After Hurricanes Helene and Milton, architects race to catalog damage and guide restoration of historic Gulf Coast sites.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As Hurricanes Helene and Milton tore through Florida in last year, several homes and businesses were destroyed.
The powerful winds and high water levels wiped away irreplaceable pieces of the state’s history. Now, an effort is underway to assess and restore some of the most iconic structures along the Gulf Coast.
Sites like the Gulfport Casino, built in 1934, and opened it’s doors a year late.
Inside the shuttered casino, storm surge left a striking mark.
“I’ve never seen water inside the actual dance floor section of the ballroom,” said Justin Shea with the City of Gulfport. “During Hurricane Helene we did have about a foot of storm surge inside the ballroom area. The building is made of wood. With that, the wood flexes and the dance floor is puffy.”
The building, known for its 1950s and ’60s dances, once hosted crowds who “would take their shoes off and… essentially glide around the dancefloor,” Shea said. “That’s why they called it a sock hop.”
Rebuilding at the casino is now in the engineering phase with help from Elevate Florida, a disaster recovery initiative that assists both historic sites and residential areas affected by recent storms. RC Goodwin and Associates is partnering with the effort by surveying properties to determine whether they may qualify for support.
Historic architecture experts are surveying sites like homes on Lido Drive in St. Pete Beach. It’s the level of cataloguing that has not been done since 1989, according to preservation specialists.
The initiative is focusing on spaces across multiple counties where homes built from the late 1930s through the mid-1970s that has had generations of families live inside their walls.
“We are very excited to get back out and survey a lot of those,” said Ella Gsell with RC Goodwin and Associates.
“I don’t have to tell anybody here that a lot of those areas had a lot of damage in the last few years from a lot of hurricanes and storms,” Gsell said during a public meeting on Monday at St. Pete City Hall. “So, getting out there and seeing what’s still out there.”
Teams are evaluating properties across Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee counties to determine what can be preserved without compromising architectural integrity.
“This is not tied to your taxes or insurance. Though sometimes I wish we could be more helpful in those area,” Gsell said. “We’re not an enforcement mechanism. We’re not looking at the color of your shutters. We’re not looking at your roof, nothing like that. We’re just documenting.”
A second public meeting on historic preservation was held Tuesday at VFW Post 39 in St. Petersburg to answer community members’ further questions.