Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Tierra Verde, FL

Tierra Verde is an unincorporated census-designated place in Pinellas County, sitting on islands at the entrance to Tampa Bay and reached by the Pinellas Bayway bridges from St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach.

Tierra Verde was once 15 separate mangrove islands, which developers Louis and Fred Berlanti dredge-and-filled into a single park-like community of six islands in the early 1960s.

Long before development, Native Americans used Tierra Verde's islands as ceremonial and burial grounds, and a shell-mound marker still stands beside the Pinellas Bayway where relics were uncovered during road construction.

The first road and bridge to Tierra Verde were only completed in December 1962, after the Pinellas Bayway was financed through a $16.8 million bond issue.

In January 1963, bandleader Guy Lombardo opened his Port-O-Call Resort in Tierra Verde, where Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Marlene Dietrich and Mel Tormé performed and two episodes of the TV show Route 66 were filmed.

One of Tierra Verde's earliest residents was Silas Dent, the 'Happy Hermit of Cabbage Key,' who lived on the islands from 1912 to 1952 and rowed fresh milk across to Pass-a-Grille every day.

The 2020 census counted 3,836 people in Tierra Verde, up from 3,721 in 2010, spread across 1,865 households.

Tierra Verde is one of Florida's oldest communities by age, with a median age of 60.6 years at the 2020 census.

At the southern end of Tierra Verde lies Fort De Soto Park, Pinellas County's largest park at 1,136 acres across five islands, built around a Spanish-American War fort begun in 1898 and repeatedly ranked among America's best beaches.

Although nearly three-quarters of the Tierra Verde CDP's 4.9 square miles is water, its 1.2 square miles of land hold an affluent boating community built around marinas and bayfront homes.