Strapped Fla. County to Hollywood: Blow Up Our Bridge

Tampa span unsafe, so pols pitch studios
By Will McCahill,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 7, 2010 8:18 PM CDT
Strapped Fla. County to Hollywood: Blow Up Our Bridge
The bridge in question.   (Wikimedia Commons)

A Florida county is looking to demolish an old bridge, and hopes to convince Hollywood to foot the bill. Find a film that needs some fireworks, a Tampa politician posits, “And they would do it under their budget, and it wouldn’t cost us a thing, or very little.”

The Friendship Trail Bridge was deemed unsafe in 2008, and Pinellas County doesn’t have the $13 million it’ll cost to tear it down. Though the area has had success in attracting such projects—a local city hall was blown up in 1991 for Lethal Weapon 3, at a cost of $50,00—don’t expect a free ride from a studio. “No one’s going to pay for the whole thing,” an Orlando film commission exec tells the St. Petersburg Times.
(More entertainment stories.)

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