St. Petersburg Yacht Club to be demolished in downtown St. Pete
/The St. Petersburg Yacht Club building has been located at 11 Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete for 105 years. Last month, the board of directors voted to demolish the building and construct a brand new facility.
Five years from now, St. Petersburg’s downtown waterfront will have a different look, because the St. Petersburg Yacht Club (SPYC) board of directors has approved a plan to demolish the club’s 51,000-square-foot building and replace it with an all-new structure, and it intends to raise membership fees to help offset the cost of the project.
SPYC Commodore Brian K. Smith broke the news in a May 30th letter to the club’s members. He said the decision to raze the historic structure, which opened in 1917, is the result of a master-planning process that began nearly a year ago.
During the master planning process, it became evident that the current clubhouse, located at 11 Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete, needed significant upgrades.
The Master Facilities Planning Committee decided to hire Peacock + Lewis, a North Palm Beach architectural firm, to present various options for remodeling the current building.
Members took part in over 20 focus group sessions to refine a list of improvements that were most important to them.
Dedication of the new St. Petersburg Yacht Club facility drew throngs of people on June 15, 1917 | SPYC Archives
However, during the process, it became evident that remodeling the clubhouse to accommodate all the desired changes would be cost prohibitive, and therefore not a viable solution.
“Many of the structural components of the building would need to be addressed, including elevator replacement, roof replacement, electrical repairs, tiki and pool deck replacement, kitchen updating, and many other items,” Smith wrote in the letter.
More importantly, however, was the fact that the remodeled building would not meet Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) construction standards.
The study found that the yacht club’s floor elevation is six feet below current FEMA minimum standards, making renovation even more problematic.
Additionally, FEMA rules state that if flood/hurricane damage to a non-compliant building exceeds 50% of its appraised value, the entire building is required to be replaced.
“We learned a FEMA-appraised value for the clubhouse is $1.5 million, meaning that remodeling could only be done by phase up to a value of $750,000,” he said.
A postcard from 1920 showing the St. Petersburg Yacht Club in downtown St. Pete
And so, at the club’s most recent board of directors meeting in May, the board unanimously approved a motion to replace the current building, instead of simply renovating it.
Construction on the new clubhouse will begin in approximately five years and will take two years to complete.
Smith, in his letter, said the yacht club’s Master Facilities Planning Committee has opted against a special assessment to pay for the new building; instead, the club will increase monthly membership fees from $50 to $125, beginning in the 2024-25 fiscal year. Additional funding, he wrote, will “come from both initiation fees paid by new members and from the capital contribution charge that was instituted in January of this year.”
SPYC hopes to have at least 50% of the funding for the new building in place before the project breaks ground, with the balance to be financed.
Smith wrote that the club’s Pass-A-Grille location will remain open and will have increased hours of operation. He also suggested that SPYC could secure a temporary location, presumably closer to downtown St. Pete, while the new club is being built.
“This is a critical step for the future of our club assuming our members a safe and state of the art facility for the next generation,” Smith concluded.
