Escape Tampa Bay Village is a one-acre parcel with 10 tiny homes that attracted buyers so fast, Dan Dobrowolski, founder of Escape Homes, halted sales just to keep a couple models for show until new villages open.
Buyers ranged from snowbirds wanting to ride out the pandemic in a warmer climate to local residents who were paying more to rent compared with the monthly mortgage.
Dobrowolski is so sold on the potential of the Gulf Coast market he plans to open an Escape Homes manufacturing facility in the area, to complement the one in Wisconsin. It could be a new plant or an existing facility repurposed to make tiny homes. He’s zeroed in on two potential sites in the Tampa area and one in Sarasota, where his family has owned property since the mid-1970s.
“We have to expand,” Dobrowolski says. “not only in terms of the numbers of units we need to build, but also distribution — we have so many new customers that are in Florida and the Southeast that it just economically makes more sense.”
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