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New Main Street for shopping, living coming this year

After two years, construction is ready to start on Main Street at Hampton Lakes. The project will have stores, housing and medical offices.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published January 23, 2005

OLDSMAR - Dormant more than two years after developers won approval to build there, the 40 acres at the northwest corner of Race Track Road and Nine Eagles Drive soon will bustle with construction.

Workers are clearing the site for what will become Main Street at Hampton Lakes, a combination of shopping, apartments and medical offices. Buildings should start rising the first week of February.

"Our shopping center will open in the fall of '05," said Ted Greenslait, principal of Amprop Development Corp. He predicted the home builder, Beazer Homes, will have houses up by late summer.

Amprop is building the project's 14-acre commercial section, anchored by Sweetbay Supermarket, an upscale new sister company to Kash n' Karry. Beazer is responsible for the residential part, about 180 townhomes, which will lie between the shops and public schools to the north.

Mease Hospitals recently bought the third section of the development. It plans to put up a large building with physicians offices and some hospital services, though those are not yet settled, spokesman Matt Novak said.

The hospital company expects to open for business in the first quarter of 2006.

Bryant Elementary and Farnell Middle schools will share a new four-lane entrance road from Nine Eagles with Main Street at Hampton Lakes, school district property manager Jill Lemons said.

"The really unique thing about the whole (project) is, someone will be able to live in one of the townhomes and literally walk to just about everything," Greenslait said.

Each group involved offered nearly identical reasons for wanting to build in this part of the county. "The demographics are desirable," said Nicole LeBeau, Sweetbay spokeswoman.

In fact, Greenslait said, a little research showed that people living in the Westchase-area ZIP code just east of Oldsmar have the highest level of disposable income in the greater Tampa Bay region.

And, from Mease Hospitals' perspective, it's also underserved. "That area of northwest Hillsborough is very close to our Countryside campus," Novak said. "At the same time, people drive farther to get their health care. We feel there's an opportunity and there's really not a lot of health care offerings out there."

Though the developers like the wealth in the greater area, they envision stores that are more neighborhood convenience than Nieman Marcus.

"We're not going to have upscale jewelry stores or anything that you might see in (Miami's) Aventura," Greenslait said.

Rather, the selection will include restaurants, banks, salons, a video store and the like. The Sweetbay market will dominate the space, with more than 50,000 square feet. There are only eight other Sweetbays in existence, including one in Seminole. Eventually the company intends to transform all Kash n' Karry stores to the model.

LeBeau said the market differentiates itself by its wide and varied selection of produce and meats, and such offerings as an olive bar.

Greenslait said the developers waited so long to begin construction partly to resolve some wetland replacement issues, and partly in hopes the county might have completed its planned widening of Race Track Road first. Now, the road work is not scheduled to begin until the time when the center aims to open.

"We just delayed as long as we could," Greenslait said.

Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 813 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 23, 2005, 00:14:21]