{"id":144095,"date":"2026-02-05T00:24:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/144095\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T00:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:24:06","slug":"former-lumber-yard-site-to-become-housing-in-st-petersburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/144095\/","title":{"rendered":"Former lumber yard site to become housing in St. Petersburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A new affordable housing community is coming to St. Petersburg\u2019s Warehouse Arts District<\/a>, and city leaders say a state law designed to speed up housing development helped make it possible.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

The Fairfield Avenue Apartments \u2014 a 264-unit community \u2014 officially broke ground Wednesday on land with more than 50 years of local history
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City officials say the project is moving forward using Florida\u2019s House Bill 1339<\/a>, which allows qualifying affordable housing developments to be approved administratively on industrial-zoned land, significantly reducing approval timelines
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City leaders say the Fairfield Avenue Apartments will add hundreds of affordable housing units within close proximity to downtown jobs and transit once construction is completed<\/p>\n

The Fairfield Avenue Apartments \u2014 a 264-unit community \u2014 officially broke ground Wednesday on land with more than 50 years of local history.<\/p>\n

The property once housed Tibbetts Lumber and, before that, Cox Lumber \u2014 businesses that helped build much of the surrounding city.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather immigrated here in the 1940s, (and) had bought a little tiny lumber company,\u201d said Jeff Brandes of the Tibbetts-Brandes family. \u201c(Those businesses) really grew this community and grew along with it and helped build many of the houses that you and I live in today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, the site has served several purposes \u2014 starting as an orange grove, later becoming a Seaboard rail line, and eventually operating as a lumber yard. Now, it will be transformed into housing intended for working residents priced out of living near their jobs.<\/p>\n

Brandes said conversations with local hospitals highlighted the need.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to the leadership of the hospitals and at All Children’s in Bayfront and talking about how what a struggle they were finding for housing some of their employees that were making $20 or $30 an hour, but they still couldn’t find a place to live anywhere near downtown Saint Petersburg,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

City officials say the project is moving forward using Florida\u2019s House Bill 1339<\/a>, which allows qualifying affordable housing developments to be approved administratively on industrial-zoned land, significantly reducing approval timelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, the state passed legislation a few years ago to permit the development of affordable housing on industry zoned land like this. And St. Pete, again, was the first city to take advantage of that opportunity,\u201d said Mayor Ken Welch.<\/p>\n

Brandes, who founded the Florida Policy Project<\/a>, said seeing the project move from policy to reality is meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it’s exciting to be able to talk to people, not somebody who’s theoretical, but who’s doing it practically, too,” he said. “I mean, it’s great to be part of that process. And knowing the struggles of putting a development like this together, but also the looks on people’s faces when they get their keys for the for the for their apartments. That’s what I’m really excited about.”<\/p>\n

City leaders say the Fairfield Avenue Apartments will add hundreds of affordable housing units within close proximity to downtown jobs and transit once construction is completed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A new affordable housing community is coming to St. Petersburg\u2019s Warehouse Arts District, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1571,21948,27812,274,2375,1644,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-144095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-app-affordable-housing","10":"tag-app-latest-housing-stories","11":"tag-app-top-stories","12":"tag-fadia-patterson","13":"tag-housing","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pinellas-county","16":"tag-st-pete","17":"tag-st-pete-headlines","18":"tag-st-pete-news","19":"tag-st-petersburg","20":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","21":"tag-st-petersburg-news","22":"tag-tampa","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}