Pasco Commissioners Field Preliminary Park Ideas

Pasco County commissioners on Tuesday heard preliminary proposals from two developers about what can be built at county parks, both aimed at creating recreation sites that draw tourists.

The proposals were made while commissioners discussed what they wanted from developers who might seek to build a major sports complex as part of a regional county park.

Commissioners last year thought they had a deal set with land at the Starkey Ranch in Odessa for a multipurpose regional park, but the deal fell through.

The county has four potential sites for a major park, including the Starkey Ranch. The others are at Wiregrass Central Park, an unused site in Trinity and near the former SunWest mining land in Aripeka, close to where a resort called SunWest HarbourTowne is now planned. The lake, however, is not part of the HarbourTowne project.

County staff members were looking for guidelines about what commissioners expected from private developers seeking to build or operate a park on county land.

Commissioners agreed they expected a private developer to put up at least 10 percent of the potential cost and commit to a deal lasting at least five years.

Both developers, who sketched broad-brush presentations to the county Tuesday, seemed willing to meet those requirements. And both included a water park featuring cable-towed water skiing either as the main attraction or a feature in a larger plan.

The Wake Park Project, a company that builds wakeboard parks that use electrically operated cables to tow skiers around a lake, proposed building a facility at a lake on the SunWest land.

The park would include facilities for competition-level wakeboarding and recreational activities and be a tourist draw similar to parks in the Orlando area and being built in other states.

The plan would include space for restaurants along the lake shore, said Commissioner Jack Mariano, who championed the idea.

Another proposal presented by Michael Cox, representing a group of developers that included the Starkey family, was to use part of the Starkey Ranch for a public park adjacent to a private area that would include its own cable water ski lake along with other amenities.

Developers would be willing to maintain ball and soccer fields on the county’s portion that would draw traffic to the private segment.

Included in the private development would be areas for cycling, tennis, two indoor soccer fields and a 30,000-square-foot indoor sports complex.

Mariano worried the cable water ski portion would conflict with the Sun West project.

But Commissioner Ann Hildebrand saw the two as complementary.

The two proposals were highly preliminary and had myriad details to work through.

The commission discussion showed sports and parks can be big business, especially complexes that host tournaments.

Pasco competes with Hillsborough and Pinellas for events, such as youth sports tournaments, that draw people from across the state and country.

In Hillsborough,90 tournaments filled 106,000 hotel room nights a year. In Pinellas, 75 events filled 97,000 room nights at hotels.

By comparison, there were 29 events in Pasco that filled 7,150 room nights.

As discussions continue, commissioners will have to decide whether regional parks are built to draw tourists and their dollars or mainly for county residents.

Commissioner Ted Schrader said if a park is built using impact fees or bond money, the focus should be on residents first with tournament use coming second.

But a regional park built in partnership with a private developer would be different. It also could free space for residents in other county parks now being used for tournaments.

“Then you’re trying to build a business relationship,” Schrader said.