The city council of St. Petersburg in Florida, US, has officially approved both the funding and design for a US$20m pier designed as the centrepiece of a new 34 acre waterfront leisure district.

The St. Petersburg Pier – designed by ASD/SKY, Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers and Ken Smith Workshop – will extend into Tampa Bay, providing multi-level observation platforms, cycling routes, restaurants, a 4,000-capacity events space, a cafe area, a large lawn, a public fishing area, plus facilities for boat docking and water sports.

The project combines a large transparent building located at the end of the pier with a collection of smaller experiences in “zones of activities” positioned along its entire 1,380ft (420.6m) length.

Construction documents will now be prepared before ground breaks in early 2017.

The pier will be linked to a revamped Pier Approach – designed by W Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Wannemacher Jensen Architect – which will create new public routes to the pier via a main promenade and past an anchoring large-scale artwork.

When complete, the development will become the third largest waterfront district in North America.

Real estate firm Colliers Arnold has been selected by the council to operate the pier, the construction of which is funded by tax reserves in the city’s downtown district.

The city’s pier was first constructed in the 1880s but has been rebuilt many times over the years.

Its previous incarnation, built in 1973 with a five-storey inverted pyramid-shaped building, was demolished in 2015 after the council decided it could no longer pay the expensive maintenance costs, and a design competition for a replacement was organised.

Michael Maltzan Architecture won the initial competition to design the pier, before the scheme was rejected in a public vote and a new contest organised.