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From hot spot to maybe not

More houses and a Wal-Mart Supercenter are coming. Just not yet.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published October 30, 2006

DADE CITY - As new housing developments swept over central Pasco County the past few years, city officials here waited for interest to stretch north.

The interest did - but not the bricks and mortar.

As Florida's real estate boom winds down to its apparent end, Dade City has realized only a tiny fraction of the development seen in areas like Wesley Chapel and Land O'Lakes.

At one time, city officials talked of plans to control the growth they saw ahead. Turns out they don't quite need them.

Of 4,469 building permits issued in Pasco so far in 2006 for single-family homes, only 31 are in Dade City.

Even the ever-expanding Wal-Mart noticed.

This month, company officials announced that they would delay building the city's first Wal-Mart Supercenter. They want to see more "maturation" in the local market before building the new store.

In Dade City, it seems, the development wave has receded before it ever began.

When officials for Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, scope out sites for new stores, they look at several factors, including success of existing stores, competition and population growth.

That last factor is based not on projected housing starts but on actual new construction.

"We're only going to build stores once the homes already exist," said Eric Brewer, Wal-Mart's senior manager for public affairs. "Certainly in a place like Florida, you don't want to be getting in a position where retail construction gets ahead of residential construction."

Last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Dade City, with a population of about 7,000, issued 43 single-family home building permits. The year before, the figure was 56.

Zephyrhills, a city of about 12,000, issued 231 building permits in 2005 and 49 in 2004. In unincorporated Pasco, which includes construction-heavy Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel, 7,716 permits were issued in 2005 and 6,650 in 2004.

Wal-Mart is still committed to building a supercenter at U.S. 301 and Clinton Avenue, Brewer said. But instead of breaking ground in January, construction won't begin until 2008.

Without more people in Dade City, Wal-Mart doesn't want to build a supercenter there because it might compete with other stores, including a 205,000-square-foot supercenter 6 miles south in Zephyrhills.

"We didn't want to have an adverse impact on our existing store sales," Brewer said.

Dade City officials had reason for their high hopes.

Earlier this year, they approved 2,000 new homes and received applications for 2,500 more.

They crafted rules governing lot sizes bigger is better and neighborhood density (less is more).

Ten months later, developers still have approval to build the same number of homes but are apparently electing to do so on a more conservative time line.

"Instead of having 2,500 in two years, because of the slowdown in the real estate market, it will probably be over a period of five years," said Karla Owens, the city attorney and planner.

That, she said, is not necessarily a negative. For one thing, it allows time to put transportation improvements in place and to get expansions to the wastewater treatment plant online.

"I think it will be preferable to people to have a more gradual (growth rate), instead of an influx," she said.

She's confident the neighborhoods will be built - eventually.

Why? Because the property has changed hands.

"I just find it hard to believe that large tracts are going to stay vacant forever," she said. "Somebody bought them from the ranch owner. If the ranchers still owned it, I might have a different opinion."

Records show a subsidiary of Metro Development Corp. purchased property off Clinton Avenue and Old Lakeland Highway in 2005. Metro officials could not be reached, but plans at City Hall detail more than 1,000 single- and multifamily homes on nearly 250 acres.

City Manager Harold Sample said Metro officials were in Dade City last week seeking approval of construction plans for the first of six phases.

KB Homes of Tampa bought land and plans to build a neighborhood off Adair Road west of downtown. Sample said infrastructure is being laid down now.

Cara Lane, a KB Homes spokeswoman, said home sales are good despite indications of a slowdown.

"We have seen a more normalizing of the market, but we are actually continuing to see great sales and good traffic especially in the greater Tampa Bay area," Lane said.

Another parcel that made it to closing: the Wal-Mart property. Records show that the retailer paid nearly $5-million in May for the 30-acre site of the future supercenter.

Dade City's current Wal-Mart isn't a supercenter but has always enjoyed brisk sales and remains open, Brewer said.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart expects to open more than 300 new stores annually nationwide. While more than that are in some phase of the approval process, Brewer said, no other new stores in Florida are on hold for the reason that Dade City's was delayed.

Company officials will watch new home construction over the next 12 months, Brewer said.

"Let's see if they actually get built in a year."

Molly Moorhead can be reached at (352) 521-6521 or moorhead@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 30, 2006, 00:06:08]