{"id":211623,"date":"2026-03-30T13:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/211623\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:14:12","slug":"florida-to-rebuild-sunshine-skyway-fishing-piers-more-than-a-year-after-hurricane-milton-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/211623\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida to rebuild Sunshine Skyway fishing piers more than a year after Hurricane Milton damage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Ron DeSantis announces new construction and repairs to Tampa Bay’s storm-battered fishing piers, with phased work already underway.<\/p>\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 More than a year after Hurricane Milton battered the Sunshine Skyway Bridge fishing piers, Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced a construction and repair project<\/a> that anglers and community advocates say could reshape access to one of Tampa Bay’s most popular waterfront destinations.<\/p>\n

DeSantis<\/a> announced that construction of a new pier on the Manatee County side \u2014 adjacent to the existing structure \u2014 will begin before the old pier is demolished. He also announced repairs to the pier on the Pinellas County side.<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Transportation said work has already begun. Efforts are underway to enhance parking areas and construct wider sidewalks along the seawall, improvements designed to maintain fishing access throughout the construction period, which will be carried out in phases.<\/p>\n

An exact construction timeline has not yet been released.<\/p>\n

Despite the hurricane damage, anglers have continued to fish near the Sunshine Skyway from sunrise to sunset. Among them is A.J. Ahoyle, a Navy veteran who lives in the Westshore neighborhood of Tampa and was fishing the North Pier for the first time.<\/p>\n

“Just keep it positive,” Ahoyle said. “Worry about enjoying the weather, enjoying the vibes. The fish will come.”<\/p>\n

Ahoyle said she welcomed the phased construction approach. “Just keep the people fishing,” she said.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes in the middle of mackerel season, when crowds at the piers tend to swell. Regular visitors say the site’s amenities \u2014 restrooms, a bait shop, and sweeping sunset views \u2014 make it a singular destination in the region.<\/p>\n

“It’s easy,” said James Mojica, a regular angler at the pier. “You’ve got bathrooms. You’ve got the bait shop right there. You can buy anything. The spot is good. You can see the sunset. I like it.”<\/p>\n

For William Dunn, the stakes extend beyond recreation. Dunn is the founder and CEO of Take a Kid Fishing<\/a>, a nonprofit serving children who lack a parental figure in their lives. Before Hurricane Milton, he said he brought kids to the Sunshine Skyway piers nearly every weekend. The storm damage upended that routine.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been going other directions,” Dunn said. “You tell some kid you’re taking him fishing and then you get over there and the pier is either full or there is issues going on.”<\/p>\n

With construction on the horizon, one of Dunn’s primary concerns is parking \u2014 particularly for the grandparents and disabled caregivers who make up a significant portion of his group’s participants.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know how the parking is going to be now but I’ve got a lot of grandparents that have custody of their grandkids,” he said. “A lot of them are disabled. They’re curious about how much walking distance is going to be involved now, just pulling up to the handicapped spots.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Ron DeSantis announces new construction and repairs to Tampa Bay’s storm-battered fishing piers, with phased work already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-211623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}