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MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. — In order to see if the building can be repaired, the Madeira Beach City Commission recently approved spending $30,700 to remove sand from beneath the subfloor of the iconic Snack Shack at Archibald Park, which was washed in by Hurricane Helene last year.
“It’s preventing us from being able to inspect underneath the building,” said Megan Wepfer, Public Works Director. “So we’re not able to see the joists or the pilings or any of the strapping or really inspect any of the plumbing underneath the building either.”
The Snack Shack was severely damaged by Helene’s record-breaking 6.5 foot storm surge on Sept. 26, 2024, and has remained closed ever since. Wepfer said that all of the drywall has been removed from inside the building, which revealed some rotten wood and a termite infestation.
“We are waiting for our termite inspection to come back,” she said. “My concerns are the age of the building, the amount of termite damage that we’re unaware of in the building and all of the unknowns with the building.”
The A-frame wooden structure was built in 1934, according to Acting City Manager and Fire Chief Clint Belk.
“It’s 91 years old,” he said. “It’s beloved. It’s well known here in Madeira Beach.”
Belk believes the cost to repair the Snack Shack will exceed FEMA’s 50 percent rule. The structure roughly appraised for $800,000, which means the city could only spend about $400,000 on repairs before violating the law, according to Community Development Director Marci Forbes.
“It represents Madeira Beach. So the community is very interested in saving it,” she said. “The best way we can do that with the FEMA 50 percent rule is through having it as a historical designation.”
There’s no FEMA spending limit on returning a historically designated building to its pre-storm condition. Forbes said the city first needs to adopt a historical designation code.
“We currently don’t have anything in our land development regulations that allow for historical designation or support that. So the first step for us is to really get that into our code,” she said. “Then we’ll move forward with getting that on the registry and getting it designated historical for our community.”
Belk said the process could take up to 8 months and, along with the inspections, will reveal the path forward.
“We just don’t want to put bad money on top of bad money. So we want to make sure we do what’s right,” he said. “Is tearing it down, elevating it, and building a much more resilient structure the option? We don’t know, and we’re going to be forced in one direction or the other.”
Wepfer said the city has been doing its best to save the Snack Shack, but if it has to be torn down and a new structure built to code, the sand would still have to be removed from the property.
“Long term, we need to be able to do that anyways,” she said. “Once we get the sand removed and we get that termite inspection back, then we’ll go back to the commission with our findings and then we’ll make a decision from there on how we proceed.”
City commissioners unanimously approved spending $30,700 for the sand removal last week. Wepfer said a contractor is scheduled to begin that work on Dec. 22.
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Josh Rojas
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