The long-awaited Chick-Fil-A, located in front of the Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO) mall (at 2391 Sun Vista Dr., off S.R. 56) and right between the new Culver’s and Cheddar’s restaurants, is expected to open on June 30, sources tell the Neighborhood News.
The highly-popular fast food restaurant chain specializes in chicken sandwiches, and the opening of the new 4,800-sq.ft. entry into the burgeoning Wesley Chapel food market along S.R. 56 will be another welcome addition to the corridor.
Ford’s Garage recently submitted a preliminary site plan application for a new establishment adjacent to the Pollo Tropical on the Northeast corner of S.R. 56 and Grand Cypress Drive (east of Wesley Chapel Blvd.) directly across from the Tampa Premium Outlets.
Cheddar’s, a Texas-based chain that specializes in food made from scratch ingredients, opened right next to the future Chick-Fil-A site on Monday.
The days of housing communities in Florida being built around golf courses designed by PGA professionals could be numbered, judging by the level of excitement created by news that a Crystal Lagoon — first announced nearly two years ago — is finally ready to break ground in Wesley Chapel.
In the planning stages since an official announcement in November of 2014, the construction of the first-ever man-made lagoon in the U.S. is expected to be the knockout amenity offered by the $100-million residential development which will be called Epperson in Wesley Chapel.
Epperson, which is part of the Tampa-based Metro Development Group’s “Connected City” project that will have approximately 2,000 home sites, is located north of the Bridgewater community on Curley Rd. north of S.R. 54. Homes are already being built and Metro expects to have lots available by the fall.
There is no date yet for the completion of the lagoon, but expect it to happen sometime in 2017.
The original Epperson Ranch Development of Regional Impact (DRI) has been dormant for years, after the original developer (Lennar Homes) sold the property to Metro in 2007, just before Pasco County’s housing market collapse.
The 8-acre (nearly 350,000 sq. ft.) lagoon was originally announced for Park Place, which has since been renamed Epperson to honor the legacy of the Epperson family, which previously owned the land.
The original plan to break ground in 2015 was held up by permitting issues, particularly approval from the Army Corps of Engineers, delaying the project.
Renderings of the lagoon show a spectacularly blue body of water large enough for kayaking, paddle boarding and small human-powered boats, with sand beaches and a recreation area. “An idyllic beach paradise,’’ says the Crystal Lagoons website.
“The Lagoon, roughly the length of five football fields, will have crystal-clear turquoise water and will be surrounded by a sandy beachfront,’’ said Kyle Parks of St. Petersburg-based B2 Communications, which does public relations for Metro, in an email.
A huge get for Wesley Chapel, Crystal Lagoons was founded in 2007 by Chilean biochemist-turned real estate developer Fernando Fischmann, who created a system based on pulses and ultra sonic filtration that can take virtually any kind of water and purify and maintain it at a low cost.
He developed the first lagoon at San Alfonso del Mar on the west coast of the South American cone. His patented system uses small sensors and injectors to treat the pool water when needed in specific areas. The system can sense when an area needs an injection of cleaner, like in the case of someone going to the bathroom in the water or spilling something into it.
Crystal Lagoons is the only company in the world with the technology, which is patented in 160 countries, and claims it currently has more than 300 projects in development in 60 countries.
According to Crystal Lagoons, its system is more efficient than a swimming pool, will use 100 times less chemicals and is 50 times more energy efficient, while consuming only 2% of the energy needed by conventional filtration systems. The lagoon uses 30 times less water than a typical 18-hole golf course.
But, where will the water come from? Any water, even salt water, can be used due to the effectiveness of the filtration system. However, for the 18 million gallons required to initially fill the lagoon, Parks said Metro is “leaning toward potable water to fill the lagoons.”
Potable water is fit for human consumption.
“Our plan is to fill the lagoon during non-peak usage times of the day,’’ Parks wrote. “In normal conditions, rainwater keeps the lagoon at its optimal level after that.”
Will I Be Able To Use It?
The lagoon will be a private amenity for the residents of the Epperson community. However, Parks says, some limited access could be provided to guests in the form of day passes or some other means.
Although pristine beaches are just a drive away, the lagoon offers clear salt- and chlorine-free water that won’t leave your eyes stinging. It will feature its own beach and will be just a short ride by golf cart or bike for Epperson residents.
“Much more convenient,’’ Parks says.
Metro expects the lagoon to be a major draw to Epperson, and its other sites. Epperson will be the first community in the U.S. to have a Crystal Lagoon, and there are also plans to build another lagoon in a new Wesley Chapel community called “Mirada” in the Cannon Ranch area just south of S.R. 52, as well as one in Southern Hillsborough County near Wimauma and another in North Ft. Myers.
For additional information about Crystal Lagoons, please visit Crystal-Lagoons.com.
Hockey participation is up. Youth and adult leagues are growing. Hockey fever has again consumed our area during the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2016 Stanley Cup playoff run.
The timing couldn’t be any better for ZMitch LLC managing partner Gordie Zimmermann, as he oversees the construction of the $20-million, 150,000-sq.-ft. Florida Hospital Center Ice (FHCI) complex in Wesley Chapel, which is taking shape just north of the interchange of S.R. 56 and I-75.
Zimmermann gave a sneak preview hard hat tour May 25 of the progress for roughly 175 Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce members and other local leaders.
The massive facility — Zimmermann calls FHCI the “largest skating complex south of New York” — will feature three NHL-sized hockey rinks, and one Olympic-size rink (which is bigger than an NHL rink), as well as a 17,000-sq.ft. multi-sports pad that can accommodate ice skating, curling, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse and other sports, while also hosting corporate events, much like Top Golf in Brandon.
ZMitch LLC managing partner Gordie Zimmermann
The complex will also have a sports-themed restaurant on the second floor, overlooking the rinks, a sports performance center and one for sports skills which can also accommodate training and activities like yoga, pilates and even dance classes.
Florida Hospital, which secured naming rights last May, will also have staff on hand.
“This hard hat tour was for the business community, to understand how the building works,’’ Zimmermann said. “Business are going to reap the rewards (of the facility), from restaurants to rental companies, hotels, gas stations, you name it. Everyone here is going to benefit.”
Zimmermann said the economic impact of FHCI, according to a study the developers commissioned, will be $20-30 million a year, and maybe more, as high school, college and National Hockey League teams (on their way to games at Amalie Arena or in Miami against the Florida Panthers) fill hotel rooms, mostly on the weekends. He said about two million visitors are projected to visit FHCI annually.
“It looks great, this place is going to be incredible,’’ said District 2 Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore, who took the tour last week. “I think you’re going to see a big impact on local businesses.”
Zimmerman said plenty of opportunities exist for local businesses looking for exposure. He said companies can buy anything from naming rights to the rinks (on the ice or dasher boards, for example) to any of the three zamboni machines (which most people are familiar with when they resurface the ice between periods of a hockey game).
FHCI figure skating director Shari Klutz led some of the hard hat tours.
The Lightning’s recent success on the ice, and the organization’s impressive work off the ice with its stellar community outreach program – including sponsoring the Bay area’s 18-team high school league — continues to help cultivate local interest in hockey, which will be the main event at FHCI on most nights. But, Zimmermann says it will be far from the only event.
“The success of the Lightning is definitely helping create even more excitement for hockey in the area, and that’s good for us,’’ says Zimmermann, who says he already has a line of hockey teams and skaters eager to start using the facility. He is hoping for a soft opening of FHCI in September, with a Grand Opening roughly six weeks after that.
“It’s definitely big,’’ said WCCC CEO Hope Allen. “I think it’s going to completely change the landscape of Wesley Chapel. It really solidifies us as a destination regionally, nationally and even internationally.”
Two weeks ago, Zimmermann visited to the refrigeration company that will be handling the ice at FHCI.
CIMCO, which is based in Toronto, a city with more than 200 ice rinks, is the largest ice rink builder in the world, says Zimmerman. It has installed more than 5,000 ice surfaces worldwide, including at 80 percent of the NHL facilities.
CIMCO already has piped two of the rinks at FHCI, laying down roughly 13.5 miles of polyethylene pipe per rink. By the time all of the rinks are completed, more than 65 miles of refrigerated pipe will have been laid beneath the surface. “Like piping all the way to Ellenton,’’ Zimmermann quipped. “It’s all very high-tech equipment.”
So high-tech that each rink could have its own atmosphere. Figure skaters like their ice a little softer, so temperatures could be kept at 24-26 degrees on one rink, and 22-24 on another for hockey players, who prefer a harder surface.
The temperature five feet above the ice will be roughly 55 degrees, and the stands should clock in at a cool 65, Zimmermann said. The building’s lobby temperature will be like any other commercial building.
According to membership statistics, USA Hockey, the official governing body for hockey in America, has added almost 100,000 playing members since 1999, from 434,678 to 533,172.
In the southeastern region, however, Florida now has more registered hockey players than any other state, with more than 12,000, almost twice as many as any other southeastern state, with the exception of Virginia (10,063) and Maryland (9,607).
But, to keep that growth rising requires more sheets of ice for teams to practice on.
Right now, practice for local high school teams at Wesley Chapel, Wiregrass Ranch, Wharton and Freedom can involve trying to find time in Brandon or a longer drive to other ice facilities (like the JP Igloo rink in Ellenton and the Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar), and there are few places for others, such as adult league players, figure skaters and speed skaters to train.
Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce members tour the Florida Hospital Center Ice facility.
Nearly a dozen high school varsity and junior varsity teams will use FHCI as their home ice. Zimmerman says the facility will also be a boon for girls hockey, another growing sport.
“Nobody has ever been able to give (girls hockey) any ice time,’’ he says.
Curling, a Canadian sport that seems to gain a little more fame every Winter Olympics year since becoming an official Olympic sport in 1998, could end up being a big draw, Zimmerman says, similar to how shuffleboard has had a bit of a revival with younger players in St. Petersburg.
The sport, where players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area while teammates, or sweepers, help guide the stones to their mark with a special “broom,” could end up becoming a popular local adult league sport.
“We’re starting a full-blown curling league,’’ Zimmerman said. “I think it’s going to be huge.”
The photo shown here is perhaps the most famous fight photo ever — of then-Cassius Clay standing over Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight title in 1964.
But, I was only 5 years old that day & not yet a boxing fan.
So, my favorite memory of Ali was in March 1971, when I had just turned 12 years old & was able to attend the closed-circuit broadcast of the “Fight of the Century” between the unbeaten champ, Smokin’ Joe Frazier & the undefeated Ali.
I remember being in shock that Frazier hit Ali so often early throughout the fight and I actually remember gasping when Ali hit the canvas from a vicious Frazier left hook that likely broke his jaw just before the end of the 15th & final round.
Even though the fight went the distance, Ali’s aura of invincibility was gone forever, but what was left was the deep respect he earned from even his toughest critics.
Even in losing, there was no doubt that Ali – who won both rematches against Frazier – was the greatest heavyweight…No, make that the greatest boxer I ever saw lace on some gloves.
So, considering that my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida (in Gainesville) College of Journalism & Communications was in Broadcast News — not print journalism — I guess you could say that it’s taken me long enough to finally start working on what I’ve dreamed of doing since I earned that diploma more than 30 years ago.
One of my top goals back then, and even when I first moved back to Florida in 1993, was to one day own and create original programming for my own TV station.
But, in the “good old days” of even cable TV’s infancy, in order to own a TV station/network, you had to have at least about a million dollars to be able to purchase your Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license, the equipment and personnel you need to keep it on the air.
Today, anyone can shoot better footage with their mobile phones than was even possible with top-level equipment in the 80s or even the 90s. And, if you have the ability to write and produce any type of programming — from news and public affairs to sitcoms and drama series — the internet provides a way for you to find an audience — even if you’re not on the cable or satellite TV lineups of BrightHouse or DirecTV.
Whether you have your own website, a Youtube channel or both, if enough people see it, like it and return to see what else you can do, you can build an audience and even make a living doing something most people in my generation could only dream of doing.
I had my own advertising agency from the mid-1980s until 1995-96, and I did produce a few TV commercials and wrote “treatments” of a few TV pilot ideas, but despite personal auditions for/interviews with the likes of ESPN, NBC-TV, HBO and the Disney Channel before moving here in 1993, I set aside my dreams of creating programming to focus on a certain local news publication.
Two years ago, I wrote and co-anchored a video segment previewing the last Taste of New Tampa, but our website (NTNeighborhoodNews.com) was really in its infancy and I wasn’t happy with the production itself. The end result: very few people saw it, even though I know the idea of web-based video news focused specifically on New Tampa and Wesley Chapel was certainly valid, especially if I had the right people working with me.
And, after being part of one local commercial production last year, which was directed and produced by Craig Miller, the owner of Full Throttle Intermedia (FTIntermedia.com, a local multimedia advertising agency and video production company), I knew who I really wanted to work with on my project…if I could afford him.
Well, at about the same time as my Taste project, Craig, who also is an Ambassador for the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) and a Board member of the New Tampa Rotary Club, also had spoken with WCCC CEO (she was just the “executive director” at the time) Hope Allen about doing a webcast for the Chamber. But, both admit they “got busy” and set the idea aside.
Then, about four months ago, Craig approached Hope about reviving the idea and she told him I had already come to her with my own concept and that we should probably all work together on it — especially if Craig was the production guy involved.
Although I’ve teased it in a couple of previous issues, the end result of those discussions is just about ready to rock and roll. I was hoping to be able to announce in this issue who our “Studio Sponsor” will be, but nothing was finalized at our press time.
Even so, Craig and I are partnering with the WCCC to present “WCNT-tv” — the fun and informative web-based video magazine show, written and co-hosted by yours truly, which will be all about Wesley Chapel (WC) and New Tampa (NT) and have its own Youtube channel.
And, it is launching soon — we hope to begin recording episodes this month. WCNT-tv will be promoted in full-page ads in every issue of my two publications, on the WCCC’s website and, hopefully, on the websites of every Wesley Chapel Chamber member business.
When it launches, WCNT-tv will be a bi-weekly news magazine show that will include a 1.5-2-minute local news segment, a 60-90-second WCCC “Featured Business of the Week” and a 60-90-second “Neighborhood Dining News” segment that will take me (and, I believe, thousands of my closest friends) inside a different restaurant from all over the Tampa Bay area — since we all know that those of us who live and work in and around New Tampa and Wesley Chapel have too-few local, non-chain fine dining options.
Best of all, based on some of the incredible numbers our website has done recently (as reported in previous issues on this page) — without any video coverage — and the feedback we’ve gotten so far, we’re all confident that WCNT-tv will become a truly local phenomenon.
For WCNT-tv sponsorship information, or to have us play the pilot episode for you, call our office at 910-2575. For a short clip, check out our previous post on the show HERE.
The long-awaited Chick-Fil-A, located in front of the Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO) mall (at 2391 Sun Vista Dr., off S.R. 56) and right between the new Culver’s and Cheddar’s restaurants, is expected to open on June 30, sources tell the Neighborhood News.
The days of housing communities in Florida being built around golf courses designed by PGA professionals could be numbered, judging by the level of excitement created by news that a Crystal Lagoon — first announced nearly two years ago — is finally ready to break ground in Wesley Chapel.
The 8-acre (nearly 350,000 sq. ft.) lagoon was originally announced for Park Place, which has since been renamed Epperson to honor the legacy of the Epperson family, which previously owned the land.
Hockey participation is up. Youth and adult leagues are growing. Hockey fever has again consumed our area during the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2016 Stanley Cup playoff run.
The temperature five feet above the ice will be roughly 55 degrees, and the stands should clock in at a cool 65, Zimmermann said. The building’s lobby temperature will be like any other commercial building.
The photo shown here is perhaps the most famous fight photo ever — of then-Cassius Clay standing over Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight title in 1964.
So, considering that my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida (in Gainesville) College of Journalism & Communications was in Broadcast News — not print journalism — I guess you could say that it’s taken me long enough to finally start working on what I’ve dreamed of doing since I earned that diploma more than 30 years ago.