Case Study

Commerce Park: Engineering Measurable Community Value Into a Live RFP

Case Study — Social Impact Investment Programme

Commerce Park: Engineering Measurable Community Value Into a Live RFP

How Edenwell designed a five-programme Social Impact Investment Programme (SIIP) — with named budgets, KPIs, and direct financial returns — for a 160-key hotel and workforce housing proposal on St. Petersburg, Florida’s historic Deuces Corridor.

Location

St. Petersburg, FL

Sector

Hospitality & Workforce Housing

Edenwell Role

SIIP Design & Capital Structuring

Status

RFP Submitted, May 2026

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Setting the stage

$10B+

Pinellas County tourism economy, generated annually

100,000

Regional jobs supported by the tourism economy

38%

St. Petersburg households that are housing-cost burdened

11%

Decline in renter-occupied units in The Deuces, 2012–2023

The Corridor

Commerce Park sits on 22nd Street South in The Deuces — once home to more than 100 Black-owned businesses and, at the Historic Manhattan Casino, a stage for Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday during segregation. The construction of Interstate 275 physically severed that ecosystem. City CRA data shows an 11% decline in renter-occupied units between 2012 and 2023 — displacement as a present, measurable reality, not a historical footnote.

The tension the site sits on top of is structural: Pinellas County’s tourism economy generates more than $10 billion a year and roughly 100,000 regional jobs, yet approximately 38% of St. Petersburg households are housing-cost burdened. The workforce sustaining the growth increasingly cannot afford to live near it.

A development consortium — led by Zarius Property Developments, White Keys Real Estate Partners, and Homage Hospitality — proposed a 160-key boutique hotel, roughly 90 units of workforce co-living housing, and 8,000 sq ft of community retail for the site. Edenwell was brought in to design the social infrastructure that would determine whether that development strengthens the corridor or simply sits on top of it.

The Brief: Impact That Shows Up on the Balance Sheet

Edenwell’s mandate was to adapt its proprietary Community Flourishing Index (CFI) — normally deployed across student housing, co-living, and active-living assets — into a framework specific to a hospitality and workforce-housing hybrid. The result, the Social Impact Investment Programme (SIIP), is organized around three Heritage Pillars.

Community, Culture & Commerce

Faith, Family & Education

Resilience & Renaissance

Underneath each pillar sit five programmes, and every one of them was written the same way — a Year 1 budget, a named KPI trajectory, and a stated financial return to the asset. Nothing in the SIIP is presented as goodwill alone.

Five Impact Programmes, Five Financial Cases

Deuces Hospitality Apprenticeship Pipeline

Year 1 Budget

$95,000

Direct Financial Return
Paid apprenticeships and priority hotel hiring for co-living residents. Targets an 80-resident Year 1 cohort rising to 150+ by Year 3; projected to save $60,000+/yr in recruitment fees and $117,280/yr in reduced turnover cost at Year 3 stabilization.

Community Wealth Builder Fund

Year 1 Budget

Embedded in procurement

Direct Financial Return
Minority-contractor spend targets and CRA-scoring strategy designed to attract mission-aligned lenders and reduce financing cost, paired with local-hire maintenance staffing to lower long-run operating expense.

Sankofa Heritage Suite & Cultural Residency

Year 1 Budget

$75,000

Direct Financial Return
4–6 curated Heritage Suites and a quarterly artist residency, developed with the Woodson Museum and Deuces Live. Modeled at $108,000/yr in direct room-revenue uplift, plus an estimated $150,000–$300,000 in first-year earned media.

Workforce Housing Flourishing Index

Year 1 Budget

$25,000

Direct Financial Return
A five-dimension resident wellbeing index (Stability, Belonging, Economic Mobility, Wellbeing, Civic Power), measured quarterly and independently verified by USF St. Petersburg every three years — built to satisfy OZ, LIHTC, CRA, and institutional LP ESG reporting simultaneously.

Culinary Heritage Kitchen & Micro-Farm

Year 1 Budget

Embedded in F&B capex

Direct Financial Return
A rooftop micro-farm and commercial kitchen built with the St. Pete Youth Farm, connecting the hotel’s F&B programme to the federally designated Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Projected to cut fresh-produce costs by $15,000–$25,000/yr at scale.
“Too often, ‘social impact’ in real estate means a plaque in the lobby. We built the SIIP so every programme carries a budget, a KPI, a named financial return, and independent verification — the same discipline a CFO would demand of any other line on the balance sheet.”

Jenniffer Gearheart-Tang

Chief Innovation & Impact Officer, Edenwell

Governance Built to Survive Scrutiny

Most ESG frameworks in workforce and affordable housing fail in one of three ways: developer commitments with no independent accountability, measurement frameworks bolted on after construction, or community benefit agreements that are aspirational rather than enforceable. The SIIP was structured to close all three gaps at once.
  • Every KPI is written into the proposed Community Benefit Agreement with the City of St. Petersburg CRA
  • Reported annually by Edenwell Global Impact Group in a public Impact Report, independent of the developer’s own financial reporting
  • Third-party verification from USF St. Petersburg on a fixed three-year cycle

Beyond the Hotel: Financing the Whole Stack

Edenwell’s involvement in Commerce Park extends past programme design. Alongside the SIIP, Edenwell has issued a Letter of Intent confirming its capacity to lead structuring of the equity and debt required to deliver the project, drawing on its institutional and family-office network across the UK, Luxembourg, Europe, and the U.S. — and layering in impact-focused, faith-aligned, and minority-focused capital pools alongside it.
The thesis underneath both workstreams is the same: a social impact programme with a real financial case is also the strongest argument to a lender or an LP that the asset will perform.
“Commerce Park is a template, not a one-off. We designed the SIIP to prove that community impact and investor-grade underwriting are the same argument — and we’re now bringing that same framework to hospitality, co-living, and workforce housing operators well beyond this one project.”

Josef Reisz

CEO & Partner, Edenwell Capital Partners

Status July 2026

The Commerce Park proposal was submitted to the City of St. Petersburg’s Economic & Workforce Development Department in May 2026. Shortlisting is pending, and this case study describes the SIIP as designed and proposed — not as an awarded or operating project. Edenwell is publishing it because the design discipline behind the SIIP — costed programmes, published KPIs, independent verification — is repeatable on day one of any Living-sector asset, regardless of where any single deal lands.

Take a SiiP

Edenwell designs and operates Social Impact Programmes for student housing, workforce and affordable housing, co-living, and active and later living assets across the UK, Luxembourg, Europe, and the United States. If you are underwriting a Living-sector asset and want social impact that shows up in NOI, occupancy, and lending terms — not just a reporting exercise — talk to us.

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