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For Ranch Land, It's Goodbye Cows, Hello Houses

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By LAURA KINSLER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 21, 2008

ZEPHYRHILLS - Rancher Robert Thomas' life is deeply rooted in the land his family has worked for four generations.

On a recent tour, Thomas, 52, paused to take in a 180-acre tract in southeast Pasco County and remembered when the field was planted with watermelon. As a 5-year-old, he sat in the shade under an oak and cut into one. It was the first time he'd eaten a melon cut from the vine, and he can still remember the juice dripping down his chin.

"It was so big, I couldn't even carry it," he said. "I was a scrawny little kid."

The pasture, part of the 3,500-acre Two Rivers Ranch between Morris Bridge Road and U.S. 301, likely will never grow watermelons again. This month, the Thomas family and development partner Sierra Properties were granted an amendment to Pasco County's Comprehensive Plan, allowing them to develop the property.

The amendment is a precursor to rezoning the ranch for 6,400 homes, 2.7 million square feet of office and light industrial uses, and 630,000 square feet of commercial space.

Sierra Properties is best known locally as the developer of Avila, a posh, north Tampa country club community. The company also is one of the developers of Cypress Creek Town Center in Wesley Chapel.

The Thomas family owns 14,000 acres in Pasco and Hillsborough counties. The ranch, founded by Thomas' grandfather 76 years ago, is now surrounded by residential development. The family concluded the land is too valuable to pass on to the next generation.

"We decided to do this because of the exposure we had to the estate tax," Thomas said.

Anything valued at more than $2 million would be taxed at a rate of 50 percent. "We can't afford to write that check," he said.

The family and their developer already have rezoned nearly 2,000 acres south of the county line for a 1,000-home, environmental planned community. As a condition of the Hillsborough County rezoning, the first 110 homes cannot be built before July 1, 2012.

The Two Rivers project also is years from construction. Officials with Sierra Properties said the project won't get started until State Road 56 is extended through the ranch to U.S. 301.

"I don't want anyone to get the impression they'll see rooftops out there anytime soon," Thomas said.

The S.R. 56 extension from Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to Morris Bridge Road is under construction and slated for completion in spring 2010. The segment through Two Rivers is not scheduled to be built until 2014 - at the earliest. When it is, drivers will be able to get to Interstate 75 in 10 minutes.

"This project really needs S.R. 56," project manager John White said. "It will proceed hand-in-hand with S.R. 56 construction."

Two Rivers is designed to be self-contained, with a town-center retail development on Morris Bridge Road and one of six county-approved "employment centers" on the U.S. 301 site, just south of the Zephyrhills Correctional Institute.

Thomas said his family was approached by the Pasco Economic Development Council about dedicating 500 acres for an employment center on the ranch. The corporate park would be roughly the same size and scale as New Tampa's Highwoods Preserve, home to Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. and MetLife.

The economic development council's chief executive, Mary Jane Stanley, said the goal of the employment centers is to create jobs in Pasco, so it doesn't become a bedroom community filled with people commuting to work in Tampa.

"We were seeing all this construction, and all the land was being swallowed up by residential," she said. "We realized if we didn't do something, there wouldn't be anywhere to put offices."

Sam Steffey, Pasco's growth management administrator, said Two Rivers would take another four or five years to get through state and local permitting and will take decades to build. After county commissioners give their final approval for the comprehensive plan amendment, the developer will have a year to submit a development of regional impact, or DRI, application.

"The employment center DRIs are designed to be long-term projects that develop over 20, even 30 years," Steffey said.

The new home construction in Two Rivers will be specifically tied to the number of jobs created in the employment center, he said.

Thomas is in no hurry. He sees Two Rivers as a 30-year project. The family will have 8,000 acres remaining of the original ranch.

"I'm not sad, but I am sentimental," Thomas said. "This is going to be pretty neat. There's going to be 6,000 families enjoying this instead of 1,000 cattle."

Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 865-4844 or lkinsler@tampatrib.com.

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