Pasco County Will Buy the 153-Acre Hopkins Property to Relieve Crowded Wesley Chapel District Park

Pasco County commissioners have unanimously approved a contract to buy about 153 acres directly south of Wesley Chapel District Park, a phased purchase that county parks officials say is meant to relieve a park that has been at capacity for years in one of the fastest-changing corners of the Tampa Bay region.

The land, known as the Hopkins property, sits immediately south of a county utilities parcel that borders the district park. Under the sale and purchase agreement, the county will buy the property in four phases over four years, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The first phase, in fiscal year 2027, will be paid from the county's parks impact fee facility and land categories.

What the board approved

Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources director Keith Wiley presented the proposal to commissioners, describing the land as a significant opportunity that staff had previously raised during a parks funding workshop where several projects were discussed.

"The first year is officially addressed," Wiley told commissioners, according to the Times.

The contract is structured so that commissioners decide each fiscal year how to fund the next round of acquisition, rather than committing the full purchase in a single budget. Coverage of the vote describes the four phases as roughly equal in size. Published accounts of the decision, including the Times story and an earlier version in the Tampa Bay Beacons, did not report a total purchase price or a per-phase cost, and the county's agenda materials could not be independently reviewed for this story.

Wiley said the property serves the park service area on the county's east side, where demand for athletic fields and open space has long outpaced supply.

"Wesley Chapel District Park has been at capacity for a very, very, very long time," Wiley said. "We need fields and we need park space. So this really kind of basically addresses that need in the park service area."

Why Wesley Chapel needs the room

Wesley Chapel has grown steadily for two decades, and with each new subdivision has come demand for more homes, shops, restaurants and, county staff say, more places to play. The district park was the community's first, a $20 million project that opened in 2007 on the southwest corner of Boyette and Overpass roads.

It was built in stages and now covers 145 acres. The park includes multiple athletic fields, basketball and tennis courts, walking trails, an all-abilities playground the county has described as the first of its kind, a street hockey rink and a 17,800-square-foot indoor recreation center that was added in 2021.

The Hopkins purchase would more than double the footprint of the park campus if the full 153 acres are acquired. A photo caption accompanying the Times story described the expansion as extending the park to the south.

Wiley also addressed a question that comes up often in east Pasco: whether the nearby Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus already fills the gap. He said it does not. The campus, a 98,000-square-foot indoor complex that opened in Wesley Chapel in 2020 and was financed largely with tourist development tax dollars, functions more as a tourism asset built to draw regional and national tournaments than as a neighborhood park, Wiley told commissioners. The new land, he said, would sit among the county's existing park assets.

No money yet to build

Buying land is only the first step. The county has not identified how it will pay to build fields, courts or other facilities on the Hopkins site, according to the Times.

Wiley was blunt about the order of operations. "Without the land, you're not going to build a park," he said.

Impact fees, which Pasco charges on new homes to pay for the added demand growth puts on public facilities, are tied by law to capacity expansion rather than routine maintenance, which makes land purchases in growing areas a common use. Pasco's parks and recreation impact fee is currently $3,450.15 per single-family dwelling unit, split between a park land component and a facilities component, according to a published summary of the county's fee schedule for permits filed after 2023.

The county is also working on parks in two other fast-growing east Pasco communities, the Villages of Pasadena Hills and Two Rivers, according to Wiley's presentation.

A road through the property

Commissioners raised questions about access to the site. Wiley said the park will have road access. Board members also noted that a planned "vision road," a future roadway the county has planned, currently runs through the property.

Wiley said meetings have already been scheduled to discuss a possible realignment so that the future road does not interfere with the park or the improvements that eventually go on it.

Board chairperson Jack Mariano said that if the road becomes part of the county's roadway network, transportation dollars could fund that portion of the work rather than parks money.

Reaction from the board

Mariano praised the deal, saying it would serve both recreation and growth management goals.

"I think it's a great addition," he said, adding that in addition to helping the crowded district park, the purchase "takes off some of the development pressure that's going on there too, with everything else going. So, it's just a huge opportunity for us."

That second point matters in Wesley Chapel, where large tracts near Interstate 75 have steadily given way to master-planned communities, medical campuses and retail centers. Land that the county buys for a park is land that will not be rezoned for rooftops, and it gives east Pasco a block of public green space in an area where most remaining open acreage is privately held.

What it means for residents

For families in Wesley Chapel and the surrounding east Pasco communities, the immediate change will be modest. The first phase of land comes in fiscal year 2027, which began Oct. 1, 2026, and no construction schedule or design has been announced. Youth sports leagues and residents who have competed for field time at the district park should not expect new fields until the county acquires enough of the land and finds a way to pay for building them.

Over the longer term, the purchase gives the county room to add the kind of fields, courts and trails that Wiley said the east side has lacked, next to a park that already has parking, a recreation center and established programs.

What's next

County staff will proceed with the first phase of the acquisition in fiscal year 2027. Each following year, commissioners will decide how to fund the next phase under the terms of the contract, with the full 153 acres scheduled to be in county hands within four years.

Meetings on realigning the planned vision road are already on the calendar. Separately, the county will need to identify a funding source for park facilities on the site, a question staff acknowledged remains open. Residents can follow those decisions through the Board of County Commissioners' regular meeting agendas and the county's annual budget hearings.