Wiregrass Ranch and its potential for commercial development make a splash with the International Council of Shopping Centers.
By JAMES THORNER
Published May 23, 2003
WESLEY CHAPEL - Wesley Chapel's Wiregrass Ranch has become a high roller in Las Vegas, with plans for what could be a new town of 14,736 homes and 2.3-million-square feet of stores and business.
The 5,000-acre property in central Pasco County has a display of its own in Nevada's gambling mecca at this week's convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
Goodman & Co. LLC, the commercial developer that has contracted with the owners of the ranch to develop the commercial end of the project, is pushing Wiregrass' potential with talk of a massive development that would push up Wesley Chapel's population by 40,000.
Goodman's professionally executed maps - the contours of the Pasco County ranch are painted on sheet glass and backlit to impressive effect - are displayed before representatives of retail chains who fill the convention center by the thousands.
The company also lauds the Wesley Chapel area for its buying power, making special mention of the 14,736 homes that are supposed to be built at Wiregrass over the next two decades.
Don Porter, whose family owns Wiregrass, has cut deals with both Goodman and Pulte Homes. Pulte would handle the residential end; Goodman, the commercial. He said promotion of his property is in good hands with Goodman.
And the home projections are legitimate, Porter said, making his ranch one of the largest potential building sites in the Tampa Bay area.
"I've heard numbers from 8,000 homes to 30,000 homes," Porter said. "If you combine single-family and multifamily homes, 14,000 doesn't shock me."
But Tom Harvey, Florida area president of Pulte Homes, called the home figures bandied about by Goodman "guesstimates."
Harvey cautioned that Goodman's numbers are a means to muscle competitors out of the way in the all important wrestling match for shopping center tenants.
The Las Vegas maps highlight two large parcels on the ranch with massive shopping center potential: 75 acres in the northwest corner and 125 acres situated along a future extension of State Road 56.
Pulte's home count is still "nebulous," Harvey said, although development plans include turning Wiregrass into a complete "town" with job centers, schools, shopping and parks.
Pulte needs several more months before it seals a deal with the Porters.
"The commercial guys have a tendency to go out and beat their chests," Harvey said of the Las Vegas convention. "The residential guys take a different approach."
A master plan showing a proposed layout of the ranch should be submitted for government review before the end of the year, Porter said.
For Porter's family, the contracts with Pulte and Goodman come after years of on-again, off-again courtship with many developers.
Last year a deal fizzled with Core Communities, a BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. subsidiary based in Fort Lauderdale.
"We still believe in romance in a slam-bam world," Porter said.
- Times staff writer Mark Albright contributed to this report.
