Lee County awards $37M for two affordable housing projects

Lee County commissioners voted Nov. 5 to award $36.5 million in funding to Fort Myers’ housing authority for two affordable housing communities in the city.

The funding for the Housing Authority of the City of Fort Myers comes from a Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery fund, which is part $1.1 billion that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocated to Lee after Hurricane Ian in 2022.

The authority says $18.87 million will go toward finishing the second phase of work at the existing Southward Village community in Dunbar.

The project is part of the Greater Dunbar Initiative, which will ultimately create at least 465 mixed-income units across Southward Village and an additional site on Cleveland Avenue, the authority says in a statement announcing the funding.

The plan calls for improving existing units, while expanding choices, creating market-rate amenities and adding new mixed-income housing. The project, according the statement, will include “efforts to construct 151 units of 375 total residential units” at the site.

Construction is scheduled begin in the first quarter of 2025.

The authority’s nonprofit development division, the Southwest Florida Affordable Housing Choice Foundation, received $17.65 million of the money.

That will go toward the development of a new affordable housing community for seniors off Lafayette Street.

Lafayette Square, as it will be called, will be an 80-unit senior housing residence for low-income seniors ages 62 and up.

The community will have amenities to help residents age in place, including an on-site gym, a small health clinic, business center and a movie theater. The designs for the community also include a designated hurricane shelter for residents and, during a storm, an additional 40 senior care adults.

The authority says Lafayette Square will “provide modernized senior housing options to replace Royal Palm Towers,” a 60-year-old community in downtown Fort Myers that sustained significant damage during Hurricane Ian.

Construction is expected to start next spring.