156-acre Wagon Wheel Flea Market property in Pinellas Park slated for massive redevelopment

Greater than six years after the Wagon Wheel Flea Market closed its doorways, plans are taking shape to redevelop the sprawling property that was once dwelling to 1 of Pinellas County’s most fashioned weekend shopping locations.

Pinellas Park-based Belleair Vogue Neighborhood is below contract to amass approximately 156 acres at 7801 Park Boulevard North, the set apart apart the Wagon Wheel and Mustang flea markets operated for more than five decades sooner than closing in 2020.

Christian Yepes, owner of Belleair Vogue Neighborhood alongside his father, Carlos Yepes, confirmed the firm is exploring suggestions for a combined-express development that might per chance maybe bring residential and industrial makes express of to the largely vacant property.

“We’re extraordinarily grateful for the chance to produce this kind of landmark in Pinellas County. We’re for the time being within the heart of due diligence and are exploring combined-express development suggestions on the self-discipline,” Yepes talked about in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.

The property is for the time being owned by the family of Hardy Huntley, who founded the Wagon Wheel Flea Market along with his wife, Janet, within the 1960s.

Documents submitted to the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) present an early watch into the redevelopment effort.

In an August thirty first authorization letter, the property’s house owners granted Belleair Vogue permission to pursue government approvals for a combined-express project that might per chance maybe embody retail and residential development.

The authorization entails permission to search out set apart apart design approvals, rezoning, land-express modifications, development agreements, and annexation, along with environmental and geotechnical review.

Belleair Vogue might per chance be working with the Metropolis of Pinellas Park to annex the property, which is for the time being positioned in unincorporated Pinellas County.

On November fifth, the Southwest Florida Water Management District acquired an application inquiring for a formal possibility of wetlands and other ground waters on the property.

A astronomical portion of the self-discipline contains undeveloped land, wooded areas, and lakes, making the environmental review crucial step in determining how unparalleled of the property can even be developed.

For longtime Pinellas County residents, the property holds decades of recollections.

The Wagon Wheel’s historical past dates to 1966, when Hardy Huntley, a worn-automobile salesman, and his wife, Janet, began promoting secondhand merchandise from a roadside stand along Park Boulevard.

The couple enjoyed visiting yard gross sales, gathering discarded objects, and repairing things they might per chance merely resell. What began as a small operation gradually grew into one of Florida’s greatest flea markets.

Over the following decades, the Wagon Wheel expanded to incorporate over 2,000 supplier cubicles, with merchants promoting everything from new develop and clothing to antiques, collectibles, furniture, and household goods.

The market also absorbed vendors from the extinct Mustang Drive-In Flea Market, which operated nearby sooner than its property was redeveloped.

Even a devastating fireplace in 1986 might per chance maybe now not end the Wagon Wheel. The market reopened the following day, and the Huntley family by hook or by crook rebuilt the broken supplier stalls.

For generations of native residents, visiting the Wagon Wheel grew to change into a weekend custom.

Consumers wandered through rows of vendors shopping for bargains, whereas hundreds of self reliant merchants relied within the marketplace to operate their agencies.

Hardy Huntley died in 2013 on the age of 77, leaving the family commerce to his descendants.

The market continued working till March 2020, when it fleet closed for the length of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three months later, the Huntley family presented that the Wagon Wheel and Mustang flea markets would shut completely after nearly 55 years in commerce.

The closure left hundreds of longtime vendors browsing for new areas to sell their merchandise and brought an cease to 1 of the county’s most recognizable industrial establishments.

Many extinct vendors by hook or by crook stumbled on a new dwelling on the Pinellas Farmers and Flea Market, which began working in Largo in 2021. The market has since relocated to Procure! Derby, formerly Derby Lane, at 10490 Gandy Boulevard in St. Pete, the set apart apart it continues to operate on weekends.

Meanwhile, the extinct Wagon Wheel property has remained largely vacant, with portions of the primitive market constructions composed standing.

Its redevelopment would signify a predominant alternate for a principal stretch of Park Boulevard that has remained moderately unchanged since the flea market closed.

For Belleair Vogue Neighborhood, the project would also be among its most necessary undertakings in Pinellas County.

Basically based in 1997 by Carlos Yepes, the family-owned development firm has accomplished more than 400 industrial and residential initiatives for the length of Florida.

Christian Yepes joined the firm in dull 2007, serving to develop its portfolio of retail facilities, residential traits, and other industrial properties.

The firm owns The Shoppes at Park Space, a predominant shopping mall in Pinellas Park, and has developed an incredible desire of industrial properties for the length of the Tampa Bay self-discipline.

Yepes talked about he is grateful for the connection Belleair Vogue has established with the Huntley family and considers it an honor to be entrusted with the prolonged accelerate of a property that holds so unparalleled historical past in Pinellas County.

For now, Belleair Vogue remains enraged by due diligence and determining what form of development might per chance maybe be acceptable for the self-discipline.

A timeline for construction has no longer been presented.