Major Pinellas affordable housing initiative enters next phase

The Pinellas County Housing Authority is one step closer to doubling the number of affordable homes at its Rainbow Village campus after developers submitted the first round of construction permit applications for Grand Oaks, a 120-unit family housing community planned in Largo.

The filings mark the latest milestone in a yearslong effort to transform the aging public housing complex into a modern, four-phase neighborhood. By the time redevelopment is complete, the site will grow from roughly 200 affordable apartments built in 1967 to approximately 400 homes, nearly doubling its capacity without expanding its footprint.

Newstar Development submitted eight building permit applications July 1 for the $48.1 million project, including permits for four apartment buildings, a clubhouse, a maintenance building and two dumpster enclosures. The filings came alongside a stormwater permit application submitted to the Southwest Florida Water Management District as engineering plans move through county review.

“The plans are now complete and under review by the county,” Justin Corder, vice president of development for Newstar Development, said in an email. “We expect to close on financing and start construction in January 2027.”

Construction is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2028.

Grand Oaks is the third phase of the Housing Authority’s redevelopment of Rainbow Village, a public housing community that has served Pinellas County families for nearly six decades.

Executive Director Neil Brickfield said thousands of families have found stable housing at Rainbow Village since it opened in 1967, but the property had reached a point where rehabilitation no longer made sense.

“The truth is, one, the public housing model is not the model that the federal government wants to be in anymore,” Brickfield said. “And two, if you went in a unit, they’re just functionally obsolete.”

Brickfield said the apartments reflected a different era, with cramped galley kitchens, compartmentalized rooms and electrical systems that couldn’t even support clothes dryers.

Instead of renovating the aging development, the Housing Authority chose to rebuild it with denser, multi-story housing that makes better use of the property.

“If you walked about Rainbow Village, you would see that it was laid out in the single most inefficient way possible,” Brickfield said. “Mostly one-story buildings, surface parking lots, very spread out. Now we’re building 80-unit buildings, condensed, smaller parking area. It allows us to double the capacity.”

The first phase of the redevelopment, Heritage Oaks, created 80 affordable senior apartments at a cost of approximately $31.3 million. Ridgecrest Oaks, another 80-unit senior development expected to be fully occupied by the end of the year, cost about $32.5 million.

Grand Oaks, budgeted at approximately $48.1 million, will add 120 affordable family apartments. Corder said the development will include a clubhouse with a fitness center, leasing office, warming kitchen, club room and wellness center, along with a playground and open play areas for children. Civil engineering plans submitted with the project’s stormwater application show four apartment buildings connected by an internal street network with sidewalks, two stormwater ponds and the demolition of the remaining Rainbow Village buildings to make way for the new neighborhood.

The Housing Authority has used federal tenant protection vouchers to relocate residents affected by each phase while construction continues. Brickfield said eligible residents will receive preference to return once new units become available.

Following Grand Oaks, the Housing Authority plans a fourth and final phase, Grand Oaks II, another 120-unit family housing development with an estimated cost of approximately $48.1 million. Financing for that phase has not yet been finalized.

Brickfield said each phase has been financed through a combination of local, state and federal sources, including tax credits and support from Pinellas County.

The recently submitted permits remain under county review, with financing expected to close before construction begins in January 2027.

For Brickfield, the redevelopment is about more than replacing aging buildings. “There’s no bigger issue in Pinellas County, in Tampa Bay, in Florida, the United States than affordable housing,” he said. “We have way more need than supply, and we’re determined that we’re going to do everything we can to live our mission and create more permanent affordable housing.”