Although it appears to be primarily catering to the USF crowd, the University Boba Tea House, located at 2828 E. Bearss Ave. (just west of BBD Blvd.), in the Palms Connection plaza, looks to be a pretty cool place.
I stumbled upon this still-under-construction tea room when I went to see if anything had yet been announced coming to the other empty spaces that formerly housed Woodfired Pizza, Bearss Tavern & Tap and Mint Cocktail Club, but no such luck, at least not yet.
A quick search of the UniversityBobaTeaHouseTampa.comwebsite reveals that not only will the new tea house offer 40 different types and flavors of hot and iced teas, as well as coffee, it also will feature a USF student art gallery and different activities every night, from trivia on Tuesdays, karaoke on Thursdays, Open Mic Night on Fridays and Band Night on Saturdays.
Although the exterior signage is already nicely done, a photo taken on Aug. 31 still showed a dirt floor inside, but we’ll keep you posted. — GN.
Local dignitaries and members of the Porter family were on hand on Jan. 10 for the unveiling of the new Porter Family Indoor Performance Facility on the USF Tampa Campus.
Wiregrass Ranch developer JD Porter says that athletics have always been important to his family, so when the chance came to play a significant role in helping the University of South Florida add a state-of-the-art training facility, Porter said it was impossible for him to resist.
On Jan. 10, Porter and his family were on hand to celebrate the opening of the Porter Family Indoor Performance Facility on USF’s Tampa campus. The 88,000-sq.-ft. facility features a 100-yard turf field, an observation deck, scoreboards, locker rooms, a reception lobby and more.
“We think it’s going to be a difference maker,” said Porter, echoing the sentiment of everyone involved.
For decades, the lack of quality on-campus facilities has been a detriment to recruiting, particularly for football, which also has been saddled by the lack of an on-campus stadium.
But, the Porter family’s $5.1-million donation is the first step towards correcting those deficiencies, and a new on-campus football stadium is right around the corner, perhaps as soon as fall 2026.
At the event on Jan. 10, new USF football coach Alex Golesh said that not having this type of training facility is a huge disadvantage, “but I think a facility like this puts you on a level playing field.”
The Porter family has steadfastly supported USF. The James H. and Martha M. Porter Endowment for Alzheimer’s Research was established to benefit the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s pursuit of collaborative Alzheimer’s research with the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute. In addition, the Porter family started the James H. & Martha M. Porter Alzheimer’s Research Equipment Operating Fund to support equipment purchases for use in that collaborative research.
Porter said his family, which founded a branch campus of Pasco-Hernando State College in Wiregrass Ranch and donated the land for the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, was happy to help, and applauded the team that helped make it happen, which included Wesley Chapel resident (and former Speaker of the Florida House) Will Weatherford, who currently is the chairman of the USF Board of Trustees.
“It was a natural fit,” Porter said. “Athletics and education have always been important to our family, and this was just a great opportunity. Knowing that the right team was at the helm to actually execute the plan made it a fairly easy decision for us.”
A team of professors at the University of South Florida (USF) has a new weapon to fight Alzheimer’s disease and dementia — a $44.3-million grant for the next five years to continue a study that has shown some positive results.
Jerri Edwards, Ph.D., a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neurosciences at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, is heading up the school’s Preventing Alzheimer’s with Cognitive Training (aka “PACT”) study.
Dr. Edwards says the grant could help finally find a way to prevent Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, which are among the most expensive medical conditions to treat — along with heart disease, diabetes and cancer. These diseases also are becoming more and more common.
“Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia are an increasing public health crisis,” Dr. Edwards says. “One in every nine persons 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease right now and the prevalence of the disease increases with age. It could be that as many as 33 percent of people 85-plus have dementia. We’re living longer so that means the prevalence of Alzheimer’s is increasing exponentially.”
Edwards and many of her colleagues have been investigating an intervention commonly known as brain training for the past decade. “It is the first intervention ever shown in a randomized clinical trial to reduce the risk of dementia,” she says. “So, we’re very excited.”
Brain training is basically using computerized programs to train the cognitive abilities of participants. The trial, called the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent & Vital Elderly (ACTIVE), had more than 2,800 healthy older adults ages 65 and older participating.
The trial was essentially focused on the functional ability of older adults when it came to things like managing their finances, driving and going grocery shopping — essential tasks required to remain independent with age.
“Dementia essentially is diagnosed when you lose that functional ability,” Dr. Edwards says.
That study, after 10 years, showed that participants had a 29-48 percent lower incidence of dementia than people who received no training.
The PACT study will be expanded to across the U.S. at five different sites and will be enrolling 7,600 older adults.
“We really believe this intervention can reduce people’s chances — reduce their risks — of Alzheimer’s disease,” Edwards says. “It’s a very exciting opportunity to be a leader in the field here at USF and engaging our Tampa Bay community area.”
Dr. Edwards encourages anyone healthy and age 65 and older in Wesley Chapel and New Tampa to participate in the PACT study. She says that one of the goals of the study is to have a diverse sample. She also says that blacks are twice as likely as other adults to get Alzheimer’s, and Hispanics are 1.5 times as likely, yet both are typically less willing to participate in clinical studies.
Participants will be screened and tested during their first two visits — at a choice of the Cognitive Aging Lab on USF’s Tampa campus off E. Fletcher Ave., the St. Petersburg campus, as well as at locations in Lakeland and Winter Haven in Polk County — and will be asked to continue the brain training for three years at home.
“We really need people who are interested in joining the fight against Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Edwards says. “We need healthy, older adults 65-plus willing to do that. It’s low burden — we’re asking for a three-year commitment.”
If you want to volunteer for the PACT study, call (813) 974-6703, or visit PACTStudy.org.
Compton Park at Tampa Palms was packed for the first “New Tampa Business Climate” meeting organized by Master’s degree candidates at USF, where (l.-r.) Hillsborough county commissioner Ken Hagan, Tampa city councilman Luis Viera & State Rep. Fentrice Driskell were among those on the panel. Photos by Andy Warrener & Ricky Rodriguez.
In order to begin a study by students in Master’s degree programs at the University of South Florida as to why so many businesses have exited New Tampa the last few years, USF helped organize a unique meeting on July 16, featuring a panel of elected officials and local business owners.
The meeting was Phase 1 of the USF group’s efforts to study New Tampa’s faltering business climate as the students endeavor to figure out what, if anything, can be done to stem the business red tide.
A panel that consisted of the director of the USF School of Public Affairs (where the Master’s degree candidates are studying) Ron Sanders, Rotary Cub of New Tampa past president Karen Frashier, Oliver’s Cycle Sports owner Randy Myhre and three local elected officials (see below) was greeted by a packed house of spectators (who were mainly New Tampa residents; see photo on next page) at the meeting, which was held at Compton Park in Tampa Palms.
Hillsborough County District 2 commissioner Ken Hagan, District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera and newly elected District 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell agreed to be on the panel because all of them share concerns about why major companies and mom-and-pop businesses alike are having so much trouble surviving, much less thriving, in zip code 33647.
Sanders said that the study is being conducted by USF students seeking their Master of Public Administration (MPA) degrees in either Urban & Regional Planning or Public Affairs, after then-mayoral candidate (now Tampa Mayor) Jane Castor campaigned in New Tampa.
Castor said many local residents asked her why the business climate in zip code 33647 seemed so poor, especially when compared with the booming economy in Wesley Chapel, just to New Tampa’s north, on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. and S.R. 56.
One of those Castor was talking to just happened to be Sam Becker, a graduate assistant in the School of Public Affairs, and she asked Becker to look into what, if anything, USF could do to help her figure out what could be done to help New Tampa’s businesses. By the time Castor was elected in March, the wheels were already in motion.
“This meeting is the kickoff to Phase 1 of the study — to meet with the community,” Sanders said at the meeting. “Phase 2 will be individual interviews with community staples — elected officials, business owners and residents — such as those in this room. In Phase 3, the students will look at the literature (facts and figures) and the (business) practices going on in the area. For example, is (New Tampa’s situation) just part of a national phenomenon or are there local factors” causing our area’s economic gloom (or both)?
Although Hagan, Viera and Driskell all agreed that the meeting was important, there didn’t seem to be too much help for the USF students coming out of this first get-together.
Among the factors pointed to as to why so many businesses have closed in New Tampa were the high rents, the lack of tax incentives to open major businesses, and even some things brought up by Frashier and Myhre.
Frashier, who also is the co-chair of the Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel, mentioned that New Tampa doesn’t have a large enough gathering place for major events, such as the Wiregrass Wobble 5K road race her club hosts (at the Shops at Wiregrass) every year on Thanksgiving morning, or the Taste (held at AdventHealth CenterIce), “So, we have no choice but to put on these events in Wesley Chapel.”
Hagan and Viera both touted the new Village at Hunter’s Lake development that will be home to a 20,000-sq.-ft. New Tampa Cultural Center, as well as several unique restaurants and retailers (as we reported last issue), but that those are all coming online in 2020 or even 2021.
Myhre said he thinks that bicycle paths connecting the subdivisions in New Tampa would make getting to and from local businesses easier, without having to drive a car, but Hagan said, “Connecting communities is great, but have you seen how hard it is to get even one road connected between communities?” — an obvious jab at the whole Kinnan St.-Mansfield Blvd. flap between Hillsborough and Pasco counties.
Residents at the meeting also brought up how long the widening of BBD in New Tampa took, which affected local businesses, while one noted that S.R. 56, where so much of Wesley Chapel’s growth is taking place, currently has very few residences directly off of it. No one came up with any reason why this helped or how it has affected the economy in the Wesley Chapel.
For New Tampa’s businesses, the hope is that more answers will come out of Phases 2 & 3 of the study.
Drew Falkowitz (Photo courtesy of Tacy Briggs-Troncoso)
HE PRETENDED to be typing on a laptop for the television cameras. He stood in the middle of the University of South Florida’s Marshall Center, a bright ray of sunshine cutting through his green graduation robe as an array of cameras click-click-click-clicked.
When he was asked to walk from one end to the other, he did, as more cameras followed him, photographing and filming his every move.
“It’s kind of hard to look natural doing this,” Drew Falkowitz said, sheepishly smiling.
On this day, though, it was the price of celebrity. In the center of campus, while his classmates studied while sipping from Starbucks cups, Drew was famous for a few hours — as he became the youngest graduate in the 63-year history of USF — and the story everyone wanted to tell.
The 16-year-old Tampa Palms resident, who graduated on May 3 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Cellular & Molecular Biology — and still doesn’t have his driver’s license — found the whole experience even stranger than he had anticipated.
“I figured, eventually, there would be press that would be generated around this,” said Drew, adding, “I’m not a very public person. I like staying low and not being in the spotlight all the time and having my three years of college and no one’s even talked to me until now has definitely been a breath of fresh air.”
The son of Tracy and Steven Falkowitz, who have lived in Tampa Palms since 2000, Drew is a true wunderkind, although he doesn’t seem to think all that much of it.
He’s smart. Super smart. And always has been.
His trajectory to becoming USF’s youngest graduate is different from your average student, but not so different from other gifted children who simply had outgrown their peers the moment they entered pre-school.
Drew was 3 years old in this picture and already knew not only all of the U.S. states and their capitals, but also every U.S. President — in order — and could add, subtract and divide. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Falkowitz)
In Drew’s case, he started kindergarten at a Montessori school, and by the time he was in the first grade, they had moved him to the upper class, which was for grades 4-6.
He devoured course work, exhausting nearly everything available in middle school, and started taking high school classes online when he was a 9-year-old 6th grader being home schooled by Steven, who worked out of their house.
Steven remembers Drew completing workbooks faster than other kids his age finished coloring books. In fact, Steven says Drew’s first word, fittingly, was “book.”
When he went for his two-year-old pediatric check-up, Steven told the physician that Drew was already reading. The doctor scoffed, and then handed Drew a pamphlet about asthma to read aloud.
He did.
The doctor called in another doctor, because he couldn’t believe it, and Drew read another pamphlet for them.
“These kinds of things kept happening,” says Steven.
“At 20 months, he started reading, and no one had ever taught him how to read,” Tracy says. “We’re not entirely sure how he learned. He was writing essays by four years old. He learned division on a car ride to pre-school.”
Steven and Tracy knew they had something unique on their hands, but raising a boy genius isn’t exactly something found in the parenting manual. The learning took care of itself, and they knew their son was headed for a different academic track than most kids his age.
But, how would he develop socially and emotionally while being surrounded by older kids or, in the case of being home-schooled, by no kids?
Finding Help…In Reno?
They sought the help of the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Reno, NV, that was formed in 1999 and says it “serves profoundly gifted people” ages 18 and under.
Steven says Drew was the last 4-year-old accepted there (the age limit has since been raised to 5). Davidson offers programs, summer camps in Reno, databases and resources for families raising gifted children.
Drew qualified for Davidson’s Young Scholars program, which assists parents and students with support, and he attended three summer camps.
“They talked us off ledges sometimes,” Steven says. “We reached out to them a number of times.”
Photo courtesy of Tacy Briggs-Troncoso
His parents got Drew involved in activities at the New Tampa Recreation Center and in their neighborhood. He joined his synagogue’s youth group, volunteered for the Joshua House and took part for a few summers at Camp Jenny, a “Mitzvah Corps” project that helps children from an impoverished Atlanta community learn.
He could have entered college at 10 or 11 years old, but Steven and Tracy resisted.
“What do you do with a 13-year-old college graduate?,” Tracy asks.
Even so, Drew bristles at the suggestion he was denied a “regular” education, or that he missed out on many of life’s rites of passage that come with attending middle and high school.
“I have a high school experience,” Drew says. “I have friends my own age. I have friends in college. I hang out and do basically the same things you do in high school or college…I would not give it up if it meant giving up everything else I have been able to do from skipping ahead…I wouldn’t give that up for a couple of parties.”
Drew says he is not that much different than any other teenager. He plays video games — “I can smoke anyone in Mario Kart 8” — and watches YouTube and Netflix and tweets.
In December, he took up the electric bass and has fallen in love with it.
While he said school was always boring to him until college, his last semester was his most gruelling. He took 18 credit hours of mostly 4000- level classes, had to complete a senior thesis and also had to conquer Bio Medical Physiology, which he says is the toughest class he has ever taken.
“It’s one of these classes you walk in and say, ‘There’s no way I’m getting an A in this class,’” says Drew, who, by the way, got an A.
In fact, he got all As his last semester, and boosted his overall USF grade point average to 3.93.
Maybe some of the credit should go to the rock band Metallica. To relieve stress, Drew spent his free time during the semester teaching himself how to play the instrumental version of the group’s “The Call of Ktulu” on his bass guitar.
“I set a goal to be able to play (it) and even bought an overdrive pedal so I could do it,” he says. “In five months, I managed to do it. It’s really a technical piece and one of the things I’m most proud of.”
Drew will start working on his Master’s degree in cancer research when he returns to Tampa after his internship at Yale University in New Haven, CT, where he will do autism serotonin research.
He says that after he earns his Ph.D. degree, he hopes to pursue a career in medical genetics, with a focus on mood disorders like schizophrenia, bipolarism and schizo-affective disorder. He says he finds the genetics behind the disorders “extremely interesting,” and he hopes it will provide him a chance to help people.
And, as uncomfortable as the attention for being the youngest-ever USF grad may have been, Drew will try to enjoy his moment in the spotlight. After all, he knows it won’t last forever.
Last year, 11-year-old William Maillis graduated from St. Petersburg College, earning his Associate degree, and transferred to USF to study astrophysics for his Bachelor’s degree.
“I guess I’ll have the title for a couple of years,” Drew says, chuckling, “then William is going to come in and steal my throne from me.”
