Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By JAMES THORNER
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 10, 2000
Who hasn't occasionally cringed at such a sight?
Developers slap up a new shopping center while just a mile or two away a 1970s-era strip mall molders, drops its window panes and sprouts crabgrass.
Why not prettify that old crone of a shopping center and spare the beautiful, unspoiled pasture the ravages of a bulldozer?
Land O'Lakes presents a case study in the "brown fields versus green fields" debate with the departure last month of the U-Save supermarket at U.S. 41 and State Road 54.
U-Save, which closed after 20 years at the intersection, should have been called Not-A-Chance-To-Save.
Sometimes fewer than five customers at a time rattled their carts through the empty though recently renovated store.
One weekend before Christmas last year, a solitary cashier lethargically checked out groceries. Bad sign.
Theoretically, U-Save plaza could degenerate into one of those forlorn shopping strips you see on U.S. 19 in New Port Richey: broken-glass-strewn parking lots, boarded shop fronts, teens in cars screeching circles on the empty asphalt.
But it probably won't.
In a growing community -- Land O'Lakes' population could double in the next decade -- good shopping locations are likely to thrive. On the other hand, a poor location will shed its Scarlet F, for failure, only with difficulty.
By most accounts, U-Save plaza is a dull jewel awaiting a lick of polish. Who is going to ignore empty retail space at one of central Pasco's busiest crossroads?
Already the Sembler Co., one of the Tampa Bay area's most active commercial developers, has nosed around the property. Rumors have the company chasing "big-box" stores along the lines of Wal-Mart.
Renewal has certainly saved worse locations.
Zephyrhills residents held their noses for years at Zephyr Plaza, a retail strip in the heart of town on U.S. 301. The plaza withered after Kmart, its anchor store, fled to a former orange grove north of town.
But last year Zephyrhills helped lure Accent Marketing to the shopping center. The company, which handles its clients' customer-service calls from rows of phone banks, hired more than 200 people.
The rehabilitation of U-Save plaza has found some unlikely allies in a group of central Pasco slow-growth activists.
Admittedly, their reasons are self-serving: They want to spare their rural neighborhood farther north on U.S. 41 an invasion by shopping center developers.
Trammell Crow Co. wants to erect a new supermarket, maybe a Publix, at U.S. 41, School Road and Bell Lake Road.
Neighbors are understandably irate. The loading bays of the giant supermarket would nearly kiss the shore of West Lake Ellis. Developers promise a screen of trees, but that's small comfort to the people whose homes ring the lake.
County officials have been bending over backward to please neighbors, sponsoring several meetings between residents and developers. If they bent over any further, they might need spine-removal surgery.
But they've stopped short of rejecting Trammell Crow's project. After a couple of months of delays, the company's rezoning request is up for a vote next month.
Neighbors point to U-Save's demise as proof that building a new supermarket on U.S. 41 is overkill. But the truth is, residents see the semirural present. Developers are peering into the semiurban future.
Thousands of homes are proposed near U.S. 41 in developments such as the Groves, Bay Lakes and Connerton. Trammell Crow's project is positioned to capture much of their business.
Pasco graciously paved the way for the development. Just look at future land use maps for U.S. 41. Most of the highway was preordained for "retail, office, residential" when maps were drawn more than 10 years ago.
In light of the anticipated suburban invasion of central Pasco, it appears both brown fields and green fields can expect a gray-concrete make-over.
- James Thorner covers growth and development in central Pasco County. He can be reached at (813) 226-3458 or thorner@sptimes.com.