Congratulations to Florida Penguin Productions and the North Tampa Bay Chamber (NTBC) for hosting a super-successful third annual Summer Rum & Seafood Festival.
Despite heavy rains that delayed the start of the event, this year’s Summer Rum & Seafood Festival on July 13 at the Tampa Premium Outlets was four hours of tasting samples of rum (and other spirits), great bands, local vendors and, of course, lots of seafood.
More than 1,000 patrons came out to enjoy samplings from nine different Florida-based distilleries including: St Pete Distillery, Everglades Distillery, West Distilling, Tarpon Springs Distillery, 90 Miles South, Lugo’s Craft Distillery, Preez Distillery (photo below), Reif Rum Spirits and American Freedom Distillery.
Entertainment this year included popular southern rock & country band Southbound 75 and Turn It On Again, A Tribute to Phil Collins/Genesis. Turn It On Again did an amazing job of covering the catalogs of Collins and his former Genesis bandmate Peter Gabriel.
Among the fun returning events were the hermit crab races (bottom right), a live mermaid tank (below, right) and 10 different seafood vendors offering everything from crab legs to crab cakes, shrimp skewers, whole snapper and more.
Among the favorite seafood trucks were crab cakes from New Tampa’s own Charm City Eats (top photo) and From the Soul to the Sea’s shrimp bowl (above).
Major sponsors of this year’s event were Universal Roof and Pasco County Recycling ,with a media shout out to MOR-TV.
According to Drew Cecere of Florida Penguin Productions, admission fees and sponsorships for the Rum & Seafood Festival raised $2.600 for the North Tampa Bay Chamber Foundation. — GN
Although the biggest day of ribbon-cutting events in the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce (NTBC)’s history took place on March 20, the NTBC stayed busy through the first week in April, with three additional ribbon-cutting events in our area.
The first, on Mar. 27, was for Doody Calls of North Tampa (which also serves Wesley Chapel; photo, above), which provides both residential dog waste removal and yard deodorizing for residents, as well as pet waste stations and bags and common area waste removal for businesses and apartment communities. For a free quote and more info, call (813) 940-4101 or visit DoodyCalls.com.
The next day (Mar. 28), Midgard Storage, located at 26504 Wesley Chapel Blvd. in Lutz, cut a ribbon with the NTBC (above). Midgard offers both climate- and non-climate-controlled units in a variety of sizes, 24/7 access to your unit and U-Haul truck, van and trailer rentals. For more info, call (813) 994-9228 or visit MidgardSelfStorage.com/lutz-fl-wesley-chapel-blvd.
Then, on Apr. 4, Maeva Modern Apartments (above) also cut a ribbon. Located at 3000 Grand Cypress Dr. in Lutz (directly behind Total Wine & More), Maeva offers beautiful 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom apartments and is currently offering two months free rent for new tenants. For more info, call (656) 600-9860 or visit LiveatMaeva.com.
Among the seven businesses cutting ribbons with the NTBC on Mar. 20 were the Chamber itself (above) and Signature Workspace (below), where all of the businesses were located. (Photos by Charmaine George)
Congratulations to the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce (NTBC), which celebrated the most ribbon-cutting events on a single day in its history on Mar. 20, when the NTBC itself cut a ribbon at its new office at the Signature Workspace at the Shops at Wiregrass. Among the six other businesses hosting ribbon cuttings that same day were the Signature Workspace itself, plus The Copeland Team, Wesley Chapel Fingerprinting Services, Cornelius Demps for Circuit Judge, Gulf Coast Accounting & Tax and the Injury Law Office of Lucas, Macyszyn & Dyer.
In addition to all those ribbons being cut, the event also featured amazing free food provided by Vesh Catering, Azteca D’Oro, Chuck Lager America’s Tavern, Crazy Sushi, Grillsmith, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Pinchers Crab Shack and The Living Room. If you missed it, you missed something special!
“Pasco County is in default of our agreement regarding the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus,” said Wiregrass Ranch developer JD Porter at the North Tampa Bay Chamber (NTBC)’s new office in the Signature Workspace at the Shops at Wiregrass on Mar. 12. ““They are out of time; they are well past the deadline we gave them to get into compliance.”
Although Porter and his development manager Scott Sheridan talked about all aspects of what is already in place and what is still to come to the Porter family’s 5,100-acre cattle ranch (which stretches from S.R. 54 to south of S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel) at the Chamber luncheon, the blockbuster news coming out of that meeting, attended by about 70 people, was Porter’s promise to “take back the (160-acre Sports Campus) property and sue the county for its non-compliance of the terms of our agreement,” referring to the “Flycatcher” agreement between Wiregrass Ranch and Pasco County, which was created when the land was donated to the county to build the Sports Campus. “The county was never supposed to manage that property,” despite the fact that Pasco voted to self-manage the Sports Campus beginning on June 1, 2023, after also voting unanimously to find RADDSports — the previous management company of the Sports Campus — in default of its agreement in Oct. 2022. The Board of County Commissioners (BOC) also voted unanimously to spend $6 million of taxpayer funds to buy out RADDSports from that agreement as of June 1 – without ever proving that RADD was in default of its managerial contract.
One of the problems, according to Porter, was that Pasco was already supposed to provide five additional outdoor fields, a trail system, concession stands and additional parking on the property (in addition to the two outdoor soccer fields and 98,000-sq.-ft. arena originally constructed when Phase 1 of the Sports Campus opened in 2020). Not only were those additional fields never built, the county never even put them out to bid until late 2023, when Pasco said it would cost $15.2 million to build them. “But,” Porter asked, “how much less would it have cost if the fields had gone to bid five years earlier, before Covid, as the county had promised?”
Sheridan also noted that, “We want to make sure that this continues to be an asset to the community…a tourist-development-focused asset — that is its first and primary mission. That is what our agreement with the county says it should be, and not necessarily a county park. The purpose is for it to be a tourist development asset to get people dining in our restaurants, shopping at our retail (stores) and staying in our hotel rooms…adding tax base to our local economy.”
“Scott has a much more upbeat outlook on that asset than I do,” Porter said. “They should already have that (Phase 2) done and they are failing in their agreement with us. The county is four or five years behind on delivering the fields and it’s required that they use an outside operator to manage that asset. We have put them on notice that they have crossed the line on this one and they’ve crossed it badly. Government has no business trying to bring in and run stuff like that. Hopefully, they get it back to where it needs to be because if not, we’re going to solve this ourselves and how doesn’t matter to me. They made a promise and we’re not going to play games, which is what they’ve been doing. So, we can do it nicely or, if they want, we can go to war.”
When asked about the lack of enough parking at the Sports Campus by Becky Hayes, the general manager of the Residence Inn hotel adjacent to the Sports Campus, Porter said, “I’m not a math genius, but I know that they could have built a helluva lot of parking spots for the money they used to buy out a group (RADD) that they signed an agreement with. They spent more than $5 million on that, instead of using the money to fix a problem.”
Following the Mar. 12 luncheon, District 2 (which includes the Sports Campus and much of Wesley Chapel) Pasco County Commissioner Seth Weightman spoke with the Neighborhood News and said that Porter was “absolutely correct in his assessment of the situation with the Sports Campus and he has every right to take back the property because Pasco is not in compliance with that Flycatcher agreement.”
Commissioner Weightman also told the Neighborhood News that he would provide numbers to compare how the county’s Parks & Recreation Dept. has done managing the facility since taking over from RADD, but Porter said that the BOC should never have voted to take over the management of the Sports Campus — regardless of its reasons — and is only now getting ready to send out a Request for Quotes/Proposals from new operators to take over its management.
“So, write the county commissioners because it’s not necessarily them, it’s the staff in that (County Commission) office that keeps making excuses every damn day,” Porter said. “Let’s make it uncomfortable for them until they do something.”
“Downtown Wesley Chapel — Legacy Wiregrass Ranch”
Porter and Sheridan also gave updates on the previously announced (and getting ready to go vertical) 300-bed Orlando Health hospital, the 50-bed PAM Health Rehabilitation Hospital (north of the Amberlin Apartments), the other planned medical buildings across Bruce B. Downs Blvd. from the BayCare hospital, the 100,00-sq.-ft. Florida Cancer Specialists medical building (on the south side of S.R. 56, next to North Tampa Behavioral Health) and the highly anticipated “downtown Wesley Chapel that we call Legacy Wiregrass Ranch,” Porter said. “This group is the first to see the update on this, although we’ve been working on it for years.”
He added, “It’s not a Town Center. I am so tired of it being referred to as a Town Center. There are 28 Town Centers (in Wesley Chapel), and I don’t know what those are but this is an actual downtown. Everybody uses that key word (Town Center) and it’s absolutely incredible because it’s usually a Publix and maybe a Rita’s Italian Ice or something like that and it does nothing. That’s what we call ‘commercial.’ But, this is something that’s legit and it has taken a long time, but this is going to happen. Day One, we will have 150,000 sq. ft. (of office), 100,000 sq. ft. of retail and that’s by design. And we’re investing in it ourselves — we’re building 100,000 sq. ft. across the street. Nobody begins with 350,000 sq. ft. in the county and we have that before it even starts building. We don’t want to pull the trigger too early because if you do, we set somebody up for failure.”
Sheridan also noted, “Ours will be a true downtown urban development, with a 1,500-space elevated parking structure and five-story rental apartments with truly local businesses, including a food hall, on the bottom floor., plus a large green space area for outdoor entertaining. So, this is definitely urban in nature — four- or five-story apartments, a four- or five-story hotel, all just north of Orlando Health. This will be Phase One, about 25 acres, of a true downtown Wesley Chapel – Legacy Wiregrass Ranch.”
Porter added, “There has to be residential. These are mid-rise apartment buildings, about 900 units. I don’t understand why the county is against rental units. Lifestyles have changed, so we need rental units, which may be five or six years out, not only here but throughout the ranch. But, if I can get them to do five or six stories here, I can get them to do seven or eight stories someplace else (in Wiregrass Ranch).”
Sheridan added that although the downtown area is likely at least two years away from beginning construction, “We are beginning to seek proposals now and there is some infrastructure already happening. But, by the time Orlando Health opens in late 2025, early 2026, the first phase of this will be on the heels of that.”
Porter also noted that although all of Wiregrass Ranch has a development plan, there will still be plenty of green space throughout the community.
“Nobody cares more about this land and the wildlife on it than I do. That’s why we’ve taken such a careful approach to this development. People call me a control freak, and maybe I am, but we’ve turned down a lot of different things and we’re building a lot of this ourselves because I want this to be successful.”
“We’ve probably turned down ten gas stations in Wiregrass Ranch,” Sheridan added. “We finally allowed one to open (the 7-11 on Mansfield Blvd.) about a year ago and just agreed to a second one. “We have lost deals — to great users — because we don’t want to give up control to somebody else.”
Porter noted, “One of my concerns is that everybody loves Wawa, but what happens if Wawa leaves? In our case, whoever takes that over would have to go through me again to make it a Kangaroo or something else.”
And finally, Sheridan says that Wiregrass Ranch currently provides, “about $1.4 billion in tax base to Pasco County. At build-out, conservatively, we’ll probably be about $6.5 billion in tax base. That generates huge revenue for the county.”
The very cool beer & wine bar at the new Publix on Overpass Rd. at Curley Rd.
When Jannah, photographer Charmaine George and I visited the new Publix supermarket at 32265 Overpass Rd. (at the corner of Curley Rd.) in a new shopping center called Innovation Springs, I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, drinking beer and wine at a supermarket isn’t anything new — I’ve had free samples at other Publixes and been able to walk around with wine at the local Sam’s Club — so I just had to go check it out and report back to you.
First of all, even though there’s no hard liquor being sold (despite the fact a Publix Liquor Store is adjacent to the grocery store), this is the first time I’ve seen an actual bar inside a supermarket. And, the prices for the name label beer and wine are not only great, Publix’s policy of not allowing tipping of employees — although foreign to me at any bar — keeps the prices on everything even lower.
For example, nice pours of popular Lamarca prosecco are only $6, glasses of two different kinds of Santa Margherita pinot grigio are just $8, 16-oz. pours of Keel Farms Agrarian Strawberry-Lime Cider are only $5 and my 32-oz. growler of Florida Ave. Dead Parrot was only $9, plus $4 additional if you keep the growler. If you return it at the end of your visit (or even sometime in the future), you get the $4 back. And, there also is covered outside and even private upstairs seating so you can watch shoppers checking out everything in the store.
This 55,000-sq.-ft. Publix between Epperson and Watergrass is only the third such prototype store in Florida, and it is so much more than just a beer and wine bar. It’s clear that Publix is attempting to emulate the success of Whole Foods and other usually more upscale “green” grocers with not only an olive bar and expanded deli and hot foods sections (although a large portion of the prepared hot foods section wasn’t available when we visited), but also really decent (albeit not hot when we got it) pizza by the slice, a craft-it-yourself burrito and “bowl” bar and much more.
The bottom line is that the new store is very cool and the prices overall didn’t seem higher than what I pay at my now-old-hat, closer-to-home Publix stores. So, even though it’s kind of far away from where we live, Janna h and I will surely be back.
Thanks, Alexis!
North Tampa Bay Chamber president & CEO Hope Kennedy, with Tampa Bay Business Journal editor-in-chief Alexis Muellner at the Chamber’s Feb. Business Breakfast.
After 30 years of successfully serving the communities of New Tampa and Wesley Chapel, there are very few Tampa Bay-area media members I truly look up to in terms of their accomplishments.
One of those, however, is definitely Tampa Bay Business Journal (TBBJ) editor-in-chief Alexis Muellner. Now in his 25th year with American City Business Journals and 20th year in his position at the TBBJ, I have spoken with this Wesley Chapel resident on numerous occasions throughout his tenure and he is a well-respected reporter and editor whose knowledge of the business climate throughout the Tampa Bay region is second to none.
I truly enjoyed his “fireside chat” with North Tampa Bay Chamber president & CEO Hope Kennedy at the Feb. 6 NTBC Business Breakfast at Pasco Hernando State College’s Porter Campus and I was glad to be able to provide him with some additional information about Pasco County’s struggle with the state’s new Live Local Act. Great job, Alexis!
