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Projects May Swap Road Obligations

S.R. 52 Would Be Widened

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 11, 2008

SAN ANTONIO - County officials on Thursday1/10 agreed Thursday to consider letting the developers of two major projects east of Interstate 75 swap their road-building commitments.

In her pitch to County Administrator John Gallagher and the Development Review Committee, Pasco Town Center attorney Donna Feldman's proposed the swap between the mixed retail-and-industrial project and Bella Verde, the struggling resort project to the east.

Feldman said she arrived at her proposal after several meetings with Bella Verde's attorneys. The resort developer is open to the plan, but wants some concessions from the county to seal the deal, Feldman said.

Bella Verde attorney Keith Bricklemeyer couldn't be reached for comment.

Feldman's proposal came after negotiations with county staff that ended just a few minutes before the DRC's 11 a.m. workshop on the town center project. The town center's developers, Atlanta-based Shailendra Group, continues to push county officials for an approval of its project to steady wavering tenants.

County officials say those approvals are still a ways off because of the project's traffic problems

Shailendra had contracts with several retail companies, including the Chelsea Property Group, which owns Prime Outlets Orlando off Interstate 4. That complex features Dior, Versace, Tommy Hilfiger, Brooks Brothers, Banana Republic, Barney's and Nike outlets, along with restaurants and a food court.

Town center attorney Ron Weaver said the outlet project has lost some tenants but picked up others because of delays in the review process.

"There's still some people interested in it and some not," Weaver said.

As laid out by Feldman, the swap would go like this:

Pasco Town Center would four-lane make State Road 52 between the interstate and McKendree Road four lanes to provide future customers with access to the town center's manufacturers, hotel rooms and shops — including a possible outlet mall. The town center would also would add two left-turn lanes as a temporary measure to //allow// access //to// I-75 South.

Bella Verde's developers, which include Saddlebrook Resort, would post a bond in 2010 to ensure the construction of a large cloverleaf-style loop ramp in the northwest corner of the interchange. The state Department of Transportation wants that ramp to relieve conflicts between cars and tractor-trailers coming and going from the Flying J truck stop, which sits in the northeast corner of the interchange.

Bella Verde's developers, which include California-based New Cities Inc. and Saddlebrook Resort creator Tom Dempsey, signed a deal with the county four years ago that committed them to widen S.R. 52 between I-75 and the entrance to their planned golf resort.

They also must build the western leg of the planned Clinton Avenue extension between McKendree Road and Curley Road. The road, intended to be a truck route alternative to S.R. 52, will cross the northern third of Bella Verde.

Florida's collapsing housing market has left Bella Verde with no way of raising the $30million needed to make the improvements to S.R. 52, Feldman said.

Feldman argued the swap would be a way to accomplish needed improvements that so far have gone undone by Bella Verde, which is on the hook for them, and to tie the construction of the loop ramp to a future housing turn-around when it will be needed.

"When we put the two developers together, there isn't enough to fund [S.R.] 52 and the loop" [ramp]," Feldman said.

State officials avoided repaving the stretch of S.R. 52 between the interstate and Bella Verde's main entrance because they expected the developer to do the work. In the intervening years, nothing has happened, and the road surfaces is being slowly is being destroyed by the heavy trucks and other traffic that pass through the intersection.

For their part, Pasco Town Center's developers can't afford the $70 million needed to buy land for and build the loop ramp, which will require extending part of the interstate overpass above S.R. 52 and buying a strip of land from Tampa Bay Golf & Country Club.

Without the swap, little, if anything, will happen at the interchange, Feldman argued.

Gallagher and his staff were skeptical, particularly where Bella Verde was concerned.

"I have a concern about relying on a 2010 commitment for a party that hasn't performed to date," said David Goldstein, assistant county attorney.

Gallagher relented, however, when Feldman said traffic engineers with the county and Pasco Town Center plan to study the interchange to determine how much of its proposed 840,000 square feet of retail Shailendra can build before the road becomes impassable.

"It's not too bad a skeleton," Gallagher said of Feldman's proposal. "But you've got to put some meat on it."

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201 or kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com.

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