CEO Hope Kennedy has had a hand in putting Wesley Chapel on the map with her stewardship of the former Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce, now known as the North Tampa Bay Chamber (NTBC).
Hope Kennedy
Later this month, Wesley Chapel, and its massive growth, could play a hand in putting the Chamber itself on the map.
On July 26, Allen and Board member Michael Berthelette will be in Indianapolis answering questions from the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) judges in a final test to see if the NTBC is named the Small Chamber of the Year for the entire country.
The extensive application process got the NTBC to the finals, but the 45-minute Q-&-A session on July 26 will account for 2/3 of the NTBC’s score.
The following night, at the Awards Show at ACCE’s annual convention in Indianapolis, the winners will be revealed.
“When I first looked at the application I giggled,” Kennedy says, referring to how difficult it looked. “But Javan (Grant, the current Board chair) convinced me to do it. (The application) ended up being 31 pages long. It’s very comprehensive. However, the end result is that we are a Chamber of the Year finalist.”
The NTBC touted two of its programs in 2020-21 in its application — a Road Show in which Kennedy went to businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic and filmed interviews for social media, letting people know which businesses were still open, and the Chamber’s reimagined Celebration of Excellence awards program, which was held both in-person and virtual last November.
The NTBC is a finalist in Category 1, the smallest category, along with the Mason City (IA) Chamber and the Zionsville (IN) Chamber.
The ACCE is comprised of more than 1,600 Chambers of Commerce from across the U.S. It will name four winners in four different categories (according to size, budget and location of the chamber).
“This is the Academy Awards for Chambers of Commerce, Kennedy says. “For me, this is the pinnacle of my career.”
The NTBC has 570 members, many of which are from Wesley Chapel and New Tampa, although there also are member businesses located in western Pasco and north Pinellas counties. Kennedy said when she started at the Wesley Chapel Chamber 11 years ago, there were roughly 200 members.
Awards are nothing new for the NTBC, which won the 2019 Small Chamber of the Year for the state of Florida from the Florida Association of Chamber Professionals (FACP).
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.
Twenty years after having both of my knees arthroscoped, and after too many years of trying to deal with being bone-on-bone in both knees (and walking with an obvious limp), I finally decided to get my knees replaced.
Yes, I was motivated for myself, as I wanted to improve my quality of life, but my true motivation was that I wanted to be able to dance at my 30-year-old son Jake’s wedding to Meghan Hathaway, which just happened to finally take place on the Saturday night of Father’s Day weekend.
I say “finally” because Jake and Meghan had to twice put off their wedding celebration with their family and friends, due to concerns about Covid-19, even though they were married at a courthouse more than three years ago. While they were waiting for their first party in 2020, they became pregnant with my now 2-1/2-year-old grandson Jackson (Jax).
The renewal of their wedding vows and reception, which were held in Miami, will forever be among the highlights of my life.
Jared, Jake & their Dad
Perhaps best of all, for me, was that I did accomplish my goal — only nine weeks after having my right knee replaced and 17 weeks after receiving a new left knee, I did indeed get to dance at Meghan and Jake’s big event. I was one of somewhere between 150-200 people — more than 50 of which were members of Meghan’s huge family from Boston — who were able to participate in this magical celebration of their love.
One of the other highlights of the weekend was getting to spend some grandpa time with the adorable Jax — who looks almost exactly like Jake did at the same age (some people even said he looks like me, which made my heart melt). Jannah and I also were able to spend a lot of quality time over the course of the weekend with more than a half-dozen of Jake’s closest friends from Wharton High, some of whom I didn’t recognize at first because I hadn’t seen them at all since their high school days more than a decade ago.
It also reminded me of how precious this life is, as neither my own father nor mother — Jack and Marilyn Nager — were able to attend the wedding, due to health concerns, although my sister Bonnie was able to make her way down from her home outside of Philadelphia to share this most joyous event.
I can’t imagine a more perfect Father’s Day gift or a better weekend. I finally got to witness the celebration with this most beautiful (inside and out) couple and my older son Jared absolutely killed it with his Best Man speech at the wedding — “I never thought I had a problem making friends until I found out that Jake had more than eight groomsmen. To me, it seemed like kind of an excessive number, but it did make me question my own popularity.” J-Man made me so proud and he even gave me credit for helping him become a better writer. I also got to join in the fun, as I made a toast of my own to the happy couple at their rehearsal dinner.
If there’s ever been a happier father on Father’s Day, I’d like to meet him. Congratulations to Jake, Meghan and Jax, to Meg’s mom and dad, Janice and Kevin Hathaway and this happy couple’s entire family.
With rents sky-high & limited space available here, New Tampa entrepreneurs are finding success & happiness at the new container park in Wesley Chapel.
For entrepreneurs, finding a place to start a new business in New Tampa can be tricky. Space can be limited. Prices are high. New development is scarce.
At the new KRATE at The Grove container park in Wesley Chapel, however, the plan was to lure those entrepreneurs in with a flashy concept — a park filled with converted shipping containers with bright murals painted on the side — and a less expensive entry point, with some container rents beginning at roughly $1,500 a month.
After a wildly successful opening day, the container park continues to boom for many of its owners, including a group of current and former New Tampa residents.
Here are a few of them:
Nimesh & Felicia Desai, Blush Wine Room
The Blush Wine Room has been an idea the Desais have been planning for the last five years, but finding the perfect location had been a major chore.
The 14-year Live Oak Preserve residents scoured Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in the hopes of finding a launching pad for their hip and trendy concept.
It was a call from from Bernadette Blauvelt, the owner of B Creative Painting Studio at The Village at Grove in Wesley Chapel, that turned their attention to the container park.
“She said ‘You have to come take a look,’” Felicia says.
So they did. Although they had considered trying to get in a space at the The Village at Hunter’s Lake town center, the day after meeting with developer Mark Gold in late 2019, they signed a lease.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Covid-19 ended up wiping out her small business, two cafés in office buildings.
But now, nearly three years later, the Blush Wine Room is one of the KRATEs’ hottest spots. The weekends are non-stop packed, as the bar’s offering of wine, wine tastings, wine-based cocktails (many served in pouches for those walking around), and a menu that includes homemade meatballs, truffle fries, cheese boards and a variety of chips and dips are in high demand.
“It’s been crazy,” says Felicia, “But we love it. I have no complaints.”
Chris Ferraro & Brooke Wahlquist, Higher Flour
The tenant list at the KRATEs is filled with entrepreneurs who had been looking for a decent entry point into a physical location to sell their dreams.
Chris and Brooke, who are engaged and live in Richmond Place, came up with a concept that combined his passion for holistic medicine (Delta 8 THC, in this case) and her baking skills to make delicious gourmet edibles.
However, their efforts to find a landlord willing to rent out space for their Higher Flour store stalled, due to the stigma still associated with CBD, even though it’s legal in 30 states, including Florida.
“We were actually denied from 12 other locations,” Chris says. “I had pretty much given up all hope of opening this awesome idea that we had.”
The very last place on his list was KRATE at the Grove which, at the time, was only a concept. Chris says his initial inquiry was rejected, but he pleaded for a meeting with Gold, who liked the idea once Chris explained to him that it wasn’t going to be a smoke shop.
Since opening on June 4, Chris says Higher Flour has been “killing it.” The success has already inspired him to consider adding more locations.
The store sells five different flavors of cookies, from the traditional chocolate chip to Ube, which is a purple yam popular in Filipino deserts. Each cookie has 25 mg of Delta 8 THC, roughly the same as you’d get in a gummy, although everyone’s mileage varies, Chris says.
“Thank God for Mark Gold,” says Chris, whose previous business, LitFit, specialized in online sales of pashminas and was successful until Covid-19 hit. He added that Gold’s green light “changed the entire course of my family’s history.”
Luis & Olimar Ledezma, Mojo Grill Latin Infusion
Luis was the longtime general manager at the Wendy’s on BBD, and then managed the Inside The Box Café at Armature Works from 2018-20 until they raised the rent and forced him to look elsewhere.
Luis says at that moment, Olimar, a senior manager for a car insurance company, “challenged me” to start something. With his management skills, her talent as a chef (learned from culinary classes she took in Spain) and their experiences eating different cuisines while traveling around the world, it was time to take the plunge and “stop working for somebody else.”
So after reading about the container concept in the Neighborhood News in 2019, Luis wasted little time signing up for the chance to run his own business.
“It was a no-brainer deal,” he said. “The KRATE was a great concept.”
Olimar designed the menu at Mojo Grill. The result has been dishes like the Argentinian-inspired Chimichurri steak, the Uruguayan-inspired Choripan sandwich, Cuban-inspired nachos and a variety of other tasty Latin dishes. Drinks, too — Olimar makes a killer homemade sangria.
Like almost every restaurant container at KRATE, business has been hopping. The container is almost never empty and the weekends are a madhouse.
“When you work hard and put your concept out there and deliver good flavors, people will come back,” Luis said.
This is “definitely” something Luis says he could not have pulled off in New Tampa. While living in Live oak Preserve for 10 years, he saw enough small restaurants turn over to discourage him.
“It would be much harder to become known without spending much more money,” he says. “I wouldn’t take that risk in an expensive brick-and-mortar. This is perfect.”
Sheila & Osman Haque, Life Essentials Refillery
Sheila’s career in the zero-waste and better living business started on a boat, where she and her three daughters noticed trash floating in the water. That inspired her to start EmbraceLessWasteUSA.com, a website devoted to zero-waste, American-made products.
Haque, who lives in Cory Lake Isles, completed the Pasco Economic Development Council (EDC) business incubator program, and although she could use the EDC container on occasion to sell her products, she wanted her own store.
She put herself on the waiting list at the KRATEs while pursuing other opportunities. After passing on a few overpriced, high-rent options, Sheila says Life Essentials Refillery was ready to commit to a Trinity location.
Luckily, KRATE called and said there was an opening. “We were getting build-out pricing (in Trinity),” Sheila says. While she may be paying more per square foot at the smaller KRATE, she says, “the foot traffic is worth it.”
At Life Essentials Refillery, the Haques sell eco-friendly, healthy and locally-sourced items. In fact, Sheila says everything in the store is sourced from small American businesses.
Items like spices, herbs, teas and coffee are popular, as well as less toxic versions of things like detergent, soap and sunblock. But, because they also have a full kitchen, they are also able to sell food. You can bring in your own container and fill it with pasta, beans and candies, and there’s a gluten-free section to choose from as well.
And if you want to make your own nutbutter, Sheila can help you do that, too.
“The interest so far is better than I expected,” Sheila says. “We’ve met people that come from Sarasota and Gainesville because there’s nothing like this close by.”
All of these KRATE businesses have their own websites and social media presences, as well as their own open hours, but for a complete listing of and more information about all of the KRATE businesses, visit KrateatTheGrove.com.
As the much-anticipated KRATE container park at The Grove in Wesley Chapel is finally opening, people are flocking there to try all kinds of food and check out little shops. As they wander through the rows of converted containers, they also can pop into Budget Blinds for inspiration on how they might transform their home with blinds, shades, shutters and drapes.
Wesley Chapel residents Adriane and Mike Wonderlin own one of the top Budget Blinds franchises in the country, serving a territory that stretches all the way north to San Antonio and south to Palmetto and includes showrooms on W. Fletcher Ave. (near I-275, two exits south of Wesley Chapel’s S.R. 56 exit) and in Riverview, covering nearly 90 zip codes.
The Wonderlins employ a team of nearly 40 people, including design associates who come to your home with what Adriane describes as “a ton of samples” to help determine the best look and functionality for window coverings in your home.
But, for anyone who isn’t quite ready to have a design consultant come to their homes, a quick visit to Budget Blinds at KRATE will allow you to see the many possibilities.
Adriane describes it as almost like a kiosk, where visitors can see videos of the products in motion on the TVs, ask questions about how something functions or how it would look, and learn about the different types of window treatments.
There is a variety of styles from which to choose. Blinds come in vinyl, wood, fabric, faux wood and aluminum. Shutters are made from real wood or composite material that will not fade or warp.
In June, Budget Blinds is offering a special that gives anyone purchasing plantation shutters a free upgrade to an “invisible tilt” option, which eliminates the rod that typically runs down the middle of the shutters. The invisible tilt allows for an unobstructed view and is typically an expensive upgrade, but is being offered completely free for the month of June.
If you prefer shades, you can choose from roller, pleated, Roman, cellular, woven wood, bamboo, sheer, solar or graphic, plus a variety of panels, valances and drapes.
All of these options can be explored at the Wesley Chapel KRATE location, where Adriane says she and Mike are excited to support the growing Wesley Chapel community.
“It’s almost like its own downtown area for Wesley Chapel,” she says. “You can bring your kids and your dog and come to a friendly area where people are gathered together. A couple of years ago there was nothing like that here.”
Adriane says Budget Blinds signed its lease for a spot in the KRATE container park in December 2019, hoping to open by the summer of 2020. After a number of delays – including, of course, the Covid pandemic – the park is finally coming to life and with more than 70 percent of the converted shipping containers ready to go, the Grove has scheduled an official Grand Opening for June 4 (see pg. 12).
“A lot of these local small businesses have been around for a long time, but you only see them in passing as a food truck, for example,” Adriane says. “They haven’t had the opportunity to be open year ‘round, until now.”
She hopes that as others gather and enjoy the area – even if they’re not shopping for window treatments – they may stop in and be inspired.
“There’s always a new trend,” she says. “You can always come in and see it because we’ll be switching up the displays.”
The trends right now, Adriane says, are motorization and draperies.
“The functionality of the shutter is great and the look is classic,” she says, “but now we’re adding a soft piece of fabric, too. In the 80s and 90s, draperies were everywhere, but in the 2000s, no one did drapes because it looked like your mother’s house. But now, it’s back.”
She says that motorization continues to improve, with motors that are nearly completely silent and a trend that continues to make these “smart home” features more affordable.
For high places you can’t reach, motorization is ideal. It’s also great for businesses to set times to automatically open as the business opens, or to automate window shades to help kids or teenagers wake up in the morning.
With these options, you can use the traditional wand in the window, or you can use a smartphone, remote, wall switch or even voice command to open or close your window coverings.
While Adriane says you can get ideas from the showrooms or the container at KRATE, the best way to determine the ideal products for your unique home is for the design consultant to spend time there with you.
Kristine Dugas, who lives in Land O’Lakes, says she has used Budget Blinds twice and they have now covered almost every window in her house. She says she highly recommends the company.
“Budget Blinds was by far the best value and had the best selection,” says Kristine. “They have tons of selections to choose from, and the design process was fun and easy.”
She says the designer who came to her home was on time, professional and helpful, and so were the installers, who left everything clean and tidy when they finished the job.
“My experience with the office, customer service and communication with Budget Blinds was top notch,” Dugas says. “If I had any questions, they got back to me right away, the ease of scheduling my appointments to work around my busy schedule was wonderful.”
Budget Blinds was founded in 1992 in Orange County, CA, and has more than 1,000 franchises in the U.S. and Canada. The Wonderlins’ franchise, which they purchased in 2018, was awarded Budget Blinds’ national Franchise of the Year for 2020, the franchise’s third such honor since 2016.
To schedule a complimentary in-home consultation or learn more about the June promotion of a free upgrade to invisible tilt on plantation shutters, call (813) 968-5050. For now, the KRATE location is only open on the weekends. Call (813) 340-3360 to check when it’s open. For more information, follow @BudgetBlindsofGreaterTampa on Facebook or Instagram or visit BudgetBlinds.com/NorthTampa.
