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A wider SR 54 attracts big plans
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer LAND O'LAKES -- Taking advantage of the widening of State Road 54, a landowner is pitching a large residential and commercial development on 205 acres in Land O'Lakes. The "Penner's Acres" development calls for about 300 houses, a couple of hundred apartments and shopping centers on the mostly forested terrain north of SR 54 between Foggy Ridge Parkway and 20-Mile Level Road. "We don't have a developer yet, but it's a hot area," said King Helie, the planner hired by landowner Warren Penner, who lives in Chicago. SR 54 was decisive in Penner's plans to ask Pasco County to rezone the property, Helie said. Construction on the highway, newly widened from two to five lanes between Collier Parkway and Cypress Creek, is scheduled to wrap up in June. Maps for the project show the apartments on 35 acres along the east side of 20-Mile Level Road. The houses are tucked farther back off SR 54 on 129 acres. Some of those homes would abut Twin Lakes subdivision and state preservation land that swaddles Cypress Creek. Another 40 acres, fronting the highway, are reserved for stores and offices, although the presence of wetlands rules out developing some of the road frontage. County commissioners are scheduled to vote on Penner's rezoning case in July. The expansion of SR 54, combined with the March opening of State Road 56, has turned up the development pressure on Land O'Lakes. One mile west of the Penner property, an 80-acre horse farm is due to become a shopping center anchored by a Publix supermarket and Walgreens drugstore. -- James Thorner covers growth and development in Pasco County. He can be reached at (813) 909-4613 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4613. His e-mail address is thorner@sptimes.com.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters |
