Clearwater Beach businesses put storms in past, focus on future

It took just a few hours for Hurricane Helene to devastate Clearwater Beach late last September. But for businesses, recovering from a hurricane and returning to normal can take months, sometimes longer. Still, as the calendar turns to 2025, many beach businesses are ready to turn the page and look ahead - specifically to the busy spring tourism season.

At the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Clearwater Beach, General Manager Christine Bottger says room bookings for the next few months are definitely picking up.

“February and March look great,” she says. “April is starting to pick up. With Easter being so late in April, we’re kind of hoping that a continuation of that momentum is going to push through.”

Around the hotel, months of post-hurricane repairs and renovations are wrapping up. The swimming pool and tiki bar are open again a few months after Helene deposited four feet of sand and shells in the pool and had sea water whirling around inside the tiki bar like it was a washing machine.

The hotel restaurant, Jimmy’s Fish House, is repaired and back open after Helene covered the inside dining area with 2 ½ feet of sand and shells; scattered booths, including one that ended up outside the building; and tore away the deck that had the outdoor seating area

On the ground floor, where Helene’s storm surge caused extensive water damage to the conference and ballrooms, guest rooms, the game room, and staff offices, months of repair and renovation work, including the installation of a new tile floor, is coming to an end. 

Bottger says the final project planned to have a renovated hotel ready for the busy spring months, new furniture in all the guest rooms, has actually been in the works since before Helene.

“We’re excited about it,” she says. “I can’t wait for the process of putting in the new furniture to start because then I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.”  

Looking forward

For Way2Go Rides, a transportation and marketing company that does a lot of business on Clearwater Beach, the spring tourism season is shaping up nicely, owner Jasper Klein says. 

“We are booking rapidly for February, March, and April,” he says. “Our books are filling up fast. There’s a lot of light at the end of the tunnel. I’m only looking forward at this point. There’s really no point in looking backward anymore.”

Plenty of beach businesses feel the same way, AMPLIFY Clearwater President and CEO Amanda Payne says.

“I think that’s what you’ll find to be the running theme across Clearwater Beach,” she says. “They’re kind of putting it behind them; they’re moving forward. A lot of the places that needed repairs are close to wrapping those up or have wrapped them up and reopened. People are really starting to put it behind them and realize there is light and business is going to return, especially with spring break just around the corner. I think a lot of businesses that did experience damage, their target goal was to recover and be reopened by spring break. I’d say the vast majority of them will be. I think everybody is anticipating a busy spring break. They seem to be on target with previous years as far as a busy spring break.”

Already, two events over the holidays, the ReliaQuest Bowl Beach Day and AMPLIFY Clearwater’s annual Light It Up Clearwater New Year’s Eve fireworks show, helped bring crowds, customers, and activity to the beach. Payne says Alabama and Michigan fans traveled strong for the bowl game and Light It Up Clearwater provided “a great boost for hotels and restaurants” at an important time.

“That’s exactly what it was intended and designed for and its success has continued,” she says. 

To Payne, the annual New Year’s Eve celebration always marks the moment when businesses shift their focus from the holidays to the approaching tourism season. That takes on more significance this year as the community works to put the storms in the past and focus on the future.

Helping the community move forward

At the same time, AMPLIFY, the chamber of commerce and business advocacy group for the Clearwater area, is continuing its efforts to help businesses and the community move forward after the storms. Its AMPLIFY Hope initiative, which provides grants to businesses and residents impacted by the storms, continues to accept donations and applications. The Philadelphia Philies have made a $1 million commitment and AMPLIFY Hope is also receiving $100,000 from the combined $1 million the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are providing to chamber of commerce organizations to help fund community relief programs.

Several Clearwater businesses and a few residents received AMPLIFY Hope grants in December and another $190,000 in grants has gone out in January. The small businesses the program helped in December include three located in the same shopping plaza on Highland Avenue- Tory’s Café, Willmer’s Barbershop, and All Around Pet Care. On the beach, Caffeinated Bakery received a grant. 

So did Klein’s company, Way2Go Rides, which saw revenue from its ride service and the revenue from marketing and advertising solutions like vehicle wrap mobile billboards dry up for months. Klein says September is always the company’s slowest month. Then they quickly bounce back in October, when the weather gets nice and the Clearwater Jazz Holiday and other outdoor festivals draw big crowds

But Helene and Milton wiped out October last year. With his company’s drivers and the beach businesses that make up the majority of its marketing clients facing tough times, Klein provided some relief.

“I told every single marketing partner we have I was not going to invoice them for the month of October,” he says. “Because the beach had basically closed. There was nobody coming and I knew everybody needed a break. Since we didn’t have a lot of rides, I wasn’t charging the drivers the percentage they pay back up to the business. If they could get anything, I was just letting them keep it so they could stay alive. We lost all of our earnings for October after a slow September. November was not much better. The beach was mostly closed or under construction. There was not a lot of tourism. I was able to start generating a little revenue and it was 25 percent of what it would normally be. So 0 to 25 percent of our normal revenue for the two months following the slowest month of the year is pretty devastating for us. December was a little bit better, but far below what we usually expect. Three to four months of just brutal financial conditions.”

For Way2Go Rides, the $5,000 grant from AMPLIFY Hope helped stabilize things during tumultuous times.

“That was beautiful,” Klein says. “That could not have come at a better time, to be honest with you. We’re looking at $100,000 in lost revenue from October to February. That’s 35 percent of our yearly revenue…You have no idea how much a $5,000 check can help in a situation like that. It really saved us. Without that, we wouldn’t have gone out of business, but the process of coming back would have been a lot more difficult.”

Payne, meanwhile, credits  Klein and Way2Go Rides for stepping up to help the community when Helene and then Milton hit. Klein pitched in by doing what his business does- picking people up and driving them where they need to go. But this time, the rides were free and the passengers were stranded beach residents, including senior citizens from the 440 West condominium complex. Some of them had lost their homes, their cars, and most, if not everything, they own in Helene.

“Once that storm was over, we started to get calls from people who had lost their cars and they were stranded,” Klein says.

Through Way2Go Rides, he had an access pass that lets beach residents and business owners on the beach when it’s closed to the public after a hurricane. He also had an older van in the Way2Go Rides fleet and decided it was time to get the last few miles out of it.

“I spent three or four days on that beach just driving through sand and garbage, debris and dirt, getting old people off that island and to their families,” Klein says. “We’d meet people in parking lots, put them in cars, and take them wherever they had to go. And it was emotional because there were a lot of people we took out of the 440 (West) building, where the first two floors essentially got wiped out. These people are elderly and they’re walking down 11,12 flights of stairs with one suitcase with whatever they could grab, not sure if they would go back to a place where they’ve lived 20, 30 years.”

After Helene’s devastation, people were more cautious with Milton, Klein says. The City of Clearwater opened its parking garages to the public free of charge so people could put their vehicles somewhere safe from floodwaters and falling debris. A lot of folks took them up on the offer. Once they put their car in the garage, they needed a ride. 
 
“We’d pick them up and take them wherever they were evacuating to,” Klein says. “We did all that free of charge just to help people out.” 

Payne says Way2Go Rides and Klein answered the call when the community needed them.

“They were great,” she says. “They always go the extra mile. I think that’s what we’ve seen about our neighbors on Clearwater Beach, they are always willing to go the extra mile to help their neighbor or help their community. I think that’s part of what has made Clearwater so resilient and honestly helped with the recovery here. I think it’s truly about the community. Not every community has the grit and resiliency that Clearwater Beach does and Clearwater does. I think we truly saw that over the last 90 days. They put their shoulder into it, went to work, and made sure they did what they needed to do so we can get back on track.”