St. Pete Beach leaders break ground on sewer system overhaul

ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — It’s a project that has been nearly a decade in the making! Tuesday, crews broke ground on a multi-million dollar sewage system overhaul on St. Pete Beach.

The project could snarl traffic on the only road on and off the island for more than a year, but it aims to fix major problems within the city’s aging sewer infrastructure.

Matthew Dahm at Mastry’s Brewing Company can hardly wait. He opened his brewery four years ago, which was just before city leaders announced a moratorium on new construction because the sewer system was unable to handle any additional capacity.

“As you can imagine, being a new incoming business into the city and to suddenly see there wasn’t going to be any new growth or development for quite some time, it was a shock,” Dahm explained.

Now, the multi-million dollar sewer project is paving the way for new hotels, renovations and businesses to open for the first time in years. It will also help to prevent the city ever needing to dump partially-treated sewage into Boca Ciega Bay, which happened after Tropical Storm Collin.