ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A key vote was held Tuesday afternoon that executives at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE) say will help them keep up with growth.
Pinellas County commissioners give them the green light to build a 4-story parking garage adjacent to the terminal that would be used for economy parking. The proposed garage would have roughly 2,000 spots and be where the current ‘Strawberry Lot’ sits.
What You Need To Know
- Proposed parking garage would be 4 stories and have roughly 2,000 spots
- Bulk of project would be paid for in funds from customer facility charges and airport reserves
- Was approved Tuesday, design phase expected to begin in early 2026
- 2025 is busiest year in airport history
The airport’s interim director, Mark Sprague, says this is the busiest year in airport history. They have already had a record-breaking roughly 2.6 million passengers in 2025 with 15 days remaining in the year.
Sprague says the parking garage would cost an estimated $60 million. The airport already has funding sources in place that would include roughly $6 million from an FDOT grant and nearly $30 million in airport reserves. Over $24 million would come from revenue from what’s called a ‘customer facility charge’ — a surcharge placed on rental cars.
To pay for the garage, Sprague says the airport would not have to take out any type of loan.
“Which Is really unheard of,” he said. “A lot of airports go out and get either bonds or loans for this, but we saw the growth and we saw what we needed to do and we saved the money in order to keep the costs low.”
Sprague presented the parking garage plans to county commissioners during a workshop last week.
Some commissioners agreed that updates to parking are much-needed at the airport while Pinellas County Commissioner Vince Nowicki questioned the net-gain of 1,500 spots at a $60 million cost.
“With PIE not having much land constraint, have we exhausted all surface-level parking lot options before diving into $40,000 per parking space?” he asked Sprague. “It seems we could be shorting a project somewhere else by using 1/3 of our reserves.”
Te design phase of the parking garage construction is expected to begin early next year.
Pinellas County commissioners give airport officials the green light to build a 4-story parking garage adjacent to the terminal that would be used for economy parking. (FILE IMAGE)
Angie Angers
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