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Pasco’s growth fuels economy
By Kathy Steele
Special to The Laker/Lutz News
Apartment construction is dominating residential development along the State Road 54/State Road 56 corridor — a magnet for development in the midst of Pasco County’s surging growth. As rooftops on luxury apartment homes pop up, retail is following, as evidenced by roadside signs and county permits.
Former pastures along the heavily traveled road are occupied now with shops, restaurants, apartments, auto dealerships and Class A offices. The Shops at Wiregrass, near Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, in Wesley Chapel, has added Athleta; go! Calendars & games; and, siKicks (a footwear and collectibles shop); Charming Charlies; and, Hickory Farms. Coming soon are Body Details; Hickory Farms; JABZ Boxing; and The Living Room.
Besides expanding its retail, Cypress Creek Town Center, a massive development west of the Interstate 75/State Road 56 interchange, is jumpstarting its residential plans. County building permits indicate that Garrett Apartments are coming to Grand Cypress Drive, and Silversaw at Wesley Chapel is rising along Garden Village Way See ECONOMY, page 11A
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Dade City seeks feedback on design plans for Seventh Street
FRED BELLET
A new apartment community, Avidity Living, is being built at State Road 54 and Oak Grove Boulevard, in Land O’ Lakes. EOS Fitness will be built at the intersection.
By Kevin Weiss kweiss@lakerlutznews.com
Dade City leaders are inviting the public to an open house to discuss conceptual design plans for the Seventh Street streetscaping improvement project. The meeting is scheduled for Dec. 7 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the Dade City Hall Commission Chambers, 38030 Meridian Ave., in Dade City. The city hopes to make improvements to help create a downtown area that’s attractive, walkable and bikeable — essentially appealing to everyone who visits the area. And, the city wants to hear the community’s reaction to possible improvements. The city is considering the reconfiguration of street sections for traffic calming, and to accommodate sidewalks, bike lanes, landscaping and lighting. The city has hired Johnson Engineering to develop a streetscape improvement conceptual plan along Seventh Street, from Pond Avenue to Florida Avenue. Johnson Engineering has prepared first-draft renderings of the possible configurations of each typical section of the corridor. The sections are: • Florida Avenue to Church Avenue • Church Avenue to Meridian Avenue • Meridian Avenue to Martin Luther King Boulevard • Martin Luther King Boulevard to Pond Avenue The open house is intended to be an opportunity for members of the public to express what’s important to them. “There’ll be information for people to see, people can come in and ask questions, (and) make comments,” Dade City Manager Leslie Porter said, during a Nov. 9 regular city commission meeting. The feedback is important, she added, noting the engineering firm already is making some changes based on initial feedback received from residents and citizens.The city held a similar exercise for the Morningside Drive extension route study. For more information, visit tinyurl.com/j6ekbntz, or call 352-5235050, ext. 420.
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A Circle K gas station and convenience store is nearing completion at State Road 54, across from the entrance to the Ballantrae subdivision. Woodie’s Wash Shack is coming soon, too.
BMW of Wesley Chapel is building a six-story building on State Road 56.
Signs like these, east of Odessa, off State Road 54, are popping up on former pastureland up and down the State Road 54/State Road 56 corridor.
Florida passes law aimed Dade City’s city manager at vaccine mandates Gov. Ron DeSantis also signs a law that gives parents the right to make healthcare choices involving their children By B.C. Manion bcmanion@lakerlutznews.com
Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed four bills into law — adopted during a special session of the Florida Legislature — intended to prevent workers from losing their jobs due to COVID19 vaccination mandates and to protect parents’ rights to make healthcare decisions for their children. DeSantis signed the bills during a news conference on Nov. 18 at Brandon Honda. In making the announcement, which was posted on YouTube, DeSantis said,“We provide protections for people. No nurse, no firefighter, no police officer, no trucker — no anybody — should lose their job because of these COVID jabs. “We’re making sure that people have a right to earn a living, people have protections in their place of employment and that parents have protections to be able to direct the upbringing of their kids,” the governor said.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody told the crowd:“Today, we announced that Florida has filed a lawsuit against the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare, which has required all Florida healthcare professionals to be mandated — regardless of even if you are tending to patients. “We know, in our rural counties in Florida, we are seeing devastating losses of healthcare professionals, already. This will decimate our ability to provide needed, vital, crucial, healthcare to Floridians,” she said. Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, put it this way: “If you go back to April and May and June, of 2020, we were in a situation where our healthcare frontline providers were putting their lives on the line every day, prior to there being a vaccine. Prior to there being monoclonal antibodies. Prior to there being the antivirals that we have today. “So, now, that same nursing force, that took us from April of 2020 to November, of now, 2021, now, we’re saying,‘Thank you, but we don’t respect your private, individual rights any longer,’” Simpson said.“We are not going to do that in the state of Florida.We’re not going to do those unconstitutional mandates that are coming down from the federal See VACCINE, page 11A
receives 3.98 rating out of 5.0
Elected leaders cited areas of notable progress in Leslie Porter’s performance, but identify room for growth in other areas By Kevin Weiss kweiss@lakerlutznews.com
Dade City Manager Leslie Porter has made marked improvement in some areas and has room to grow in others — based on a recent performance review and evaluation from the Dade City Commission. Porter scored a combined 3.98 out of a possible 5.0 points on the evaluation, which was delivered at the commission’s Nov. 9 meeting. The evaluation covered a period from May 2020 through October 2021. Each Dade City commissioner completed a summary evaluation scoring sheet and added comments. Porter was graded on five broad categories: Management/administration: 3.5 Governance: 4.3 Relationship building: 3.9 See MANAGER, page 11A