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Mall adversaries drop suit

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published January 23, 2007

WESLEY CHAPEL - Opponents of one of the biggest mall projects in the Tampa Bay area abandoned their legal challenge Monday.

The move came four months after attorney Ralf Brookes, supported by the Sierra Club, sued to stop the Southwest Florida Water Management District from awarding a long-sought permit to the Richard E. Jacobs Group, developers of the Cypress Creek Town Center.

The reversal clears a major hurdle for the 1.3-million-square-foot mall.

Brookes' lawsuit was scheduled to be judged at the state Division of Administrative Hearings in March. That, and any subsequent appeals, would have set the project back for months, at a time when it is racing with rival mall projects in central Pasco to be the first to get off the ground.

Wednesday, representatives from the Jacobs Group, based in Cleveland, and their engineers WilsonMiller met with Brookes and his clients, Robert and Shirley Jones, who live beside the proposed mall.

By Friday, they had reached a compromise.

On Monday, a settlement was filed in Tallahassee, in which the Jacobs Group's attorneys said the developer would adopt a range of "best management practices" to improve the way it reduces potential water pollution at the site, in exchange for the lawsuit being dropped.

The measures include special filtration buffers in parking areas, using porous pavement and building a 2,000-space multistory parking garage.

Environmentalists had opposed the project, fearing it would taint Cypress Creek, a key source of Hillsborough's drinking water, and pave over 56 acres of wetlands.

Brookes said the Jacobs Group was not obliged to introduce some of these "best management practices," which are still in draft form. However, some of the concessions were already included in the Jacobs Group's original plans.

Brookes cast Monday's settlement as a qualified victory, since the Jacobs Group is holding firm on the wetlands issue.

"They're not willing to budge on the 56-acre footprint," Brookes said. "They said they've done as much as possible to save wetlands."

The settlement ends Brookes and the Joneses' involvement in Cypress Creek Town Center.

"We don't intend on challenging anything else," Brookes said.

"As far as we're concerned, it's fine, it's settled," Shirley Jones said.

The Sierra Club had decided not to continue supporting Brookes' lawsuit. The environmental group was responsible for part of Brookes' funding, its spokeswoman Denise Layne said.

The club decided to keep its focus on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps has the power to reduce a developer's wetlands footprint; Swiftmud regulates only water management issues, Layne said.

But with the Corps permit still months away from a decision, the club is not committing itself to a fight.

"I'm not saying we're getting into it," Layne said. "I don't know if we have to, and I don't know if we will."

Cypress Creek Town Center is back on the agenda for Swiftmud's governing board meeting Jan. 30. The agency's staff has already recommended approval of the project. Its permit now needs the board's final sign-off.

In September, the developer was one day away from getting the permit when Brookes' legal challenge scuttled the prospect.

Tom Schmitz, the Jacobs Group's vice president in charge of the project, was in a celebratory mood Monday.

"We've never stopped and we're just going to keep moving ahead," he said.

Chuin-Wei Yap covers growth and development. He can be reached at (813) 909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 22, 2007, 22:04:39]