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We have no mall, but we may get something
© St. Petersburg Times Maybe there being malls and rumors of malls is not one of the signs of the apocalypse being at hand, but you couldn't prove it by central and east Pasco history. Cries of "The mall is coming! The mall is coming!" are as perennial as discussions of incorporating Spring Hill and controversies over manatee habitat in Citrus County. Folks in west Pasco have Gulf View Square. Folks in Citrus have the much tinier Crystal River Mall and those in east Pasco can go to Lakeland for their mall needs, but if you live in central Pasco and you're looking to visit what some are trying to convince us are today's answer to the town squares of yesteryear, you wind up in Hillsborough County. While we watch retail and ad valorem tax dollars continue to slide south to Hillsborough County (more about stuff sliding later), one developer after another makes noises about a new mall and then pulls out. In 1998 we were so sure that the developers of Sawgrass Mall in Sunrise were going to build a mall in Pasco that the Times actually flew me down there to look at that immense 2.3-million square-foot, alligator-shaped monstrosity to give our readers a look at what we could expect. Working as hard as I usually do to keep expenses under control, it was still a fairly pricey look-see. But that project, as have others, disappeared into that strange never-never land occupied by other Pasco pipe dreams including professional sports training facilities, amusement parks, passable roads and restaurants without pictures of food on the menu. (Yeah, yeah, I know, there are some, but not nearly enough. Millionaire developer Edward DeBartolo Jr. quietly dropped plans recently for Cypress Creek Center, a proposed million-square-foot mall at the intersection of State Road 56 (Pasco's latest Road to Nowhere) and Interstate 75. Owners of the property say they are still planning to put a mall there, but state regulators have criticized the idea of placing a mall there, saying it would spoil its namesake, Cypress Creek, which runs into the Hillsborough River, which supplies most of Tampa's drinking water. (More about that later, too.) Meanwhile the 3-mile-long state road, with what sure look to me like curb cuts to accommodate what is currently the unmall, is, to be fair, carrying a lot of traffic from people desperate to avoid clogged State Road 54. There is some irony that environmental concerns are cited in opposition to the mall, while, at the same time, Pasco County has also proposed a scenario under which development of the mall could help finance acquisition of 491 acres at the edge of the Trinity development as part of a 30,000-acre wildlife corridor in Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. So, don't start running toward the area clutching your Gap ads yet, but also don't expect it to remain barren. It is a little-known aspect of Florida natural history that when Bob's Barricades are used in any major road construction project near an interstate, they lay eggs which later become strip malls, fast-food stores and 10-minute oil change franchises. What I don't want is for central and east Pasco residents to get discouraged. It is true that among Hillsborough's water sources is Tampa Bay Water, which takes millions of gallons of water a day from Pasco County and then redistributes it to our neighbors to the south. And it is true that we continue to hemorrhage retail and entertainment dollars cross the county line, but it's not like we don't get to keep some things. Busch Gardens has applied for a permit to start composting animal waste at its Animal Outpost, where some 60 exotic animals are kept just west of Dade City. Currently the company trucks waste from the outpost to its compost facility in Tampa, but if the Pasco County Planning Commission gives the go-ahead Feb. 12 and if state officials approve, the manure could stay here in Pasco and be used for landscaping at the Pasco site. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
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