The south side of Southridge senior housing complex in West Palm Beach is gone.
Where rows of one-story cottage-style homes stood for decades beneath the Southern Boulevard bridge, the ground has been cleared for redevelopment.
The demolition marks the beginning of the $63 million first phase of a construction project to replace 148 cottages built in the 1940s with 350 apartments.
The federally subsidized complex, a mile and a half west of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, no longer would be restricted to seniors. Families will be allowed in the project’s second phase, which still isn’t financed.
On the property’s north side, life goes on for the low-income seniors, many natives of Cuba or Puerto Rico, who pay sharply subsidized rents to live at the property owned by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Residents tend small front-yard gardens shaded by banyan trees. Cats weave through courtyards. Neighbors stop to talk as they pass, carrying groceries or heading toward the community center.
During the weeks of demolition, stucco walls cracked. Construction fencing cut across familiar paths. The low hum of demolition equipment echoed across Georgia Avenue.
‘The loneliness here is killing us’
For residents who lived here for decades, the scene felt both inevitable and surreal, a neighborhood in the middle of being unmade.
Their lives upended, many are living at a Housing Authority-owned apartment building for senior residents in Westgate called Autumn Ridge. While they say it is safer and more modern, the lost sense of community has been harder to rebuild.
They don’t know if they’ll ever be able to move back to Southridge, which is being renamed Roseland Gardens. But they yearn for its tree-lined walkways, immaculately maintained patio gardens, one-story homes and easy access to neighbors.
Autumn Ridge is infused with a sense of sameness, they say: sterile gray walls, elevators and stairs. They fear the new Roseland Gardens — 148 units in two, four-story buildings — will be the same.
One woman who is losing her eyesight spoke of the disoriented feeling she gets in the new building, where the hallways and doorways look the same.
“The loneliness here is killing us,” said another, speaking Spanish. At Southridge, she said, neighbors visited each other daily for coffee and conversation. “We were like brothers and sisters.”
But beneath the charm, the complex’s age had become increasingly difficult to manage, said Linda Odum, executive director of the West Palm Beach Housing Authority, who has an office in the complex, one of more than a dozen apartment complexes the agency runs.
The Housing Authority is a federal agency under HUD with a local seven-person board appointed by the mayor of West Palm Beach and confirmed by the City Commission.
Among board members are Denise Smith-Barnes, who runs the nonprofit Creative Trend Setting Outreach; Malcolm Joy, an executive with homebuilder Kolter Group; and Tanzanika Lillard, an educator.
Odum portrayed residents as helpful and surprisingly optimistic.
“As far as relocations go, they were very cooperative,” she said.
She said she believes adding families will strengthen the neighborhood rather than disrupt it.
‘She was in tears’
For people who have lived at Southridge for decades, however, the contrast is jarring, a neighborhood split between what has already disappeared and what is still holding on.
The plan calls for displacing longtime residents temporarily while promising their return to the rebuilt community.
In July, before demolition began, Stet News spoke with residents and nearby workers about the changes ahead. Many were Cuban exiles who spoke little English. No one wanted their name published. People glanced over their shoulders before speaking, unsure whether they were “allowed” to talk to the press. That uncertainty lingered through every conversation.
Lia Escobar, event organizer at the Peach, a warehouse art collective across the street from Southridge, got to know the residents over years, helping them read bills or translate paperwork.
She said the fear was not paranoia but learned behavior. Many residents, she said, worried that being seen talking to outsiders could jeopardize their housing.
She helped one resident pack after the woman was told she had to leave and decided to move in with her daughter.
“She was in tears, and her daughter in tears,” Escobar said. The daughter was trying to take her mother in despite living in a one-bedroom apartment and working full time.
One woman, heading to the community center to run the weekly bingo game, said she’d lived in Southridge for about 20 years. Her husband has Alzheimer’s and no longer recognizes her. She said she wants to stay in the neighborhood they’ve known for decades.
Another said she would prefer to remain in her single-story unit if it could be repaired. She worried about life among elevators and shared hallways.
Financing the project
The Housing Authority selected Delray Beach-based affordable housing developers Smith & Henzy to redevelop Southridge in 2021.
The firm headed by Timothy Henzy and Darren Smith spent four years assembling financing to begin work in October.
To pull together the financing for the project, Smith & Henzy tapped many sources:
- A $26.78 million investment from Raymond James Tax Credit Fund XX LLC, using low-interest housing tax credits.
- A $28 million construction loan from commercial lender Berkadia Commercial Mortgage.
- A $3 million loan from Palm Beach County drawn from federal COVID relief stimulus money.
- A $1.79 million loan from the Housing Authority.
- A $2 million loan from the Florida Housing Finance Corp. using National Housing Trust Fund dollars.
- A $640,000 loan approved in 2022 from West Palm Beach.
- An $872,909 investment from a partnership combining the nonprofit Magnolia Affordable Development Inc., run by the Housing Authority, and SHAG Roseland Gardens Developer, run by Smith & Henzy.
The partnership would hold a lease on the southern section of Southridge, where the two, new four-story buildings will rise. It is poised to collect $8.14 million in development fees, an April Florida Housing Finance Corp report revealed.
The plan calls for building 118 one-bedroom units and 30 two-bedroom units. Most of the units will be available to renters whose income is 60% of area median income or less. Twenty-two units will be reserved for renters at 30% of AMI.
Those income limits would make the homes available to residents with far less money than is typical for traditional workforce housing in Palm Beach County, which often allow tenants who make more than 120% of AMI.
The units are expected to have washers and dryers, an upgrade over existing units. The developers expect Roseland Gardens to open in 2027.
Up to 202 more units can be built in the second phase, with the breakdown of units not yet determined. The Housing Authority must reapply for tax credits and line up other sources of money, which can take months, Odum said.
In Phase 1, it took four years from Smith & Henzy’s selection to the start of construction to patch together the financing.
Meanwhile, residents will continue living in their cottage buildings in Southridge’s northern half.
The West Palm Beach City Commission approved the project’s rezoning and redevelopment plan in May 2024 but demolition did not begin until more than a year later.
Smith & Henzy refused an opportunity to be interviewed for this story but answered some questions, adding “We are honored to be part of the efforts to bring 148 affordable apartments to serve residents of West Palm Beach.”
Even just a few weeks before demolition started, the son of one longtime resident told Stet News he thought the project would never happen.
His mother, a Cuban exile in her 90s, had been among the residents moved from the south side of Southridge to the north side. The Housing Authority tried to find apartments within Southridge for older and more infirm residents rather than force them to leave the neighborhood, Odum said.
Life at Autumn Ridge
Of the 70 apartments demolished, 51 were occupied and 19 were vacant, Odum said.
The Housing Authority assigned residents a relocation coordinator who worked one-on-one with each household to secure temporary housing and assist with the move. Those who relocated were guaranteed first priority to return once new units open, Odum said.
Residents were given Section 8 housing vouchers, which allow them to move anywhere in the private market, Odum said.
Some went to Autumn Ridge, a five-story building operated by the Housing Authority on Congress Avenue in the Westgate neighborhood.
Autumn Ridge is newer, said a home health care nurse who works with longtime residents. The plumbing works, the elevator runs, and it has outdoor seating areas and a welcoming lobby space.
But the transition has not been seamless. Smoking is prohibited at Autumn Ridge, forcing some residents to walk off the property for a cigarette. Others have struggled to adjust to elevators and shared hallways after decades in single-story homes.
Several residents said the move has been physically and emotionally difficult, despite improved facilities.
One resident who lived at Southridge for four years, said she hopes to return once construction is complete. But like many of the residents who spoke to Stet News, she declined to give her name and didn’t have a clear idea of what would await her if she returned to Southridge.
She spoke of her preference for a one-story home with a patio, where neighbors pass by regularly and she could sit outside and greet them. At Autumn Ridge, she lives on an upper floor and said the building feels closed off.
But the new Roseland Gardens will be more like Autumn Ridge than Southridge. Its four-story buildings overlook parking lots and a community clubhouse.
For Griselda Quevedo, a Southridge resident for seven years, the washer and dryer at Autumn Ridge is a valued convenience. But she said she has hearing problems and she and her husband do not feel comfortable using elevators.
Additionally, security measures at Autumn Ridge make it harder to maintain family connections, she said. Residents need a key fob to enter the building, and she said she was not allowed an extra one for a relative.
“Everything looks the same,” said another former Southridge resident, a woman in her 90s.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
