Volume 26
WESLEY CHAPEL
Inside:
NEWS
900º Woodfired Pizza Is Hot! In Neighborhood Magazine!
Issue 12 June 1, 2018
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Storage Wars?
It Seems That Even With All Of The 2- & 3-Car Garages In New Tampa & Wesley Chapel, The Need For Storage Facilities Continues To Grow With The Community. How Many Is Too Many? You Tell Us! By JOHN C. COTEY
john@ntneighborhoodnews.com
Wesley Chapel is its own little boomtown. New restaurants are popping up on every corner. There is shopping everywhere you turn. Major sports facilities are breaking ground. Hundreds of new hotel rooms are almost ready to be booked. An avalanche of houses and apartments is under construction. Wesley Chapel is a sexy place for developers. But, the seemingly most popular business in the area these days might be the least sexy of them all: Selfstorage facilities. Within one roughly 10-mile radius, five storage facilties have landed on the local map the last two years. A three-story, 80,000-sq.-ft. CubeSmart (with 94,000 square feet of storage space in all) on S.R. 54 recently opened, with another three-story, 80,400-sq.-ft. CubeSmart facility under construction, on S.R. 56. Morningstar Storage, another three-story unit boasting 100,000 sq. ft. of storage, is currently being built in Wiregrass Ranch, behind the new Fairfield Inn. The Storage Center In Wesley Chapel — arguably the most straightforward name of any local business —
The appropriately-named Storage Center In Wesley Chapel, located behind the WaWa on S.R. 56, was putting the finishing touches on Wesley Chapel’s latest self-storage facility as we went to press with this issue. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
was putting the finishing touches at the end of May on a four-floor, 76,500-sq.-ft. facility off S.R. 56 and Trout Creek Dr. (behind WaWa). And, developers have already met with the county about yet another 110,000-sq.-ft. storage facility, to be located behind the Walgreens on S.R. 54 and Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. Why the explosion? It’s simple. “There’s tons of money to be made,’’ says Patrick Rairigh, managing partner of Rairigh Realty & Invest-
ments, LLC, “and they are a great business to own.” The facilities are inexpensive to build, have low overhead costs, require few employees — some can be run by less than a handful of workers — and have great profit margins, Rairigh says. When it comes to investments, self-storage has proven to be safe and reliable. It is a $38-billion industry, according to SpareFoot, a company that covers the storage industry. While the See “Storage on pg. 4
Release Of Pasco’s Wesley Chapel Roadways Connection Study Will Renew Debate
By JOHN C. COTEY john@ntneighborhoodnews.com
The long-awaited, 450-page traffic study requested by the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has been posted online at PascoCountyFl. net/1529/Wesley-Chapel-Roadway-Connection-Study. You also can comment at the link through Friday, June 15. The massive report is loaded with enough traffic and road information to boggle one’s mind, which is why, last Tuesday at Pasco-Hernando State College, an Open House was held to explain the study to interested residents.
Pasco County District 2 Commissioner Mike Moore and the Pasco MPO Staff were scheduled to provide a brief introduction, followed by a condensed version of the report that hits on the major points, and public comment The Open House took place after our deadline, but we were there and you can read our report at WCNeighborhoodNews.com. The year-long study looked at the pros and cons — and the costs — of three possible scenarios: (1) Connecting Kinnan St. in New Tampa with Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe and Meadow Pointe Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. (2) Connecting the completed portion of
News: Business: News: Sports: News,Former Business INSIDE Groundbreaking New (BBD) Sports Let Scrub-A-Dub Take Care Of Surprise! Bruce B.For Downs Wharton& High Football Also Inside INSIDE Complex Set ForWorst June Road 7 Education Your Bin-ness. Blvd. Is Our Area’s Players Updates Declare for NFL DraftPage3-17 10 This Issue:Pages
Pages 22-23 34-37 Pages 3-32
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K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. to Meadow Pointe Blvd. (3) Connecting Kinnan to Mansfield, connecting K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. to Meadow Pointe Blvd., and connecting Wyndfields Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. The study did not consider connecting only Kinnan and Mansfield. The study also dealt with myriad of other suggested road improvements such as repaving, widening and additional traffic signals — roughly $13.8 million worth — in the study area, which is bordered by Bruce B. Downs Blvd. to the west, Morris Bridge Rd. to the west, S.R. 56 to the north and County Line Rd. to the south. If any connections are made, that would increase the costs to $15.4 million.