'Lens' Pier Funding Decision Delayed Two Weeks

A decision to approve $1.5 million in funding for the next phase of the "Lens" pier project has been deferred for two weeks after a 5-3 vote by the St. Petersburg City Council. 

Last Friday, April 26, a 400-plus page schematic report was released from city staff and the Michael Maltzan Architecture team. In it were updates and more specifics to the design not previously released. 

Council members Jim Kennedy, Bill Dudley, Karl Nurse, Charlie Gerdes and Steven Kornell voted to defer the time. Jeff Danner, Leslie Curran and Wengay Newton voted no. 

Kennedy, who made the motion to defer, said getting the report a week ago was not enough time to ask staff questions about the financial costs of regular maintenance for the new pier. 

He said the report stated the "Lens" canopy will have a 75-year life span but would have to be re-coated multiple times during that time frame.

"I would like to have some understanding of the anticipated expenses of what maintenance would be," Kennedy said Thursday.

Kennedy said there were a dozen such instances in the schematic design report, which showed the project in budget, but was not clear on how much maintenance would cost.  

Mike Connors, public works administrator, said the canopy re-coating would cost $250,000 to $350,000 every 30 years. The rest of the maintenance costs will be tabulated within two weeks and given to council before the May 16 meeting. 

For the first time on the pier issues, Newton, Danner and Curran were on the same side of a vote, but for different reasons. 

Newton said the public deserved an up or down vote Thursday.

"Council just played kick the can and deferred approving $1.5 million more tax dollars on the Lens for two weeks," Newton said on Twitter following the vote. 

Curran and Danner argued that no matter what numbers staff comes back with in two weeks, the public is not going to care. 

"These are good technical questions but they are a distraction of what the people want to know," Danner said at Thursday's meeting. 

He said people care about what restaurants and programming will be on the pier, not what materials the walk way is made out of.

Danner said voters would not be in the voting booth asking them selves, "Are the caissons going to work? They are going to want to know about what can I do when I get out there."

Connors said even in two weeks, he recommends moving forward with a bare minimum of $100,000 in funding for permitting costs, $60,000 for wind tunnel testing and $40,000 for additional tests on the existing caissons under the inverted pyramid. 

That option was favorable to Gerdes, who said the public needs answers before a public vote. 

"I can’t vote to spend money in the face of an election," Gerdes said. "I think the right thing to do now is turn our efforts into education. I could vote to spend some portion of money to continue toward the demolition ... the pier has to be demolished and that’s a fact."

Bud Riser, with Stop the Lens, spoke to council during open forum to say his group has enough petitions to force a public referendum on the "Lens" contract, but is waiting to submit them so the 90-day window to hold an election would include the August primary. 

During the public forum speakers will evenly divide for those speaking for the "Lens" and those trying to stop that. 

Wednesday night's poll results were not so even. Results from StPetePolls latest poll show 67 percent of poll respondents did not want the city to go forward with the contract for the "Lens."

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