And, it seems, never ending. Already this year tentative plans have been revealed to build a Rock & Brews Restaurant on the south side of S.R. 56 just east of the Tampa Premium Outlets, right next to a proposed Saltgrass Steak House.
Both are part of the Cypress Creek Town Center Development of Regional Impact (DRI).
Nothing seems to get our readers more excited than news about the Cypress Creek Town Center.
In January of 2018, we broke the news about Earth Fare, HomeGoods, Chipotle, Walk-Ons Bistreaux and Blaze Pizza coming to the already burgeoning commercial and retail development on S.R. 56. It was the most popular story on our website all year, with twice the traffic as the story that was second — an update on the diverging diamond interchange (DDI) that should begin construction at I-75 and S.R. 56 any day now.
Chuy’s was one of 2018’s popular restaurant openings.
In fact, Cypress Creek-related stories and maps (2) — touting the arrival of restaurants like Chuy’s and Mellow Mushroom as well as many others — held the Nos. 3 and 6 spots on our 2018 web traffic rankings.
Wesley Chapel was gripped by Cypress Creek Fever in 2018, and there’s still so more to come. Earth Fare, HomeGoods, Walk-Ons and Blaze should all open in the first quarter of 2019, Chipotle just recently opened, and vertical construction has begun on Hobby Lobby, Burlington, Five Below and others.
The list of new places being built all across Wesley Chapel is seemingly endless. In addition to Mellow Mushroom, Chuy’s, Bahama Breeze and the Hyatt Place Hotel on the north side of S.R. 56, there was MOD Pizza and Nationwide Vision At Home on the south side near the Tampa Premium Outlets.Â
A little to the east of I-75 on 56, the Hilton Garden Inn hotel on the south side opened and in the Wiregrass Ranch DRI a few more miles to the east, the even newer Fairfield Inn on the north side of 56 did as well, as did Nothing Bundt Cakes highlighting a slew of new stores at the Shops at Wiregrass.Â
Main Event could be open by the end of the year.
Main Event Entertainment is building an entertainment center offering bowling, laser tag, adventure courses and food and drink, between the outlet mall and I-75 (in the same area as the Rock & Brew and Saltgrass Steak House proposals).
Along with the new Wiregrass Sports Complex, which broke ground in 2018, and an indoor athletic facility at Wesley Chapel District Park, those complaining about there being nothing to do in The Chap should hopefully find some peace.
And, the development wasn’t limited to places to shop and eat — houses are going up at near-record levels, and Wesley Chapel broke ground on one fire station (No. 38) while revamping another (No. 13 on Old Pasco Rd.)
Getting to those places might be an issue in 2019 (early frontrunner for Story of the Year!), as the DDI at S.R. 56 and I-75 is just one of a number of major roadway projects being built in Wesley Chapel.
While the S.R. 56 extension from Meadow Pointe Blvd. to U.S. 301 in Zephyrhills made great progress basically out of view in 2018, the DDI will begin work smack dab in the middle of it all. Combined with the widening of S.R. 54 from Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. to Zephyrhills that started in 2018, driving in our area should be interesting in 2019.
A second hospital could be coming to Wesley Chapel .
Officials from BayCare Pasco, a newly created not-for-profit organization established to develop and operate a proposed new 60-bed acute care hospital, met with county planners about opening its first Wesley Chapel location on an 111-acre site in the northeast quadrant of the planned I-75 and Overpass Rd. intersection.
Prior to meeting with Pasco County, BayCare received preliminary approval for its application to build the new hospital.
The BayCare location will be ideal for the thousands of homes being built in the neighboring “connected city” (which is already home to residents in the Epperson development) as well as future growth on the west side of I-75.
“We know that the demand for health care services will continue to increase in that (Wesley Chapel) community, and we’re eager to bring more of BayCare’s clinical excellence to residents in this area,” said Tommy Inzina, president and CEO of BayCare, in a statement.
While it operates 15 hospitals in Tampa Bay — BayCare also operates a HealthHub in the Publix in Hollybrook Plaza on S.R. 54 — this will be the company’s first hospital located in Wesley Chapel.
BayCare Pasco says the proposed hospital will be state-of-the-art and have 30 medical/surgical beds (all private rooms with bath and showers), including 18 progressive care/intensive care beds with full capabilities, including eICU (virtual) monitoring; and 12 women’s services beds, including postpartum obstetric beds and nursery capabilities; as well as 30 observation beds to accommodate patients who need to be assessed for next steps in care.
The proposal also says the hospital will have an emergency department with 30 ER beds and four operating rooms
IT’S OFFICIAL: All Florida Hospital facilities made it official on Jan. 1, becoming AdventHealth as part of what the healthcare giant is calling a “new consumer-centric brand launch.”
The announcement of the name change was made in August, and became official with the new year.
The former Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC) is now AdventHealth Wesley Chapel (AHWC), one of 30 Advent Health hospitals and freestanding departments in Florida.
Based in Altamonte Springs, the company’s hospitals and other facilities are all now displaying the new name.
“This is an exciting time as we elevate our ability to connect communities with our expanded network of care,” said Mike Schultz, president and CEO of Advent Health’s West Florida Division. “This name change reinforces our commitment to provide a viable, affordable health care system and to continue our unique brand of inspired, compassionate whole-person care through clinical expertise and leading-edge innovation.”
AHWC currently is the only hospital located in Wesley Chapel. It opened as FHWC in 2012, and it continues to expand.
In 2017, a massive expansion was completed that doubled the number of operating and emergency rooms, while adding 62 private inpatient rooms.
The hospital most recently completed a $2.8-million women’s health center, called Inspiration Place (see ad on pg. 2 of this issue), in December of 2017, and earlier this year, opened a 24-bed offsite emergency department on S.R. 54 near the Suncoast Pkwy.
AdventHealth Wesley Chapel’s adjacent 50,000- square-foot Health & Wellness Center continues to receive overwhelmingly positive reviews from local residents.
AdventHealth recently met with Pasco County planners to propose an additional three-story medical office building and future parking garage on nearly nine acres off Legacy Blvd., adjacent to AHWC.
After years of anticipation, New Tampa is finally getting a green grocer.
Sprouts Farmers Market, a popular Phoenix-based food chain that offers more than 19,000 healthy products, of which 90 percent are natural or organic, is coming to The Villages of Hunter’s Lake project currently beginning construction on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. across the street from the Hunter’s Green community.
The Villages of Hunter’s Lake is being built on roughly 14 acres of land, and will include a 30,000-sq.-ft. Cultural Center, a four-story, 241-unit multi-family project called The Haven at Hunter’s Lake, a retail shopping strip center that will include a restaurant and a dog park.
But a new Sprouts store may end up being the jewel of the project, with all the requests over the years by residents for a green or specialty grocer.
Sprouts announced recently it was adding the New Tampa location, as well as others in Seminole and Stuart.
The nearest Sprouts to New Tampa is the first one ever built in Florida, in Carrollwood. There are five other locations in Florida, located on S. Dale Mabry in South Tampa, Valrico, Sarasota, Palm Harbor and Winter Park.
We’ll have more details in our story in the next issue of the New Tampa Neighborhood News, hitting mailboxes Jan. 25.
According to Jason Penny, the public information officer for the Tampa Fire Rescue department, the newly constructed Fire Station No. 23 just south of County Line Rd. should be fully functional and staffed sometime in January, though no official date has been set for the new station’s ribbon cutting.
“For all intent and purposes, it is done,” Penny said. “We’re just putting the finishes touches on it and waiting for the certificate of occupancy.”
Everything assigned to Fire Station 23 has already been hard at work since July. The truck, fire engine, rescue car and crew are currently working at stations in Ybor City (No. 4), on Hillsborough Ave. (No. 12) and off N. 30th St. near Busch Gardens (No. 13).
Station No. 23 will be New Tampa’s fourth fire station, but the first new station in our area since 2012.
It is expected to ease the pressure on Stations No. 21 and No. 22, which are both located on Cross Creek Blvd. Fire Station No. 23 is located right down County Line Rd. from Grand Hampton, which has roughly 900 homes, as well as other still developing communities in the area.
Station 23 also will be home to a new District Fire Chief responsible for coordinating efforts between all of New Tampa’s stations — Nos. 21, 22, 23 and No. 20 in Tampa Palms.
Tampa Now Repaving Parts Of New Tampa BlvdÂ
Work began right before Christmas on smoothing over some of the trouble spots on New Tampa Blvd.’s bike and pedestrian trail that runs through the West Meadows community.
The pathway has faced criticism from local residents for years due to its cracked, bumpy and uneven surface that makes bike riding and even walking potentially dangerous.
District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera was alerted to the poor condition of the path by a Hunter’s Green resident who often biked the path, and Viera says he was shocked when he went to take a look.
“I hadn’t been on it in a long time, to be honest, so I was a little struck by the disrepair,” Viera says. He adds that he called Jean Duncan at the City of Tampa Transportation and Stormwater Services Department to see if something could be done.
Originally scheduled for the spring, the project was moved up and began on Dec. 13, and was expected to be completed this month. While it doesn’t appear to be the complete renovation of the path that some had hoped for, the worst parts on the path have now been paved over by asphalt.
The long-simmering debate over whether or not Kinnan St. in New Tampa and Mansfield Blvd. in Wesley Chapel should have the 30-foot gap between the two roads paved over and connected may be on life support.
At least that’s the way it felt on Dec. 13 at the Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meeting in Dade City, where there was zero support for connecting the two roads.
It looks like, frankly, it might literally be the end of the road for Kinnan.
Meadow Pointe resident Richard Traugt told Pasco’s MPO that connecting Kinnan St. to Mansfield Blvd. “would be insane.”
With a few dozen Meadow Pointe residents in the audience, the MPO was briefed on the Wesley Chapel Roadways Study — which had been presented to the public in a workshop back in May. The study, while coming to no conclusions, looked at multiple options for connecting Wesley Chapel and New Tampa at the Hillsborough-Pasco county line.
The briefing, delivered by Meghan McKinney of the consulting firm AECOM, was followed by District 2 Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore delivering what may well be the eulogy for Kinnan-Mansfield.
“Connecting Mansfield and Kinnan makes no sense for Pasco County residents,” Moore said. “It will only help the people in the developments in Hillsborough County just over the border. There are things (Hillsborough County) could have done in the past, like opening up Live Oak (Blvd.), but they got into a battle between Hillsborough and the City of Tampa. They could have opened that up, (but) didn’t do it. Now they want to put the burden on us? Shame on them.”
Moore’s remarks were greeted with loud applause from the residents in attendance, eight of whom signed up to speak to the MPO, which is comprised of the five Pasco commissioners, city council members from Zephyrhills and New Port Richey, and the mayors of Port Richey and Dade City.
Mike Moore, left, is a vocal critic of connecting Kinnan St. and Mansfield Blvd.
Residents told the MPO that opening up Mansfield Blvd. to traffic from New Tampa, namely from new homes in K-Bar Ranch, would be a disaster. The 450-page report, using traffic projections for the year 2040, suggested the connection would add as many as 4,000 cars to Mansfield, a two-lane road — which many in attendance claimed cannot be widened, even though there has never been any proof of that claim presented by county staffers — running north to S.R. 56.
“It would destroy the flavor of the community me and my neighbors bought into…and it would lower property values,” said Michael Kaufman, who also was critical of the City of Tampa’s decision this summer to approve 700 more homes in K-Bar Ranch, which backs up against the southern end of Meadow Pointe.
“They (Tampa) are creating a problem; it’s not up to us to fix it,” he added.
This photo taken by a drone shows the 60-foot gap between Kinnan St. (on the bottom) and Mansfield Blvd. Hillsborough and Pasco counties are stalemated on the issue but continue to discuss connecting the two roads.
Mansfield Blvd. runs past an elementary, middle and high school, Pasco-Hernando State College and entrances to a handful of Meadow Pointe II communities. The safety of students attending those schools was the concern echoed by most.
“It would be insane,” said Richard Traugt. “I’m against it for safety purposes alone.”
“There is grave concern among Pasco County residents that this would have a severe and negative impact on the quality of life and safety,” said Chris Dillinger. “It is easy to dismiss our fears as whiny and the over-reactive opinion of a small group of residents, but this notion is especially convenient for those would benefit from accessing the short cut through our neighborhood.”
At this point, the debate over Kinnan-Mansfield may no longer raging, but other options to make connections remain viable and even had the lukewarm approval of some of the residents in attendance. Connecting Meadow Pointe Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., as well as Wyndfields Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., or even both, appeared to be palatable choices.
Tampa and Hillsborough County have argued to connect all three.
“I’ve heard nothing positive about Mansfield Blvd. being opened, period,” said Pasco’s Dist. 5 commissioner Jack Mariano. “Connecting to Meadow Pointe Blvd. is the most sensible one. If Hillsborough is blocking that, we’ve got a problem. We need to have a strong discussion with them.”
Mariano joined Moore, Dade City mayor Camille Hernandez and Zephyrhills City council member Lance Smith in siding with the residents in attendance. Pasco commissioners Ron Oakley (District 1) and Kathryn Starkey (District 3) left after the presentation and before public comment, without offering their opinions, and three other MPO members did not attend.
McKinney said Pasco will conduct a public opinion poll in February, with basically yes or no votes on the various connections. A standalone option for making the Kinnan-Mansfield connection will not be on the survey, but it will be included as part of the multiple connections options. Those results will be passed on to the MPO, who will then make a recommendation to Pasco’s commissioners.
