After several years of planning, the City of St. Pete is now entering the public outreach phase of its Citywide Seawall Master Plan, a long-term effort focused on addressing coastal flooding, erosion, and shoreline resilience.
The Seawall Master Plan is designed to evaluate the condition of City-owned seawalls and create a strategy for future repairs, replacements, and shoreline improvements.
A seawall is a hardened shoreline structure, typically constructed of concrete or steel, designed to protect land from erosion, storm surge, and tidal flooding.
In St. Pete, seawalls protect neighborhoods, parks, roadways, utilities, and other critical infrastructure from rising water levels.
Pinellas County has nearly 588 miles of coastline, almost half of which is hardened with seawalls.
Within St. Petersburg alone, there are roughly 80,000 linear feet, or about 15 miles, of City-owned seawalls, in addition to an estimated 500,000 linear feet of privately owned seawalls.
While the current study focuses on municipal infrastructure, City officials have noted that the findings could help inform broader shoreline policy and private investment decisions in the future.
The planning effort is being funded largely through a $900,000 Community Development Block Grant–Mitigation award, a federal program intended to help communities reduce disaster risks before future storm events occur.
After securing the federal funding in 2022, the City issued a Request for Qualifications seeking an engineering and planning team with coastal resilience expertise.