The St. Pete-Clearwater International airport serves over 1 million passengers annually | st. pete-clearwater international airport

St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport (PIE), now serving nearly 2.5 million passengers a year and offering nonstop flights to over 60 cities, is expanding its parking capacity to meet growing demand.

The airport, located at 14700 Terminal Boulevard in north St. Pete, recently began designing a terminal expansion project expected to exceed $110 million. As part of the plan, PIE will also build its first parking garage, adding to its current surface-level parking.

Last month was the busiest May in the airport’s history, with 242,162 passengers, 13% more than May of last year. Additionally, passenger activity is currently up 11% year over year.

Working with Pinellas County, PIE has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) soliciting a professional firm to design and build a four-level parking garage.

The garage itself would accommodate at least 1,300 parking stalls and includes a 500-space surface parking lot. The RFP requires a minimum total of at least 1,800 parking spaces.

PIE’s June 6th published solicitation states, “Due to the continued growth of commercial aircraft operations at the airport over the past ten years, the airport has maximized the surface parking areas available.”

The solicitation continues, “A parking garage has been determined to be the most feasible approach to keep up with the current parking demands. Several parking studies have been performed indicating that a vertical solution is the most logical approach to meet current and future parking needs.”

breakdown of the parking garage levels | kimley-horn associates

The new garage would serve as the airport’s primary economy parking option, replacing the 778-space Strawberry PIE Lot, which currently functions as secondary or overflow economy parking. The airport will continue to operate the existing Key Lime PIE parking lot.

The garage would include at least 1,800 parking spaces and is expected to be designed for future expansion to up to 2,000 spaces, with ground-level accommodations for commercial vehicle operations.

A parking guidance system will be installed to show the availability of spaces on each level.

The project will also include reconfiguring the intersection at Roosevelt Boulevard and Fairchild Drive. PIE favors a single-lane roundabout at this location to better handle the increased traffic expected from the new parking garage, as this will serve as the primary access route for economy parking.

The new roadway and traffic flow for the parking garage | kimley-horn associates

The total project budget for site improvements, project design, and construction is $45 million.

The deadline to submit bids is Tuesday, July 8th.

A non-mandatory site visit and pre-bid meeting will be held on Monday, June 16th at the airport. Questions from interested developers should be submitted online by Friday, June 27th.

More information can be found on the Pinellas County Procurement Portal.