One Pasco Center vision changes

Developers of the complex off State Road 52 and Interstate 75 say the market has changed, and they want to scale back their plans. A hearing is set today at the Dade City courthouse.

By CHASE SQUIRES

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 21, 2000

DADE CITY -- Developers have trimmed their grand vision of One Pasco Center, once billed as an industrial-office-hotel complex just east of the State Road 52 and Interstate 75 interchange.

According to a report prepared for Pasco County Commissioners, time has changed the market.

The project has not gone according to plan. One of the landholders wants out. And widening SR 52, something developers would have to start before embarking on the project's second phase, wouldn't be worth it.

According to a county growth management report, market conditions have shifted from developers' 1986 vision of a mixed-use center with research and development space, commercial use, a 220-room hotel and light industrial use.

"It is apparent that the project will not develop as anticipated," the county memo states.

Commissioners are set to review the developers' bid to abandon the 1986 development of regional impact agreement today. If commissioners approve the resolution, the issue moves to the state Department of Community Affairs and the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council for final approval, according to county Growth Management Administrator Sam Steffey.

When the DRI was approved in 1986, the plan called for a 201-acre compound with 850,000 square feet of research and office space, 1.24-million square feet of light industrial, 50,000 square feet of commercial and a 220-room hotel.

The business park has lured mostly light industrial tenants, and developers have already sought county permission this year to develop another 49 acres of light industrial space.

In their application to get out of the existing DRI, developers said One Pasco Center was envisioned primarily as an office park, not an industrial park. That vision has changed dramatically.

"It has been evident that the tenants attracted to the site are almost entirely of the light industrial category," developers reported.

The plan would no longer call for any of the 850,000 square feet of office space, and the proposal for a hotel has dropped from a 220-unit building to a 100-unit offering.

As next year's deadline for completing the proposed project nears, developers say the completion date is unrealistic, even with extensions.

One landholder, the Order of Saint Benedict, wants to opt out, the county reports. The other, the URADCO development arm of Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative, is still looking to add industrial space, but at a pace that wouldn't require the special approval of a DRI.

And the special DRI permit's requirements -- including widening State Road 52 and producing annual governmental reports -- outweigh the benefits of greater growth potential afforded by a DRI, developers told the county.

"The progress of One Pasco Center has been much slower than anticipated," developers reported. "Even if marketing accelerates, it is unlikely that the project would be completed by a time allowed by the standard DRI time extension."

The Order of Saint Benedict wants to market its own part of the project by itself, the county report states.

Officials at URADCO and at the One Pasco Center leasing office at General Home Development were not available for comment Monday.

Commissioners have scheduled a public hearing on the changes for 9:30 a.m. at the historic old courthouse in downtown Dade City.

"Over the long haul, they've come to realize that the demand is just not there," Steffey said of the developers. "I think market conditions changed."

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