04/16/2024
Plans for controversial restaurant at Anclote River Park are dead
Pasco’s Keith Wiley, parks director, told critics of the park plan that the controversial restaurant will not be built.
An artist rendering of the restaurant that had been planned for the Anclote River Park in Pasco County by Keith Overton.
On Monday afternoon, critics of the park plans were told by Keith Wiley, Pasco's parks director that the county and Overton have agreed that no restaurant will be built on the site, which is adjacent to a historic Native American mound.
When critics of an Anclote River Park commercial development plan met with county officials on Monday afternoon, they voiced specific concerns about how it would threaten a documented Native American mound there.
But they didn’t expect to hear that one of the biggest features of the new park plan — a themed restaurant proposed by the long-time president of St. Pete Beach’s Tradewinds Island Resort, Keith Overton — had been dropped.
Commissioner Kathryn Starkey, whose district includes the park, confirmed in a text Monday afternoon that the restaurant plan was out.
Overton’s proposed a 22,000-square-foot restaurant along the lines of his Rum Fish Grill or OCC Roadhouse, successful restaurants and bars in the Tampa Bay area. Its working name was Whiskey River He was also proposing new water access with possible boat tours and wave runner rentals and other features.
But several months ago, after many questions had been asked about the appropriate use of land beside two historical sites, the mound and the Spanish Well, long-designated historical features at the park, the county reached out to Overton. In a memo County Administrator Mike Carballa told Overton that the County Commission wanted a much more modest restaurant, something no larger than 3,000 square feet.
Carballa said that commissioners had “always intended to have a small restaurant footprint within the larger leased premises, to ensure adequate recreational areas and open space around the restaurant and to minimize commercial intrusions on the passive recreational park and users enjoyment of a natural setting.”
Starkey said that wasn’t going to work for Overton. “He wasn’t interested in that size so he won’t be pursuing the project any more,” she said. But she also said that it wasn’t going to be a bad thing to lose that plan. “It’s good for the park,” she said. “His proposal didn’t fit the park.”
Consultant Stantec recently performed ground penetrating radar testing to determine if the marked Native American mound at the Anclote River Park contained human remains. While their report says it did not, it also notes that there still could remains in other portions of the park.
Doris Carroll, one of those fighting the park plan for months, said Keith Wiley, Pasco’s director of parks, recreation and natural resources, shared that the county and Overton have agreed to terminate the lease between the two that was approved by the Pasco County Commission in 2022. That termination agreement has not yet been signed.
“We were very happy,” Carroll said after the meeting. Other participants included Dillon Rich, who has also been a leading opposition to the park plan, and a Native American representative who told Wiley that the proposal was not appropriate. Representatives of various indigenous groups have repeatedly expressed the same concerns.
Carroll said that the county still plans to go through with other changes, which will mean that their first drawing of large parking areas have been replaced with a new design with less pavement and more green space. She was on her way to a town hall meeting called for Monday night to talk about the park plans.
Starkey said she expected that there would be some attending who were happy to hear about the loss of the restaurant. As of Monday afternoon, the number of signatures on a petition opposing the more aggressive plan for Anclote River Park had over 5,600 signatures.
