Shuffleboard club awaits new identity

The city begins to consider how a St. Petersburg landmark can recapture its looks and sense of purpose.

By LAURA HEINAUER

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Weeds sprout from sun-baked cracks on the shuffleboard courts where people once waited in long lines to play. The balcony where socialites used to puff cigars is closed. At the nation's first and largest shuffleboard venue, the windows and doors of the "hall of fame" are boarded and covered with cobwebs.

"It's a disgrace," said Tom Lynch, 75, as he sat near the vacant grandstand eating a sandwich with his wife. "Look at this. This place used to be renowned around the world. The city should be ashamed of what it has turned into."

The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club bears little resemblance to its glorious past. But while the ballroom's glitz has been replaced with bingo and the grandstand hasn't been full in years, city officials are convinced that the landmark is not beyond help.

On Tuesday, the city launched its vision for renovating the club. John Green, capital improvements director, told the 75 neighbors in attendance at the Sunshine Center: "I see it continuing to be a recreational complex, but it will be more user-friendly. I envision a place with private studios where people will continue to play chess and shuffleboard, but also a place where people could display and sell items."

Green said there will be other public forums to collect residents' ideas for a master plan, and the city will pursue grant money to finance the process, which he figured would take two to three years.

The vision will require some immediate attention, according to architects Charlie Canerday and Jan Abell, specifically the old smoking balcony, several sagging canopies, and the bleacher wings north and south of the grandstand.

"There aren't any structural nightmares," Canerday said. "We don't see any buildings that necessarily need to be torn down."

But Green expected that some of the complex's 84 shuffleboard courts, which 50 years ago required guards to keep people from sneaking in an extra game, would be eliminated.

"It's been many many years since we've needed that many shuffleboard courts," Green said. "When we get to the point where we make decisions about the site's future, that's when we'll talk about how the excess shuffleboard courts might be used in a way that's harmonious in keeping with the main use of the facility now."

The architect's assessment will help determine whether the structures, neglected because of dwindling interest and little money, should be adapted, destroyed or left untouched, Green said.

"This is the first of a number of public input sessions aimed at using real-life people to find real, live improvements. We're not here tonight to decide how it will be used in the future. We're not asking you to select or choose a different use for the property. Right now all we're doing is explaining our findings on the status and condition of the buildings. We are giving you the information we will use to apply for historic preservation money from the state."

The city already has initiated a $121,000 roofing project for the solarium and main clubhouse.

The architects' final assessment will be completed around October. The application deadline for historic preservation grants is December. Grants are awarded in February, and the city will match any funding it receives, Green said. The next step -- a master plan for the site -- will be determined by the available money and input from residents.

Today, a ballet studio, a chess club, a lawn bowling club and a shuffleboard club are among several groups that use the complex's eight buildings.

On Tuesday, a woman from the ballet studio asked if air conditioning would finally arrive. A man from the shuffleboard club asked if the rent was going to rise. The president of the St. Petersburg Chess Club asked about expansion possibilities.

The clubhouse is listed on the National Historic Landmark registry, while several of the other buildings are designated as local landmarks. Using photographs and fire insurance maps, Abell assessed the property.

"What makes this area significant is the collection of buildings, their dates and the chronology," she said. "The style is unique in that they were all built during the building heyday, from 1923 to 1935 ... They had a grand clubhouse, and it seems that it was quite a grand place to be. I think it could be again."

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