Tampa drive-in theater site to make way for 354 affordable apartments

Developers are scheduled to break ground on a new Tampa affordable housing development Tuesday on the site of the longtime home of a city drive-in.

The development is being built on the East Hillsborough Avenue plot where the Fun-Lan Drive-in movie theater stood for 71 years before it abruptly closed down December 2021.

Fun-Lan was a place where a generation of locals grew up spending weekend nights catching double features, first as kids, then with friends and, eventually, on date night. It was just a place that everyone knew and everyone went to at least once, it seemed.