished, Thomas anticipates eager event organizers to be heading our way.

“Our event calendar looks pretty promising,” he says.

*The SVB Tennis Center in Zephyrhills is attracting sports tourism with growing sports like padel (photo) and pickleball.*

The county won’t recover in one year, Thomas adds. He believes the Covid-19 vaccine will help make people more comfortable when it comes to travel and attending larger events, but that change will take a while. While 2021 is expected to put the Florida Sports Coast back on track, Thomas says the tourism industry is looking at 2023 before a full recovery can probably be expected.

“It’s going to take some time,” he says. “We’re still licking our wounds.”

When the pandemic hit last year, the county was coming off a record-setting February. March began the nosedive, and when the state was shut down for much of April, the county saw its tourist tax revenue drop to below $100,000 for the month, down from $430,000 in tourist tax collected in April 2019.

There is some good news, even if it is anecdotal — Thomas says the last weekend of 2020 saw 6.2 -percent growth, with almost 40 percent hotel occupancy. “We had a really good week,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll continue to see that.”

In fact, Lisa Moore, the market director of sales for the Hilton Garden Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel on S.R. 56 says, “We’ve been at or near 100% occupancy every weekend since the Sports Campus opened. It (2020) was a tough year, but things are looking better now.”

AdventHealth Center Ice Florida Sports Coast Sarah Vande Berg tourism Wiregrass ranch sports campus