ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Pete Beach city leaders will soon consider moving a historic home 15 blocks to replace the Pass-a-Grille shuffleboard clubhouse, which has been slated for demolition after the building was severely damaged by last year\u2019s hurricanes.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The 90-year-old shuffleboard clubhouse will soon be demolished after being severely damaged by last year’s hurricanes\u00a0
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The owners of the 100-year-old Deacon cottage in Pass-a-Grille have offered to donate it to the city\u00a0
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It’s estimated to cost about $160,000 to move the historic home 15 blocks south to the shuffleboard courts property\u00a0
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City commissioners will consider approving the move at their Dec. 9 meeting\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city saves money by not having to build a new structure,\u201d said Bill Lowery, Historical Preservation Board Chairman. \u201cThey get a house in place that\u2019s in great shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowery said he came up with the idea when city commissioners approved the demolition of the 90-year-old shuffleboard clubhouse earlier this month. Commissioners made that decision after finding out the cost to rebuild the historic clubhouse would be $192,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a responsible use of the money. So I agree that it needs to be demolished,\u201d said Lowery. \u201cIt was a beach shelter that was moved from Gulfport by barge back in the late 1920s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowery said the owners of a historic Pass-a-Grille home, which did not flood, have offered to donate it to the city as they prepare to build a new house. The 100-year-old home was owned by Jack Deacon who was the Pass-a-Grille mayor in the 1930s and the president of the shuffleboard club, according to Lowery.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just kind of like karma,\u201d he said. \u201cYou feel like it was just meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saving one historic home has become a big deal for Lowery. He said in the four years leading up to Hurricane Helene, 14 historic homes had been demolished. After the storm, Lowery said the demo numbers skyrocketed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last year since the storm, we\u2019ve had 30,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich is a significant percentage of the homes on Pass-a-Grille.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Commissioner Jon Maldonado, who represents District 4, agrees with Lowery\u2019s sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s with a heavy heart that we\u2019re starting to see these structures go down in record numbers,\u201d he said. \u201cSo anything that we can do to preserve even one building is going to be significant for St. Pete Beach, specifically for Pass-a-Grille.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maldonado said he supports moving the historic Deacon cottage from 24th Avenue to become the new shuffleboard clubhouse on 9th Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI support it 100 percent. It\u2019s not only a great gesture, it\u2019s just the building has a lot of historical character,\u201d he said. \u201cThe commission was in agreement that we should pursue whatever options we could within reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowery said a resident got an estimate to move the historic home further than the shuffleboard courts, and the cost was $162,000. He hopes the city can use insurance and FEMA money to help offset the cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they (city commissioners) called the \u2018Path Forward,\u2019 they mentioned there was about $170,000 in funds to potentially build the new clubhouse,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, whether that was going to happen or not, I don\u2019t know, but that amount of money would probably cover the move.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowery said they\u2019re also up against a tight deadline as the owners of the historic home want to start construction in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have a time crunch, which we understand and appreciate,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re acting as fast as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public Services Director Camden Mills said he plans to present the city commission with a potential plan to move the historic home at their Dec. 9 meeting and seek guidance.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Pete Beach city leaders will soon consider moving a historic home 15 blocks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,835],"class_list":["post-61038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","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-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61038","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=61038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}