Robles Park Village in Tampa Heights to be reborn as mixed-use development
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 28, 2024

Robles Park Village, one of Tampa's oldest affordable housing projects, could be reborn as a mixed-use district similar in scale to Water Street Tampa or Midtown Tampa.

The affordable housing division of Property Markets Group has filed a rezoning request for Robles Park on behalf of Tampa Housing Authority, which owns the 30.6-acre property in Tampa Heights. Tampa Housing Authority picked PMG's affordable arm to master plan the redevelopment along with Tampa's Baker Barrios Architects Inc. in October 2020.

Jake Cremer, a partner at Stearns Weaver Miller in Tampa, represents PMG. Stantec is the engineer on the project, and Baker Barrios is the architect.

Robles Park, which opened in October 1954, has 436 units in 67 buildings. It sits between the northern end of Tampa Heights and Seminole Heights, south of East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and west of Interstate 275. By comparison, Robles Park is a larger property than Midtown Tampa, which occupies just over 22 acres at Interstate 275 and North Dale Mabry Highway.

The redevelopment would more than triple the number of residential units at Robles Park: The conceptual plan shows 1,850 residential units, 1,283 of which would be designated for affordable housing. The remaining 567 units will be available at market rate. Two hundred units will be set aside for senior citizens, and 38 will be townhouses.

The redevelopment plans call for a 30,000-square-foot grocer and mixed-income, mixed-use buildings throughout the property. The retail space proposed throughout the redeveloped Robles Park, including the grocery store, totals 71,000 square feet. Plans also call for a community resource hub offering health and wellness services, job training and other community services.

The Zion Cemetery, the city's oldest Black cemetery that sits in the northwest corner of the site, will remain. Conceptual plans show the developer will restore the cemetery with new sculptures and memorials, with final plans to be determined by the Zion Cemetery Preservation and Maintenance Society.