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By JAMES THORNER
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 6, 2001
With visions of professional sports dollars dancing in their heads, Pasco County commissioners passed a resolution Tuesday in favor of luring the headquarters of the Women's Tennis Association to Wesley Chapel.
"This is about as valuable as the Hope Diamond in bringing business and industry to Pasco County," commission Chairman Steve Simon said in support of the WTA, the governing body of the women's professional tennis tour.
The resolution at Tuesday's commission meeting in Port Richey came at the request of Tom Dempsey, the owner of Wesley Chapel's Saddlebrook Resort, among four finalists in the quest for the WTA headquarters.
County Administrator John Gallagher said Dempsey wants to include the resolution in a bid package due the WTA this week.
Although commissioners took pains to call the resolution "non-binding," Gallagher said the document would include a statement of interest from commissioners about publicly financing a multimillion-dollar tennis stadium near Saddlebrook.
Saddlebrook has agreed to pay out of its own pocket for a 13,000-square-foot headquarters for the WTA, now based in Connecticut. Also competing for the WTA headquarters is St. Petersburg, Atlanta and Charleston, S.C.
As a further inducement, Dempsey wants the county to build a stadium with more than $5-million collected from a 2 percent tax on hotel rooms since 1991.
Assuming the county builds the Pasco National Tennis Center, the WTA has guaranteed the county a large international women's tournament, with all the television exposure and tourist draw that entails, Dempsey said last week.
Simon called the resolution a "predisposition to support" Dempsey's efforts without any financial commitment on Pasco's part.
"All this is telling the WTA's board of directors that Pasco County likes you," Simon said.
Laying the groundwork for a possible vote later this year on financing a stadium, Simon mentioned that the project would consume no property tax dollars.
By law, the hotel tax money must be used to boost tourism to the benefit of those same businesses whose customers pay the tax. Saddlebrook, which draws the most overnight guests in Pasco, pays an estimated 50 percent to 60 percent of the tax.
"This is heads-and-beds money and that's what it's supposed to be used for," Simon said.
Although a majority of the board has expressed enthusiasm for building the stadium, commissioners are awaiting a $42,000 consultant's study that could outline other ways to spend the money, including a multipurpose arena.