ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It’s been the source of frustration for over a year in St. Pete’s Tanglewood neighborhood. The only way in and out of the neighborhood is by an aging bridge down to one lane, as a replacement project saw several delays and a contractor being kicked off the job.
Now months later, it seems the city and the surety company are ready to move forward with a new construction company taking over the site.
“It's almost been a year where nothing has been done whatsoever on the bridge. So our neighborhood is very frustrated,” Candace Westerberg, one of many neighbors who have frequently shared their concerns over the lack of progress, said.
According to the city, the project which was supposed to take 18 months to complete, at this point is a little more than 40% done.
“We've had so many major disappointments over the past year of why it's not being done and it needs to go through this stage, that stage, it's hung up here, hung up there. So after a while, just lose any sort of optimism,” Westerberg added.
On the horizon is a new reason to finally be optimistic. On St. Petersburg’s City Council Agenda this Thursday is a resolution that would finally put a new contractor in place, after the last one, American Empire Builders, defaulted.
At the same time, the same company has left other bridge projects in limbo across Pinellas County.
According to city documents, Lakeland-based Denson Construction was tapped by the surety company to get the remaining $3.2 million to finish the job and potentially make corrective work.
“Definitely a bright spot,” added Westerberg, noting the devastation the neighborhood experienced after Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
For as long as this saga has gone on, the bridge is now a second thought with dozens upon dozens of homes seeing flood damage from the storms.
“For me, for the bridge, is just an added inconvenience at this point,” Tanglewood resident Laurie Ward said.
Ward is not only trying to continue navigating the one-land bridge, but now hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to her home flooded for the first time.
“There's bigger issues that this neighborhood has to deal with,” added Ward. “This neighborhood has been here 50 some years. It hasn't flooded. We wanted our bridge fixed three and a half years ago. They've stalled it. We knew that sometime soon a hurricane was going to come, and now we have one lane of a temporary bridge that, you know, we need fixed ASAP,” explained Ward, who says traffic has been clogged due to contractors and private debris cleaners needing to be around the neighborhood.
The city council is expected to take up the resolution this Thursday, according to the documents it would take effect immediately.
Two other bridge projects, one in Harbor Bluffs (overseen by Pinellas County) and another in St. Pete (overseen by FDOT) are still in limbo, as officials say they continue working with surety companies to figure out the path forward.