Where there is room to grow, there appears to be rooms growing, as the areas around the Tampa Premium Outlets, the Shops of Wiregrass mall, Florida’s soon-to-be-largest ice skating facility, a potential indoor sports facility and a host of other new retail projects is helping spur the growth of hotels and much-needed hotel rooms along S.R. 56 in the Wesley Chapel area.
“We have five hotels moving through the permitting process,’’ Ed Caum, Pasco’s tourism manager says.
Impact Properties is the latest looking to grab some of the expected hospitality dollars, with plans to build a six-story, 130-room Hyatt Place-Wesley Chapel in the Cypress Creek Town Center Development of Regional Impact (DRI) on the west corner of S.R. 56 and Wesley Chapel Blvd., located at the east end of Sierra Center Rd.
According to its website, Impact’s properties include the 255-room Westin Tampa Bay on the Courtney Campbell Causeway and the Castillo Real Resort in St. Augustine, FL, as well as the Cypress Ridge Professional Center on Cypress Ridge Blvd. in Wesley Chapel.
The only hotel currently serving the S.R. 56 corridor is the Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa-Wesley Chapel off S.R. 56 (next to the under-construction Florida Hospital Center Ice {FHCI} facility), which has 94 guest rooms.
Overall, the county’s hotel occupancy rate is around 70 percent, said Caum.
“If we’re at 75 percent capacity, new development will happen,’’ he said. “That’s why we’re seeing the development.”
Caum said the average daily rate of a hotel room in Pasco County in December was $82.79, an increase from last year’s average of $78.29. In 2015, Pasco County reached a new “Bed Tax” high, collecting $968,263 between October 1, 2014 and September 31, 2015.
Here are the hotels on the way on and near S.R. 56:
• Brightwork Real Estate is planning to build a 100-room hotel at the northwest corner of S.R. 54 and Wesley Chapel Blvd. in Land O’Lakes, across from the Tampa Premium Outlets.
• A Holiday Inn Express & Suites will be built just east of I-75, west and south of the Florida Hospital Center Ice (FHCI) that is planned to open later this year. The Holiday Inn will have 80 rooms.
• A Hilton Garden Inn has been proposed for S.R. 56 and Silver Maple Pkwy. in the Wiregrass Ranch DRI, west of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. The Hilton will be six stories tall and will have 125 rooms.
• A 92-room Fairfield Inn & Suites is expected to complement the potential indoor sports complex in the Wiregrass Ranch DRI, which we’ve reported about several times over the last year or so.
Caum said the Urban Land Institute, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit research and education organization that focuses on land use and real estate development, issued a report two years ago saying that Pasco would experience an annual growth in hotel rooms of about 75 a year through 2020. “And, we are bearing that out,’’ Caum says.
The reason for the growth is due in part, Caum says, to the county’s waiving of transportation fees for builders, saving them up to $100,000. “The incentive is definitely working,’’ he says.
Movie Theater To Be Part Of Wiregrass Mall Expansion
The Grove in Wesley Chapel has a movie theater, as does New Tampa.
Now, in between those two established theaters, a new multiplex is expected to be part of the next phase of development at the Shops of Wiregrass mall.
A 1,035-seat cinema is being planned by Cleveland-based developer Forest City Enterprises as part of a residential and commercial project to be located just east of the existing mall. Forest City is currently seeking permitting for the movie theater project, which does not yet have a name.
The 39,000-sq.-ft. theater will be on the west side of the new development along S.R. 56, which will also include 249 upscale apartments, four restaurants ranging in size from 4,200 sq. ft. to 12,000 sq. ft, a specialty grocery store (one of four coming to our area we told you about in our last issue), as well as other yet-unnamed retail stores.
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