Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Sharpes Historic District Sharpes, FL

Sharpes is an unincorporated census-designated place in Brevard County on Florida's Space Coast, part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville metropolitan area.

Sharpes had a population of 3,115 at the 2020 census, down from 3,411 in 2010, living in about 1,332 households.

More than half of the Sharpes CDP is water — about 3.3 of its 6.3 square miles are the Indian River lagoon, against just 3.0 square miles of land.

The community may have been named after William H. Sharpe, who served on the board of trustees formed in early 1885 to build the City Point Community Church in nearby Cocoa.

Sharpes is home to the Brevard County Jail Complex, operated by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office; its main jail opened in 1986 and the complex routinely houses more than 1,800 inmates a day.

Florida Power & Light's Cape Canaveral power plant stands in Sharpes; in 2010 FPL demolished the old plant's two landmark 397-foot towers, and construction of a $1.1 billion natural gas-fired plant began in 2011.

The state-run Brevard Correctional Institution, built in 1977 west of the county jail, housed up to 1,000 inmates before the state closed it in March 2011.

Sharpes skews older than most Florida communities, with a median age of 49.0 years at the 2020 census and about 21% of residents aged 65 or older.