Hurricanes vs. the St. Pete Pier: The damage report

Members of the St. Petersburg City Council learned Thursday about hurricane damage to the St. Pete Pier. There was good news and bad news.

The Glazer Family Playground, said the City’s Managing Director of Development Chris Ballestra, was completely submerged by Hurricane Milton’s heavy rain, in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s storm surge. The ground cover consists of artificial turf with a substrate of foam (“for safety issues”). All of it, he said, “became floating, and we were initially under the impression that it would all have to be replaced.”

However, “as the water levels and all the drainage receded appropriately, it has all been dried out. And we’ve had it inspected, by the installers who originally did it, and they’ve effectively told us that we are good to go without a replacement required. So that’s very good news.”

The playground is now open and fully operational.

The Glazer Family Playground. Photo: W Architecture.

Nearly 500 trees were planted on the Pier’s 26 landscaped acres when it was constructed in 2020. Approximately 30 trees, Ballestra reported, were destroyed or uprooted in the recent hurricanes – one-third, he said, might survive re-planting.

There was some damage, he added, to the floating “courtesy docks” behind Doc Ford’s Rum Bar and Grill, “but generally the physical structures throughout the Pier did very well.” He described the $92M Pier as “extraordinarily resistant.”

Not so lucky was Bending Arc, the net-like “floating sculpture” by internationally-known artist Janet Echelman. City Development Administrator James Corbett told the Council that the 424-foot work of art sustained “major damage” in recent months, starting with Hurricane Debby in August.

“It’s come to a point now,” he said, “where we believe the only way to really repair and handle the issue is to bring the sculpture down, figure out what is the way – or if there’s a way – to re-hang the sculpture in a way that’s sustainable.”

In June, several of the support strands that keep Bending Arc tethered 72 feet above the ground came loose. At that time, representatives from The Net House, the Cocoa Beach company that conducts regular inspections of the Echelman work, re-attached it with stronger tethers.

Those held up in the hurricanes, Corbett said, but the sculpture itself was subsequently damaged. The Net House, he added, will soon take it down and see what can be done.

He said the artist, who resides in Massachusetts, had been notified.

Echelman named Bending Arc – her largest net sculpture to date – after a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The piece, and its installation, was paid for with $1.5M in private donations.

She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.