{"id":41895,"date":"2025-11-11T02:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T02:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/41895\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T02:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T02:39:08","slug":"tampa-friends-realize-dream-in-affordable-housing-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/41895\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa friends realize dream in affordable housing project"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Three Tampa natives who met as teenagers at Tampa Bay Tech are seeing their dream of giving back to their community take shape \u2014 in the form of new affordable housing in Ybor City.<\/p>\n

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

Dontavious Pittman, Kevin Johnson, and Ponce McNeal\u00a0\u2014 founders of\u00a0Pittman Design Group\u00a0\u2014 celebrated a major milestone Monday as the city officially cut the ribbon on their first multifamily development
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The group was awarded a\u00a0$3 million grant to fund construction of a\u00a010-unit apartment complex\u00a0at the corner of\u00a0Columbus Drive and 21st Street
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The project is designed exclusively for households earning\u00a080% or less of the area\u2019s median income
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City leaders say the project marks progress in closing the gap for family-sized affordable units in Tampa<\/p>\n

Dontavious Pittman, Kevin Johnson, and Ponce McNeal, founders of\u00a0Pittman Design Group, celebrated a major milestone Monday as the city officially cut the ribbon on their first multifamily development.<\/p>\n

The group was awarded a\u00a0$3 million grant through the State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP)\u00a0program to fund construction of a\u00a010-unit apartment complex\u00a0at the corner of\u00a0Columbus Drive and 21st Street.<\/p>\n

The project is designed exclusively for households earning\u00a080% or less of the area\u2019s median income (AMI)\u00a0\u2014 that\u2019s roughly\u00a0$83,000 a year for a family of four. Six of the units will be set aside for families earning\u00a0around $52,000 or less, or\u00a050% AMI.<\/p>\n

\"Dontavious<\/p>\n

Dontavious Pittman (left) and Kevin Johnson (right).<\/p>\n

Standing just five miles from where the trio first became friends, the site holds deep personal meaning for the developers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very monumental for us,\u201d said\u00a0Dontavious Pittman. \u201cWe have dreams of developing affordable housing, but it\u2019s not always feasible. For the city to take a chance on us and assist us with making our dreams come true \u2014 and helping other families \u2014 is a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

For\u00a0Kevin Johnson, the project also represents a bridge between two of Tampa\u2019s most historic neighborhoods: East Tampa and Ybor City.<\/p>\n

\u201cColumbus Drive separates East Tampa on the north side from Ybor. East Tampa is historically Black neighborhoods, Ybor is historically Cuban,\u201d said Johnson. \u201c[General] Antonio Maceo was Afro-Cuban, we just felt like it was a good representation for this project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complex features two and three bedroom units designed with families in mind, something city officials say is sorely needed.<\/p>\n

City leaders say the project marks progress in closing the gap for family-sized affordable units in Tampa.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you follow affordable housing in the city of Tampa, you\u2019ll find that we\u2019ve had a plethora now of smaller units \u2014 the studios, the ones, and a smattering of twos,\u201d said\u00a0District 1 Councilman Alan Clendenin. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve really had a deficit in is building these units for families. And that\u2019s the most exciting part of this for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Jane Castor\u00a0praised the developers\u2019 commitment and the city\u2019s partnership with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, incomes are going up in our city, which we can all celebrate,\u201d Castor said. \u201cOn the other hand, housing is getting so expensive that we\u2019re having people priced out of our city, and we can\u2019t do that. So we\u2019ve been focused on building affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Pittman Design Group] took a chance on us and we took a chance on them \u2014 and we provided them with $3 million to build these affordable units that we see behind us now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRepresentation in Development<\/p>\n

As some of the few Black developers in Tampa, the Pittman Design Group partners say their journey is also about representation and visibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe hope that we can be a representation for other people \u2014 just showing that it\u2019s possible for people who look like us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their long-term goal is to continue redeveloping the corridor, which they call\u00a0\u201cthe gateway to East Tampa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe plan to continue to work in this area and just transform this entire node,\u201d Johnson added.<\/p>\n

The Ybor City project stands as both a housing solution and a homecoming \u2014 a full-circle moment for three friends who turned their shared vision into a foundation for others.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to keep Tampa natives local,\u201d Pittman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Three Tampa natives who met as teenagers at Tampa Bay Tech are seeing their dream…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1571,21948,16022,27812,274,2375,1644,115,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-41895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-app-affordable-housing","10":"tag-app-housing","11":"tag-app-latest-housing-stories","12":"tag-app-top-stories","13":"tag-fadia-patterson","14":"tag-housing","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-tampa","17":"tag-tampa-headlines","18":"tag-tampa-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41895","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=41895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}