By Matt Wiley
The developer of the planned Tampa Premium Outlets mall on S.R. 56 (just west of I-75), has scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for early tomorrow morning.
After years of uncertainty and months of preparation, work will officially begin on the planned 441,000-sq.-ft. outlet mall in the Cypress Creek Town Center (CCTC) Development of Regional Impact (DRI).
That news was announced just days after representatives from the Costco Wholesale Corporation scheduled a pre-application meeting with Pasco County staff to discuss a possible new location on an 18-acre parcel adjacent to the future mall (see map). The meeting is set for Tuesday, December 16.
County records state that Costco is planning a 153,000-sq.-ft. wholesale warehouse on the outparcel adjacent to (and west of) the mall, but a finalized site plan had not yet been submitted at our press time.
County documents also show that Costco’s director of real estate management Jeff Rutter, Edward McDonald of Thomas Engineering, Dominic Salomone (representing the Richard E. Jacobs Group, which owns the property) and Joe Cimino of WRA Engineering, as well as Pasco’s planning staff, will be in attendance at the December 16 meeting.
Pasco County planner Dawn Sutton says that after that meeting, Costco officials will have six months (180 days) to submit a development plan for review, although a representative from Costco declined to comment on that report.
“(The Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce [WCCC] is) excited Costco is potentially investing in Wesley Chapel,” says WCCC executive director Hope Allen. “The Cypress Creek Town Center is a fantastic location for a warehouse store. From what I understand, Costco offers great jobs, great pay, great benefits and a great place to work, so they would a good addition to our community.”
Development actually has begun on both sides of S.R. 56 within the CCTC DRI (we told you about ground being moved in the property north of S.R. 56 in our August 30 issue, which is available at WCNeighborhoodNews.com), although Costco is only the second store that has been named as a potential retailer anywhere in the DRI.Â
Back in May of 2012, Simon announced that it would be opening seven new locations of the popular clothing outlet Saks Fifth Avenue “Off 5th” at many of its new and existing outlet malls. Among the new locations on the list is the Tampa Premium Outlets, which is expected to open in time for the 2015 Holiday Season, or about a year from the Dec. 12 groundbreaking.
The CCTC DRI sat dormant for years after initial development began in 2007. Lawsuits from a coalition of environmental groups, led by the Sierra Club of Tampa Bay, delayed the project with legal setbacks, shortly after the U.S. Army Corps of engineers issued a building permit to the Richard E. Jacobs Group, which originally was developing more than 500 acres of the DRI south of S.R. 56 into a regional mall. The Corps has to issue a permit when environmentally-sensitive lands are being developed.
The Army Corps revoked the developer’s permit after muddy water was discovered pouring into Cypress Creek, a tributary that feeds into the Hillsborough River and supplies drinking water to Hillsborough and surrounding counties, but the lawsuit still moved forward. The Sierra Club sued the Army Corps for violating the Clean Water Act in 2007 and the Jacobs Group paid substantial fines in a settlement.
A November 2011 ruling in the U.S. District of Columbia Appeals Court reversed a previous decision that all but revoked the mall’s building permit and, according to court documents, ordered the Army Corps to make a determination on how the project would affect wildlife habitat fragmentation, specifically for the endangered eastern indigo snake. The Corps issued an “all-clear” late in 2013 and infrastructure development picked up this summer.
No comment yet, add your voice below!