City council voted in favor of demolishing the Pier with 7-1 vote

St. Petersburg officials have officially decided to demolish the Pier.

The demolition of the Pier was approved by the city council with a 7-1 vote on Thursday evening.

Last week, the city council endorsed St. Petersburg mayor Bill Foster's recommendation to demolish the Pier and start from scratch.

Foster said the city simply can't afford the $50 million it takes to maintain the Pier.

Pier advisory chairman Randy Wedding said the demolition timetable is based on safety factors.

"The wisdom put on the table by the engineering people is that the safety factor of using that old structure to get there probably runs out in 2012," he said. "So, sometime around that it starts to come down."

Wedding said everyone from residents to the advisory board were divided on whether to keep the current 38-year-old inverted pyramid structure or start over.

The cost of demolition is expected to be about $10 to $12 million and Wedding said nothing will be left.

There are plenty of ideas about what should happen next.

"Maybe an attraction or something for visitors,'' said St. Petersburg resident Martin Jordanov. "Local people have concerts out there. Have a stage.''

Once the official vote is over, the city council will move to the planning and design phase. They will decide how much community space, how many restaurants and how much retail space will be created.

And with the inverted pyramid not expected to be torn down until 2013, officials said the public will have multiple opportunities to give ideas about what should go in its place.

City council members have not voted on any specific designs for the new Pier. They say they will get public input before making any kind of decision on that.

City officials want to encourage people to continue going to the Pier for the time being and support the businesses and restaurants inside.