The exterior construction of the new Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute building (also known as The Medical Center at Wiregrass Ranch) on the south side of S.R. 56 (at Hueland Pond Blvd.) is nearing completion. It is expected to open to patients later this year. (Photo by Joel Provenzano)
Across from the Daybreak Market & Fuel gas station project, on the southwest corner of S.R. 56 and Hueland Pond Blvd. (north of Sand Dune Rd.), next to Beach House Assisted Living & Memory Care, is a two-story, 56,559- sq.-ft. medical office building being constructed by Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute (FCS). This building will add yet another medical specialty space to Wesley Chapel, and specifically to the Wiregrass Ranch development.
This project has been a few years in the making. The meeting with the county for this site first took place in 2021, with permits being started in 2022 and an official ground breaking with the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce (NTBC) in September of that year.
But now, this 6.13-acre site, which appraised at more than $2 million, is looking well under way (see photo above), with most of the vertical exterior walls in place and the site fully buzzing with construction crews. And, based on the story we ran in early Oct. 2022, FCS plans to occupy 45,000 sq. ft. of the two-story building, which will make it larger than the 28,000 sq. ft. of space dedicated to the Moffitt Cancer Center at AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, which opened in May 2021. The remaining space in the Medical Center at Wiregrass Ranch is for lease.
The site map for the Medical Center at Wiregrass Ranch. (Source: Pasco County)
FCS originally came to Wesley Chapel in 2019 — to a small building in the Cypress Glen Professional Park (off Cypress Ridge Blvd., north of S.R. 56) — where the group quickly earned a good reputation from its patients for the staff’s compassion and respect.
Florida Cancer Specialists isn’t new to the game either, as the company has been operating for 40 years and has 100+ locations.
According to its website, FLCancer.org, “Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute has a national reputation for excellence in oncology, hematology and cancer research. With over 250 physicians and nearly 100 locations, we are committed to providing Wesley Chapel and (the nearby area) with world-class cancer care close to home.”
The website also says that, the new building, “will include 27 patient exam rooms, 69 infusion treatment chairs, as well as an on-site laboratory, pharmacy, PET/ CT imaging and radiation oncology services. Patients will also have opportunities to participate in clinical trials research as well as care management services.”
Although we did not receive confirmation of all of this information in time for this article, the FCS website also states that, “Board-certified medical oncologists Ayman Barakat, MD, Uday Dandamundi, MD, Eva Gupta, MD, Richard McDonough, MD, Shilen Patel, MD, and Ramya Pinnamaneni, MD, will provide care to patients at the new Wesley Chapel clinic.”
At our press time, we did not know the expected opening date of the building, but we believe it will be sometime later this year.
Although we understand how many local residents feel about additional apartments coming to Wesley Chapel, here is news about yet another new rental community now under construction in our area. Located on the south side of S.R. 56, just east of the entrance for the new Wesley Chapel community of Woodcreek (see map), is a 19.81-acre site, with an appraised land value of more than $11 million, that currently is being filled with dirt and graded by an army of bulldozers (photo). The site is being prepared for the Bainbridge Wesley Chapel apartment project, which will be bordered on the west side by the Wyndfields Blvd. extension that also is currently under construction.
Bainbridge — which is being developed by PCCP, LLC, and the Bainbridge Companies, LLC — will be one of the largest apartment complexes in Wesley Chapel, as it is planned to be a “Class A” community comprised of six four-story buildings (with elevators) and a total of 411 units, consisting of 145 one-bedroom units (with 820 sq. ft. of living area), 202 two-bedroom units (1,237 sq. ft. each) and 64 three-bedroom units (1,470 sq. ft.).
Unique to this particular apartment complex are the number of garages, many more than what most apartment communities offer. Bainbridge will feature both attached and detached garage spaces, 160 total, in addition to 536 regular parking spaces. Of those garage spaces, 32 actually will be tandem (2-car) garage spaces, something not normally seen even in townhome communities, much less apartments.
The project’s website states that, “The units will offer residents high-end interior finishes, including stone countertops in the kitchen areas, stainless steel appliances, in-unit washers & dryers, shaker cabinets, nine-foot ceilings, oversized walk-in-closets, smart thermostats, keyless entry and vinyl plank flooring. On-site amenities will include an expansive clubhouse with indoor/outdoor club rooms with social areas, TVs and fire pits, as well as a resort-style pool with a sun deck and grilling areas, a fitness center, on-site storage spaces and a dog park.”
According to the plans, a new right-in/ right-out driveway with a right turn lane will be provided off S.R. 56 as the community’s primary entrance. A secondary entrance to Wyndfields Blvd. also will be constructed so vehicles will have an option to exit there, directly to the future traffic signal for Wyndfields Blvd. at S.R. 56.
Bainbridge Companies has developed more than 60 apartment communities in five states, including 50 in Florida, with Bainbridge at Sunlake being the closest to us.
The current state of construction at Daybreak Market Wiregrass. (Photo by Joel Provenzano)
On the SE corner of S.R. 56 at Heuland Pond Blvd., something is coming that many of us haven’t seen in this area or may not be familiar with at all — Daybreak Market at Wiregrass which will sell “76®” branded gasoline.
Daybreak Market (see map) is a new convenience store concept where some of the things the company touts include $0.99 any-sized coffee or fountain drinks (with even lower Grand Opening prices), a beer cave called “The Ice Box” and indoor/ outdoor seating and tables for food time, plus fully digital touch screen fuel pumps.
According to the company’s social media page, Daybreak Market opened three new locations in Florida just last year and there are nine locations in Florida, including three in Port Charlotte. The closest one to our area was just opened this year at the corner of S.R. 54 at South Branch Blvd. (near the Suncoast Pkwy.) in Odessa, where oddly, the pumps and store face away from the main road.
The map shows the locations of Daybreak, FCS and 7-11 (Google map modified by NN)
The 1.73-acre corner parcel in Wesley Chapel has most of its major vertical construction already completed, as the reinforced concrete fuel pad area, canopy supports and convenience store building have all taken shape. The store will be just under 5,000 sq. ft. but there will be a lot more pumps/fueling positions than at any other gas station in our area, which according to the plans we reviewed and our visit to the site, appears to be up to 24 regular fueling positions (gas nozzles).
If that number is correct, Daybreak Market & Fuel will easily be the biggest gas station in Wesley Chapel, as even the RaceTrac down the street and Costco near the Tampa Premium Outlets each only have 18 fueling positions total, and it would be double Sam’s Club’s 12.
Originally, there was a Circle K that was going to be on the other side of Heuland Pond Blvd. (between S.R. 56 and Sand Dune Rd.) years ago, but the permits for that project expired at the end of 2017.
Instead, Daybreak Market Wiregrass will be just the second gas station in the Wiregrass Ranch development, as the 7-Eleven at the intersection of Mansfield Blvd. and Wiregrass School Rd., which opened last year, was the first.
And now, there’s a new medical office building under construction in the previously planned Circle K location by Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute (labeled as FCS on map). See page 16 for that story.
What the vote means for two Wesley Chapel properties & what Pasco County’s affordable housing plans are moving forward
The Tapestry at Cypress Creek apartments, located at the intersection of Wesley Chapel Blvd. and S.R.s 54 & 56, is one of two existing apartment communities that have applied to greatly reduce their property taxes under Florida’s “Live Local” law. (Source: TapestryCypressCreekApartments.com)
When the Pasco County Board of Commissioners (BOC) voted unanimously on May 21 to opt out of a portion of the state’s recently revised “Live Local” law that was originally passed last year, it didn’t stop the BOC from continuing to look to find other ways to bring affordable or “workforce” housing to the county.
“We all agreed that although those in the workforce need more affordable housing,” says District 2 Commissioner Seth Weightman, “Live Local just did not seem to accomplish that goal.”
To that end, Pasco’s senior assistant county attorney David Goldstein made a presentation to the commissioners at their May 21 BOC meeting which summarized the reasons why the county was choosing to opt out of the provision of the Live Local law (pushed by Senate President Kathleen Passidomo during the 2023 State Legislative session) that was modified towards the end of the 2024 session to allow local jurisdictions the opportunity to “opt out.”
Pasco, led by Comm. Weightman, was at the forefront of the fight to get the law changed during this year’s session, as one of the two properties that applied for the Live Local tax break — the Tapestry at Cypress Creek apartments (where Jannah and I have lived the past five years, since the complex first opened), where Wesley Chapel Blvd., S.R. 54 and S.R. 56 meet — is located in his district. I can personally vouch for what Comm. Weightman said at the May 21 meeting:
“That complex has been around for a number of years and was never intended to be an affordable housing project. It’s Class A multifamily living with amenities, right next to Wesley Chapel and the Outlet Mall.”
Goldstein outlined the conditions that will allow the county to opt out of the 80%-120% of Average Monthly Income (AMI) provision of Live Local for 2025, although both Tapestry and a complex in the Trinity area both already have applied — but neither one had yet been granted that exemption by county property appraiser Mike Wells at our press time — for 2024.
The 80%-120% provision allows rental communities to receive the Live Local tax exemption if their units rent for 80-120% of the AMI for an individual in Pasco County, which Goldstein said worked out to rents averaging about $2,000 per month. “These $2,000-per-month rents are not what our school teachers, county employees, firefighters and law enforcement officers can afford,” Goldstein told the commissioners. “It doesn’t make sense to give large tax exemptions essentially to complexes that are charging market rate rents with no charitable purpose.”
He added that Pasco also has a large surplus of apartments in that 80-120% range.
“Our deficit is only in rental units charging less than 80% of AMI, which is truly affordable or workforce housing,” he said. “But, we don’t have any communities offering rents under that 80% AMI range coming before you for approval.”
Goldstein also noted that even with the changes to the Live Local law, Pasco is still grouped with Hillsborough, Pinellas and Hernando counties in the Tampa Bay Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which is what is being used to determine if a community already has a surplus or a deficit in the number of rental units in the 80-120% AMI range, “So although our MSA has a surplus of 3,994 units at present, even if Pasco has a surplus in the future, but Hillsborough or Pinellas has a large enough deficit to more than offset our surplus, we might not be allowed to opt-out of Live Local in the future. I’m hoping the law will be refined again in the next legislative session.”
He also said he hoped that other counties in MSAs with surpluses of the 80-120% AMI units will follow Pasco’s lead and opt out of the law.
Pasco County’s senior assistant county attorney David Goldstein provides information about the changes to the state’s Live Local law to the county’s Board of Commissioners prior to the BOC’s vote to opt out of a portion of the state law regarding affordable housing. (Photo: Screenshot from Pasco BOC meeting)
Goldstein also told the commissioners that counties that still qualify under the provisions of the law will have to opt out every year, and that the apartment complexes trying to receive the tax breaks also will have to apply for those breaks every year.
“Fortunately, we only have the two complexes who may be able to receive the tax break this year,” he said, “but even just for this year, the county would lose 75% of the $1.7 million the two complexes paid in taxes last year (or more than $1.275 million combined)” if Wells does allow them to receive the Live Local tax break for 2024. “But, we can only opt out of Live Local for county taxes,” he added. “I have drafted a letter to the Pasco School Board, Mosquito Control District and the cities in the county instructing them to also opt out of the 80-120% AMI provision of Live Local for 2025.”
Goldstein also mentioned that there are flaws in the way the data that would allow Pasco and other jurisdictions to opt out of Live Local is being used.
“We can only opt out if the latest University of Florida Shimberg (Center for Housing Studies) Report, which uses American Community Survey data (based on the Census) shows that our Tampa Bay MSA has a surplus of rental units in the 80-120% AMI range,” he said. “But, that does not include recent construction — it’s always two years behind. If we have a recent apartment complex — and we have a lot of recent apartment complexes being built — it’s not counting those in the surplus inventory. We did raise that as a concern and we’re hoping it’s something else that can be refined during the next Legislative Session. The problem is that the Shimberg Report could show we have a deficit when we actually have a surplus on the ground.”
He also noted that of all of the large counties in the state, only Broward and Miami-Dade counties have large deficits of units in the 80- 120% AMI range, “So it seems like this state law was enacted only to help southeast Florida. The law really should only be applied to those areas.”
Goldstein also noted that the change in the law for 2025 only applies to tax breaks for existing communities, “So we’re hoping to get the land use part of the law changed during next year’s session. If we don’t have a deficit of those units, why should we have to give up job-creating commercial and industrial properties in the future to have more of them?”
Pasco’s five commissioners — including new Dist. 4 Comm. Lisa Yeager in her first BOC meeting since being appointed to fill the seat of the late Comm. Gary Bradford by Gov. Ron DeSantis — voted unanimously to approve opting out of the tax portion of Live Local.
Even so, at the insistence of Dist. 5 Comm. Jack Mariano — despite the fact Goldstein said it wasn’t necessary to do so — the BOC also voted 5-0 to draft a letter to the property appraiser asking him to not grant the exemption to the two rental communities that applied for it for 2024. “I’ve been in constant contact with Mr. Wells’ attorney’s office,” Goldstein said. “They’re well aware of how we feel about this.”
Talking Affordable Housing
Following their regular BOC meeting, the commissioners held a workshop on what Pasco can do to provide more affordable housing options for those in the workforce — county employees and others — especially after Goldstein noted during the regular BOC meeting that Pasco does indeed have a shortage of affordable units for those whose monthly incomes are below the 80% of the county’s AMI.
The workshop was led by Cathy Pearson, Pasco’s assistant county administrator for public services, who said she was discussing affordable housing with David Lambert, the chairman of the Pasco Housing Authority and the Executive VP and general manager of the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative, “And we both said we have never had an affordable housing plan for Pasco County. David took me to his Pasco Housing Authority Board and convinced the Board to pay for this study for us,” Pearson said. “How wonderful.”
She also said that for the year-long study, “affordable housing was defined as housing that costs less than 30% of a household’s income.” For someone earning Pasco’s average median income of $63,187 per year, an affordable rent would be $1,579 per month, although starting teachers and many other workers only earn about 80% of that median income, so those workers could only afford rents of $1,263 per month or less.
Among the options put forth by the study to help increase affordable housing options in Pasco include legalizing “accessory dwelling units,” sometimes called backyard homes or “granny flats,” adding duplexes or even quadraplex units in existing single-family communities, the possibility of requiring developers to include or pay for affordable housing in their unit totals to receive approval for those developments, as well as expanding some kinds of public rental or home-buying assistance. Goldstein also noted that the county already has reduced mobility and impact fees for developments that include affordable housing.
Pasco Planning & Economic Growth director David Engel says the county is expected to add more than 101,000 workers to fill the jobs in the projects that are already under design or that the Board has already approved.
“So we’re going to have a tremendous need for housing in the future for that workforce.”
Pasco MPO principal transportation planner Scott Ferry (front) and Joe Crozier of Kimley-Horn, discuss the “Innovate Pasco 2050” Long-Range Transportation Plan with members of the North Tampa Bay Chamber.
Even with all of the transportation improvements completed over the past few years, there’s no doubt that the roads in Pasco County in general — and the Wesley Chapel area in particular — are a lot more crowded today than they were before those improvements were finalized. Without a long-term transportation plan in place 20, 30, or even 50 years ago, however, our traffic situation would unquestionably be far worse.
To that end, representatives from (and the private firm working with) the Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO (the county’s federally-funded primary transportation planning entity), have been making the rounds throughout the county to ask people what planned road improvements should be prioritized between 2025 and 2045.
The MPO’s long-term transportation plan, dubbed “Innovate Pasco 2050,” was presented to about 25-30 North Tampa Bay Chamber (NTBC) members at the Chamber’s monthly Economic Development Briefing on May 14 at its Suncoast Office off S.R. 54 in the Bexley community of Land O’Lakes.
“The MPO’s mission is to find out what the transportation needs are for the county and develop solutions for those needs,” said Scott Ferry, the Pasco MPO’s principal transportation planner. “One of the ways that we accomplish this mission is by meeting with the public throughout the county, which is what we are doing here today.”
Ferry also explained that the MPO is governed by a nine-member Board which is “comprised of the five Pasco County commissioners and four municipal representatives (from the cities of Dade City, New Port Richey, Port Richey and Zephyrhills). “This MPO Board meets on a regular basis to discuss and make decisions about transportation policies and issues in the county.”
He said that when the plan is adopted, “it’s going to serve as a guide and a blueprint for county transportation planning for the next five years (2025-29). We’re here to engage with you and see what you believe the transportation priorities should be for the county.”
Jonathan Whitehurst of Kimley-Horn explains what a long-range transportation plan is and why it’s important.
He then introduced Jonathan Whitehurst and Joe Crozier of private transportation planning consulting firm Kimley-Horn & Associates, which has been retained by the MPO to assist with the “Innovate Pasco 2050” planning process.
Whitehurst, a North Carolina resident whom Ferry said has 18 years of experience helping develop transportation plans throughout the country, and Crozier — a life-long Pasco County resident — then explained the process by which MPOs create not only their long-rang plans but also the short-term (five-year) Transportation Improvement Plan (also known as the “work plan”) so planned improvements can be funded by the various government entities, whether state/ federal, local (county and city), or a combination of funding sources.
“We’re starting with the 2045 plan to see what’s different and what’s changed,” Whitehurst said, “and the short answer is that in the last five years, a lot has changed in Pasco County, which makes our job a little bit harder because we first have to find that baseline condition as to where things are now so we can start to predict where things are going to be in the future.”
Whitehurst also mentioned that although the primary discussion in MPO plans is usually about roadways, traffic, safety and congestion, “We look at all modes of transportation, including bike facilities, pedestrian facilities, transit, freight and even a little bit of air travel, so it truly is a multimodal transportation plan.”
He also noted that the MPO and Kimley- Horn started working on the plan in Oct. 2023 and hope to have it finished sometime this month, “so we’ve got quite a bit of work to do to get it done. The plan itself will be adopted later this year. As soon as the MPO adopts the plan, that five-year cycle starts over.”
He said that where the planners are now is “at the very end of the ‘Needs’ plan, which identifies the universe of possible projects. We took a look at how we think Pasco is going to grow between now and 2050, where our facilities are now, where we have already-funded projects in the future and we said, ‘OK, where are the problem areas?’ And, we found that there are a lot of problem areas. So, the needs plan is trying to address as many of those problem areas as possible, trying to say that if these are the potential problem areas, these are the projects and solutions we are going to need to solve them.”
Whitehurst noted, however, that there is always, “a big list of projects, but we only have a small amount of money. So then, we have to figure out what are the priorities among the projects that we’ve identified, so that’s where the project prioritization process comes in. We put all of the needed projects on a spreadsheet and see which ones rise to the top.”
And, speaking of money, Whitehurst said that, “Concurrent with that, we have to see how much money we have to spend on transportation projects, so we take that prioritization list, compare it with the money and see how far down the list we can make it. That’s what we call the cost-feasible plan.”
Crozier then explained that for the purposes of the study, the county was divided into three sections — west of the Suncoast Pkwy., between the Suncoast and I-75, and east of I-75. And, although the growth in Pasco previously has been on the west coast, the central and eastern areas are now growing faster, “but all of Pasco is growing and all of that growth requires infrastructure.”
Crozier and Whitehurst also noted that because Pasco continues to add homes and businesses, part of the study looked at the different types of jobs that are coming — especially in the greatly expanding medical field in our area and how those different types of jobs also impact the transportation needs differently.
And, Crozier admitted that despite the best-laid plans of previous planners, because the county has grown so quickly, “we’re actually hitting now many of the previous projections for 30 years from now. A lot of the growth models, especially after Covid, are just not accurate anymore” and all of that has made the prioritization process a lot more complicated.
The Pasco MPO’s “Innovate Pasco 2050” long-range transportation plan includes 27 roadway projects for the years 2045-50 that are either in Wesley Chapel or directly adjacent to Wesley Chapel. The “Map #s” shown above correspond to locations on the map at the top of the next page. (Source: Pasco County MPO)
Although Whitehurst and Crozier presented a countywide list of more than 120 transportation projects that are planned to be funded, we have only shown the 27 planned improvements that either are located in Wesley Chapel, or at least border directly on Wesley Chapel, in the chart on this page. The problem, Whitehurst said, is that “While we would love to have enough money to pay for all of these projects, at the end of the day, we still don’t have enough money.”
He said that if you want to learn more and provide input on the plan, go to InnovatePasco.com, which has both the complete list of planned projects and the map on the next page in an interactive format that will allow you to zoom in on the areas of the map that might be most important to you and drop ‘pins’ on the map and provide us with comments about those needs and the plan itself.
“Please spread the word, too, because the more people we can get involved in the website, the more info we can collect.” He noted that earlier this year, there were more than 1,100 people who already had left comments on the website.
Meeting attendees were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments following the presentation, and there was agreement that the Diverging Diamond Interchange at S.R. 56 and I-75 has been the most impactful recent transportation improvement and that Wesley Chapel Blvd. is the most-needed improvement in our area. Other complaints expressed at the meeting are the length and lack of synchronization of traffic signals and that it seems like road improvements are always behind development.
