Kelly Hayes
Pinellas County Rep. Nick DiCeglie is requesting $10 million in state funding to contribute to the development of Imagine Clearwater.
The project, which the city has pledged $55.3 million to fund, will redevelop Coachman Park, including the construction of a 4,000-seat covered amphitheater.
The funds DiCeglie requested from the Department of Economic Opportunity would be used to construct a state-of-the art playground and a children’s interactive water feature with shade structure and restrooms. The money would also be used to create a dockmaster building, landscape green space and a large-event bandshell.
Construction on utilities at the park is already underway. Completion of the park project – which is part of the city’s $64 million Imagine Clearwater Master Plan – is slated for the fall of 2023.
That’s not the only large appropriations request on DiCeglie’s plate.
The Pinellas County Representative is also seeking $9.8 million from the state’s Division of Emergency Management for a Florida Coastal Mapping Program in the Tampa Bay Area.
The funding would be used to provide new, high resolution elevation data from the shore to the shelf edge, according to the request.
The new data coverage of the seafloor could be used to update coastal state maps, storm surge and coastal flood inundation modeling, evacuation route planning and to identify coastal hazards, as well as document infrastructure and beach conditions.
The specific mapping includes Tampa Bay area coastal counties, including Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, Manatee, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco.
The high funding requests may be a tall order given the state’s budget limitations this year.
The state remains in a tough budget posture as economists had projected a 6.1% drop in revenue. That number was later revised down $1.49 billion to $32.48 billion — still sitting far lower than in previous years.
Florida Politics reached out to DiCeglie but did not hear back by the time of publishing.
