Metro Development Group, which brought the country’s first Crystal Lagoon amenity to Wesley Chapel and will soon unveil a second one at the Mirada development (technically located in San Antonio, but just north of Wesley Chapel), continues to experience growth in the area.
In fact, according to housing market analysts Zonda.com, the Wesley Chapel area has five of the Top 20 fastest-growing new home communities in the Tampa Bay area, and three of them — Epperson, Mirada and Union Park — are Metro properties.
Epperson is the fastest-growing, according to Zonda, which was formerly Metrostudy, with 705 new home starts and 493 closings from September 2020 to September 2021.
Epperson also ranked No. 21 in Zonda’s national rankings for new home starts in that same timeframe.
The other Metro Development properties located in Wesley Chapel that made the Top 20 include:
• Mirada, ranked No. 8 on the Tampa Bay-area list, had 333 new home starts and 308 closings. The community includes Medley, an active adult community, and plans for a 15-acre Metro Lagoon, which will be the largest Crystal Lagoon amenity in the nation.
• Union Park, ranked No. 14, had 258 new home starts and 206 closings in the community, which is now almost completely built out.
Metro also is developing the No. 11 community (Southshore Bay in south Hillsborough, which is also getting a Crystal Lagoon as its primary amenity) and No. 15 (Cypress Creek in Ruskin) community on the list.
“Homebuyer interest in our Metro Places communities continues to be extremely strong, thanks to the convenient locations, the quality of our builder team, and the extensive and unique amenities we offer,” said Vaike O’Grady, VP of Marketing & Communications for Metro Development Group. “Our communities are simply a great value for homebuyers.”
Two other Wesley Chapel communities also were on the list, with Wiregrass Ranch at No. 5, with 433 home starts, but ranking No. 4 on closings with 360.
Watergrass was No. 6, with 388 home starts and 304 closings.
Pasco County continues to be hot, with New Port Richey’s Starkey Ranch and Land O’Lakes’ Bexley communities also ranking in the top 10.
With south Hillsborough county going through its own growth spurt, don’t expect to see any slowdowns in the near future.
“Demand in the suburban areas of Pasco and Hillsborough counties is coming from homebuyers moving to Florida from other areas of the country, from renters deciding to buy, and from people who simply want a new home,” said Tony Polito, Zonda’s regional director for Tampa and Central Florida. “We see this strong demand continuing into 2022.”
Once again, every school in Wesley Chapel but one received either an A or B grade from the state, including John Long Middle School (an A school for the 13th consecutive year, and Sand Pine Elementary (an A school for the 19th time in 21 years). Also, Wiregrass Elem. earned its first-ever A & the Union Park Academy charter school has received an A after its first full school year.
Union Park Charter Academy is Wesley Chapel’s first charter school and is expected to open fully enrolled, with 615 students in grades K through 6. (Photo: Giuliano Ferrara)
Wesley Chapel’s first charter school will open this fall. Demand for the school is clearly high, as enrollment already is full and there’s a waiting list at every grade level.
Union Park Charter Academy — called “UPCA” and pronounced “UP-kuh” — has 615 students scheduled to start school in kindergarten through 6th grade when it opens for the first time on August 13.
One thing you won’t find is classrooms of kids filling notebooks that transcribe lectures. In fact, the rooms at the school aren’t even called “classrooms.”
“The design of the building allows us to really meet the personal needs of individual students,” says the school’s founding principal, Tracy Ware. “The design of the building is in communities. What’s exciting is that there are so many options.”
Instead of traditional classrooms, each grade level meets in a common area with all of the teachers for that grade level. Students then move into one of the spaces available to them. That might be a learning lab for larger groups of students and a teacher. Or, it could be an area with flexible seating where students sit on creative furniture, such as “wobble boards” (no worries about kids leaning back and toppling over a four-legged chair), or stand at a high-top table.
There also are areas for small group projects, where students can go inside a glassed-in room and work without distraction, but still in complete view of the teacher.
The school is responsible for teaching to state standards and testing using statewide standardized tests.
“What sets us apart is not what we teach — it’s how,” explains Ware. “We have opportunities to use more technology and divide children up based on learning style, with four teachers teaching the same curriculum at the same time, but bringing it to children in different ways.”
UPCA is the newest school by Charter Schools USA, which currently manages 84 schools in seven states, serving more than 70,000 students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.
Charter schools are public schools that operate under a contract — called a charter — with the local school district. Each charter school is independently governed by its own board of directors, and employees do not work for the local school district. However, Pasco County Schools is responsible for some oversight, ensuring that the school is in compliance with its charter and local, state and federal regulations.
Charter schools are required to be non-profit organizations.
As a charter school, it is a tuition-free option for parents looking for an alternative to the public school to which their child is assigned. This fall, Pasco County is expected to have 5,513 students enrolled in a total of 12 charter schools, with UPCA the only one located within Wesley Chapel, although a second charter school, Pinecrest Academy, is expected to open in 2019 at a site to be determined.
Ware was previously an education cluster manager responsible for leading and coaching principals and senior leadership teams using international standards she practiced while serving as a principal in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). In Abu Dhabi, she opened a grades K-5 school, where she promoted clear collaborative relationships between staff members with various backgrounds from all over the world.
“Ms. Ware is the perfect fit for our new innovative school opening in Wesley Chapel,” said Charter Schools USA’s Michelle Thompson, the company’s regional director of education for Florida’s west coast. “We knew we needed someone who will approach educational solutions from an entirely new mindset as we open a brand-new school with such an open and collaborative environment.”
A Focus On Technology
In addition to the innovative building, another unique aspect of UPCA is its focus on technology.
“Technology gives us more opportunities to reach students,” says Ware, explaining that smart technology will be used throughout every learning community, including an iPad issued to every student in grade 3 and higher.
“Teachers can flip the classroom,” because of this technology, explains Ware. Instead of traditional homework — where Wade says that incorrect practices can actually hurt a student’s ability to learn something correctly — a teacher can use video or other means to introduce a lesson at home that will be experienced the next day at school.
In addition, Ware says she’s excited about the level of involvement she’s already seen from the parents of the students who plan to attend. Many students can walk or bike to school, she says, and more than 90 parents signed in to the school’s first Parent Teacher Co-Op meeting (similar to a PTA).
The school’s students have already voted to choose its mascot, which is the Comets.
“The things that really set this school apart are its design, our use of technology, parental support and community investment,” says Ware. “Students have an opportunity to be innovative and creative, and that’s what we’ll provide at Union Park.”
Ware says that although there is a waiting list, interested parents should not be discouraged from applying, because some students who are enrolled now may not attend due to relocations or other factors.
“Even if they’re on the waiting list,” Ware explains, “there’s a good chance they could be enrolled this fall.”
Union Park Charter Academy is under construction at 32775 Oldwoods Ave. in Wesley Chapel. For more information, stop by its temporary office at 3830 Turman Loop, #101, between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, call (813) 358-7306 or visit UnionParkAcademy.org.
Patrolling the streets of Union Park (located just south of 56, off of Meadow Pointe Blvd. in Wesley Chapel) is the first “security robot” to be on duty in a residential neighborhood in the United States.
“Right now, we’re beta testing for six months at Union Park to see how a security robot would help us in a large community,” says Kartik Goyani, vice president of operations for Metro Development Group, developers of both Union Park and Epperson (see page 1), the latter of which is part of the “connected city” and which will be home to the first of two Crystal Lagoons coming soon to Wesley Chapel.
The robot has been named “Deputy Metro” and is a five-foot tall, 400-pound robot that drives itself throughout the community. It records data and provides 360-degree video.
“What we do at Metro in our heart and in our DNA is innovation,” Goyani says, so experimenting with brand new technology makes a lot of sense.
While Union Park is the first residential community to get a security robot, Goyani says it’s actually the 39th of more than 50 such robots throughout the country, created by a company called Knightscope. These robots patrol malls, hospitals, office parking lots, even the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.
Goyani explains that it’s too early to tell exactly how Deputy Metro will be used in the long term, but it’s planned to be used at the soon-to-be-renamed connected city and at Metro’s developments with Crystal Lagoons. Goyani explains the current beta testing will help determine how it will be used in those larger communities. “The main goal is as a deterrent and seeing how this technology can fit into our lives,” Goyani says.
“For example, Union Park is not gated,” he says, so Metro tried stationing the robot at the entrance to the community to see how that worked. “We essentially made Deputy Metro like a virtual gate, monitoring the traffic going in and out.”
Meanwhile, he says video from the security robot has already been requested by the Pasco Sheriff’s Office (PSO).
In the future, Goyani hopes the PSO won’t have to request the footage. As part of its partnership, Metro Development expects to make streaming video available to the Sheriff, “so they don’t have to call us at all.”
Goyani says the reactions to Deputy Metro have been overwhelmingly positive, and many negative responses are due to concerns they have been able to alleviate, such as a concern that the robot could cause a resident to get a speeding ticket.
He says some of the positive response has been even more than what they expected.
“Deputy Metro is part of the community,” says Goyani. “One time when I was at Union Park, a couple of engineers from Knightscope were there, and a young girl who lives in the community came with her dad and brought her notebook and followed them around. She said (Deputy Metro) inspires her to learn more about STEM and robotics.”
For more information about Deputy Metro, visit DeputyMetro.com.
When most people start the process of building a new home, they think of the builder as the man in a hard hat they talk to a few times during the few months of construction. However, at David Weekley Homes (DWH), which currently is building in the Union Park community of Wesley Chapel (south of S.R. 56, off Meadow Pointe Blvd.), the building part is just the beginning of a decade-long relationship.Continue reading
