Pinellas County Schools seeks proposals to turn historic St. Pete building into staff housing
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Nov 1, 2022

Pinellas County Schools has issued a request for proposals for a housing development for its teachers and staff.

The RFP is for both the development and the management of a residential or mixed-use community at the site of the historic Tomlinson building in the Mirror Lake District of downtown St. Petersburg. The building became a vocational school in 1931, and in 1978 it was renamed the Tomlinson Adult Education Center. The center closed in December 2021.

The goal is for the project to “address the shortage of workforce housing for school district teachers and employees in Pinellas County,” according to the RFP.

“Pinellas County is a highly desirable place to live and work with very few areas to develop housing,” Superintendent Kevin Hendrick said in a release. “In order to attract the best teachers to our community, we must be proactive in providing housing choices that are attainable and appealing.”

This move from the district comes as Florida schools are seeing a mass exodus of teachers. In Hillsborough County, nearly 2,000 teachers left the district in the past year. Many of those teachers have left for other counties offering higher salaries.

“This project sets out to innovatively and collaboratively address housing for our teachers and other district employees,” Hendrick said. “I look forward to working with the successful bidder to create something truly special for our employees and our community.”

The lack of affordable housing in Pinellas County has sparked a wave of discussion among business leaders as they face the rising challenge of being able to retain their workforce. Earlier this year, industry leaders in St. Petersburg’s Innovation District — including a representative from the University of South Florida St. Pete — discussed the possibility of collaborating to provide housing and parking near the district.

For the Mirror Lake building, the Pinellas Education Foundation worked with the school district to research similar projects and hired Meridian Appraisal Group to do a market study of the proposed apartment development, according to a release.

The 1.7-acre site comprises 10 parcels, seven of which are developable land. The Tomlinson building is three stories and totals 40,942 square feet. It is located at 296 Mirror Lake Drive. It was built in 1924 and currently serves as a storage facility for the district as well as an emergency relocation site should another district facility become incapacitated.

The RFP states the Tomlinson building should be preserved and asks developers to optimize its use by “transforming it into a housing, business, entertainment or mixed-use facility.” The guiding principles for the project are for developers to provide the maximum number of workforce housing units at the lowest rent possible.

The school district wants to receive proposals for public-private collaboration and prefers to have a long-term land lease on the site with a renewable 50-year term. The property will be managed by an outside group that will give an annual report to the district.

A site visit and walk-through will be held for interested parties on Nov. 18. Proposals are due by 4 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2023.