Pensacola may get 200+ affordable housing units soon. At his press conference yesterday, Mayor D.C. Reeves announced that the Florida Housing Finances Review Committee recommended both of PACES Foundation’s projects, Avery Place and Kupfrian Manor, to get FHFC board funding.
“Kupfrian Manor is the senior housing development with about 94 units. Avery Place is the family one at 112, so over 200 units of affordable housing,” he said. “The board meets on Friday, and if they agree with the committee findings, then those should move forward.”
“The PACES Foundation is a non-profit that builds affordable housing and has an agreement to build the projects on Baptist’s “legacy campus.” Reeves said, “Fingers crossed, there still some final touches to put on that, but certainly great news as we talk about a housing crisis here at the city, that we could have two significant housing projects up and moving on the Baptist campus.”
On “Real News with Rick Outzen” this morning, the mayor explained that some HUD CDBG tied to Hurricane Sally became available for housing. “The reason we went from not being able to get these very, very competitive grants to being able to get those was that there were some funds that were set aside for Escamabi and Santa Rosa counties only.”
Escambia County got one project fund, and the city got two.
“What I love about it is that number one PACES is invested here. They’ve done other projects here so they know our community,” Reeves said. “And second is, as you well know, Rick, wherever this goes with Baptist is going to be a multi-year. It’s going to take time before you start to see units being built where the hospital currently exist. However, these projects are proposed on some of the vacant parcels.”
He continued, “So the great news is we could start attacking the housing crisis without having to wait for every brick to be down at Baptist Hospital. So these things can happen in tandem. And I’m very appreciative of PACES. My concern initially was I don’t want them building oranges. And we’re building apples over here at the Baptist campus. They have been very open and amenable to whatever we want to do.”
