ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Seniors in St. Petersburg are getting a major boost with 71 new apartments set to come online by next year.

The St. Petersburg Housing Authority is receiving nearly $6 million from the city to help transform the former Edward White Hospital into a new, affordable community, adding to a total city investment of nearly $9 million.

What You Need To Know

  • The St. Petersburg Housing Authority is receiving nearly $6 million from the city to help transform the former Edward White Hospital into a new, affordable community, adding to a total city investment of nearly $9 million.

  • In order to help ease the growing affordable housing crisis in St. Petersburg, 71 new apartments for seniors are being built, with an Evara health care clinic and community spaces also opening on site

  • The St. Petersburg Housing Authority plans to move its administrative offices into the new complex

  • The mixed-use community is designed for families earning at or below 80% of the area’s median income. The St. Petersburg Housing Authority plans to open its waitlist later this year

Michael Lundy, president and CEO of the St. Petersburg Housing Authority, says this project is a long time in the making, and he’s eager for its impact on the community.

“We felt that it was conducive for senior living," said Lundy. We also looked at our waiting list and realized we had a significant number of families that were seniors.”

While much of the hospital’s exterior will remain the same, its interior is being completely gutted to make room for the new apartments and community spaces, including a computer lab, a community room, and a catering kitchen.

“Keeping this building in this community is really good. It was the old Ed White Hospital and that definitely has some roots here,” said Kelsi Thrasher, project manager with WJArchitects, LLC. “The inside of the hospital was very much intact. They even had some of their old MRI equipment still left in here. So, to really get a good idea of what was going on in this space, we had the contractor demo everything.”

Thrasher explained that the St. Pete Housing Authority plans to move its administrative offices into the new complex.

"You’ll have two consultation rooms for when clients or tenants that need to speak to the St. Pete Housing Authority," Thrasher said. 
 

Providing sustainable housing for generations

After living on her own, Ash Alonzo had to move back into her parents’ North Kenwood home due to financial pressures stemming from student loans and high rental costs.

"I can’t afford my student loan payments and rent at the same time, especially in a community that I grew up in and arguably my parents helped to build with their tax dollars," she said. 

She grew up just one block away from Edward White Hospital, which is now the site of a nearly $9 million senior living project.

Alonzo, who is currently in nursing school, is looking forward to the health care clinic opening in 2026, even though she doesn’t directly qualify for the new apartments.

"It’s more important than ever that we have clinics that are low-income residents and residents like me who are uninsured," she said. 

Alonzo says the new complex shows that a community can grow and evolve without losing sight of its most vulnerable members.

“It shows that if you make living in some place safe and sustainable, families will stay. They will grow their families for generations, and that is what the concern is, as someone who grew up here and lived here for a quarter of a-century. We just don’t want to be pushed out of the community that we helped to build.”