The Saint Pete pier has been a hot topic for years now.
How will it look? Who will build it? How much will it cost? Here’s another question. What about the area leading up to the pier? The pier approach? On Thursday, city leaders got the ball rolling on that too.
“The intent is that this is all one seamless pier,” said one city leader. “Obviously we have a lot of work to do. But the goal is at the end of this the public is not going to know where that line is.”
At the meeting there was a map of the pier and the pier approach, not an actual design.
“The pier, the concept was developed during the competition,” a city leader said. “We don’t have a concept for the pier approach.”
There are no renderings of the pier approach project yet but on Thursday the city gave W Architecture and Landscape the green light to start designing. And they already have somewhat of an idea of what the project might include thanks to input from the public.
“The spoke of restaurants and of additional park and connections and pathways extensions of Bayshore Drive. So our plan is to just bring that to reality and see what that looks like and give the city options to move forward,” said Wannemacher Jensen Principle, Jason Jensen.
City leaders said goal is just to have one ribbon cutting for both the pier and the pier approach. Meaning both of them are expected to be completed at the same time.
“It’s music to a lot of people’s ears to see that is now one plan. We’re hearing the announcement that this is one ribbon cutting, one plan,” said St. Pete resident, Dan Harvey.
It's a $20 million pier approach plan that leaders say will make walking up to the pier even more beautiful.
Both the pier and the pier approach are expected to be completed by 2018.