once home to Tibbetts Lumber<\/a>, which was founded by his grandfather Linton Tibbetts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cThe genesis of this project was really a conversation I had with our hospitals,\u201d\u00a0Brandes said at the Wednesday event. \u201cI was talking to hospital leadership while I was in the legislature and they were talking about what a struggle it was to find housing for some of their employees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An entity tied to Brandes would eventually acquire the land for $6.18 million in October 2024. This process was not easy, HP Capital Group partner Angelo Cappelli told the Catalyst.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe ran out of time with the lumber company with our contract so we had an angel investor buy the property,\u201d he explained, \u201dand then we bought it back from the investor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The site is now owned by Pinellas County in a land trust, Cappelli added. This will ensure affordability for 99 years. The Pinellas County Housing Authority will own and manage the apartments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese homes are designed for working families \u2013 the parents balancing jobs, school schedules and rising costs. The people who keep our local economy moving but still struggle to find housing that they can afford,\u201d Pinellas County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners chair Chloe Firebaugh said at the ceremony. \u201cThe development says something important to them \u2013 you do not have to leave your community to build a stable life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Households in multiple income levels will have the opportunity to move to the complex. According to the City, 53 units are reserved for individuals and families earning 50% or below the Area Median Income, 67 units for those earning up to 80% of the AMI, and 144 units are reserved for households at 120% AMI or below.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The development will have 74 one-bedroom, 162 two-bedroom and 28 three-bedroom units. Amenities include computer labs, playgrounds, picnic areas, a swimming pool and a bike corral.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt its core, this groundbreaking represents a shared belief \u2013 that affordable workforce housing is essential infrastructure, that families deserve quality places to live,\u201d she added, \u201cand when a community commits to the long game, real progress happens.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A public and private partnership, the approximately $94.2 million initiative was funded through multiple sources. These include a $9.7 million allocation from the City, $12.4 million from Pinellas County and a HUD 221(d)(4) construction loan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project is really a unicorn,\u201d Cappelli said. \u201cWe are serving a very important part of the citizenry and workforce group in an incredibly centralized location.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After five years of planning, local government leaders and housing partners came together to celebrate the groundbreaking of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-144856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144856","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=144856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}