3 ice rinks showcase $83 million project

The Plex is a proposed $83 million sports and entertainment center to be built in Wesley Chapel, FL adjacent to The Grove Shopping Center. The centerpiece of the 470,000-square-foot project would be three ice rinks. Courtesy of DLW Architects.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. – The Tampa Bay area lists three permanent ice arenas for hockey and figure skating: In Brandon, Clearwater and Oldsmar.

Soon there could be three rinks alone – and so much more – in Wesley Chapel.

The Plex, a 470,000-square-foot sports and entertainment center, could make the central Pasco community a sports mecca with a triple-rink configuration as the centerpiece. The $83 million project could be under way by this winter.

“We would like to start digging by the first of the year,” said 65-year-old developer Val Bain, a St. Petersburg entrepreneur in the food and beverage industry.

To put this project in perspective, it will be about half the size of The Grove, an 800,000-square-foot retail outlet with movie theaters that opened in 2007; and dwarf 88,320-square-foot Watergrass Elementary that opens this month.

The Plex a tri-level facility on 42 acres adjacent to The Grove, would include 36 bowling lanes, a 50,000-square-foot indoor water park, indoor miniature golf, a 45-foot rock-climbing wall, a skydiving wind tunnel and a 12,000-square-foot laser tag area.

Additionally, 80,000 square feet would be leased to sports clinic and sports medicine ventures. Rooms would be set aside for corporate meetings and children’s birthday parties. Also planned is a 10,000-square-foot sports grille as well as other areas for food vendors.

“There will be something there for somebody all the time,” said Bain, noting that more than 250 jobs would be created.

Asked why Bain and three undisclosed primary investors planned to tackle such a substantial endeavor at this time, he responded, “Why not? This is the best of times to build something.

“It’s a growing industry,” Bain said of the sports and entertainment field. “It’s part of families growing up with their kids.”

This is not the first time Bain proposed a major project in Wesley Chapel. In 2008, he and partner Patrick DeLorenzo, of Tampa, planned a $40 million sportsplex. That would have been a 280,000-square-foot facility on a 22-acre site.

“It got bigger because the enthusiasm grew with it,” Bain said.

Bain said The Plex will be privately financed with the next step being to work with county officials on impact fees as well as meeting land use and building requirements.

“I’m not looking for any government or state help putting this together,” he said.

Pasco County Commissioner Ted Schrader, whose District 1 includes Wesley Chapel, is interested in learning more about The Plex. With 72 percent of the county’s tax base coming from residential properties, Schrader said such a large development would have a significant impact.

“We want to take a look at it,” Schrader said. “It just certainly shows that Pasco County continues to be a place of opportunities for something other than residential housing.”

As for the ice rinks, the forum in downtown Tampa is not listed among the area’s permanent structures since it hosts numerous athletic and entertainment events as well as being home to the National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning.

Currently, hockey and figure skating programs are available at the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon, Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar and the Clearwater Ice Arena. The latter was the first ice rink in the region, opening as SunBlades Ice Arena in 1987.

Those sites have numerous youth and adult programs for hockey and figure skating with some, such as skaters from Pasco and Hernando counties, having to travel substantial distances to participate.

Another rink, or rinks, north of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties would help alleviate that problem.

“Our hockey part of it is very, very serious,” Bain said.