{"id":334975,"date":"2026-07-09T22:20:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/334975\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T22:20:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:20:52","slug":"st-pete-beach-receives-5-3m-in-state-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/334975\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete Beach receives $5.3M in state grants"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The City of St. Pete Beach has been awarded $5.3 million in state grants to support three critical projects, which include building a new fire station, fixing leaky sewer pipes in Pass-a-Grille and the Boca Ciega Drive reconstruction project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat takes a burden off of our local taxpayers. It’s monumental,\u201d said Acting Fire Chief Adam Poirrier. \u201cIt allows us to accomplish a lot of our goals quicker than we would have without that money.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Pete Beach Fire Rescue firefighters who serve the Pass-a-Grille area have been working and living out of a trailer for nearly two years, since Hurricane Helene flooded Fire Station 22<\/a> in September 2024. Acting Fire Chief Poirrier called it \u201cchallenging\u201d and compared the conditions to camping.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it’s tight quarters,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they show up to work every day with a smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poirrier said the city hopes to break ground on the new Fire Station 22 this fall, which is expected to cost up to $11 million to construct. The state grant the city received from the 2026-2027 fiscal year budget is $1.5 million, which when combined with two previous state grants totals $6.5 million and will cover more than half the cost of the fire station.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very excited to get what will be the third appropriations for the fire station,\u201d said Poirrier. \u201cFor the fire department, this means everything to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city hopes to open Fire Station 22 in early 2028.<\/p>\n

Public Services also received a $2 million state grant to help fix the leaky sewer pipes in Pass-a-Grille. Seawater has been infiltrating the wastewater system since 2021, causing high levels of chloride, which greatly exceeds the maximum amount allowed by law.<\/a><\/p>\n

Public Services Director Camden Mills said the city began addressing hot spots this past March and will use the grant money to continue the $3.9 million project beneath Pass-a-Grille Way from 21st Avenue south to First Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be replacing manholes\u2026 but also making structural repairs to pipes,\u201d he said. \u201cThen lining the pipes as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mills said Public Services also received a $1.8 million grant for the Boca Ciega Drive reconstruction project, which will cost a total of $6 million and is expected to begin next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat project will consist of a roadway reconstruction, where we’ll have new curb, stormwater inlet, stormwater pipes, we’ll reconstruct the roadway base and then also pave the roadway surface itself,\u201d he said. \u201cWe also have a grant from the Florida Department of Transportation that will help supplement it, as well as our local funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poirrier said the city is grateful to state lawmakers who represent the area for securing the critical funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get the support of the state legislation, especially Representative (Linda) Chaney and Senator (Nick) DiCeglie,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s a huge amount of success for our city to be able to get those funds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The City of St. Pete Beach has been awarded $5.3 million in state grants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2967,274,2200,2968,115,596,277,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-334975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-public-safety","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334975","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=334975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}