Owners Try To Update Look Of Aging Regency Square

NEW PORT RICHEY - The owners of the Regency Square shopping center plan to begin this month renovating the plaza's parking lot, adding more trees and other landscaping to the aging plaza.

Tampa-based Ram Real Estate Inc. bought Regency Square, at the corner of Little Road and Embassy Boulevard, in 2005. At that time, the company gave the plaza a new paint job, said manager Rob Mariano.

Ram also owns University Collection, near the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, and Woodland Square in Oldsmar along with other plazas in Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Texas.

The landscaping changes were required because of recent renovations to stores in the plaza. County rules require that any older commercial building must be brought up to current specs for landscaping when renovations amount to more than 25 percent of the property's value.

In the case of Regency Square, that requirement kicked in when business owner Chris Kacir began work on his Pet Supplies Plus Inc. storefront.

Kacir recently moved from Michigan to open the pet store franchise, the company's first on the west coast of Florida.

The pet shop renovation comes on the heels of the recent conversion of the plaza's Kash n' Karry to a Sweetbay grocery store.

Mariano said the county-mandated improvements are an extension of work his company had already begun to update the look of the plaza.

"We had been systematically upgrading the landscaping out of need and desire rather than out of regulatory necessity," Mariano said.

All told, the company expects to spend $90,000 planting new trees around the perimeter of the plaza and installing large planters between the storefronts and the edge of the parking lot, Mariano said.

"It's not inconsequential," he said.

As a new business owner, Kacir welcomed the improvements in hopes that they will make the plaza more inviting.

"My inclination is always to drive into the plaza that looks nice," Kacir said.

County officials last month gave Regency Square a break on meeting the exact letter of the landscaping requirements because doing so would have cost the plaza parking spaces - putting it out of line with the county's parking rules.

At the time they granted the exemptions, county officials required Ram to add diamond-shaped planting areas down the middle of the parking lot to provide more shade. The planting areas will steal space from the corners of parking stalls to create spaces about five feet across, according to plans on file with the county's Development Review Department.

Regency Square is the latest in a series of aging plazas to undergo overhauls recently.

Earlier this year, the owners of Plaza of the Oaks, at the southwest corner of Little Road and State Road 52, also committed to making landscape improvements to their shopping center.

Also, the owners of Southgate Shopping Center, on U.S. 19 at Marine Parkway, spent much of last year revamping that plaza.