{"id":90852,"date":"2025-12-20T20:35:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T20:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/90852\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T20:35:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T20:35:40","slug":"st-pete-clearwater-airport-budgets-60-million-for-parking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/90852\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete-Clearwater Airport budgets $60 million for parking \u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE<\/a>) recently warned holiday travelers not to park at the increasingly popular facility. Relief is on the way \u2013 but not until the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

\u200bPinellas County commissioners unanimously approved a $3.1 million design-build contract with Apopka-based Finrock Construction<\/a> at their Dec. 16 meeting. The project includes a new 2,000-space parking garage, a 300-space surface lot and multiple other related upgrades.<\/p>\n

\u200bPIE has allocated $60 million to what County Administrator Barry Burton has called a \u201cparking crisis<\/a>.\u201d Commissioner Dave Eggers noted the project\u2019s importance to Allegiant Airlines and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u201cThis is a 30% increase in our parking,\u201d Burton said. \u201cThis increases our parking significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200bMark Sprague, interim airport director, said the design phase will commence in January and conclude by the end of 2026. He expects an approximately one-year construction process, with the county-owned facility\u2019s first garage opening in late 2027.<\/p>\n

\u200bPinellas officials discussed the project in more detail during a workshop Dec. 11. Sprague said the airport\u2019s long-term lot closed between Friday and Sunday throughout the first 11 months of the year.<\/p>\n

\u200bFlyers are flocking to PIE, which offers 60 more flights than it did during the 2024 holiday season. The airport has already surpassed its previous record for passengers, 2.49 million, set in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u200bPIE\u2019s passenger count topped 2.56 million by the end of November. Sprague said between 2.65 million and 2.7 million people would choose the local airport this year.<\/p>\n

\u200bHowever, the facility only offers 3,260 parking spaces, and many require time-consuming shuttle trips. Sprague said there are often 100 people waiting in line for a limited number of seats.<\/p>\n

\u200bHe also noted that a frontage road lacks signage to warn flyers when lots reach capacity. \u201cWe\u2019re putting that extra stress on our passengers \u2026 It results in an overall decrease in customer experience satisfaction,\u201d Sprague added.<\/p>\n

\u200bA four-story garage will replace the secondary economy (Strawberry) lot. PIE will also offer a dedicated shuttle priority route to reduce wait times.<\/p>\n

\u200bFinrock Construction will reconstruct and upgrade the Roosevelt Boulevard and Fairchild Drive intersection to accommodate additional left-turning vehicles. That will become the garage\u2019s primary access point.<\/p>\n

\u200bAirport officials previously estimated<\/a> the project would cost $45 million. They have allocated $30 million from grants and revenues, with reserve funding supporting the remaining $30 million.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u201cThat\u2019s on one-third of our reserves,\u201d Spraugue said. \u201cSo this parking structure will be paid in full \u2013 no loans, no bonds \u2013 and we\u2019ll still have two-thirds of a healthy reserve for necessary future projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200bThose future projects include a previously estimated $180 million to $220 million terminal expansion. A $15.4 million new taxiway, approved in November, will significantly increase revenue<\/a> once complete.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An aerial view of the St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport. A new taxiway will connect to the 130-acre Airco property (right). Photo provided.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Vince Nowicki asked if airport officials \u201cexhausted all surface lot options before diving head-first\u201d into a $60 million endeavor. \u201cIt just seems like we could be shortening a project somewhere else, potentially, by using one-third of our reserves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u200bSprague said the facility lacks suitable land for additional surface parking. He also noted that PIE cannot sustain recent growth when both economy lots regularly reach capacity.<\/p>\n

Allegiant continues to expand its footprint at PIE. The airline will begin offering new flights to Atlantic City and Trenton, New Jersey, in February, and Huntsville, Alabama, in March.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u201cCommissioners, you also heard from Allegiant \u2013 that\u2019s the biggest complaint,\u201d Burton said of the parking woes.<\/p>\n

\u200bBurton reiterated that Allegiant prioritized parking upgrades over the terminal expansion. He said county officials needed to solve the former issue today, and PIE\u2019s leadership will present revised plans regarding the latter to the commission at a later date.<\/p>\n

\u200bNowicki, at Tuesday\u2019s meeting, questioned why the airport chose to build a garage farther away rather than at the short-term parking lot adjacent to the terminal, \u201clike every other airport in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200bBurton said short-term spaces are available \u201cmost times of the year,\u201d and that would be \u201cthe most inconvenient\u201d lot to eliminate. He also noted that the airport\u2019s consultant \u201cdoes this for a living,\u201d and staff recommended approving those plans.<\/p>\n

\u200bSprague explained that if a future need arises, PIE could either expand the garage horizontally or consider building a second parking facility in another area. \u201cBut at this point, it\u2019s just enough to get supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200b\u201cWe feel that 2,000 spaces, plus the 300 in surface parking, is ideal \u2013 not only for today, but for tomorrow,\u201d Sprague said. \u201cBy the end of 2026, we\u2019ll know our construction costs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE) recently warned holiday travelers not to park at the increasingly popular facility. Relief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-90852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90852","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=90852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}