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Huge office park on horizon

Connerton will break ground on the complex next month. Its first tenant: UCH.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP Times Staff Writer
Published October 12, 2007

Connerton doesn't do small.

Next month, the 5,000-acre new town breaks ground on the 175-acre Connerton Commerce Park, just off U.S. 41, said Connerton president Stewart Gibbons.

Its first tenant will be University Community Hospital, which plans a 50-bed long-term care facility at the park.

That's part of 150,000 square feet of medical space that the commerce park will host, Gibbons said. With that kind of square footage, the medical offices alone would cover an area that's just slightly smaller than a Lowe's Home Improvement store.

The park will also be home to a 50,000-square-foot county building and 50,000 square feet of industrial uses, Gibbons said.

"We are talking to several clients about locating there," he said Monday.

No retail stores are planned at the commerce park in the near term, but some may be proposed for future phases.

UCH plans to open the long-term care facility at Connerton in January 2009, spokeswoman Phoebe Ochman said Monday.

That facility would be the less controversial of two UCH proposals for central Pasco.

The other is a joint proposal with Florida Hospital for an acute care, 100-bed hospital destined for Wesley Chapel.

The Wesley Chapel proposal won state approval, but UCH ran into a storm of neighborhood opposition over its proposed location at Tupper Road, off State Road 54, a notorious area for traffic. County officials denied UCH's land use application in July, and rival hospitals filed suit challenging the state's decision to award UCH the license to build in central Pasco.

UCH is poised to decide by early next week whether it will push on with a Tupper Road location or go with an alternative site proposed at Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and State Road 56, said spokeswoman Samantha O'Lenick.

But, in any event, it faces what could be more than a year of fighting the legal case.

By the time that's wrapped up, the 48,000-square-foot Connerton facility should be up and running.

Connerton plans to start construction of its park in January.

"We're taking bids this week, and expect the first phase to be developed by mid next year," Gibbons said.

Chuin-Wei Yap can be reached at 813 909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 11, 2007, 07:44:48]