After years of legal battles, it looks as if the Cypress Creek Town Center Development of Regional Impact (DRI), the undeveloped property at the interchange of I-75 and S.R.s 54 & 56 in Wesley Chapel, will finally be home to an outlet mall by the Simon Property Group.

In a press release on May 14, Simon announced that it would be opening seven new locations of the popular clothing outlet Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5 TH at many of its new and existing outlet malls. Among the new locations on the list is a mall called Tampa Premium Outlets, located in Wesley Chapel, more commonly referred to as Cypress Creek Town Center, scheduled to open sometime in 2014.

However, the Pasco County Land Development Department claims that, “there have been no official plans submitted to the county from Simon about the mall.” The only information the office would confirm was that Simon had met with the County a few months back, as previously reported in the Neighborhood News.

The press release is the first hard evidence that plans are finally moving forward for development on the site, which appears to finally have overcome the many environmental issues that have kept the project at a halt since 2007.

The site has sat in pre-development limbo since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revoked the building permit it had issued to the Richard E. Jacobs group—the company that previously attempted to build a mall on the property—after muddy runoff water was discovered leaking into Cypress Creek.

Environmental group The Sierra Club sued the Army Corps for violating the Clean Water Act in 2007 and the lawsuit ended up making its way to a Federal Appeals Court in November 2011. The decision by the Appeals Court reversed the previous ruling that revoked the Jacobs Group’s mall permit and allowed development to continue once the Army Corps figured out a way to protect the wildlife corridor that stretches through the property.

Neighborhood News will provide updates on the project as they become available.