TAMPA - The Tampa Housing Authority is moving ahead with buying a $4.2 million building for a new administrative headquarters despite objections from Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and one of the authority's commissioners.

The board voted last month to enter into a contact to buy the 67,800-square-foot building at 5301 W. Cypress St. subject to environmental, structural and title investigations.

Leroy Moore, the authority's chief operating officer, told commissioners those investigations are complete and housing officials wanted to close on the deal unless the board objected.

"I strongly recommend proceeding," Moore said.

None of the six commissioners mentioned objections from Iorio, who said in an interview last week the purchase is a waste of money that shouldn't be spent when 12,000 people are on a waiting list for public housing or Section 8 federal housing vouchers.

Only commissioner Reubin Padgett raised questions about the deal. No vote was taken.

Padgett said he did not know the vote last month was to approve the contract. At that meeting Padgett asked why housing officials had not looked at land the authority already owned or could get at a lower prices.

Today, Padgett suggested the housing authority build a new administration building that meets the agency's needs on 2 acres the agency owns on 34th Street in east Tampa. In addition to the $4.2 million purchase price of the Cypress Street property built in 1985, the housing authority will have to spend up to $1 million renovating it.

"We could have designed a building for the same price or less and it wouldn't be 25 years old," Padgett said.

Moore said authority officials never considered the 34th Street property because it's in a residential area and parking would be tight because of the requirement to build a stormwater retention pond. The Cypress Street building is built over its retention pond.

Once the Cypress Street building is renovated, the housing authority plans to relocate more than employees now scattered among five buildings, said executive director Jerome Ryans. The main headquarters building is located at 1529 W. Main St. in the middle of North Boulevard Homes, one of the city's older public housing complexes