HispanicBusiness

It's a sweltering evening and more than 50 people crowd outside the new cardiology office for a ribbon cutting.

They're doctors, bankers, insurance agents and advertising executives, and they came to Pasco County from all over Latin America. They're the new Hispanic face of Pasco County: professional, middle-class and suburban.

No county in the Tampa Bay area grew faster in the last decade than Pasco County, and 29 percent of the county's new residents are Hispanic. The county's Hispanic population now exceeds 54,500, and it's no longer concentrated just in the Mexican-American farm worker communities near Dade City.

Pasco's Puerto Rican population more than tripled since the 2000 census, mirroring a trend that saw a huge influx of Puerto Ricans along the Interstate 4 corridor. The same is true for residents from Central and South America. The county gained nearly as many Cubans as it did Mexicans in the last decade.

The U.S. 19 corridor is more than 10 percent Hispanic. Some neighborhoods in Lutz have reached concentrations as high as those in Tommytown. But for sheer numbers, no community has seen a greater influx of Hispanic people than Wesley Chapel.

"Here you find a lot of Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans and Costa Ricans," said Rosie Paulsen, who owns an insurance agency in Wesley Chapel. Last year Paulsen founded the Pasco Hernando Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and has seen its membership grow from a handful to more than 120 members.

"The majority of the people are professionals," she said. "Some of them own their own businesses, or they commute to Tampa for work."

They were drawn to neighborhoods like Meadow Pointe, Seven Oaks and Saddlebrook, just like their Anglo neighbors, for the suburban lifestyle.

"I wanted a better environment to raise my kids," Scarleth Leon said. "I wanted to be in a neighborhood where they could ride their bikes. And all the schools are A-grade schools."

Leon, an advertising executive, originally moved to Fort Lauderdale from her native Venezuela. But she decided it wasn't a good fit, and relocated to Wesley Chapel four years ago.

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Pasco County has its own Spanish newspaper, the monthly Gaceta Latina. Publisher Maria Barros launched the paper in 2008 and has seen its distribution grow from 3,000 to 10,000 per issue.

Her success has prompted Media General's Spanish weekly, Centro, to re-examine the Pasco market after a four-year absence. Media General also is the parent company of The Tampa Tribune.

"We will be back in Pasco County again, if not this year then by January," said Orlando Nieves, general manager of Centro. "The key isn't just the numbers -- it's the growth."

More area churches are offering services in Spanish. And Paulsen said more and more local businesses are trying to appeal to a new, diverse customer base. "If you're not targeting the Hispanic community in your business, you're losing money," she said.

In the next year, she hopes to cut a ribbon for a Spanish supermarket so she and her friends won't have to drive to Tampa to find groceries imported from their home countries.

"There will be a Spanish store," she said. "That would be a no-brainer."

Leon said she drives to Tampa's Armenia Avenue to buy groceries and eat out. "There's nowhere in Wesley Chapel to get empanadas," she said.