Chamber Luncheon Reveals Wiregrass Ranch Plans & Calls Out Pasco For Non-Compliance Of Its Agreement Regarding The Sports Campus

“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.”

Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus Takeover — The Rest Of The Story!

On April 18, Pasco County’s Board of County Commissioners voted to buy out the contract of RADDSports, LLC, to manage the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus. 

I called the county’s tourism office that same day — and made three additional attempts before I went to press with this issue — in an effort to get official responses to a number of my questions about the takeover plan from tourism director Adam Thomas, who did not respond to my questions. 

Instead, the only response I got, from Tambrey Laine, the manager of media relations for Pasco County Government, was the press release put out jointly by the county and RADDSports, and that, “The county is declining to comment further.”

Please note that almost everything presented below is a matter of public record. The only exception is what the owners of RADDSports told me Thomas said to them prior to the Sports Campus groundbreaking in 2017; however, Anthony Homer of RADDSports assures me that what he says Thomas said at that time is true. — GN   

 For those who don’t understand why Pasco County has agreed to buy out the contract to take over the management of the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus for what will end up being more than $6 million of taxpayer funds, you’re not alone.

It seems that our editor was the only reporter who thought it odd that Pasco Tourism director Adam Thomas (right) chose to pose for this picture with former county commissioner Mike Moore — rather than with the management of RADDSports — when the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County won the Florida Sports Foundation’s award as the state’s Best Small Market Venue for 2021.

Adam Thomas, the county’s director of tourism who renamed the tourism department “Experience Florida’s Sports Coast,” got the job basically the same day Pasco and the private firm RADDSports, LLC, broke ground on the Sports Campus together in 2017. 

RADD’s Anthony Homer had told me back in 2020 that Thomas had told him and RADDSports president Richard Blalock prior to the groundbreaking ceremony that if it were up to him (meaning Thomas), there would be no private-public partnership between the two entities. And, it seems Thomas has been doing everything he could to end that agreement ever since.

For one thing, despite Thomas’ claims to the contrary last year, RADD has provided proof that it never did actually default on its agreement. And yet, Thomas still was able to convince the five county commissioners back in October 2022 to vote in favor of that default.

Thomas had the county hire the attorneys (with county money) who wrote up the default paperwork that the commissioners voted on in October — without the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) ever seeing any proof of the default and without even discussing it before they voted to approve it from the Board’s Consent Agenda. The commissioners at that time accepted Thomas at his word that RADD was focusing on local events, not on increasing sports tourism in the county, which was the primary portion of RADD’s mandate in that agreement.

Prior to the unanimous vote at that October BCC meeting, RADD even provided the commissioners with actual statistics from an independent study firm that proved that not only had no default taken place, but that RADD had actually outperformed all of the tourism benchmarks of its agreement.

These facts presented by RADD were confirmed by a separate $35,000 independent report — commissioned by Thomas — also using public funds.

In fact, RADD did such a great job of establishing the Sports Campus as a tourist destination for people outside of Pasco that the study showed that it was the #55 tourist draw in all of Florida last year, outperforming much more established attractions like the Miami Seaquarium (#56) & the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium (#57). The Sports Campus also won the Florida Sports Foundation’s Small Venue of the Year award for 2021 under RADD’s management.

Again, despite Thomas’ claims, it wasn’t only RADD’s local programs that were hugely successful — it hosted 112 events (there have been many weekends with more than one event) in 2021-22 and those events helped local hoteliers sell tens of thousands of room nights both years in Pasco — and bring more than 92,000 unique visitors to the county. All of this happened despite RADD first taking over the Sports Campus at the height of Covid.

In addition, Pasco received the agreed-to $150,000 payment from RADD for 2021 and would have received its agreed-to $150,000 payment for 2022 had the BCC not voted to default the company. Pasco also would have received 11% of RADD’s revenue this year, and already has received millions more in sales and bed tax funds from all of the visitors the Sports Campus has brought in from all over the country and even beyond.

Instead of continuing this mutually beneficial partnership, Thomas convinced the commissioners to spend the following:

• $250,000 in taxpayer money on legal fees to force RADD out;

• $3 million over the next five years (including $1 million this year and $500,000 each year for the next four) to buy out the agreement with RADD;

• $2.8 million to operate the Sports Campus — at a loss (for at least the first two years, according to the default notice approved by the county in October);

• $94,000 to purchase furnishings & other items from RADD; and 

• $35,000 for the independent study previously mentioned.

So, is that $6,179,000 an amount of money a small, but growing, county would spend of its taxpayers’ funds to take over a supposedly defaulted contract? 

“We thank the county for recognizing the value that RADDSports has brought to the Sports Campus,” says Homer of the buyout agreement.

I don’t know why Thomas has had an issue with RADD from Day One, but I felt compelled to at least provide the actual facts of this situation, as I have not seen most of the information presented here reported by any other local news media. 

RADDSports Fights Back Against Pasco County’s Default Claim

Mediation is scheduled for Monday.

RADDSports chief operating officer Anthony Homer appeared at the Nov. 15 Pasco County Commission meeting to ask the commissioners to vote to overturn their previous decision to hold RADD in default. The commissioners refused without discussion. (Screenshot from Pasco Television)

Pasco County is looking to take over the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, but the company that currently runs it, RADDSports, is claiming that Pasco — primarily Florida Sports Coast director Adam Thomas — has used bogus claims to force RADD out or into a reduced role.

The two sides are at odds over how the facility, which opened in July of 2020 but officially opened in January 2021, is being run and the results of those early efforts.

The county’s Board of Commissioners (BOC) approved a Notice of Default, originally written by Thomas, as part of its Consent Agenda at the BOC’s Oct. 25th meeting, without any discussion. Included was the okay to pay Tampa law firm Carlton Fields up to $200,000 to handle the default case, as well as more than $2.8 million to cover the potential cost of the takeover plan.

Although RADDSports’ lawyers were under the impression that the two sides would be able to meet before the default notice was sent, it was delivered on Nov. 4 by attorney Dane Blunt of Carlton Fields.

“The notice claims that RADDSports is in default of a handful of sections of the contract the two sides originally signed,” said Blunt’s letter. 

However, the letter stated that it is the county’s option to allow RADDSports to continue operating the sports campus and that, “RADDSports is in full control of the future” provided it undergo a ‘radical shift in (its) current operations, promotion, and marketing’ to attain compliance with the contract.”

Anthony Homer, the chief operating officer for RADDSports, told county commissioners at the Oct. 25 meeting that he and his company were eager to come to the table and work out any differences, and appeared to be blindsided by the delivery of the Nov. 4 Notice of Default letter.

Homer also attended the Nov. 15 BOC meeting and delivered RADDSports’ refutation of the Notice of Default in person. Commissioners voted unanimously to allow it into record, but again, with no discussion

He told the commissioners they had been misled and that some data had been misrepresented at the Oct. 25 meeting, and that they approved a Notice of Default “for which the county had no support.”

Homer said he was told by the county’s attorneys after the Oct. 25 meeting that the notice of default would not be issued and, instead, discussions would be held to settle the matter.

“Since then, the county has refused to engage in any substantive discussion,” Homer said. “It has not provided any data upon which it based its claims to put RADDSports in default and, despite saying otherwise, on Nov. 4, the county’s attorneys issued (RADD) a Notice of Default.”

The Nov. 4 notice, says Homer, was different than the one the commissioners voted on at the Oct. 25 meeting, as specific data was removed after RADD supplied the correct data. And, in RADD’s letter of refutation given to the BOC, more data was provided to prove the county had been using incorrect information to make its case.

In fact, Homer said, when it comes to the county’s claims that RADDSports has focused on local residents and events and hasn’t appealed to tourists, the county paid $30,000 to Zartico, a data intelligence company that focuses on the visitor economy, to do a custom analysis of the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus visitor-to-resident ratio.

“(Zartico’s report) actually confirmed the data we had previously provided,” Homer said. “So, it’s now obvious that the county has no support for its claim that RADDSports is in default and is asserting its claims in bad faith.”

The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus has hosted dozens of sports events involving teams from all over the country.

Homer said the claims made by the county were unfairly damaging the reputation of RADDSports and were making it harder to book events. He asked that the BOC vote to immediately revoke the Notice of Default. 

He didn’t get the vote he requested, but Homer and RADDSports will still be getting a chance to make their case.

In the Nov. 4 default letter, Blunt wrote that, “At this time, the County believes it is in the best interest of both parties’ to mediate their disputes pursuant to the Agreement.”

A mediation with retired Judge Gregory Holder has been scheduled for Monday, Nov. 28, and Blunt said the county plans to participate. 

 “We ask that RADDSports come to mediation prepared to share with the county its detailed, written plan for future compliance with the Agreement,” Blunt said.

RADD will make its defense that most of the claims in the Notice of Default are false, as it already has in multiple letters to the county and to Carlton Fields.

If the contract between the county and RADDSports, which has 18 years remaining on it, is terminated by Pasco, it likely will result in an expensive legal battle.

RADD president & CEO Richard Blalock said he hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“RADDSports remains willing to work with the County and all stakeholders,” Blalock wrote. “The cloud of a bogus Notice of Default will not help those discussions, but will lead to litigation that will be expensive to both parties and hinder the mutually beneficial resolution of the County’s perceived issues.”

And, in his Nov. 14 letter to the commissioners, Homer said, “That the county would allocate $2.8M to take over operations of a facility RADDSports operates at no cost (to the county) is simply mind boggling. We can only imagine there are areas in the County which would be delighted to see that invested in additional parks and recreation offerings.”

Here are the portions of the contract between RADDSports & Pasco County that the county claims RADDSports has defaulted on & RADD’s responses to each claim:

Claim #1 — RADD has not continuously operated the Sports Park Property to ensure that 90% of the 80% annual average of participants and non-participants….are non-County residents. 
RADD’s Response — RADD President and CEO Richard Blalock said in his company’s refutation letter that the county has no supporting data for this claim, and that RADDSports has provided data from a “credible, billion dollar, national 3rd party data provider” to Thomas that shows RADDSports has exceeded those targets and is not in default.

Claim #2 — RADDSports’ events have resulted in hotel stays that are “well short” of what is needed. 
RADD’s Response — RADDSports says it is not to blame for Covid restrictions (as well as the number of people not ready to return to traveling) in 2020 and 2021, but regardless, had 74,400 non-county visits in 2021 (3.7 times more than required) and 59,000 non-county visits through three quarters of 2022 (2.8 times more than required). Blalock calls this claim “particularly egregious” considering the data Pasco received from Zartico (which it also says Florida Sports Coast never told them about) shows the number of out-of-county visitors has increased every year and 83 percent of those visitors required overnight stays.

Claim #3 — RADDSports has failed to promote and market the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus as it relates to promoting tourism, based on a review of RADDSports’ Facebook and Instagram posts and newsletters.  
RADD’s Response — RADDSports claims that the county is misreading the contract, which states that it is Pasco County’s responsibility to market the facility, and other than obligating RADDSports to “provide marketing information and material to the Pasco County Office of Tourism,” does not place any obligations on RADDSports. In fact, RADDSports argues that it is Florida Sports Coast that was in default of that part of the contract. As of September 12 of this year, the Florida Sports Coast website still referred to the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus as a “proposed 8 court indoor sports facility.” Even after asking Thomas to update it, it took more than a month for the changes to be made.

Claim #4 — RADDSports is not cooperating with the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel when it comes to marketing opportunities,     claiming that the hotel operator also has expressed concern about the way RADDSports is operating and has asked the County to step in.  
RADD’s Response — In their response to the county, RADDSports insists the operator of the Residence Inn has not made such claims,  and that the county’s lawyers “affirmatively asked the (Residence Inn) operator to make such claims, and even went so far as to draft a letter for him they asked him to sign making (those) claims….The operator refused to sign the letter drafted by the County’s Lawyers.”

Claim #5 — That RADDSports also has heard from “multiple sources” that they were rudely rebuffed when trying to book events, and failed to timely respond to inquiries while prioritizing local events.  
RADD’s Response — According to data from RADDSports, in 2021, the facility hosted 52 events, when it was projected to host only 38, and brought in 30 organizations, 26,000 athletes and 60,000 spectators. So far this year, the campus has hosted 44 events and will host 62 by year’s end, bringing in 15,000 athletes, 38,000 spectators and $5.5 million in economic impact, and already has 48 events booked for 2023, and 86% are returning events. “We believe this speaks to the professionalism and support (we give to) all event organizers that we are privileged to host at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County,” Blalock wrote.

Claim #6 — That RADDSports is in default of Section 9.03 because it has failed to provide the required annual financial audit for the year ending December 31, 2021. 
RADD’s Response — RADD claims it cannot control the timing of the audit, and due to “significant personal issues” it had been delayed.  Regardless, the contract doesn’t state a deadline for delivery and, last week, RADD said the audit was completed and delivered to Thomas.

Helping Pasco Sports Tourism Rebound in 2021

Club volleyball has been keeping the January calendar full at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County.

If tourism is going to bounce back from the Covid-19-ravaged 2020, a series of spikes, dunks, cheers and racquet sports will have a lot to do with it.

At least that’s how it looks to Pasco County tourism director Adam Thomas, who says that after a tough year for tourism around the world, events are returning to Pasco’s “sports tourism” sites, including the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, Advent Health Center Ice and the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center — all part of the county’s “Florida’s Sports Coast” branding.

Thomas says the three facilities have 14 events scheduled for the first two months of the year, with many more to come, as national governing bodies like USA Volleyball, USA Wrestling, USA Powerlifting and others look to take advantage of Florida’s open-for-business status and have eyed the Wesley Chapel-area to hold events.

“We are just now getting back to normalcy,” Thomas says, despite rising Covid numbers in Pasco, in Florida and around the nation. “We are looking at sports tourism in 2021 to really get us back to where we need to be.”

One event that won’t provide as much help as originally expected is Super Bowl LV, which is being played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on February 7. Generally, a huge event like the Super Bowl would have a major economic impact on nearby Wesley Chapel, with visitors staying in local hotels and eating and shopping at local restaurants and stores.

But, Covid-19 protocols will limit the crowd at Raymond James Stadium, which can hold 65,890 fans, to roughly 20,000 for the Big Game.

Thomas thinks Wesley Chapel will still enjoy some benefit from the Super Bowl, but in October, Pasco backed out of plans to spend $250,000 on a Super Bowl sponsorship and instead use that money for something more likely to bring a bigger return to the county.

So, while the Big Game won’t make as much of an impact, hundreds of little ones will — and that’s fine with Richard Blalock, the CEO of RADDSports, which runs the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, thanks to a public-private partnership between Pasco and RADD Sports.

The 98,000-sq.ft. AdventHealth Sports Arena will host a variety of club sporting events in 2021, bringing hundreds of teams and players and their parents’ wallets to Wesley Chapel.

The January calendar was filled with volleyball tournaments and gymnastics meets. Volleyball and gymnastics club seasons will roll into a basketball club season in the spring, and then the camp season over the summer. The Sports Campus is already proving to be responsible for a lot of hotel room nights and money spent at Wesley Chapel restaurants, malls and shopping centers, as nearly every weekend is booked through August and even Covid-plagued 2020 proved to be a success.

“We are not one-sport-specific, and that helps us,” Blalock says. “We made that decision by design. We can run a multitude of events here. As one season ends, another is starting.”

Blalock says in August and September of 2020, the first six weeks the Sports Campus was open, its events were responsible for 1,800 hotel room nights and just over $150,000 in sales, resulting in a $1.2-million indirect impact on the local economy. 

He doesn’t have numbers yet for the rest of 2020, but Blalock says he expects to exceed those numbers in 2021. He says this while staring out his office window at construction workers laying masonry blocks on the fourth floor of the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel, which is being built adjacent to the arena on the Spots Campus site and is expected to open around the first week in August.

But, 2021 also is planned to include  an NFL-style combine for pro football hopefuls, organized by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Yo Murphy, as well as the possibility of European soccer teams camping here prior to their fall 2021 seasons.

Hockey Tourism, Too

Thomas says the Sports Campus isn’t the only local venue to have a slew of events booked to meet pent up demand. AHCI currently is hosting a six-week United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL) camp — a college and pro showcase with hundreds of players staying at Saddlebrook Resort and playing games at AHCI — as well as in Ellenton and Brandon. 

The USPHL’s Hub City concept is designed in part to make up for the loss of games and exposure events for players last year, especially from hockey areas hit particularly hard by Covid-19, like the northeastern U.S.

Because so many events were cancelled last year and so many seasons went unfinished,  Thomas anticipates eager event organizers to be heading our way.

“Our event calendar looks pretty promising,” he says.

The SVB Tennis Center in Zephyrhills is attracting sports tourism with growing sports like padel (photo) and pickleball. 

The county won’t recover in one year, Thomas adds. He believes the Covid-19 vaccine will help make people more comfortable when it comes to travel and attending larger events, but that change will take a while. While 2021 is expected to put the Florida Sports Coast back on track, Thomas says the tourism industry is looking at 2023 before a full recovery can probably be expected.

“It’s going to take some time,” he says. “We’re still licking our wounds.”

When the pandemic hit last year, the county was coming off a record-setting February. March began the nosedive, and when the state was shut down for much of April, the county saw its tourist tax revenue drop to below $100,000 for the month, down from $430,000 in tourist tax collected in April 2019.

There is some good news, even if it is anecdotal — Thomas says the last weekend of 2020 saw 6.2 -percent growth, with almost 40 percent hotel occupancy. “We had a really good week,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll continue to see that.” 

In fact, Lisa Moore, the market director of sales for the Hilton Garden Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel on S.R. 56 says, “We’ve been at or near 100% occupancy every weekend since the Sports Campus opened. It (2020) was a tough year, but things are looking better now.”

Play Ball!

The Neighborhood News wasn’t the only news medium on hand in June of 2018 when Wiregrass Ranch developer JD Porter, four of the five Pasco County commissioners, Pasco County/“Florida’s Sports Coast” tourism director Adam Thomas, RADDSports president and founder Richard Blalock and several other local dignitaries threw some dirt in the air at the groundbreaking for a new indoor sports facility to be located just north of S.R. 56 and a mile or so from both the Shops at Wiregrass and AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. 

Also in attendance that day were representatives of Mainsail Development, which was getting ready to build a Marriott-branded Residence Inn with Wesley Chapel’s first and only rooftop bar adjacent to the planned sports campus.

Fast forward to Aug. 15 of this year, when the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County held its first-ever Open House to show off the brand-spankin’-new, 98,000-sq.-ft., state-of-the-art indoor sports facility to local families. This time around, photographer/videographer Charmaine George and I were the only media folks on hand to let you know about it. And, let me just say…WOW!

The fulfillment of the dream Blalock (pointing in top right photo) has had for more than four years is everything anyone could possibly have hoped for — and really, so much more. Although I obviously am raving about it, since my wife Jannah is the director of marketing for the facility, I could be accused of being unfairly biased about it.  

On the other hand, my favorite thing about the open house was walking around the facility, seeing the smiles (and often, gritty determination) on the young athletes’ faces, and hearing the buzz from all of the parents, all of whom were saying, “This is exactly what we need here.” They all let me know that I wasn’t alone in feeling the excitement that day. 

“I’m speechless about the facility,” said parent and Wesley Chapel resident Yanet Hernandez. “It’s amazing. Very clean and there’s a vibe that you get when you walk into the gym.”

Hernandez also pointed out something heartwarming, something that Blalock says also is part of his vision for training young athletes to be not only the best athletes they can be, but also the best people (and teammates) they can be. “Seeing the (volleyball) girls of all races and backgrounds playing together, being so polite to each other — it’s just such a great atmosphere!”

Open House Nuts & Bolts

Blalock (top right photo) and his RADDSports team have been chomping at the bit to get open (despite all of the obvious Covid concerns; more on that below), and he said the main purpose of the Open House was to help the local community get acquainted with this unique facility and everything it has to offer. 

Even though the Sports Campus will be bringing in tournaments in one of its four core sports — basketball, volleyball, cheerleading and soccer (both indoor and outdoor) — virtually every weekend, Blalock is equally excited about the programs that will be available just about every weekday throughout the year for local residents of all ages. 

He says all levels of athletes, from as young as three years old to adults, will be able to enjoy the Sports Campus during the week, and young athletes have three different levels (Developmental, Competitive & Elite) of instruction and competition in all four core sports — with evaluations and programs for each beginning this month.

Meet The RADD-Star Team!

The Open House also was an opportunity for most attendees to meet the amazing team of directors who will help pick the teams and the coaches who will be running the programs and training the kids. Cheer directors Matt McDonough and Lyric Hill, volleyball director Eric Praetorius, basketball director Ronnie Outen and soccer director Stuart Campbell were all on hand at the event, running the day’s program and meeting all of the interested young athletes. 

Hill and McDonough were helped with coaching and demonstrations of cheer stunts by the high school cheer squads from both Wiregrass Ranch and Cypress Creek high schools. Cheer participants even got to try their hands (and feet) on the 40-foot-long spring floor that looks very much like what Olympic gymnasts also use for training.

Praetorius brought in some of the truly outstanding high school volleyball players who have participated in other programs he has directed. The two volleyball courts set aside for the Open House were filled the entire four hours, with the elite players setting each other up to spike home winners and risking floor burns while diving on the shiny, new gym floor for digs, while everyone who was interested in the sport (no matter what level of player they were) received quick instructional tidbits from Praetorius and other coaches on hand — and lots of play time.

Outen somehow recruited an early morning adult full-court basketball game for the event, with separate full courts set aside for younger players. You could hear several parents and coaches cheering on the young hopefuls — including several talented girls, one of whom repeatedly did a great job of taking older, bigger boys to the hoop — from the sidelines.

And, although I left before he got there, Outen’s son Tyriq, a 6’-4” ice hockey goalie who recently was named the MVP of a major invitational tournament in Canada with his all-minority hockey team that was the surprise winner of the tournament, showed up to take pictures with his dad. We’ll tell you Tyriq’s story next issue.

And, you could just see soccer director Stuart Campbell, a former professional “footballer” in England (he’s actually of Scottish descent) and a former player and head coach for the Tampa Bay Rowdies — who probably is the RADDSports director who has most anticipated the day he can start actually coaching, rather than sitting in all-day meetings — absolutely beaming as he checked out the local soccer talent.

“This is quite an event,” Campbell said. “The kids are just loving the place!”

RADDSports director of programs Nicole Baker (another former cheerleader herself) also was on hand, doing temperature checks of everyone who entered the building, and helping Jannah and several volunteers make sure every participant signed an online or on-paper waiver before they entered the gym. There was plenty of hand sanitizer available and even though there were at least 300-400 people who stopped by at some point during the event, the spacious interior of the Sports Campus had plenty of space for social distancing.

One of my favorite things was the mezzanine, which has viewing available of the action in both Arenas A & B of the Sports Campus — each of which was designed for four basketball or eight volleyball courts. There’s also seating in the mezzanine overlooking the amazing cheer area.

The Wesley Chapel Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn, two of the Sports Campus’ hotel partners, and Culver’s and Bubba’s 33 restaurants — which are located on S.R. 56 and stand to receive a lot of out-of-town business from the facility on the weekends — had tables inside the lobby to show their support for the RADDSports team (which has held most of its meetings at the Hilton during the construction).

“We had a few potential sponsors come through to check us out, too,” Blalock said. “I can’t even tell you how happy we are to be (almost) open.”

Pasco County Tourism, aka the Florida Sports Coast, was scheduled to hold the actual ribbon cutting for the Sports Campus on Aug. 27, which was after we went to press with this issue. RADDSports is the county’s private partner which is managing the building that was funded by a recent voter-approved 2-cent increase in the county’s tourism (or “bed”) tax. 

“Play Ball,” indeed!

For sponsorship opportunities at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County (3021 Sports Coast Way), email Jannah@RADDSports.com. For program information, email Nicole@RADDSports.com. For sponsorship opportunities at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County (3021 Sports Coast Way), email Jannah@RADDSports.com. For program information, email Nicole@RADDSports.com. Also, you can call (833) TEAM-RADD (832-6723).