Savvy home buyers nail deals in Pasco

By JAMES THORNER

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2000

Lexington Oaks, Oakstead and Grand Oaks. Meadow Pointe and Meadow Woods. Indian Lake Ranch, Aberdeen Lakes and Bay Lake.

Just some of the newest neighborhoods that make Pasco County deserving of the nickname Homes "R" Us.

The county's southern tier, from Holiday to Zephyrhills, continues to flourish as builders fill a seemingly inexhaustible demand among home buyers for a place in Pasco to call their own.

And the housing growth still largely reflects Pasco's demographic split. Retirees dominate the housing market on the coast and in Zephyrhills. Young families, many commuters to Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, rule the roost in Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel.

"We're still going to be an outreach of Tampa. We're going to get a lot of first-time home buyers," said Gary Blackwell, a developer and member of the Pasco Planning Commission.

"People can still get more for their buck than they can down south in Pinellas and Hillsborough."

Many of those bucks are stopping in Wesley Chapel.

Fueled by home construction on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and State Road 54, Wesley Chapel has been Pasco's fastest-growing address since 1990.

This year will be no exception. On SR 54, at least three new subdivisions are turning the earth east of Interstate 75.

Swiss-born developer Beat Kahli is building a 3,000-home community called New River on the north side of SR 54 between Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills.

Across the highway, Tampa developer Richard Haber envisions a 928-home golf course community called Meadow Woods. Nearby, Schickedanz Builders, a Canadian company, has bought 1,168 acres east of the Saddlebrook Resort.

The developers of Saddlebrook Village West, on the other side of I-75 on the north side of SR 54, have already cleared lots in preparation for construction of 485 new homes.

Land O'Lakes, conveniently plugged into Tampa with the newly widened U.S. 41 and Dale Mabry Highway, remains the Pasco location with the highest median income at $40,000.

What the community has lacked -- 18-hole golf courses -- will be rectified in duplicate this year.

The Groves, a 750-home golf course community, broke ground in late 1999 east of U.S. 41. So did Hillside Golf & Country Club, a proposed 950 homes on Collier Parkway. Both developments hope to open their links by the end of the year.

Still ripe for development are thousands of lightly populated acres stretching west of U.S. 41 to the Suncoast Parkway.

But the first large attempt to develop some of that land, a 1,200-home community called Oakstead, has fallen afoul of a group of activists who worry the subdivision is the first tremor in an earthquake of development.

In May, a judge is scheduled to consider a lawsuit filed by the group Citizens for Sanity, which seeks to overturn Oakstead's rezoning.

Sandy Stepanek, an agent with Russell Adams Realty in Land O'Lakes, said Oakstead's fate could determine the speed of development west of Land O'Lakes.

"Once the first rooftops go in, everything else will open up," Stepanek said. "It's like a pumpkin seed ready to grow into a giant pumpkin."

Still farther west, the Suncoast Parkway, the three-county toll road scheduled to open in January, is making its influence felt.

The Starkey family's neo-traditional Longleaf project, 1,000 homes east of Little Road north of SR 54, will break ground this year. The Starkeys conceived of Longleaf with the convenience of the parkway in mind.

The parkway was also paramount with Henry Blanton, developer of Indian Lake Ranch, a 1,100-home subdivision proposed for west of Moon Lake Road.

Unusual for Pasco, Indian Lake Ranch is expected to market homes on Little Moon Lake costing as much as $1-million. Parkway access will be about five minutes away.

Blackwell, the planning commission member, thinks Indian Lake Ranch is the start of a trend toward upscale homes in a county most familiar with the needs of retirees and young families.

"When the first-time home buyers want to notch up to a bigger second or third home, we'll get better homes being built in Pasco," he said.

Despite the pursuit of younger home buyers elsewhere in the county, the coastal communities continue to pursue the gray-haired set. At least three new large subdivisions are expected to fuel population growth in upcoming years.

U.S. Homes is building two 1,500-home retiree communities in west Pasco: Heritage Springs in Trinity and Heritage Pines in Hudson.

Key Vista, a project of Ryland Communities, will offer more than 600 homes near Baillies Bluff Road in Holiday.

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