Every member of St. Petersburg City Council except one approved Michael Maltzan Architecture's Lens design today, officially ending the design competition for The Pier. But the Council prefaced the vote with a number of pointed questions about the multiple phases of the project presented by Maltzan.
"I won't vote for something that is $50 million for the first phase," Councilman Karl Nurse said. "My anxiety is it'll be $100 million for the rest of the phases… The rest could be interesting and pretty, but I don’t know where the money would come from."
Mayor Bill Foster stated there was only one phase to vote on.
"Strike the word 'first' from every document, this is the phase," Foster said. "Unless manna falls from heaven, it is unlikely we'll see future phases in our lifetime."
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2012.