The Flagler Beach City Commission Thursday unanimously approved a measure authorizing the city administration to temporarily borrow money internally for pier demolition, design and reconstruction costs now estimated to be $18 million.
The debt would be repaid by a tax-exempt financing note, itself to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency dollars.
“What this resolution allows us to do is to spend city funds in the process of moving that project forward, and then be reimbursed from the loan proceeds that we get from from the bank,” City Manager Dale Martin said. “So it allows us to read repair ourselves for the purpose of the law. So this is a standard process for FEMA projects.
The new pier is 90 percent designed. “The city has to come up with the $18 million to fund the demolition and reconstruction before FEMA reimburses us,” City Manager Dale Martin said. “This is a standard process for FEMA projects.” The city is operating on a $36 million budget spread over a half dozen funds totaling a budgeted reserve of $2.65 million at the beginning of the fiscal year.
The city is currently lining up financing for the project, not all of which FEMA will reimburse. FEMA’s portion is 75 percent, or $13.5 million. The state’s potion is 12.5 percent, the city’s match is 12.5 percent. Last year the Legislature appropriated $4.5 million for the project, covering the match. FEMA will not reimburse until the project is completed, making a bridge loan necessary, or more than one, as the case may be.
The city doesn’t want to delay the project, so as it seeks financing, any costs that will be incurred meanwhile would be paid from city funds. The resolution approved Thursday sets out the city’s intention to “be reimbursed from proceeds of a future tax-exempt financing,” an eventual loan that may exceed $18 million. “It is reasonably expected that the total amount of debt to be incurred by the Issuer with respect to the Project will not exceed $22,000,000,” the resolution states. The resolution drew no questions from commissioners and no overt interest from the public.
The pier, damaged by successive hurricanes or tropical storms since Hurricane Matthew in 2016, lost its eastern end since then. It was repaired and stabilized at a cost of $1 million in 2017, money that was partly but not entirely repaid by FEMA and insurance. It reopened, shortened to 637 feet, in June 2017.
Storms kept hammering the structure, as did a nearly three-month closure during the Covid pandemic, until Hurricane Ian finished it off in September 2022. The pier was declared unsafe and condemned. It will be replaced by an 800-foot concrete pier.
Moffat and Nichol, the design firm contracted for the project, provided a preliminary look at what the pier may look like 15 months ago, when it was beginning the design process. The pier will be 11 feet higher than the current pier, to account for rising seas. At the time, the firm was projecting a completed design by last January, with construction starting this summer and completion by the end of 2025. Gabriel Perdomo, a coastal engineer and one of the firm’s designers, called the plan “ambitious.” He was right.
But work is imminent. “I don’t think they’re ready to issue the bids yet. But they’re just getting ready to,” Martin said on Feb. 8.
The first 100 feet of the pier will preserve the existing structure as a link to the past and the old pier’s character. Earlier this month Perdomo wanted to know how much of that older part commissioners want to preserve–only the deck boards, many of which have engraved names and memorials, or all of the timber.
Iconic in its day as a landmark and a favorite spot to walk or gaze at, the pier has now become iconic for its status as a relic, with Berlin Wall-type attraction for people who want their piece of it. “Many citizens have reached out wanting all kinds of different pieces of that,” Commission Chairman Eric Cooley said. “Nobody ever asked for pilings, but people did ask for other pieces of the pier.” Including pieces of wood that they might turn into wood art or simply frame as a memory. Others want as much of the pier’s woodwork preserved and memorialized somehow.
But commissioners are reluctant to have piles of wood stored somewhere, making the city responsible for disposal, as opposed to the keeping it the responsibility of the contractor demolishing the pier. “Knowing this city, it’ll sit there and sit there,” Commissioner Rick Belhumeur said. “But certainly save the deck boards.” Or some of them. How many of the boards will be preserved isn’t yet clear, but the boards with names on them will all be preserved.
Joe D says
Wow….those numbers are a bit FRIGHTENING! At least MOST of the cost, is reimbursed by FEMA and the State (except for 12.5%). I would suggest the City of Flagler Beach make SURE someone is assigned to keep all the GRANTS/Loans and reimbursement requirements as their PRIMARY job responsibility, so we don’t have a repeat of a situation several years ago where 100,000’s of dollars were missed in available grants, because the application requirements and submissions deadlines were MISSED!
The Pier is iconic for the City of Flagler Beach ( kind of like the Eiffel Tower in Paris)…so it would be SAD to take any chance of permanently LOSING it. Hopefully the new elevation and mostly steel and concrete construction (except for the walking boards), will preserve the Pier for generations to come!
I would also suggest that a brick or concrete tile walkway on either side of the new Pier entrance be used for people to donate towards MEMORIAL bricks ( not “advertising” space) to remember or honor loved ones or themselves, with their names imbedded permanently in the brick face. My old high school set up a new REMEMBRANCE GARDEN at one end of the school property, and raised 10’s of thousands of dollars towards the creation of the garden, with the donated walkway bricks. Might offset the FLAGLER BEACH portion of the grant requirement.
Denali says
“The Pier is iconic for the City of Flagler Beach ( kind of like the Eiffel Tower in Paris)” – this is a joke, right? To compare an engineering masterpiece which was the tallest man-made structure of its time to a broken-down wooden pier which should have been demolished years ago is just half a step out-of-pace with reality.
Lance Carroll says
The Eiffel tower was due to be demolished after the Worlds Fair back a long time ago….about the same time that Flagler Pier was constructed. The both of those structures still stand. It seems the Eiffel Tower comparison is legitimate…
Mischa Gee says
The Eiffel Tower was scheduled to be torn down, but never was.
It also has not had to be repeatedly reconstructed due to being in town apart by high winds and rain.
You are comparing two totally different things,, therefore, it’s not a legitimate comparison. Just like the flavor apples and oranges are not comparable.
Curious Bob says
Easy solution. Have the city of Palm Coast and the county chip in as well.
Wood is good! Share the wealth says
Surely all the 100 year old reclaimed wood can avoid the landfill and could be stacked on some piece of property somewhere with public access? I imagine hundreds of raised garden beds, wood working projects, Mailbox Stands, landscaping borders with this prestigious and historic material. Id be surprised if it lasted long if offered free to Flagler citizens first come first serve.
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My Two Cents says
Why are they doing this at all ? Flagler Beach is going to spend millions of dollars on a woofing pier that is only used by a handful of people to go fishing. Meanwhile tight below the pier on both sides are swimmers back stroking through bait chummed waters enticing sharks to a dinner table.
I remember when I first came here and walked along A1A , my wife and I wanted to walk to the end of the pier only to be stopped by a sign that has an admission price. We looked at each other and said forget this. Pay an admission to walk to the end of a pier ? Talk about a “rip off”
I could see piers wide enough and long enough to support businesses on each sides of the pier enticing tourism with a major increase in revenue taxes, employment opportunities.
Not for nothing the pier was made out of wood and was destroyed by a storm which destroyed most of the beach in the process, wouldn’t concrete be a much more stronger and smarter material for this ? This way it doesn’t have to be rebuilt again after the next hurricane like the dunes have been repeatedly.
No Political Affiliation says
It’s going to wood AND concrete. Wood at the start, and change to concrete further out. To give it a “old to new,” aesthetic or something. I think it should be entirely concrete though, wood structures in the water, in the most active hurricane zone in our country?
Tell me again how THIS (partially) wooden pier is gonna withstand the test of time?
Sharon Stokes says
If you read the article, the new pier will be concrete…
Chris says
Really? Couldn”t swing the buck and a half? If you read the article you would have read the pier is being built with concrete pilings. cap and stringers. Wood deck panels that break away to relieve pressure from waves that hit. Also 11 feet higher to be above the large waves that may hit it.
Lance Carroll says
Is your response for real? Or am I not missing the obvious?
Dan says
Used by only a few people, Have you been by the bridge to no where lately. 13 million dollars to construct and i have never seen more than one person on it at one time. Now that is a waste of taxpayers money. The pier will get a lot of use by fisheerman and the tourist that will spend a dollar to walk to the end of the pier. I am one of those fisherman and can’t wait until 2026 for it to open. Now where do we park, that is another issue that has to be addressed.
Where’s the money going ? says
Just like that awful eyesore and monument to ridiculousness the Hwy 100 pedestrian bridge, millions of taxpayer dollars spent for the benefit of a few who will actually use it .
Flagler County, government what will they waste our money on next ?
TR says
They will waste thousands on a survey to determine what the residence want the pier to look like. I know they will do this after everything has been decided because that is what councils do. Do things half ares backwards.
Lance Carroll says
Are you going to run for council member? Me neither…
Mischa Gee says
A major hurricane will wreak havoc on a concrete pier almost as easily as a wooden one, since concrete doesn’t have the same flexibility in the wind. And for the ridiculous price of millions, why bother to build one so long? Shorten it, save money and keep it from blowing down yet again.
Those millions would be better served to keep historic highway Rt A1A (now the also ridiculously renamed Jimmy Buffett Memorial Hwy) from falling back into the ocean after another severe storm or hurricane, by more permanent reconstruction. Has the debate over seawalls, more sand, etc. been settled yet?
Sorry, Palm Coast is in debt for millions, for a failed splash pad, expanding the Community Center, etc., we aren’t in a position to give money for a pay to walk on, or fish from it pier.
Lance Carroll says
It seems that Palm Coast city money would have been better spent to reconstruct Flagler Pier….
After all, who is paying money to walk on splash park?
Mischa Gee says
The pier was built before the super storms we now have existed and yet, it still has a history of chunks of it breaking off into the sea after hurricanes or serious storms with high winds. In the meantime, the cost of reconstruction has now become absurd.
Why spend millions of taxpayer dollars, whether it’s sales tax money from the state and/ or property tax money from the town and county on this no longer viable pier?
No one is walking on the splash pad while it is being reconstructed. The expense has already been incurred. Therefore, those tax dollars aren’t available for the pier. In the 20 years I have lived in Flagler county the pier has had to be partially reconstructed more than once. Walking out on it hasn’t been free to the local citizenry. Nothing about rebuilding it again makes any sense. Since we have been losing beach which we haven’t been able to replace, wouldn’t funding to shore up the coast and replace the beach be the smarter thing to do?
It seems to me, that your response doesn’t hold water!
Deborah Coffey says
The great powers that be in the sky are laughing ’til they cry. “Our teensy human beings actually think they can stop an ocean,” they howled. “Wasteful little critters, aren’t they?”
Lance Carroll says
Pier has been there since around 1926. Several times rebuilt….just like the roads we all drive upon today. Who’s words are you quoting?