Credit: StPetePier/Twitter

Credit: StPetePier/Twitter

Hope for a timely rebuild on the St. Petersburg Pier was dashed many moons ago, but @StPetePier just shared some promising aerial footage on Twitter.

Posted on September 4, the one-minute video shows poured floors in the pierhead building, the steel structure and framing of the Discovery Center and the Doc Ford’s restaurant which is now “watertight dry.”

But progress is not cheap.

WVTV said , "St. Petersburg’s City Council approved $400,000 Thursday for furnishings and landscaping, including benches and trash bins. The money comes out of the pier budget, which has grown to $87 million."

The partially solar-powered pier will also be home to a Tampa Bay Watch center, small businesses, a $1 million playground, and a whopping $1.3 million arty installation by Janet Echelman (which was funded by private donations).

The construction team is busy planting trees, installing solar panels and working on some interiors.

“It’s really starting to come together. The pieces are really starting to form and it's really starting to look like what it’s going to look like," St. Petersburg Communications Director Ben Kirby told the news station.

The pier is supposed to open in sections starting in the spring of 2020.

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This article appears in Sep 5-12, 2019.