bradenton village

bradenton, florida

The existing living conditions of Rogers Garden Park, a federal housing project of the Bradenton Housing Authority (BHA), was one of our nation’s most notorious examples of failed government housing. Single-story barrack-style duplexes graced by flat roofs and clotheslines flooded annually by routine summer rainstorms. This housing project was located in one of the most undesirable locations in town, isolated, and surrounded by noxious industrial uses.

In 1992, the US Dept. of HUD created the HOPE VI program to revitalize the nation’s most severely distressed public housing. In 1999, $21.5 million was awarded to the BHA, which teamed with Telesis and Cooper Johnson Smith Architects to create the Bradenton Village Master Plan.

This 39- acre redevelopment TND project, located 1-1/4 miles southeast of Downtown Bradenton, is planned around a new village green and community center, which also serves the adjacent Singletary and Washington neighborhoods. 160 townhouses and flats fill the Rousch Field site and 96 single-family houses will replace the demolished barracks of Rogers Garden Park.  Bungalows and cottages complete the neighborhood general zone and mesh with the existing urban scale of the adjacent neighborhoods. The Village Center serves the surrounding neighborhoods with a Child Care Center, library, and community center, while smaller neighborhood greens have smaller civic structures to provide for recreational and civic needs. A final phase of construction will be devoted to infill housing in the adjacent Washington and Singletary neighborhoods.