Epoch Properties, the Winter Park-based developer, is advancing plans to redevelop the former Gandy Commercial Plaza on Gandy Boulevard into a 345-unit, five-story residential community. Structured under Florida's Live Local Act, the project reserves 138 of those units as income-restricted housing carrying a 30-year affordability commitment. The plan also incorporates a central courtyard and a structured parking garage with more than 500 spaces.
Florida's Live Local Act allows qualifying residential developments to bypass local zoning restrictions on height and density in exchange for affordable unit commitments, and has become a primary tool for developers pursuing commercial-to-residential conversions across Tampa Bay. Epoch's Gandy project fits that pattern: a strip-commercial site redeveloped at a mid-rise scale that would otherwise require standard city rezoning to achieve.
At 138 units, the income-restricted component represents approximately 40 percent of the project's total supply — a meaningful share for a single development on a corridor that has historically been low-density commercial in character. The 30-year affordability term extends well past the typical loan and ownership cycles tied to these projects, per the operator's Instagram announcement.
Gandy Boulevard has been absorbing increasing residential pressure as the South Tampa-to-St. Pete corridor densifies around downtown Tampa's growth cycle. A 345-unit mid-rise at a redeveloped commercial plaza is consistent with the broader pattern along this stretch, where underutilized commercial zoning has drawn substantial developer attention under the Live Local framework.
No construction or delivery timeline has been announced. Permit filings and site-plan approvals from the City of Tampa will be the next public milestones. Given the corridor's trajectory and the Live Local Act's continued reach across both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, Epoch's Gandy project is unlikely to be the last commercial-to-residential conversion on this segment of the boulevard.
