Nowhere becomes somewhere for county

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By JAN GLIDEWELL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 5, 2001

Little old Wesley Chapel is doing right well for itself.

And apparently some folks in Pasco County government want to see it do even better.

When I came here 28 years ago, it was, literally, the "Nowhere" to which the "Road to Nowhere" led.

The extension of State Road 581 north from Tampa into an area where cows grazed unbothered by much more than the occasional low-flying airplane dropping off a marijuana load, earned that name as a synonym for boondoggle.

Its primary use during that time was as a route to a handy dumping ground for the bodies of the victims of serial killers, mob hits and drug-related murders.

I spent years covering those murders and getting chewed out by editors for misspelling the name of the area as "Wesly Chapel," which was the way it was spelled on the only road sign identifying that part of unincorporated Pasco County.

Now there are so many condominium and apartment projects and upscale housing developments along that stretch of 581 that nobody has been able to dump a body there in years, the traffic congestion alone would be a deterrent.

The difference, in large part, is Saddlebrook, the sprawling upper-to-astronomical scale resort and development that has gained, among other things, a worldwide reputation as a training ground for young tennis stars.

Actually, when the Saddlebrook proposal first slipped quietly into county government offices back in the early 1970s, we were all thinking more along the lines of swimming pools than we were tennis courts. Initial plans called for a massive (700-foot-long if I recall correctly) swimming pool/artificial lagoon complete with floating cocktail lounges.

As with many of the grandiose plans of that area, the Watergate-fueled recession and fuel shortage led to some serious downsizing. The pool is still big, but not quite that big, and there are no floating lounges.

But Saddlebrook took off, bringing a level of style and luxury to the county heretofore unheard of, and it wasn't long before government sat up and decided the least they could do is change the road signs.

Turns out it wasn't the most they could do.

Now there is talk of using county tourism tax money, stockpiled since 1991 from a tax on motel rooms, to finance a multimillion-dollar tennis stadium somewhere "within 10 minutes" of Saddlebrook for use as professional venue and as bait in Central Florida's bid for the 2012 Olympics.

And, suddenly, Pasco-Hernando Community College Pooh Bahs, right about the time that the University of South Florida began sniffing around the area, are interested in opening up a Wesley Chapel campus.

Boy, the rich sure do get richer.

All of this at the same time that the county, which hasn't done much more than phoney up some bogus brochures (using pictures of East Coast beaches) to promote tourism elsewhere, is also wondering if it really wants to spend $8-million to overhaul a poverty-ridden area near Dade City where there has never been a paved road.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm mixing my fiscal governmental apples and oranges.

The federal grants being mulled in the paving deal are different than the tourist tax money being pondered for the tennis complex, and the college board of trustees is a separate entity from the County Commission. But for some poor folks up in northeast Pasco, it looks like a lot of money and even more hope is going south in a hurry.

Wesley Chapel seems to have its piece of the tourist pie, and, although there is no doubt that the resort has collected a big chunk of the tourist tax revenues, a lot of folks staying in less posh digs along U.S. 19 every day are kicking in their share, and nobody seems to care much whether they have a decent beach to swim at or something to see other than strip malls and traffic jams.

Besides, if recent history is any proof of the value of events and competition that are drawn to the area by multimillion-dollar venue construction, maybe we ought to think twice.

The tennis version of Lightning hockey and Devil Rays baseball would be played on sand courts without rackets by players wearing hip-waders.

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