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St. Petersburg may add a downtown boardwalk
By BRYAN GILMER, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- Lin Brinkley can't find a parking spot in downtown St. Petersburg when he arrives in his 24-foot Sea Ray powerboat. "It frustrates me whenever there's an event at Vinoy Park or Straub Park," the Snell Isle attorney said. "You can take your boat downtown, but you can't get off of it." Downtown's seawalls are steep. There are a couple of spots at the Pier where boaters can tie up, but Brinkley said they are difficult to use. Though downtown's marinas have hundreds of slips, almost all are leased to long-term tenants. "You can't get out of your boat without somebody getting wet," Brinkley said, adding that there are no cleats on the seawall to tie up to. Now the city is looking into building a boardwalk with mooring points. That would make downtown more inviting to boaters and give pedestrians a new place to stroll, said City Council member John Bryan, who proposed the idea. Bryan wants a wooden deck 12 feet wide with mooring points. It would stretch about 1,600 feet, parallel to the seawall between the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and the approach to the Pier. He said the city should limit each boat to three to five hours at the dock, with a possible one-night permit available to guests of downtown hotels. The city could charge for dockage, maybe by using parking meters monitored by the city's automobile parking enforcement officers. Bryan thinks the project would add interest to downtown. It could send tourists home with an impression of St. Petersburg as a waterfront city where many residents use their boats to head downtown for dinner. And he thinks it will draw more local tourists who own boats. "People from Sarasota or Tampa who like to take day trips in their boats will think of St. Pete," Bryan said. "And just go out there and watch. Sooner or later, somebody's going to come along walking that seawall cap." There's a sidewalk in the narrow swath of grass between the seawall and Bayshore Drive, but Bryan said that it doesn't offer a view into the water. That's why Jean Crabtree of Virginia Beach, Va., balanced herself precariously on top of the seawall one recent day as she peered down at minnows. She said a boardwalk would be better. "That would be great," Crabtree said.
Bryan has the unanimous support of his colleagues to study the project further. The mayor's staff plans to meet with a consultant this week to work out the details. At first glance, the boardwalk seems doable, said John Green, capital improvements director. "We're going to take a look at a couple of ways to (build it) and determine what sorts of opportunities might tie in," Green said. Environmental permits will be needed, and the consultants will study which design likely would be the easiest to win approval. Green gave a "very, very preliminary" cost estimate of $500,000. In a time of tight budgets, Bryan has in mind a way to pay for the project: Some of the money the city got when it sold its Weeki Wachee land in Hernando County last year. The City Council voted to use a little of the $14.4-million each year for recreational projects in the city. "It's ideal. We lost a water venue up there, but we're replacing it with a waterfront venue down here," Bryan said. Though city residents have historically been protective of the waterfront, no opposition to the plan has surfaced yet. Nearby businesses said the boardwalk would fit in well along Straub Park and bring more customers downtown. "I don't see anything wrong with it at all," said Dale Grayl, owner of Grayl's Hotel, 340 Beach Drive NE. The hotel looks across Straub Park. "I don't own the waterfront; it's everybody's." Don Shea, executive director of the private Downtown Partnership, agreed. "I think it's pretty exciting. That area is kind of a dead zone, at least from the seawall out," he said. "This would be an enhancement of the park setting. It's another way to use the best resource we have in town, the waterfront." St. Petersburg Yacht Club general manager Robert Lovejoy said, "Personally, I think it would be a courtesy to the boating community in town." Still, council member Earnest Williams said the council should hold public hearings before approving the idea. "I would think that we would just need to get input from the public," he said. "I'm sure there would be pros and cons. But I haven't talked to anybody who said that's a burning issue for them one way or the other. If it's tasteful, not terribly expensive and blends in with what's there, I don't have any objections." The water near the seawall is only a few feet deep, and Bryan said he does not want the city to dredge the area. That would ensure that only small pleasure boats used the tie-ups and prevent large yachts that might block the view. Two similar projects are under way in Tampa. The Tampa Convention Center and the Marriott Waterside Hotel are each building about 30 slips for short-term visitors who arrive by boat. "Our owners felt that really rounded out the project nicely," Marriott general manager Mary Scott said. "Whether that be for local residents who want to come to the hotel to have a meal or boat in and take the trolley to Ybor City." When Brinkley learned of Bryan's plan for the St. Petersburg boardwalk, he said "That's awesome!" "That's what it's for," Brinkley said of the downtown waterfront. "It's great to look at, but if you can use it and look at it, even better."
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