Category: Business

Moffitt’s Partnership With AdventHealth WC Just The Beginning

Moffitt Cancer Center VP of government affairs Jamie Wilson (right) asked Jim Engelmann & the other North Tampa Bay Chamber members in attendance at the NTBC’s Sept. 26 Economic Development Briefing for their support of Moffitt’s efforts to receive more funding the state’s cigarette tax revenue.

The Moffitt Cancer Center, which recently forged a new partnership with Advent Health Wesley Chapel, could be making an even bigger footprint in Pasco County, with talk of a massive research center at the intersection of S.R. 52 and the Suncoast Pkwy.

But to do so, Moffitt will need money.

Jamie Wilson, the vice president of government affairs for Moffitt, spoke to local business leaders at the North Tampa Bay Chamber (NTBC)’s Economic Development Briefing at Hunter’s Green Country Club on Sept. 26.

Wilson’s presentation is part of a more aggressive effort by Moffitt to convince the state legislature to raise the cancer center’s share of Florida’s annual cigarette tax.

“We have grown from a small cancer hospital with 409 employees in 1986 to 2019, where we now have 6,500 employees serving more than 68,000 patients a year,” Wilson said. “The demand continues to grow. We’re asking our legislature to partner with us again, and groups like this Chamber to support our (request).”

Wilson told the NTBC members in attendance that Moffitt, as the state’s only Comprehensive Cancer Center, is asking to increase its share of the cigarette tax from 4.04 percent this year to 7 percent next year and 10 percent in 2023. Each increase would produce an additional $11 million in annual revenue.

The existing Moffitt Cancer Center on the University of South Florida (USF)’s Tampa campus off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. and E. Fowler Ave., is 33 years old, and Wilson said there is no space available for growth in cancer research or treatment there. He said there were 130,000 people diagnosed with cancer last year in the state of Florida — and that number is expected to continue to grow.

“There is more and more demand every year,” he said. “We are seeking additional assistance from the cigarette tax so we can accommodate that growth by building new, state-of-the-art treatment and research facilities.”

The additional revenue would be used to expand Moffitt’s local footprint. That likely would include a new hospital on McKinley Dr. (aka N. 40th St.) in Tampa, about a mile from the existing hospital on the USF campus, and potentially, a new research campus in Pasco County, which has already approved the zoning and land-use changes for the massive proposed development near the Suncoast Pkwy. that also could include homes, hotels and other commercial enterprises.

Wilson said that a facility such as that would be a huge boon for Pasco County, as it would bring thousands of high-paying jobs to the area as well.

“I think we all know or have been touched by someone dealing with cancer,” said District 2 County Commissioner Mike Moore. “I think something like that would be great for Pasco County, but I think the good it would do for everyone, here and around the world, would be tremendous.”

Moffitt already has a new and innovative partnership with AdventHealth, which was announced earlier this year.

Back in May, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel (AHWC) and Moffitt broke ground on a new $44-million outpatient center to treat cancer patients from a new medical office building on the AHWC campus.

The three-story, 100,000-sq.-ft. medical office on the hospital’s campus will fill a pressing need for cancer treatment here. The outpatient center will offer medical and radiation oncology services and will be designed to accommodate oncologists to deliver chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy to patients. It is expected to open next fall.

Moffitt and AdventHealth also teamed up recently to bring early-phase clinical trials for patients who have run out of other treatment options to AdventHealth Celebration near Orlando.

It is that kind of forward-thinking that Wilson said proves Moffitt has been worth every penny it has received from the cigarette tax, and an increase would help it do more.

“I think the return on investment has been great,” he said, adding later, “Moffitt is doing some pretty great stuff.”

cancer Moffitt

Dr. David Scamard Is Your Independent Optometrist Inside Costco!

Costco Wholesale is highly-regarded for its great deals and convenience. Where else can you shop for groceries, electronics and furniture, while getting your tires rotated and filling up your gas tank on the way out — all at great prices?

However, one of the local Costco store’s lesser known perks adds even more convenience.

Not only can you get your eyes examined at Costco, you can get the frames and lenses right there.

Excellence in Eye Care

Don’t let the convenience factor fool you. Independent Optometrist David Scamard, O.D., has been in the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel area for more than 17 years, delivering the highest level of service and an exceptional experience.

Dr. Scamard’s Excellence in Eye Care, LLC, is an A-Rated business, according to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), has a 5-Star rating on Google Reviews with more than 140 reviews, and even has a 5-Star rating on the practice’s Facebook page.

Dr. Scamard is a local product. He attended Hillsborough High School, did his undergraduate work at the University of South Florida and earned his Doctor of Optometry degree from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.

He opened his first private practice in New Tampa in 2002. He sold that business in 2007 and moved into a new location off of S.R. 54 in Lutz, where he operated Eye Care Professionals of Tampa Bay until 2017.

In 2017, the Costco on S.R. 56 opened up, and Dr. Scamard brought his Excellence in Eye Care inside the store. The good news is that you do not have to be a Costco member to walk in to visit or make an appointment with Dr. Dave.

“Doctor Dave is very personable and still professional and caring,” says Michael Mendivil, who works at the adjacent hearing aid center, also inside Costco. “He does an unbelievable job. He is thorough with his eye exams and is just an awesome practitioner. I went through three optometrists before I found him, and I feel like he finally got my prescription right.”

Dr. Scamard’s experience spans almost two decades. Many of his patients from his early years have followed him to his location inside Costco.

“The health of your eyes is very important,” Dr. Scamard says. “You’ve heard the expression, ‘The eyes are the window to the soul?’ Well, your eyes are also a window to your health.”

He notes that diseases like glaucoma can go undetected for years and says the American Optometric Association recommends an eye exam for everyone once a year, but especially diabetics should have their eyes checked every year.

“Your eyes are such sensitive organs, they can manifest signs of systemic disease,” Dr. Scamard says.

Dr. Scamard uses some of the most cutting-edge technology in the industry. For eye exams, he uses an Optos retinal camera in his office. This high-tech tool is a retinal imager that gives the optometrist a view of the internal structures of your eyes.

The old-fashioned way to see into your pupils was to dilate them.

“People don’t always have time to get their pupils dilated,” Dr. Scamard says. “When your pupils are dilated, you are very sensitive to bright light and your near-sightedness is fuzzy — sometimes for up to five hours after dilation. It’s something that compels a lot of people to pass up their annual eye exams.”

Most peoples’ impression of an eye doctor appointment involves looking into that metal mask as the doctor manually flips through different lenses in front of your eyes to achieve the proper prescription. Dr. Dave says that is now officially “old-school.”

One of the other high-tech devices Dr. Scamard uses is a RT-5100 Refractor, a digital refractor with electric motors that change the lenses. Scamard operates the digital refractor from a console on his desk.

“The digital refractor is faster, more accurate and more efficient than the old-style analog devices,” he says. “Our patients appreciate that we have the latest technology available to them.”

Convenience

The entire process from eye exam to putting the glasses on your face or contacts in your eyes can be completed right there in Costco. However, while you do not need to be a Costco member to utilize Dr. Scamard’s services, you do need to be a member to get your glasses and contact lenses from the wholesale giant.

After your exam, the next step is, well, just steps away. Need a prescription filled from Dr. Scamard? It can be filled right there in Costco’s pharmacy. Want to browse glasses and contacts lenses? There is an entire showroom right outside Dr. Scamard’s office.

“Costco even carries some of the high-end lines of frames like Prada, Tiffany, Oakley and Mont Blanc,” he says. “A lot of their frames and lenses are priced at what my cost was when I operated out of my own office. Some of my patients say that they have had savings up to 50 percent. Additionally, Costco has been rated number one by consumer reports for the best value in glasses and contacts, for the last several years.”

Costco carries a sizable line of contact lenses, including newer designs that allow more oxygen into the eyes, helping to prevent dryness. If the store doesn’t have them in stock, they can usually be delivered to the store in a week or less. The customer can even order them online and have them delivered to their home.

Having trouble setting an appointment? Excellence in Eye Care makes that easy as well. Dr. Scamard says that some offices have up to two-week waiting lists, but he even accepts walk-ins.

Excellence in Eye Care does not accept optical insurance but does provide itemized receipts that patients can use for reimbursement from their providers. Insurance can be applied to the lenses and frames sold at Costco, however.

Eyeglass exams start at $79, and contact lens exams start at $99. In the month of October, Excellence in Eye Care is offering a free set of sunglasses with the cutout or mention of the coupon in the Neighborhood News on page 40.

Excellence in Eye Care is located in the Costco Wesley Chapel Warehouse at 2225 Grand Cypress Dr., on the south side of S.R. 56, in Lutz. The office is open Tuesday and Thursday, 1 p.m.-7 p.m.; Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, call (813) 279-7038 or visit ExcellenceInEyecare.net.

costco's scamard

What (Teriyaki) Madness Is This?

Although we had been previously told to expect some sort of fried or grilled chicken restaurant in the space previously occupied by Wok Chi in the Shops at Wiregrass, the new restaurant that opened there earlier this month is called Teriyaki Madness, which is more of a Japanese experience, whereas Wok Chi was definitely more of a Chinese restaurant.

Please note that in our October 18 Wesley Chapel edition, I mistakenly called this new restaurant by a different name, which also was a fast-Asian concept that closed several years ago. I already have apologized to the general manager at Teriyaki Madness for my mistake, so I hope you will read this and go visit Teriyaki Madness soon. Feel free to make fun of me when you do visit.

Teriyaki Madness specializes in — you guessed it — dishes cooked with a teriyaki glaze (thicker than most sauces) that, to me, is more like BBQ sauce than something you’d get at a Japanese restaurant. This fast, healthier-than-most-fast-casual concept was founded in Las Vegas in 2003 and currently includes more than 100 locations being operated throughout the U.S. and now Mexico by M.H. Enterprises, which is based in Denver, CO.

In addition to beef, chicken and tofu teriyaki dishes, Teriyaki Madness also offers spicy chicken, spicy tofu teriyaki, orange chicken teriyaki, fried chicken katsu and yakisoba noodles with chicken, beef, tofu or all veggies. Appetizers include crispy chicken egg rolls, edamame (soybeans), crab Rangoon, chicken pot stickers and more.

The veggies are very fresh and you can customize which veggies you want, so yes, I’ll visit The Teriyaki Madness (28152 Paseo Dr.) again soon.

For more information, call (813) 803-3749, search “Teriyaki Madness” on Facebook or visit TeriyakiMadness.com.

shops at wiregrass mall teriyaki

THE GOLDEN TOUCH

In a tiny office tucked behind The Grove shopping center he recently bought for $62.7 million, Mark Gold is unveiling big dreams.

“Big, big, major,” he says. “This is major.”

Gold’s vision is all over the walls of the leasing office at The Grove, on blueprints and promotional materials.

There will be a family park, an amphitheatre for musical performances, a brewery, new restaurants, an indoor adventure facility, beautiful landscaping and lighting, and what Gold says will be the biggest shipping container park — think Sparkman Wharf, but on steroids — in the world.

A rendering of how a “container park” will look at The Grove.

There also is room for 400 homes, if Gold chooses to develop the additional acreage.

While others have, for too many years, seen a big box dead end office plaza with empty buildings and overgrown and unkempt land, Gold sees the future.

“This is a diamond that no one has touched for 10 years,” he says. “No one had the money to polish the diamond. That’s just crazy.”

The Grove, which opened in 2007 and whose current tenants include Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Michael’s and others, as well as the Cobb 16 Movie Theater, may be an afterthought to many locals, a shopping center that once had great potential before development stopped. Gold and his Mishorim Gold Properties promise that will change.

“The message is, The Grove is coming back,” says Gold, emphatically. “It’s not owned by the bank or an insurance company anymore, it’s owned by creative developers that do this already all over the U.S.”

As Gold lays out his plan, it almost sounds too good to be true. However, District 2 Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore, who arranged a meeting for Gold with county planners and administrators, loves the idea.

“I think he’s the real deal,” Moore says. “When he left after his presentation, there was energy and excitement in the room.”

Pasco’s uber-friendly-to-business county commission is likely to do what it can to make things happen fast. Many of the typical hold-ups — such as proper zoning and utilities — are all already in place.

The mostly vacant Village across the parking lot from stores like Best Buy, Marshall’s and DICK’s Sporting Goods has been mostly vacant but Gold already has new tenants signed to leases.

Gold, who has now owned the plaza less than a month, isn’t wasting any time starting to create a destination that he thinks could serve as a downtown Wesley Chapel one day.

“This is not only about money, it’s about vision,” he says. “Let’s bring something to Wesley Chapel that people like to come to.”

Just a few days after his purchase, he already had signed leases for 15 of the 60 containers, or micro-shops, that will populate the land between The Grove’s office “village” and Outback Steakhouse. Moore said he was impressed to see that overgrown grass had already been moved and some of the area was already being prepped.

Gold is hoping to create a European-flavored market or bazaar, with an emphasis on locally-owned stores and boutiques, and he says that in about two months, the containers will begin showing up.

“Things are moving fast,” he says. “This is big in places like Europe, Amsterdam…you see it all over the place. In the U.S., it is fresh. And, it is going to be the largest one in the world.”

Each of the container “shops,” which are former semi-truck trailers that will be outfitted with solar panels, is 40-feet long (although there are options to split the office containers into two or even three separate spaces), and here’s the big news — he is renting them out for only $1,500 a month for an entire container, with limited up-front costs for design.

“If you have a dream, let’s make it happen!,” Gold says.

“If you have a dream, let’s make it happen!,” he says. “This is your mom-and-pop opportunity, your dream. I care about my tenants. I want to help people come to us. Let me help you.”

A family park for children also will be one of the key components of The Grove’s transformation, as will a 36,000-sq.-ft. indoor trampoline/adventure park (see pg. 14)..

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is a part-owner of Surge Adventure Park, Gold says he already has Surge at four of his developments and that it is likely Brees will follow him to Wesley Chapel, too. Surge Adventure Park would be built near the Cobb 16 Movie Theater.

As we reported last issue, Double Branch Artisanal Ales, owned by Wesley Chapel residents, is expected to open in December, the first new project under Gold’s Mishorim Gold Properties.

“I think it is extraordinarily exciting for our community,” says Hope Allen, CEO of the North Tampa Bay Chamber. “It’s a long time coming. “It was disheartening to see (The Grove) not living up to its full potential over the last couple of years. I appreciate that new ownership is going to invest in it.”

Gold says he also has signed leases with at least four restaurants — pizza, sushi, gourmet hot dogs and frozen yogurt — for the currently mostly-vacant office park that he calls “The Village,” as well as a restaurant/duelling piano bar owned by Wesley Chapel resident Jamie Hess and his brother Joe.

“I met with him and was very enthusiastic and energetic,” said Jamie Hess, who signed his lease on Oct. 10. “I thought he had an amazing plan. I went home and researched his other properties and after that, I was sold. He’s going to make The Grove a huge success.” We’ll have a separate story about the piano bar in a future issue.

Gold has a reputation for investing in property that is undervalued and turning high-vacancy shopping and office centers into bustling, vibrant, family-focused entertainment destinations.

He bought the Lynnhaven North shopping center in Virginia Beach, VA, in late 2018 and quickly turned that around, with nearly $10 million worth of renovations and upgrades.

Whether you’re talking about the Regency Court Shopping Center in Jacksonville, or the Shoppes at Hickory Hollow in Antioch, TN, the DW Center in Newport News, VA, or a handful of other similar U.S. projects, Gold has swooped in to buy a failing shopping center and invested millions into transforming them.

And, the ebullient Gold is excited about The Grove’s prospects.

He says he has been looking to purchase land in the Tampa Bay area for years, but couldn’t find anything that suited him.

“It was like Mission Impossible,” he says.

He spent eight months negotiating to buy The Grove, when he says it usually takes him only about a month to complete similar deals.

The purchase included the 604,000 sq. ft. of existing shopping and dining space, as well as 1.3-million sq. ft. of retail and office space that he plans to build.

But, even better, The Grove is located in one of the southeast’s fastest-growing areas.

Not only are there thousands of homes at various stages of development within a 10-mile radius of The Grove in nearby communities like Mirada, Epperson and even Quail Hollow, but Wesley Chapel also boasts an average annual household income of $92,000.

The shopping center is located just off busy I-75, and can be seen by 100,000 drivers a day.

“I am in the middle of the all the action,” Gold says. “Right where I want to be.”

And soon, he hopes, where all of Wesley Chapel will want to be.

For leasing & more information about The Grove, contact keren@mgoldgroup.com.

The Grove

Nibbles & Bytes

Check Out The Sake House!

The Japanese restaurant and sushi bar formerly known as Fong’s Sushi and Sushi Raw, in the Shoppes at Amberly plaza in Tampa Palms (next to Crunch Fitness) is under new ownership and my first visit to the new Sake House will have be going back for seconds.

I didn’t get to speak to the new owner but I did enjoy some tasty fried pork shumai dumplings (photo above), a unique chicken fried rice and some super-fresh snapper sashimi. Hopefully, I’ll be telling you more about the Sake House in a future issue. In order to help make that happen, please call or stop in and tell them you heard about the Sake House from Gary at Neighborhood News!

The Sake House is located at 15311 Amberly Dr., Tampa. For hours and more information, call (813) 977-3838 or visit SakeHouseAmberly.com.

La Berry Is Now Ice Spice Café!

In our last coupe of issues, we’ve told you about several new Indian restaurants that have or are going to open in New Tampa.

Well, add one more to the list, as the former La Berry Frozen Yogurt Café, located in the same Trout Creek Commons plaza as Burger 21 at 20304 Trout Creek Dr., off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., is now the Ice Spice Café. It is still a frozen yogurt shop that also carries Indian ice cream, milk shakes, smoothies, plus wraps, salads and Indian chaat, which is a savory snack I’ve never sampled or even heard of before.

What I can say with certainty is that Ice Spice Café has creamy frozen yogurt, with flavors like salted caramel (30 calories per ounce) and white chocolate (34) that are low-fat (1g per ounce), low-carb (5-6g sugar per ounce) and delicious!

Fore more info, call (813) 591-1758 or search “Ice Spice Café” on Facebook.

Coming Soon: Bubba’s 33!

Congrats also go out to Jeff and Crista Dean, the owners of Bubba’s 33, which is now going vertical between Ashley Furniture and Texas Roadhouse on S.R. 56, west of I-75, in Wesley Chapel. This will be the first location in Florida for Texas Roadhouse’s sports bar concept, which held a North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce-hosted groundbreaking (photo above) on Sept. 9.

For additional information, visit Bubbas33.com.

Congrats, Dr. Dave!

Congratulations to well-known local optometrist Dr. David Scamard and his office manager Eileen Popescu of Excellence in Eyecare on their August 14 ribbon cutting hosted by the Greater Pasco Chamber of Commerce.

You can visit Dr. Dave’s two-year-old independent optometry office inside the Costco on S.R. 56 — even if you’re not a member of the wholesale club — and he provides a full-range of eye care services, including comprehensive exams, visual field analyses, retinal imaging and more, with walk-ins welcome.

Dr. Scamard opened his first optometry office in our area more than 17 years ago and I can personally attest to the fact that he’s a great optometrist and a really good guy.

If you need more details, or it’s been a while since you had your eyes checked, call (813) 279-7038, visit ExcellenceinEyecare.net or see the ad on pg. 12 of this issue.

— GN