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By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff WriterSwiftmud's questions, many on wetlands, fill 19 pages for Cypress Creek Town Center's developer.
LAND O'LAKES - To start construction next summer on a huge shopping mall in Pasco County, the Richard E. Jacobs Group must convince regulators that more than 100 stores, 4,000 jobs and $10-million in taxes are worth filling in 56 acres of wetlands.
The first indication of how large of a task that will be popped from the mall developer's fax machine last month.
Responding to the Jacobs Group's application for a permit to build Cypress Creek Town Center, the Southwest Florida Water Management District produced 132 questions and comments covering 19 pages.
Most delve technically into wetlands, flooding, drainage and water quality. Wetlands near the mall feed two tributaries of the Hillsborough River: Cypress and Trout creeks.
Cypress Creek merits special protection as an Outstanding Florida Water. State law mandates that water pollution be no higher after construction than before.
"It's the responsibility of the applicant to give us reasonable assurances," said Michael Molligan, spokesman for the water district known as Swiftmud. "The larger the project, the more back and forth you'll have."
Neither Molligan nor mall developers considered the list a backbreaker, but Jacobs' engineering team is working hard to get answers by the Nov. 12 deadline.
Jacobs suggested buying and preserving 300 acres near Zephyrhills in compensation for the wetlands destruction.
"We're not afraid of a full review," said Tom Schmitz, the Jacobs vice president leading the design and construction team. "We won't take any shortcuts."
Cypress Creek Town Center is scheduled to open in October 2007 as a Main Street-style open-air mall with sidewalks, awninged storefronts, fountains and traffic circles.
At 1.3-million square feet, the $200-million mall would be among the region's largest shopping centers, with more than 100 tenants anchored by two major department stores and a multiscreen theater.
Environmental activists, including the Sierra Club and the Florida Public Interest Research Group, are lobbying government agencies overseeing the mall permits.
Jacobs also needs a green light from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Schmitz said that application is progressing at about the same speed as Swiftmud's.
Among the environmentalists' top concerns is Cypress Creek, which forms the southern boundary of the 500-acre site southwest of Interstate 75 and State Road 56. By merging with the Hillsborough River, the creek supplies much of Tampa's drinking water.
Schmitz insisted the mall site, poised at the first highway interchange north of Tampa, remains prime commercial. Aside from the mall, the project calls for an additional 600,000 square feet of stores, hotels, offices and apartments.
Jacobs has built permitting delays into its schedule, Schmitz said. To make its summer 2006 groundbreaking, developers need Swiftmud and Army Corps approval by late spring.
"We feel like the questions asked are very standard, very ordinary and very typical for this type of process," Schmitz said.
As for tenants, Jacobs has announced that AMC Theatres would build an 18-screen cinema. Further major tenant announcements are "very close," Schmitz said.
Two contenders are department store Macy's and bookseller Barnes & Noble.