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20-unit complex is likely to become public housing

Officials make a deal to buy Gateway Place.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published April 27, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - The city's Housing Authority board on Thursday agreed to buy a 20-unit apartment complex in north St. Petersburg with plans to turn it into public housing.

Housing Authority officials said they hope to finalize the purchase of Gateway Place apartments, 9101 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N, within 120 days. On Thursday, they agreed to spend $2.3-million - or $115,00 per unit - to purchase the complex.

"There's been this perception that the Housing Authority is getting out of the public housing business," authority executive director Darrell Irions said. "Maybe we should change what we're saying. We're getting out of the obsolete public housing business."

Smaller developments such as Gateway Place are easier to manage and more attractive to residents than bigger housing complexes, Irions said.

That's why the Housing Authority is considering a plan to sell the county's largest public housing complex, the 486-unit Graham-Rogall, Irions said.

That plan is now on hold as the authority considers where to relocate the nearly 300 residents living in Graham-Rogall, as well as whether the building, near Tropicana Field, can be saved.

The Gateway Place apartment plan appears to offer at least some relief. Irions said residents living there now who qualify for public housing would not be asked to move.

The rest of the complex would be filled based on a waiting list.

Last year, the Housing Authority agreed to purchase a 90-unit apartment complex for $5.5-million, but that deal fell through after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said St. Petersburg officials did not follow routine procedures.

Irions said he did not expect a similar outcome this time.

[Last modified April 27, 2007, 01:16:04]