Kevin Johnson Co-Founder, Shacres Design + Development

July 2026 — Kevin Johnson, Co-Founder of Shacres, spoke with Invest: about Tampa’s need for missing middle housing, the role of public-private partnerships, and the importance of community-centered development. “We are trying to show that responsible, tasteful development can happen on a smaller scale without displacing communities and sacrificing quality,” Johnson said.

What key changes over the past year have had the biggest impact on Shacres’ growth and vision?

The pricing of materials has obviously had an impact, but for us, one of the biggest changes has been the influx of interest in the area from outside companies. That makes things slightly tougher, but we are in a unique space with the missing middle. It is too small for the big guys and a little too big for people who are mainly doing single-family homes.

Another challenge is that the existing community is not necessarily ready for change. Tampa is a small city that is evolving into a big city. Physically, it is small, but it is starting to garner the attention, investment, and bright lights that a city like Miami has. A lot of residents are not necessarily ready for that change, and some leadership is not ready either.

Some government leaders may not have the proper foresight or experience to make sure Tampa is growing in a responsible and healthy manner without sacrificing the city’s character and culture.

How do you see the role of missing middle housing evolving in Tampa?

People have to become more open to it. Tampa has historically been a smaller place. It is a very comfortable city and a great place to start a family and raise kids. We live where people vacation, so a lot of residents do not travel to places where they can see density and understand what that looks like in a practical setting.

In Tampa, people are used to having big backyards and a lot of space. It has been one of the top cities people are moving to, and home prices are now so high that they are pricing out the people who are from here and helped build up the city to what it is now..

One of the reasons housing costs are so high is because we simply do not have enough inventory and housing diversity. The people who live here and own properties in the core of the city are often against more density and more homes, while my generation is complaining about not being able to purchase a home at a reasonable price. So there’s a disconnect in terms of if and how new development should be executed in our existing neighborhoods.

Missing middle housing somewhat answers that problem because nobody wants an enormous apartment complex dropped into the middle of a neighborhood. It is about finding creative ways to put 10 units here or 20 units there without it looking like a big block, so it assimilates into the texture of the existing neighborhood.

Tampa is a melting pot with Cuban, Italian, African American, Puerto Rican, and many other cultures. Responsible missing middle housing can support growth while respecting that texture.

How do you approach projects in historic and culturally significant areas while maintaining authenticity and neighborhood character?

I have two partners, and we are all from Tampa, born and raised. When you are from somewhere, you have more pride in maintaining the culture, texture, and uniqueness of the city.

A lot of times, people who come from other cities are focused only on the bottom line. For us, we pride ourselves on doing intentional work that our peers and fellow natives would be proud of.

We all have design and business backgrounds. We went to Tampa Bay Technical High School, and our high school had an architecture academy and business program, so we all graduated from those programs. We have an understanding of design and architecture, and how those elements give neighborhoods their own identity and character. As well as understanding how to effectively position ourselves in deals.

That gives us enough motivation to do things the right way.

How important are public-private partnerships in addressing Tampa Bay’s housing challenges?

For affordable housing, public-private partnerships are extremely important because the numbers do not always pencil out. Any type of subsidization helps a lot. Cheap money is hard to come by in 2026, and if it were up to many larger developers, everything would be market rate.

Affordable housing is almost not feasible without public-private partnerships. They are essential and critical. I am grateful that the city is starting to understand that it is important to give smaller firms like ours an opportunity.

Experience still matters. I do not think they should just award funding to anybody who calls themselves a developer. We have been in architecture and adjacent industries since we were 14, so we feel prepared at this point in our careers. We have the skills and knowledge to get things done.

What trends are you seeing in the labor market and talent pipeline for development right now?

One of the biggest challenges is the widening gap between Tampa’s cost of living and local wage growth. The city is transitioning from a traditionally blue-collar economy toward a more white-collar, growth-driven market, but compensation has not fully caught up with that shift.

That creates a real talent-retention issue. As housing and everyday costs rise, it becomes harder for the people needed to plan, manage, build, and shape the city’s growth to afford to stay here long term.

Looking ahead, what are your key goals and priorities for Shacres?

Our key goal is to continue focusing on intentional development. A statement we live by is: Good design is not a luxury. Inside and out.

We believe good design is a byproduct of intention. For a lot of affordable housing developers, it is just a math problem. For us, being natives, we care more about the outcome and about balancing things out in Tampa. We want to keep Tampa, Tampa.

East Tampa is a historically Black community and one of the last neighborhoods that has not been heavily gentrified yet. A lot of our friends and families grew up there. Because pay in Tampa is not where it needs to be, people who may have lived in their parents’ or grandparents’ homes end up selling and moving to the outskirts.

For us, the goal is to keep natives in the city because they are the core of our culture. We are trying to show that responsible, tasteful development can happen on a smaller scale without displacing communities.

That is our mission for the next few years. In the near future, we will get into more mixed-use projects and commercial concepts, but right now the focus is affordable housing.