Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency (FPRA)

The Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency (FPRA) is the city's community redevelopment agency, established in 1982 to revitalize both the physical and economic environment of the redevelopment area (City of Fort Pierce Redevelopment page).

The city's Redevelopment page gives the founding details: Ordinance H-239, with a date established of December 8, 1982, and the City of Fort Pierce as the establishing entity. Before 1982, a Downtown Redevelopment Corporation studied the problems of the declining downtown and helped create the agency. The page uses both names, Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency, and, in describing the 2000 expansion, says the CRA also established its name as the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency (Redevelopment page, purpose and boundaries).

The 2020 updated FPRA Plan, the agency's regulatory plan, repeats that the City of Fort Pierce created the agency with Ordinance No. H-239 to guide the redevelopment of its downtown (2020 Updated FPRA Plan). The city's Redevelopment page cites Florida Statutes Chapter 163 under its revenue information (Redevelopment page).

The FPRA area takes in the older central core of Fort Pierce and reaches east across Seaway Drive to South Hutchinson Island (Fort Pierce Redevelopment page, boundaries).

The area grew in steps. In 1995 and 1996 the City Commission added land south of Atlantic Avenue to Citrus Avenue and Delaware Avenue, and in 2000 it added the neighborhoods west of 7th Street, the Port and the beaches, which the 2020 plan names as South Beach (Redevelopment page; 2020 FPRA Plan, history). The FPRA Mural Program page names five FPRA districts: Downtown, Lincoln Park, Peacock Arts District, Fisherman's Wharf and South Beach (FPRA Mural Program page).

The 2020 Fort Pierce plan explains why land use matters to the agency's budget: the redevelopment area holds over 1,000 acres that generate little to no taxable revenue, largely institutional uses and vacant land, including about 512 acres of vacant land that it describes as an opportunity for new development (2020 FPRA Plan, existing conditions).

FPRA revenue comes from ad valorem taxes and from revenue on leased property it owns, and the city states that the agency is not a separate taxing jurisdiction (Fort Pierce Redevelopment page, revenue information).

The 2020 FPRA Plan describes new development generating additional tax increment revenue for the FPRA (2020 FPRA Plan, existing conditions). Section 163.387 of the Florida Statutes sets the yearly deposit into a redevelopment trust fund at 95 percent of the difference between the ad valorem taxes each taxing authority levies on property inside the area and the taxes the same rate would have produced on the area's values before the trust fund ordinance, and lets the governing body set a lower share, but in no event less than 50 percent of the difference, with any debt service millage excluded from both amounts (Florida Statutes section 163.387).

Fort Pierce reports the agency as a blended component unit of the city, so its audit is part of the city's annual financial report, and its fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30 (Redevelopment page, financial information). The same page posts the FY 2027 FPRA Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Plan alongside earlier budgets and audits, and the FPRA Projects page links the FY26 Capital Improvement Plan and project based budget presentations (FPRA Projects page).

The Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency Board meets on the second Tuesday of every month at 5:05 p.m., and a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) meeting is listed for the third Wednesday, according to the city's posted meeting schedule (Fort Pierce Redevelopment page, meeting schedule).

The city's page says FPRA agendas are posted before each meeting and minutes after approval, through the city's Agendas and Minutes system. The FPRA Board is also the body that adopted the Downtown Master Plan in November 2022, as the Marina Square page records (Fort Pierce Marina Square page).

State law allows a city to run its redevelopment agency through its own elected body. Section 163.357 lets a municipal governing body declare itself to be the agency, in which case the members of the governing body are the members of the agency (Florida Statutes section 163.357). The city's monthly FPRA Programs and Activities Summary reports the Fort Pierce agency's active projects, grant programs and improvements (FPRA Programs and Activities Summary page).

The FPRA runs reimbursable grants for storefronts and signs, plus a mural program, all limited to properties inside the FPRA District (Fort Pierce Commercial Facade Grants page).

The Fort Pierce facade grant page says the 2026 application period closed on July 20, 2026 and points owners to its program guidelines and the FPRA map (Commercial Facade Grants page). The sign grant covers awnings, freestanding ground signs, monument signs, projecting signs, under canopy signs, wall signs and painted signs, all in compliance with city codes (Commercial Sign Grant Program page). The mural program states its aim as reducing slum and blight, fostering civic pride and giving artists a platform, and posts an interactive map of murals across the Peacock Arts District (FPRA Mural Program page).

FPRA project pages on the city site describe plans for Marina Square downtown, a Lincoln Park master plan and a Moore's Creek and Avenue D mixed-use housing site, among other listed projects (Fort Pierce Marina Square page).

For Marina Square, the city reports a finalized conceptual design for a flexible waterfront park for markets, concerts and festivals, with parking strategies, waterfront promenades and better links to Indian River Drive, the City Marina and Downtown Fort Pierce; it calls the design a framework for future phased implementation (Marina Square page). The Lincoln Park Redevelopment Master Plan, in partnership with the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, covers the area from U.S. Highway 1 to 33rd Street and from Avenue B to Avenue Q, with goals that include infill housing on vacant lots and revitalizing Avenue D (Lincoln Park Master Plan page).

At Moore's Creek, the city page, in a project update dated August 16, 2023, says St. Lucie County, the City of Fort Pierce and the FPRA entered an interlocal agreement in April 2023 to pursue a mixed-use development with affordable housing on mostly county-owned parcels near Avenue D and 7th Street, about a third of a mile from Downtown Fort Pierce, with part of the site in a federal Qualified Opportunity Zone (Moore's Creek and Avenue D page). FPRA questions go to fpra@cityoffortpierce.com.

Fort Pierce posts FPRA annual reports, budgets, audits and the 2020 regulatory plan on its Redevelopment page, including the FY2025 Annual Report and an archive back to 2011 (Fort Pierce Redevelopment page, reports).

State law requires the posting. Section 163.371 requires every community redevelopment agency, by March 31 each year, to file an annual report with the city or county that created it and publish it on the agency's website, and to post digital maps of its boundaries and total acreage (Florida Statutes section 163.371). Between annual reports, the Fort Pierce FPRA Programs and Activities Summary is published monthly as a PDF, with earlier editions in an FPRA reports archive (FPRA Programs and Activities Summary).

Last verified: October 22, 2026, by re-reading the City of Fort Pierce Redevelopment, FPRA Projects, Programs and Activities Summary, Marina Square, Lincoln Park Master Plan, Moore's Creek, facade grant, sign grant and mural pages, the 2020 FPRA Plan, and Florida Statutes sections 163.357, 163.371 and 163.387 for this agency guide.