You could call what's happening in Oldsmar a building boom, but you'd be missing the point, real estate and development experts say. Oldsmar insiders say the development unfolding in Oldsmar tells a story about location and vision -- not bricks and building permits.

"This is just business as usual for Oldsmar," said Kevin Gartland, president and chief executive officer of the Upper Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. "This is an evolution."

Still, there's no doubt that Oldsmar is the focus of a lot of attention these days. Oldsmar counted nearly 12,000 residents in the 2000 census, compared with 8,361 in 1990. City officials also claim a growing labor force, with 40,000 workers, and they say 65,000 people pass through the city each day by car.

"The heat has been on Oldsmar for four or five years -- ever since the widening of Tampa Road into town," said Bill Eshenbaugh, president of the Eshenbaugh Land Co., based in Tampa.

"The steam in the marketplace is incredible to me."

Ask Jerry Beverland, the mayor, about the recent development in Oldsmar, and he'll begin in 1946, the year he and his family moved there from Largo.

In Beverland's view, Oldsmar always enjoyed a great location in the Tampa Bay area, but it lagged behind the rest of Pinellas County until it tackled some of its infrastructure problems, such as eight miles of unpaved roads, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

After that, "it was like an explosion," he said. "Now everyone wants to come to Oldsmar."

Beverland said Oldsmar is none the worse for being a late bloomer. Watching how development unfolded in Pinellas and Hillsborough -- along cluttered roads such as U.S. 19, for example -- showed Oldsmar leaders how to prepare for growth, putting together a vision plan and development controls long before the expansion of Tampa Road.

"We planned -- we've been planning since 1970s," Beverland said. "We learned what not to do. We have seen the mistakes everyone else has made."

Beverland's vision: a small city with great resources, excellent parks, engaged citizens and a top-notch employment base.

Or, in other words, "We are the epicenter -- the leading city on the west coast of Florida," he said. "We are second to nobody."

A New Town Center

Douglas J. Weiland doesn't want to tell you why his company jumped at the opportunity to build Olds Square, the 700,000-square-foot commercial town center planned for the wedge-shaped piece of land between Tampa Road, State Road 580, State Street and Washington Avenue.

He'd rather show you.

Weiland points to the massive planning maps of Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties hanging in the hallways of the suburban Clearwater house he uses as headquarters for his development firm and other businesses. The land-use maps show that the rest of Pinellas is built out, and Pasco County and northwest Hillsborough County are expecting a lot of new housing but very little new commercial space.

Oldsmar, which is tapped out for land for new residential development, is where the housing boom and the demand for retail and office space will converge, Weiland said.

"It's really a convergence" of growth on both sides, he said.

Weiland said Olds Square will cost $100 million. He hopes to break ground in about eight months, and the project should take two years to complete.

Location, Location, Location

Nielsen Media Research found exactly what it was looking for in Oldsmar: enough space to build a 600,000-square-foot Global Technology & Information Center and a location that would allow it to retain its employees at its previous office in Dunedin and to pull new employees from all over the Tampa Bay area.

The company, in Pinellas County since 1972, considered locations as far away as Atlanta before opting for Oldsmar, said Amy Rettig, director of communications and client relations.

"We've got a lot of long-term employees, and that's a whole heck of a lot of expertise," she said. "We didn't want to walk away from them."

Company officials are adamant about making a difference in their new hometown and say their investment has spurred more development.

"I'd like to think there's a nice little partnership going on," Rettig said. "We definitely give back to the community: There are a number of client visitors and Nielsen employees from across the United States staying in hotels, eating in restaurants and shopping."

Nielsen also recently opened its cafeteria to host the Upper Tampa Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce's International Food and Wine Festival, raising money for local scholarships, Rettig said. "It's fun to see what's coming next. We're certainly pleased with all these new businesses that are popping up down here."

No Compromises

Beverland admits he's a little surprised at how much Oldsmar has grown. "I always knew that Oldsmar would be the epicenter [of the Tampa Bay area], but I had no idea it was going to be like this," he said. "In 1970, no one could have known."

There were times when city leaders were tempted to change the vision plan -- for instance, to convert land zoned for commercial use for new housing or to adopt a downtown development plan that "was done screwy," according to Beverland.

"You don't make compromises on your vision," he said. "You get set back sometimes, but you don't give up."