Category: Wesley Chapel

Connected City bringing promise of hi-tech community to Wesley Chapel

Paul and Marie Miller moved from Tampa to Wesley Chapel two years ago to get away from city living and to enjoy the country life. They bought 10 acres just north of S.R. 54, and figured they would spend their free time on their quiet, rural property.

However, the city may not be such an easy place to escape.

A Connected City, which began planning in late 2014, is coming to a 7,800-acre area running north from Overpass Rd. in Wesley Chapel to S.R. 52 in San Antonio, and west from I-75 to Curley Rd. The Connected City is touted by developers and planners as a first-of-its-kind high-tech community with emphasis on gigabit internet access, job creation, alternative transportation along integrated roadways with two first-in-the-country man-made crystal lagoons all bolstered by a detailed 50-year plan.

Metro Development Group, a Tampa-based company, is leading the planning for the area. It owns about 30 percent of the property in the area, but will welcome the participation of other developers , doing everything from residential to commercial and retail.

Metro is already building one housing development at Epperson Ranch, and will begin construction on another starting next year. It also intends to build developments for office, retail, multifamily and light high-tech manufacturing.

Heidt Design LLC, which was also involved in the adjoining 22,000-acre Villages of Pasadena Hills in Zephyrhills – Pasco County’s largest development — was hired by Metro “to augment Pasco County’s resources to do this very special plan,’’ said Pat Gassaway, Heidt’s president.

The Miller’s property, however, may be in the way of progress.

For the past two months, a series of community meetings have been held at Wesley Chapel Elementary (WCE) to address concerns of residents in the 7,800-acre area, some of whom will be displaced.

A fifth and final community meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 13, 6 p.m., also at WCE — to discuss the connected city corridor, a pilot program which was created by a Growth Management bill (SB 1216) which speeds up the process for creating city-connected corridors. For the 10-year length of the pilot program, there will be no state oversight.

Roads were the hot topic of conversation at the last community meeting. Construction on Overpass Rd. and Curley Rd., where four of the eventual six lanes of both roads are being built, is already under way. The project’s network of roads, approximately 144 lanes miles with 82 additional miles for alternative transportation, were presented to the 50 or so people in attendance at the last meeting on Dec. 2 on large poster boards with residents encouraged to make suggestions.

The Millers took a black magic marker and redrew the one road that concerns them the most — the one planned to run right through their property in the southeast corner of the Connected City area.

“I think the idea of a Connected City is awesome, but as it is right now, the road going through our property isn’t going to let us enjoy our property, our little oasis,’’ said Marie Miller. “I’d prefer this be done on a blank slate of land, not disrupting (existing) landowners.”

Many in attendance at a contentious Dec. 2 meeting say they also will be disrupted, either by the proposed roadways or the construction that will be required to build them. Bigger roads will equal fewer homes and less of their property, they said, especially along Tyndall Rd., the topic of most of the discussion at the last two meetings.

“What’s in this for us?,’’ asked someone in the audience. Others said that the only ones benefiting would be the developers who were making money on the Connected City.

Gassaway, while acknowledging that some residents will be displaced, replied that the roadways and infrastructure, “will benefit everyone in the area.”

At a Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BCC) Workshop at the Historic Courthouse in Dade City a few days later (on Dec. 8), Gassaway told county commissioners that there would be pushback on some of the items, including resistance from some residents on giving up their land and way of life. “But I’ve also had people come to me and say ‘This is a great idea, I can’t wait for you to buy my land,’’’ he added.

The Millers have hope changes can be made so roads bypass their land, but have resigned themselves to the possibility of having to sell.

“We have zero control,’’ Paul Miller said. “We realize they are coming and are going to do what they want to do, we’re just trying to gather the info so we can get the most value for what we feel the value of the property is.”

Gassaway noted that local residents can still have some effect on the roadway plans.

He noted that the most constructive and feasible recommendations from the Dec. 2 meeting could be implemented in the future. While six-lane roads are going to be mostly straight and therefore, “the amount of wiggling you can do to meander around constraints is somewhat limited,’’ Gassaway added that planners can be much more flexible when making changes along a smaller, winding path like Tyndall Rd.

“Well, we’re not aiming for them,’’ Gassaway said of the homes in the development area, but he won’t be able to pinpoint the exact number of the approximately 250 possible homeowners who might be affected until the latest community recommendations are studied.

The Allure Of Speedy Internet

Internet companies are always touting faster speeds to lure new customers. But what if you could upload an hour of high-definition video to YouTube in five seconds, or back up a 500Gb hard drive in less than 10 minutes, or load your entire photo collection to the cloud in half that time?

Those possibilities, and more, are coming to Wesley Chapel.

Last week it was announced that because of the connected city plans, Wesley Chapel will be home to the first planned “Smart Gigabit Community” in the United States to be built from the ground up, with a fiber network offering blazing internet speeds and serving as the backbone for new advances in education, healthcare, public safety and energy and transportation.

The “Smart Gigabit Community” will be the heart of the connected city corridor.

“It will ignite the next generation of American innovation,’’ Kartik Goyani, Metro’s vice president of operations, told commissioners on Dec. 8.

Wesley Chapel is already home to blazing fast ULTRAFi in the Union Park development, and cities like Kansas City and Cleveland and Austin, TX., neighborhoods are home to gigabit speed internet.

But US Ignite, a non-profit organization established in cooperation with the National Science Foundation and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will work with Metro Development Group to make the connected city the first to install the network at the beginning of community development.

The allure of gigabit internet, however, has taken a backseat with the older crowds at the community meetings. Instead, residents want to how development will impact the Floridan aquifer, how sewers and sinkholes will be dealt with, and how the area, which has been beset with flooding the past few years, will handle any more water.

Previous meetings have addressed other issues that also have raised the ire of locals. The Nov. 4 meeting at WCE raised concerns about the loss of rural life and the potential impact on the environment. Residents questioned Gassaway about the possibility of fracking coming to the area, while others were concerned about population densities.

A handful of residents wanted to make sure the environment was protected. Of the 7,800 total acres of land to be developed, 1,838 of those are protected wetlands.

Gassaway said the plan will eliminate 178 acres of wetlands, but the remaining wetlands will be enhanced to yield a net gain, bringing the total wetland area in the project to 2,100 acres, although some residents were skeptical due to what they feel are already-weakened environmental protections, no state oversight and a stated desire by stakeholders for speedy permitting.

All local, state and federal rules will be followed in upland habitat management, said Kyle Parks of B2 Communications, which is working with Heidt.

There also have been concerns about traffic, with one resident pleading for cloverleaf exit ramp designs at the existing I-75/S.R. 52 and the planned I-75/Overpass Rd. exchanges to keep traffic flowing, while others worried about the disruption construction would have in an area where many of the roads are two-lane dirt paths and where people have traditionally come to expect to live in privacy.

Some of those roads in the initial designs are planned to go near or through the property of some residents, like the six lanes that split the Millers’ 10 acres.

Miller and others said they hoped once Heidt and Metro saw which homes were disturbed most by roadways, changes in the proposed roadway designs could be made.

While a dozen or so residents raised their hands to ask questions at the Nov. 4 meeting, not everyone expressed skepticism.

Margie Tingley, who owns Tingley Systems Inc., a technology-based company in San Antonio, moved here in 1981, said the Connected City and the progress it promises will be great for the area.

“If this can go forward the way it looks, and everyone can buy into it, the whole area will be put in the spotlight,’’ she said.

Pasco's new logo to showcase vibrant places and spaces

After three years of study, Pasco County has unveiled a new logo with a new tagline — “Open Spaces. Vibrant Places.” – that Melanie Kendrick, the county’s acting program administrator for economic growth, says ties the county’s story together, presents the area with a sense of place and provides a cohesive sales pitch to tourists.

“I think we needed to tell the Pasco story in a holistic way,’’ said Kendrick, a member of the county’s Branding Team, comprised of leaders from multiple departments.

“We don’t have that one thing to sell in Pasco. If you ask 20 people about what makes Pasco, you’ll get 20 different answers. We thought this was a way to unify the county.”

Pasco County Commissioners approved the new branding effort last month by a 4-1 vote, with only District 5 Commissioner Jack Mariano dissenting.

In today’s fast-moving world and an ever-growing social media universe, branding is everything, especially when it comes to attracting tourism, says Ed Caum, manager of the Pasco County Office of Tourism Development, who also was the featured speaker at the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce’s October Business Breakfast.

The logo, with carefully chosen orange, yellow and gray colors, a rising sun (as the letter “O” in Pasco) and a sandhill crane flying in front of it, was designed by Jennifer Lachtara, the marketing coordinator for Pasco’s Economic Development Council (EDC). A variation of the logo was in the “MyPasco” app that the county released in the Google Play and ITunes stores in June.

Caum and Lachtara, along with Pasco County public information officer Doug Tobin, were key members of the Branding Team, though Caum stressed it was a county-wide effort involving many.

Caum also says there was talk of outsourcing the re-branding effort, but by doing it in-house, the re-branding committee saved taxpayers roughly $80-120,000. He explains that Hernando County rebranded itself as the “Adventure Coast” in September and that effort cost roughly $85,000.

It was time for the re-branding, Kendrick says. She recalls doing an interview with some USF students about 3-½ years ago, and she asked them what they thought about Pasco County. Some didn’t know where Pasco was, even though they acknowledged hanging out at The Shops at Wiregrass mall.

The county has basically used its seal as a primary logo, with various unofficial logos and catchphrases popping up here and there. “Open Spaces. Vibrant Places.” replaces “Room To Grow” and others like “It’s Only Natural.”

“A seal really isn’t a logo and a seal is not a brand,’’ said Caum, adding that the seal will still be used on official documents. But new county cars will bear the new logo, as will buses, stationary, business cards and shirts of county employees when it is rolled out, which Caum says should be by 2017.

More important, Caum says, is that the plan is to recognize those vibrant places in Pasco County with the new logo, which is already on the county’s website. It will effectively serve as a stamp of approval.

Caum says there will be criteria for those applying to be deemed a vibrant place or an open space. When those criteria are determined, they will be listed on an application for interested parties.

Signs will be positioned throughout the county in areas that are accepted as part of the program, like parks, cities, downtowns or green spaces. Shopping districts and neighborhood associations also can apply to be part of the new “story” the county hopes to tell to visitors, tourists and residents.

“We just need to make sure we maintain a brand standard,’’ Caum says.

Francisco and Deffs share an adventure

An imaginative 10-year-old fifth grader at Saddlebrook Preparatory Academy (located off S.R. 54 here in Wesley Chapel), Francisco Cobo is now a published author, with his children’s book available for purchase on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Francisco didn’t speak a word of English when he arrived at Saddlebrook Prep from Mexico in August 2014. The school is home to about 100 students in grades 3 through 12 from all over the world who are participating in intense training in either golf or tennis, along with equally challenging academic studies. This school is located on the premises of Saddlebrook Resort Tampa.

Francisco spends two hours a day practicing golf, but says he loves writing just as much as the sport.

Deffs Adventures tells the tale of Deffs, a real-life hamster who is the class pet in Elaine Strausser’s classroom at the school. Deffs was named by Francisco and his classmates – the hamster’s name is an acronym that combines the four students’ first initials with an “S” for their teacher’s last name.

Francisco worked with Strausser over several weeks to write, re-write, edit and add details to his book. He illustrated every page of the story himself, too.

It began as an independent project in the classroom, but when it was complete, Chris Wester, the Prep School’s director of curriculum, suggested it was good enough to be shared in print form, so Strausser found a publishing company that Francisco and his family could work with to self-publish the book.

“It was fun to imagine,” says Francisco. “I wrote that Deffs hid in the candy bucket to go trick or treating with us and that he stayed at one of the kids’ houses over Christmas break.”

For Francisco’s Christmas break, he won’t return home to Mexico. Instead, his parents will come to visit him and his 12-year-old sister, Fernanda, who is a tennis player and seventh grader at Saddlebrook Prep.

“He’s very creative,” says Francisco’s guidance counselor, Sara Bassoumi, “It’s an outstanding achievement that he learned to speak English and published a book” in the short time he’s been at the school.

“I like that now everyone will get to see the story,” says Fernando, whose book also is now on one of the shelves at the school’s library. Saddlebrook Prep recently hosted a book signing, honoring the author in front of his school family, and allowing Fernando to share his story and his achievement with his classmates. For more info about Saddlebrook Prep, visit SaddlebrookPrep.com or call 907-4300.

Survey says: Wesley Chapel pretty darn great for families

With growing businesses, new residential developments, two major malls including the brand new Tampa Premium Outlets, and highly-rated schools, what is there not to like about living in Wesley Chapel?

According to WalletHub, not much at all. The personal finance website recently rated Wesley Chapel the 7th best city for families in Florida. Wallethub compared 115 Florida cities across 21 metrics, with Wesley Chapel scoring No. 1 for housing affordability and wealth gap, and finishing in the top 10 for general affordability (5th) and divorce rate (9th).

“I am very pleased with the rating,’’ says Hope Allen, the president and CEO of the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC). “To be No. 1 in affordability and housing says a lot about our area and community. People do look at national ratings when looking to relocate, so it’s very important to do well in these.”

Allen also noted that Wesley Chapel is a Census-Designated Place (CDP), and to be ranked with cities across the state is a great achievement. “Pretty impressive to make the list when we’re not even a city,’’ Allen said. Wesley Chapel received its lowest marks for education, health and safety (77th).

The No. 1 city rated overall was Parkland in Broward County, just north of Coral Springs.

WalletHub’s report looked closely at four specific categories: Family Life & Fun; Education, Health & Safety; Affordability; and Socioeconomic Environment, attributing 25 points to each category.

Within those categories were 21 different metrics. For example, under Family Life & Fun, WalletHub’s experts looked at number of playgrounds per 100,000 residents, the number of family attractions like parks and museums, the percentage of families with children under the age of 18, weather and average commute time.

In 2014, Wesley Chapel was rated the fourth-best place (out of 179 studied) to own a home/raise a family by the national consumer advocacy website Nerdwallet.com. In June of 2015, Nerdwallet.com bumped Wesley Chapel up one spot to No. 3 in the ratings.Top 10 Cities

Editorial: We’ll Show You Ours (Distribution Numbers) If They Show You Theirs

By Gary Nager

In recent issues we have run a 1/4-page advertisement that tells our readers (many of whom own businesses that want to get the most for their money in our only two distribution markets, New Tampa & Wesley Chapel) that “We’ll Show You Ours If They Show You Theirs.” Although the ad makes a light-hearted joke about it, we are deadly serious when it comes to distribution figures.

Because both of our publications are distributed by direct mail through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), we can’t “audit” our circulation figures through an independent agency (none of the accredited circulation auditors will audit direct-mail publications, and we don’t really need them to because, in order to receive the special Bulk Mail rate publications like ours receive, we have to give the Post Office enough copies to put one in at least 95 percent of every mailbox in every postal carrier route we serve or the Post Office will not deliver any of them!).

But, we think our postal receipts are an even better proof of how many households (not people; more on this below) receive our publications in their mailboxes (not thrown on their driveways in the rain) and therefore offer the most possible people in both zip code 33647 (New Tampa) and zips 33543, 33544 & 33545 (Wesley Chapel) the opportunity to read them.

As most of our readers in both markets already know (because you tell us so every day), when you have the best, most informative content of any local media outlet as well as the largest circulation, our advertisers can rest easy that there will be more eyeballs reading our words and checking out their ads than any other local medium.

And, the number of those eyeballs keeps on growing, especially in Wesley Chapel, where we have added more than 5,000 additional direct-mail households since the economic bubble hit in 2008, all at our own expense and without any significant rise in our advertising rates!

But, my primary reason for writing this piece today is to tell you that, thanks to input from readers in New Tampa (specifically living in one carrier route in Cross Creek and one in Heritage Isles) who suddenly didn’t receive one or both of our last two issues in their mailboxes, we have recently added two routes and more than 1,000 additional households in zip code 33647, bringing our all-direct-mail circulation to 26,200+ households in New Tampa.

With an average of just about three people living in every household in our area (yes, many have both more and less than three, but that is the average), that means we have nearly 80,000 potential readers in New Tampa (including one carrier route in Lake Forest, which is a Lutz address, but located along Bruce B. Downs Blvd., just south of Tampa Palms) alone! When you add the nearly 21,000 households (also unmatched in the marketplace) we direct mail to in our three Wesley Chapel zip codes, the total number of people who have ongoing direct-mail access to our publications is nearly 150,000 every four weeks (we publish 26 issues, 13 in New Tampa and 13 in Wesley Chapel, every year).

Here’s an explanation you can check with the Post Office as to why we felt we had to add two more carrier routes in New Tampa. Whenever new communities, like K-Bar Ranch, begin building in an already-established area, the Post Office will wait until there are enough households in that new development or subdivision before adding another route. That means the new households in those just-developing areas will simply be added to existing carrier routes located near that new neighborhood until there are enough households in the new community itself to warrant a new route.

All ongoing direct-mail businesses are required by the Post Office to get updated carrier route numbers, but only every 90 days (three months), so until we get our updated counts again, some of the households along those now-larger existing routes may not receive their Neighborhood News until we get our next route count update.

The Post Office has even been known to change existing routes to make it easier for the postal carriers to make sure everyone they serve receives all of their mail — and, as a federal government-funded entity, the USPS isn’t required to tell anyone about those changes (go figure).

Therefore, it’s up to you, faithful readers, to tell us if you suddenly aren’t receiving your Neighborhood News in your mailbox, so I’m always grateful when you do. I can (and I’m always happy to) prove exactly how many copies we print and distribute in each of our two markets, but I can assure you (because I always know how much we spend to mail our publications to you), that if any other local medium claims to have higher numbers of homes, apartments, businesses or readers in either market than we do, all you have to do is ask them to prove it and they’ll likely back off their claim.