Too much demand for new affordable housing in Fort Myers

St. Peter Claver Place Apartments, a new affordable housing complex in Fort Myers, has units that are now up for rent.

The Dioceses of Venice and the National Development of America unveiled the apartments at 10 a.m. on Tuesday in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, with Mayor Kevin Anderson in attendance, along with the City of Fort Myers councilmembers.

But it’s a project that took some time before coming to fruition.

“It took us eight years of hard work to get to this point, a lot of commitment from the City of Fort Myers to transform a vacant lot into 136 apartment units designed in finance to be affordable for the residents of Fort Myers,” Rick Miller said, the President of the National Development of America Inc. “But you know, the obstacles are significant.”

From interest rates and construction costs to insurance rates. All of these hurdles made it difficult for them to push rental rates to between $600 to $1,250 for residents.

Especially in Fort Myers, where the need is greater than ever.

“It’s very challenging,” said Mayor Kevin Anderson. “There’s anywhere from 78 to 96 people a day moving the economy, that puts a great demand on housing. And it’s the workforce in the lower income people who are being squeezed out. So, while it’s only 136 units, now, it’s the start of hopefully many more units to address those needs.”

And having received over 1,500 applications, the St. Peter Claver Place Apartments is seeing an overwhelming demand from the community.

“We have 1,500 people on a waitlist already,” Miller said. “And we’ve stopped taking names because there’s just such demand. So, we could fill up a couple 1,000 units if we had them today.”

But plans to expand are on the horizon, with Phase 2 of this project already underway, adding 78 units to the community.

This means St. Peter Clavers Place will be able to help 214 families in need. But that’s not all.

“We have a site, a property with the Diocese in Lehigh Acres for 120 units that we’re working on now,” said Miller. “We just got done financing for 80 units in Immokalee that we’ll probably start in about 9 to 10 months or so. And then we have other irons in the fire. So, we’re very active in the affordable housing business, and we have a lot of new stuff coming up within the next few years.”

Forty families who have already applied to live here have been approved and will be the first group of residents to move into the community by mid-March.