A new neighborhood pizzeria is coming to St. Petersburg’s Central Oak Park, bringing brick-oven pizzas, house-made pastas, and a familiar local name behind the concept.

The restaurant is the latest project from Steve Garrahan and Kurt Drake, the founders of Bright Ice, a small-batch ice cream brand known for its creative flavor combinations like roasted strawberries with brown sugar and balsamic and blueberries with cinnamon.

Kitty’s House of Pizza is slated to open in early 2026 at 4059 5th Avenue North, just four blocks west of Bright Ice’s original St. Pete scoop shop.

The building, which Garrahan and Drake purchased in June, previously housed a gym and, before that, a convenience store.

The idea for Kitty’s House of Pizza grew organically out of Bright Ice’s continued expansion.

Bright Ice opened in St. Petersburg in late 2019 and has since expanded to Tampa, Pinellas Park, Venice, and Lakeland.

“We’ve outgrown our current commercial kitchen for ice cream production, especially when it comes to cold storage,” Garrahan said. “This new space allows us to more than double our freezer capacity and better serve our existing locations.”

A new 10-unit townhome development is coming to St. Pete’s Central Oak Park neighborhood, located just west of the Grand Central District.

Seattle-based development firm Heron Properties has broken ground on the project, called The Junction Townhomes, located at 3601 1st Avenue North. This marks the company’s first development outside of Seattle.

The community will include four buildings situated around a landscaped central courtyard.

Heron Properties purchased the 0.42-acre property in 2022 for $770,000.

“We’ve started site work and expect to begin vertical construction in August,” said Grace Johnson, Principal at Heron Properties, in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.