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Calling all bidders
By SHARON L. BOND, Neighborhood Times Business Editor
ST. PETERSBURG -- The housing project designed to revitalize the Bartlett Park neighborhood in Midtown needs its own jump-start. So the St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services Inc., Bank of America and the city of St. Petersburg are staging an "affordable housing auction" Saturday in hopes of bringing out home buyers. Some 30 empty lots, four older homes that have been renovated and two new homes under construction will be available to owner occupants. Bidders have to be prequalified and if they are successful in getting a vacant lot, they will have to sign a contract agreeing to build a house. Financial aid for down payments and closing costs, dependent on income, is available through the city, which also has a list of participating lenders. "We're obviously hoping (the auction) will be a shot in the arm as it relates to the momentum in home sales," said Darryl Niles, vice president with Bank of America's Community Development Corp. "It's an outreach, an extension of the sales process," said Tomas K. de Yampert, manager of Housing and Community Development for the city of St. Petersburg. "We're trying to do public relations or marketing of Bartlett Park." Marketing of the neighborhood has not been done on a significant scale, according to Askia Muhammad Aquil, executive director of St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services. He said his agency hasn't had the money to do it. "The auction will allow large-scale marketing," Aquil said. His agency proposed the auction to Bank of America, he said. "It is not a fire sale or an auction at any price," Aquil said. Niles and de Yampert agreed. He also said Bank of America is not pulling out of the project. The bank's community development arm and the housing agency joined forces in late 1998 to launch the revitalization project. They targeted an area bounded by 11th and Preston avenues S, from Fourth to Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) streets and began buying boarded-up houses or empty lots that later could be sites for 50 new houses for lower-income residents. "We've sold about 10 homes so far and another two are under construction," said Mitch Lubitz, a spokesman for Bank of America in Tampa. He said the economic slowdown and the inability of people in the Bartlett Park neighborhood to get financing for the homes slowed the pace of the construction project. Cynthia Allen, 37, bought one of the first new homes available, a three-bedroom, two-bath on Preston Avenue that cost $72,000. After living in a number of different rental places, she moved into her new house in early 1999 and still lives there with her husband Reggie and two children. "I love my house," she said. "It's caused others to paint their houses, improve their houses. One next door to a new one has a (new) ramp for handicapped." Buyers of the auction property don't necessarily have to come from the neighborhood or even the general Midtown area. They have to want to live there, Niles said. "Our target market is people who will be looking at those prices," he said, quoting a range in the mid $80,000s to a top price of $107,500. "Some of the buyers will come from outside the Bartlett Park area." Aquil hopes many of the buyers will be renters from the Midtown neighborhoods. He said little more than half the residents there are homeowners. "If 49 percent in this area are renters, it is an area we need to target. We need to come up with creative ideas to help close the gap," he said. An increase in the number of homeowners in a neighborhood helps stabilize it, Aquil said. New homes being built in existing neighborhoods often give homeowners already living there impetus to fix up their places. Property values increase. The auction would be successful, Aquil said, if about a third of the properties were sold. He said he had expected home sales in the Bartlett Park project to go faster three years ago. But he realized there were challenges and hurdles to overcome, one of which is a general perception that some areas of St. Petersburg south of Central Avenue are not desirable places to live. Ask Cynthia Allen if Bartlett Park is a good place to live and she answers, "Oh, yes, definitely." Since the racial disturbances in 1996 sharply highlighted the need for improved living conditions in a large part of south St. Petersburg, the area has been targeted to receive increased resources. Initially it was called the Challenge area. Now it is called Midtown, and there are pockets of new housing in a number of places. De Yampert said plans are to build more new housing in the area near Jordan Park, which recently was rebuilt to look more like single-family housing than a project. The back side of the old Mercy Hospital site also may get housing. The Midtown affordable housing auction is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at Davis Hall, 140 Seventh Ave. S, at the University of South Florida. Registration begins at 9 a.m. An auction information office is at 775 15th Ave. S. For more information, call 892-3338.
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