Read the article in the Times Neighborhood section this morning - good ''awareness'' piece.

With all the new ''infill'' construction going on in our HISTORIC neighborhood, the builders/developers/new homeowners should be REQUIRED to replace the HISTORIC hex block sidewalks their new construction destroyed.

The new home construction at 20th Ave NE and Locust has completely shattered the entire sidewalk (corner lot!)with heavy equipment (no protection provided), and chances are very good the replacement will be a new concrete ribbon there is no requirment to replace what was carelessly destroyed!

Who to contact

Steve Kipp has done an excellent job raising awareness of this issue.

Until recently, there was a moratorium on replacing hex blocks with concrete.

A key issue going forward is for the City to do an audit to identify the cost differential between the two approaches. Indeed, if repairing hex block with hex block is cheaper than repairing with concrete, then the City is wasting money by using concrete.

But it seems the City's isn't ready to do such an audit so perhaps another moratorium is justified until the true cost figures can be identified.

Two elected officials to contact to voice concerns:

Virginia Littrell, COUNCIL@STPETE.ORG

Mayor Baker, mayor@stpete.org

The City sells HEX Blocks

Yes you can buy authentic Hex Blocks from the City of St Pete but they can only be purchased the last Thursday of each month (exclude Nov & Dec).
Thank you Carol for sharing the information.
Contact person is Josie Ramirez, 89205662. Available 7am - 3 pm. 1635 3rd Avenue North (need to stop in the office and register as a visitor and maybe pay...both times I've gone there has been no one available to pay so I have paid at the hex block site which is all the way to the back of the property.) Cost $1.25/block & tax. They have 2 sizes of blocks, both the same price. Plus there have been plenty of blocks cut in half for piece work.

Permit = no cost (maybe)

By pulling a permit to fix my hexblock sidewalk, the permit allowed me to get a reasonable number of hexblocks for free.

But that was a couple of years ago.

Tip: If you want to use the same color pattern as most of our sidewalks (neutral and gray), expect that there aren't many gray hexblocks. Instead, I used a concrete stain on neutral blocks to replicate the original gray color.