St. Petersburg, Florida: Town Guide

St. Petersburg is a Pinellas County city on Tampa Bay, with 61.804 square miles of land and 73.661 square miles of water inside its limits.

Those two numbers from the Census Bureau 2024 gazetteer (Census gazetteer) say a lot about St. Pete: the city boundary holds more water than land, so Tampa Bay, Boca Ciega Bay and the waterfront shape where people live, drive and flood.

Airline travelers use one of two neighboring airports. The City of St. Petersburg points them to St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (727-453-7800) or Tampa International Airport (813-870-8700), because there is no commercial airline service at the city's own Albert Whitted Airport (Albert Whitted Airport).

Albert Whitted Airport sits on the edge of downtown St. Pete overlooking Tampa Bay at 107 8th Ave SE, phone 727-893-7654. Its two runways measure 3,676 feet and 2,864 feet, and it serves general aviation, flight training, sightseeing tours, Civil Air Patrol and medical transport flights. The control tower operates from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The St. Petersburg transportation section goes deeper with guides to airports, Interstate 275 and the Sunshine Skyway.

The Census Bureau counts about 262,732 people in St. Petersburg, half of them older than 43.1 years, in its five-year American Community Survey covering 2020 through 2024 (Census profile DP05, St. Petersburg).

In that survey 21.1 percent of St. Petersburg residents were 65 or older, and 9.6 percent identified as Hispanic or Latino (Census DP05). Among St. Petersburg adults 25 and over, 42.6 percent had finished at least a four-year degree, and 10.7 percent of residents were born abroad (Census profile DP02, St. Petersburg).

Most St. Petersburg households own their homes: 62.8 percent of occupied homes were owner occupied, a typical owned home was valued at $371,100, and the typical rent ran $1,663 a month (Census profile DP04, St. Petersburg). Median household income was $75,192, and a St. Petersburg commute took 25.6 minutes on average (Census profile DP03, St. Petersburg).

Because the St. Petersburg figures average five years, 2020 through 2024, they straddle the 2024 storms and carry margins of error. For housing detail, the St. Petersburg real estate guides cover neighborhoods, downtown condos, waterfront homes, new construction and market trends; for the people behind the numbers, the history guides cover the green bench era and African American history.

St. Petersburg is run by Mayor Welch, sworn in as the 54th mayor on January 6, 2022, while an eight-member St. Petersburg City Council, one member for each of eight districts, sets policy.

The St. Petersburg City Council members are Copley Gerdes (District 1), Brandi Gabbard (District 2), Mike Harting (District 3), Lisset Hanewicz (District 4), Deborah Figgs-Sanders (District 5), Gina Driscoll (District 6), Corey Givens Jr. (District 7) and Richie Floyd (District 8) (St. Petersburg City Council). Floyd is Council Vice Chair, according to an October 9, 2026 city release (Sunrise St. Pete release).

St. Petersburg City Council generally meets in Council Chambers at City Hall, 175 Fifth St. N., on the first Thursday at 9 a.m., the second Thursday at 3 p.m. and the third Thursday at 1:30 p.m., and meetings air live on SPTV and by web stream (City Council page). The Council office line is 727-893-7117.

For everything else the main City of St. Petersburg number is 727-893-7111, and mail goes to P.O. Box 2842, St. Petersburg, FL 33731 (City of St. Petersburg). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the City of St. Petersburg website.

Voting runs through Pinellas County. For the November 3, 2026 general election, early voting runs October 19 through November 1, and the early voting site in St. Pete is Pinellas County Election Services, 501 First Ave. N. (city election guide). Polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. Deeper St. Pete civic detail sits in the government guides (officials, council members, departments, meetings, budget) and the civic engagement guides on neighborhood groups and precincts.

St. Petersburg is a waterfront city: Fort De Soto lies off its southern tip, Egmont Key is reached by boat, Spa Beach sits at the base of the St. Pete Pier, and Sunken Gardens is a historic botanical garden in the city.

Fort De Soto Beach and Park, 3500 Pinellas Bayway S. in Tierra Verde, is a 900-acre Pinellas County park of five interconnected islands with campgrounds, 2.25 miles of canoe trails, an 800-foot boat launch and fishing piers (St. Petersburg beaches). Egmont Key, a state preserve reached only by boat, has an 87-foot lighthouse and a 440-acre wildlife refuge, and St. Pete offers nine public boat ramps for the trip.

The two governments disagree on the size of Fort De Soto: the St. Petersburg beaches page calls it a 900-acre park, while Pinellas County, which runs it, says the park consists of 1,136 acres on five keys (Pinellas County Fort De Soto page). The county figure is the one to trust. Parking at Fort De Soto carries the county's $6 fee, payable by app, text, terminal or annual pass, and the county reports more than 2.7 million visitors a year.

Closer in, Maximo Beach and Park in South St. Pete has three boat ramps, a nature boardwalk, an 18-hole disc golf course and 47 wooded acres on a 70-acre archaeological site, with a 10-foot observation tower looking toward the Sunshine Skyway (city beaches page). Downtown, Spa Beach and North Shore Beach sit on the Tampa Bay waterfront, and North Shore Beach adds a year-round pool, tennis courts and a palm arboretum.

Sunken Gardens, 1825 4th St. N., opens Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m., with last admission at 4 p.m. (Sunken Gardens); its phone is 727-551-3102. On October 13, 2026 the City of St. Petersburg also put its public art collection of more than 90 works online in the Public Art Archive (city public art release).

Separate St. Petersburg park guides cover Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, North Shore Park, Vinoy Park and Weedon Island Preserve; landmark guides cover the St. Pete Pier, Sunken Gardens, the Snell Arcade and the Vinoy Park Hotel; and recreation guides cover beach life, fishing, kayaking and sailing.

St. Petersburg is still rebuilding from the 2024 storms: in October 2026 it started a $1.018 billion budget and won $173 million more in federal disaster recovery money for Sunrise St. Pete.

On October 9, 2026 Mayor Welch announced an additional $173 million allocation through the HUD Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program for Sunrise St. Pete, the city recovery program for residents affected by Hurricane Milton (City of St. Petersburg). Of that, $126 million goes to housing recovery for St. Pete residents and $47.6 million to infrastructure and mitigation projects with Pinellas County.

The St. Petersburg City Council approved a fiscal year 2027 budget of $1,017,757,894 at its second public hearing at City Hall, and the FY27 budget began on October 1, 2026 (FY27 budget release). The FY27 Capital Improvement Program totals $197 million, and the Public Works Administration budget is $355.8 million across five departments. The city frames the whole St. Petersburg FY27 budget around long-term recovery from the 2024 storms and infrastructure built to endure.

The St. Petersburg economy section follows downtown redevelopment and Tropicana Field, and the real estate section's new construction 2026 guide covers what is being built.

Much of St. Pete lies in hurricane evacuation zones, so the city Hurricane Center sends residents to its Prepare St. Pete map, Alert Pinellas sign-up and, during emergencies, the Pinellas County hurricane line, 727-464-4333.

The Prepare St. Pete map layers the city stormwater floodplain, FEMA flood zones and evacuation zones for a given address (St. Petersburg Hurricane Center). The city notes that its own stormwater floodplain, built from its Stormwater Master Plan, often identifies risks not captured by FEMA flood maps, which matters because the city's Sunrise St. Pete release says Hurricane Milton exposed flooding vulnerabilities far beyond coastal neighborhoods (Sunrise St. Pete release).

Pinellas County Emergency Management runs an online evacuation zone lookup and the Ready Pinellas app, answers at (727) 464-3800, and runs a Special Needs Evacuation Program for residents with medical needs or who require transportation (Pinellas County Emergency Management). Over 123,750 people had signed up for Alert Pinellas as of August 2026, and the county sent 114 alerts through it in 2025.

Sandbags are available all year in St. Pete. St. Petersburg hands them out at the Pavement and Traffic Operations Building, 1744 9th Ave. N., Monday through Friday and on the second Saturday of each month from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with a maximum of 10 sandbags per household and proof of residence required (city sandbag notice).

St. Petersburg (FEMA community 125148) has held Community Rating System class 5 since October 1, 2016, which cuts flood insurance premiums 25 percent inside mapped high-risk zones and 10 percent elsewhere, and the current St. Petersburg flood maps date from August 24, 2021 (FEMA NFIP record for St. Petersburg). Deeper St. Pete storm guides cover hurricane evacuation zones, flood zones and emergency services, plus hurricane season, seasonal patterns and historical storm impacts.

For St. Petersburg, every topic above leads to a set of deeper Digital Towns guides, from the St. Pete Pier and Albert Whitted Airport to City Council and Pinellas County evacuation zones.

Beyond the table, St. Petersburg families will find school guides on Pinellas County Schools, public schools and magnet programs; St. Pete utility guides on water, electric and broadband; and St. Pete wildlife guides on brown pelicans, Tampa Bay dolphins, sea turtles and manatees.