Pinellas Park’s largest apartment community planned with 552 units, including 221 affordable apartments
/The former MCI WorldCom call center in Pinellas Park will be redeveloped into the city’s largest apartment community, with 552 units, including affordable housing | CoStar
A 31-acre office property along McCann Lake has received preliminary approval for what would become the largest apartment community in Pinellas Park, with 552 units, including at least 221 affordable apartments.
City staff approved the preliminary site plan on September 30th for 10222 MCI Drive in the Gateway Centre Business Park.
The two-phase development would replace an office campus with nine four-story apartment buildings, two clubhouses, pickleball courts, and 847 parking spaces.
The apartment proposal relies on Florida’s Live Local Act, which allows residential development on the industrially zoned property, provided that at least 40% of the apartments, or at least 221 units, are reserved for households earning at or below 120% of the area median income for a minimum of 30 years.
The remaining 331 apartments would be leased at market rates.
Plans call for apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom units. All nine residential buildings would rise four stories, with a maximum height of 50 feet.
A former MCI WorldCom call center in Pinellas Park will be redeveloped into a 552-unit apartment community | PCPAO
The first phase would include 388 apartments, a 9,543-square-foot clubhouse, and 600 parking spaces. A second phase would add 164 apartments, a 7,186-square-foot clubhouse, and 247 parking spaces.
A pedestrian walkway would follow the lake along the eastern side of the property, connecting with internal sidewalks and existing sidewalks along MCI Drive. Plans also include three new stormwater ponds.
Miami-based developer MAST Capital is identified in the plans, with Kimley-Horn handling the preliminary site plan application and Atwell preparing civil engineering plans.
The property currently contains a three-story, 124,983-square-foot office building that once housed a major MCI call center.
MCI opened the facility in 1993, bringing hundreds of jobs to Pinellas Park.
Even its address was a nod to the telecommunications company: 10222 was the prefix customers dialed to place long-distance calls through MCI’s network, according to a 2001 Tampa Bay Times report.
After MCI merged with WorldCom, the call center shifted from helping small-business telephone customers to providing technical support for other companies.
The approved site plan for 552 apartments on a 31-acre property in Pinellas Park | Mast Capital
WorldCom announced the center’s closure in 2001, laying off 499 workers. The departure came eight years after local officials celebrated MCI’s arrival as a major employer.
The property was purchased for $6.3 million in 2002 by Pinellas Plaza LLC, a company with ties to New York City landlord Jay Podolsky.
In the mid-1980s, Podolsky, his brother Stuart and their father, Zenek, pleaded guilty to felony charges, including grand larceny and coercion, after Manhattan prosecutors said the family paid a crew to drive tenants out of their rent-controlled buildings. Jay and Stuart Podolsky were sentenced to five years’ probation and community service; their father served 90 days in jail.
The brothers later became major providers of hotel-based homeless shelter space for New York City, and in 2019 sold 17 buildings to the city for $173 million for conversion to affordable housing, a deal that drew scrutiny from city officials over its price.
In April 2025, Pinellas Plaza LLC transferred the property to two related entities, Pinellas J&S NV LLC and Pinellas S&S NV LLC, each receiving a 50% ownership interest.
The preliminary site plan application does not provide a construction schedule or indicate when demolition of the existing office building would begin.
