New Jersey company to rebuild housing projects

Michaels Development Co. and the Tampa Housing Authority will form a partnership to apply for tax credits.

By WAYNE WASHINGTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 10, 2000

TAMPA -- Despite an impassioned plea from its former executive director, the Tampa Housing Authority's board voted Wednesday to open negotiations with a New Jersey company to rebuild Ponce De Leon Courts and College Hill Homes.

Now, with the Michaels Development Co. officially on board, the housing authority must clear its next hurdle: meeting a March 8 deadline to apply for Florida Housing Finance Corp., tax credits that could be worth as much as $20-million to the housing authority during the first phase of construction.

Michaels and the housing authority will form a partnership to apply for the tax credits. The partnership will have to compete with others created by housing authorities in St. Petersburg, Bradenton and possibly Lakeland and Miami. Those housing authorities, like the one in Tampa, have large federal grants to rebuild old public housing complexes.

Robert Greer, president of Michaels, said he is confident the Tampa Housing Authority can meet the application deadline and get the tax credits.

"Florida may be a tough state with tax credits, but the requirements are the same across the country," Greer said. "We know what we're doing. We've done it over and over."

Michaels and the various firms working with it beat out six other teams trying to win approval to rebuild Ponce De Leon and College Hill. H.J. Russell of Atlanta, the largest minority-owned real estate firm in the country, finished a close second to Michaels in the scoring of the committee that recommended Michaels to the full board.

Board member Sybil Kay Andrews-Wells touted Russell's commitment to minority contracting and urged her colleagues not to be rushed into a decision on Michaels because of the tax credit deadline.

"It seems tax credits are the real issue, which we may not get either way we go," Andrews-Wells said. "And we'll be stuck with whoever we choose."

Several black residents, citing broken promises of minority participation in large construction projects in the past, also pushed for Russell.

But the strongest -- and most surprising -- push came from Art Milligan, former executive director of the Tampa Housing Authority.

Milligan ran the authority when it applied for and won the federal grant being used to rebuild Ponce De Leon and College Hill. Months after the housing authority won the grant, Milligan left to become Russell's vice president of property management.

Reached in Atlanta last week, Milligan said he was not deeply involved in his company's effort to get work from the Tampa Housing Authority.

Wednesday, however, Milligan reminded board members of his ties to the housing authority and pleaded for Russell to be given further consideration.

"A lot of people here know me," Milligan said. "I've been in Tampa and I've seen the need. We at Russell are very committed to this project."

A majority of board members were unmoved by Milligan's plea, however.

Three of five voted to have the Michaels team handle the first phase of the construction.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.