ST. PETERSBURG, FL-Businesses are scrambling to find retail space, while other small shops are preparing to close for good as the long-awaited start of the redevelopment of the St. Petersburg Pier is just months away.
St. Petersburg will spend $50 million demolishing The Pier and replacing it with a design known as the “Lens.” Plans call for a futuristic structure to replace the seaside pier, according to the Tampa Tribune.
The pier closes for demolition on May 31. St. Petersburg spends $1.4 million a year on the destination. Built in the early 1970s, its inverted pyramid design is expensive to cool in Florida summers, the newspaper reports.
The circa 1926 walkway is severely corroded and expensive to maintain, says Chris Ballestra, the city's managing director of development coordination. Approximately 400 jobs will be impacted by the pier closure. See story in the Tampa Tribune.
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