Live in Shore Acres

Shore Acres was developed in the mid-1920s, after dredging for the Gandy Bridge, on low land by the bay north of Snell Isle, and it grew out in the 1950s on what one developer called "a pretty sorry piece of land", pine forest and marsh. The bay has come back into it before: in June 1972 an unusually high tide during Hurricane Agnes flooded the neighborhood, and Idalia in 2023 damaged more than 1,200 homes here, close to half its buildings. Helene, in September 2024, was its fourth flood in four years.

The City draws no line called Shore Acres. This guide takes the area the Shore Acres Civic Association filed on the City's map of neighborhood associations: 853 acres, some of it bay and bayou, with Tampa Bay on the east, 62nd Avenue NE on the north, 16th Street NE on the west and Placido Bayou, across from Snell Isle, on the south. The 2020 census counted 5,105 residents in 2,266 homes there, 118 of them on one block of eight units that looks like group quarters no source identifies. All of it is in City Council District 3, and no City historic district covers it.

Every resident lives in FEMA's flood zone and evacuation Zone A. FEMA's Pinellas map of August 2021 puts 99.9% of the area in the 1% annual chance zone; at the reference point on Montana Avenue NE the ground is about 3.2 feet above sea level against a base flood elevation of 9 feet. On 26 September 2024 Helene's surge reached 6.31 feet above mean higher high water at the St. Petersburg tide gauge, more than two feet over the record Elena set in 1985. The City assessed 2,410 parcels here afterward and recorded water inside 2,056, a foot or more in 1,854, major damage at 1,642 and four destroyed: more than in any other association's area in the city. Those are assessment points, one per parcel rather than per home; Milton added 247, two with water inside. Under the City's rule, repairs or improvements whose cumulative cost reaches 49% of a structure's market value require the whole building to meet current flood rules, which can mean raising it or rebuilding. Two years on, in September 2026, residents were still rebuilding, and one family had waited nearly a year for a City permit.

No price index follows the line. Zillow's typical value for ZIP code 33703 was $398,232 in August 2026, down 2.7% on the year, across 23,948 people, Allendale among them. Every address pays 19.9197 mills for 2025, the City's 6.4525 among them. A homestead at the ZIP figure owes about $7,094 a year after the exemption ($25,000 off every levy, a second $25,000, indexed since 2025, off all but the school board's); a landlord, about $7,933. Save Our Homes caps a homestead's assessed value at 3% a year and ends with a sale, so the seller's bill understates yours. Flood cover is a separate policy from homeowners insurance, and a federally backed mortgage here requires it; Citizens already requires it on a wind policy in the flood zone, and from 1 January 2027 on every one. The City's stormwater fee, $12.67 to $59.08 a month from 1 October 2026, comes on the utility bill. The arithmetic is on the St. Petersburg page.

It is a place to own a car. No PSTA stop is inside the line: Route 38, hourly to downtown, stops at 1st Street NE and 39th Avenue NE, 3.2 km from the reference point, and Route 4's 15-minute service on 4th Street North is 3.4 km away. The SunRunner leaves downtown, 5.9 km south, every 15 minutes. PSTA's schedule changes on 4 October 2026, and Route 38 keeps its weekday trips.