Work officially begins to transform long-vacant St. Pete hospital site

Construction on the long-anticipated transformation of the Edward White Hospital property into an affordable housing community for seniors in St. Petersburg kicked off Tuesday with a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site.

The event, which featured the requisite local dignitaries and officials flipping dirt and giving speeches, marked the official start of work on the $29 million project that will turn the empty building into a 71-unit housing development.

When complete, the property will actually house three facilities including the St. Petersburg Housing Authority’s new offices and a clinic run by healthcare provider Evara Health along with the housing.

Michael Lundy, president and CEO of the SPHA, says the former hospital building is perfectly suited for a project of this scope.

“If you’re familiar with affordable housing in St. Petersburg, there are very few properties available for purchase. So we were looking for opportunities where we could purchase and reimagine a property to fill our affordable housing goals,” he says.

The Edward White Hospital building in on Ninth Avenue North in the city’s North Kenwood neighborhood. SPHA bought the property in 2021 for $5.1 million. It had closed in 2014 after 38 years and has sat vacant since.

It is being renamed The Edward White Campus.

When complete, the six-story, 121,000-square-foot former hospital will have new windows, doors, paint and landscaping as well as updates to make it comply with Americans with Disabilities Act code requirements.

Inside, the building’s first floor will include a lobby dining hall, a catering kitchen, a mail room and bike storage. There will also be a community room, computer lab and fitness center.

The hospital was named in honor of astronaut Ed White — the first American astronaut to perform a spacewalk, in 1965. He died two years later, at 36, in a fire aboard the Apollo 1 spacecraft. Astronauts Roger B. Chaffee and Virgil Grissom also died in the fire.

White’s family attended Tuesday’s groundbreaking.