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Advantage Center Is In Good Position For Grant

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By TOM BRENNAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 14, 2008

BRANDON - County commissioners are set to decide Tuesday whether to give $2.5 million in park funds to a group of business and civic leaders working to build the Brandon Community Advantage Center.

The proposed community and cultural hub got a boost last week when the executive board overseeing the county's Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department included it in the laundry list of projects nominated to receive some $40 million in cash.

That sum became available when commissioners abandoned plans for the Championship Park sports complex in Plant City last year.

Commissioners must decide which of the projects recommended by the park board to back. The cost to approve all of them would total $47.6 million.

"We are very hopeful," said Earl Lennard, a former county school superintendent who serves as chief executive officer of the board overseeing planning and construction of the Advantage Center. "Brandon has worked 30 years to get some sort of building out here big enough to meet the community's needs."

Local business and civic leaders long have complained about being forced to book space in Tampa and other areas to hold large dinners, meetings and expos.

Former state Sen. Tom Lee and state Rep. Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa, have secured $3.4 million in state and federal funds for the center. Of that, $1.4 million is federal funding offered in return for making part of the center an emergency evacuation shelter for people with special needs.

Having cash on hand helped sway the park board, said Mark Thornton, the park department's executive director.

"That money will be used to build the shell. Our money will go to finishing it out," he said.

Thornton also said the performing arts programs offered at the center, to be built at the southeast corner of the Winthrop commercial and residential development, have proved popular at the Carrollwood Cultural Center, which opened in March.

Those programs wouldn't "compete with the programming we have in that particular area," Thornton said.

The center board selected the 4-acre Winthrop site after its developer, John Sullivan, offered the land at a discount and agreed to build the center for the amount of money the group had available.

Since then, cost estimates for the finished center have increased and are running close to $8 million. Center officials are looking for additional funding and ways to lower costs, such as building the center in phases or making it smaller.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 657-4528 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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