Along Gulf Boulevard on St. Pete Beach, a combination of luck and resources shaped the last 13 months for dozens of hotels ravaged by Hurricane Helene.
The latest to open its doors, five months after a previous estimated reopening date of June 1, is the 102-room Beachcomber and its accompanying live music bar, Jimmy B’s.
Jimmy B’s sits behind St. Pete Beach’s dunes, in front of the Beachcomber’s courtyard. The wood-decked bar, meant to evoke old Florida, sits around 3 feet above sea level.
So when nearly 5 feet of storm surge came rushing from the Gulf, the water flowed underneath the bar’s latticed foundation — straight toward the Beachcomber’s guest rooms, drowning plants and toppling hammocks in its wake. Rooms closest to the water saw 4 feet of flooding, halfway to the ceiling.
Half of the resort’s guest rooms are on the first floor. Disposing of waterlogged furniture and gutting trashed rooms to the studs took months. Then came permit requests, delayed by a backlog at St. Pete Beach City Hall.
Shaun Kwiatkowski, managing director of The Beachcomber Resort, stands in one of the resort’s renovated king rooms. The bright, coastal-style interiors and new furnishings mark a full rebuild following Hurricane Helene’s flood damage.
Photo by DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD/Tampa Bay Times
Once the permits came in December, a sea of about 40 contracting companies descended on the hotel to make it like new, said Shaun Kwiatkowski, managing director of the Beachcomber and Bellwether Beach Resort. The lobby, far back enough that it escaped the worst flooding, has new flooring and paint. Each of the ground-floor guest rooms has new electrical wiring, drywall, floors, sea-green paint, furniture and window A/C units.
The hotel will be about 60% occupied its first weekend back, Kwiatkowski said. The second weekend in November, as snowbirds and visiting families drift in, bookings are sold out.
For St. Pete Beach locals, the revival of Jimmy B’s marks the return of a community gathering place — just in time for Halloween.
Deborah Ritterson has been counting down the days in a Facebook group for St. Pete Beach residents since the reopening date was announced last month.
“40 days. Not that I’m counting,” she wrote in September.
The bar was scheduled to open its doors Thursday, Oct. 30, at 5 p.m. The resort’s return also means around 60 staffers — front desk clerks, housekeepers, bartenders and servers — are back to work. Most returned even after 13 months away, Kwiatkowski said.
“Of course we wanted to open the business back up,” he said. “But at the end of the day … it was about getting our team back.”
An aerial drone view shows the sand piles and debris from the shops after Hurricane Helene looking west on Eighth Avenue on Oct. 1, 2024, in the Pass-a-Grille neighborhood on St. Pete Beach.
Photo by DIRK SHADD Tampa Bay Times
Hotels on this busy strip of Gulf Boulevard saw similar storm surge, but reopening times have diverged dramatically. The nearby TradeWinds Resort opened one of its hotels just a month after Helene, while Postcard Inn is still surrounded by ladders and contractors’ trucks, with exposed wood framing hanging over its lobby entrance.
The Don CeSar, St. Pete Beach’s iconic pink hotel, reopened in March after floodwaters decimated its century-old electrical system. And the Bellwether, the 12-story sister property to the Beachcomber, no longer has a reopening date after a past estimate of July 1 came and went. The first floor requires extensive repairs to its elevator and electrical systems, Kwiatkowski said.
“From the city, to us as property operators, none of us have been through this,” he said. “There’s a lot of steps it takes.”
Less than 1,000 rooms remain out of commission on Pinellas’ barrier islands a year after Helene, said Brian Lowack, president of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, the county tourism booster.
But the southern communities, places like St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island and Madeira Beach, have suffered the most closures. The tourism agency is still highlighting hotels and businesses as they reopen, he said.
Tourism officials have something else to advertise: Pinellas County’s beach renourishment project, which they say will double the width and height of the city’s Upham Beach Park.
“People already know us as America’s best beaches,” Lowack said. They “are getting bigger, brighter, wider, better than ever … and that gives us the opportunity to tie (hotel reopenings) into that story.”
The Beachcomber built back a little more resilient than it was before. The doors and windows at Jimmy B’s are now hurricane-rated. The shrubs covering the courtyard are saltwater resistant.
Sea oats have grown back thicker on the dunes guarding Jimmy B’s.
Kwiatkowski can only hope they’ll fend off saltwater the next time disaster strikes.