Terrazzo Restoration in Apollo Beach

Apollo Beach’s terrazzo is in its earliest canal houses, from the late 1950s and the 1960s, and after Helene some of those floors are bare for the first time in decades. Restoration typically runs $5 to $9 per square foot once the slab is dry, $75 to $250 per patch, and $150 to $600 per area for stain work that survives the grind. Send photos and the date the water came in, and we will tell you what we see.

How Apollo Beach was built

Apollo Beach is a planned waterfront community on the east shore of Tampa Bay, about 17 miles south of downtown Tampa. Francis J. Corr acquired the land in 1957, first calling it La Vida Beach, and the name Apollo Beach was chosen in 1958. The community was laid out around canals, eventually about 55 miles of interconnected navigable canals averaging seven feet deep in the center. The first housing development, Jamaica Isle, had 51 houses. Apollo Boulevard was finished in 1967, linking the waterfront to U.S. 41.

That timeline puts only the first slice of Apollo Beach in the terrazzo years. Most of the community was built later.

What the county records show

We pulled the single-family houses on two early streets, Flamingo Drive and Golf and Sea Boulevard:

That is a small yield, and it is honest: most of the houses we pulled there are from the 1970s and later. If yours is a block house from 1958 to the mid-1960s, check under the carpet or along a closet edge. If it is from the late 1970s on, the floor under your carpet is almost certainly bare slab. Our property-record guide explains how to read your own house’s record.

Helene and salt

Apollo Beach sits at a listed elevation of about 7 feet with Tampa Bay on its west side. On September 26, 2024, Helene’s surge reached 5 to 8 feet above the normal high-tide line along most of coastal Hillsborough, according to the National Weather Service, and WUSF reported Ruskin and Apollo Beach among the hardest-hit places. The county’s preliminary count was 151 homes destroyed and 1,709 with major damage.

Saltwater is hard on almost everything on a floor except cement terrazzo. The carpet and pad have to go. The terrazzo underneath stays bonded to the slab, but it holds salt in its surface and pores, and that salt comes back out as a white crust or haze as the floor dries. The fix is order and patience:

1. Rinse with clean water and a neutral cleaner, scrub and extract, and repeat.
2. Let the slab dry with power, air conditioning and dehumidifiers running.
3. Moisture-test before sealing. Grinding and patching can start earlier.
4. Grind, hone, polish and seal as usual.

The details are on the flood-damaged terrazzo page and the salt and silt residue page.

Paperwork

Apollo Beach is unincorporated Hillsborough County. The county lists floor coverings among work that needs no permit, but its hurricane recovery guide adds a step for homes in a Special Flood Hazard Area: cosmetic repairs need no permit but do need a Substantial Damage Packet submitted to the county for review. Structural repairs need a permit, and repairs that reach 50 percent of the home’s market value trigger current floodplain requirements for the whole structure. Look up your flood zone and ask the county; we can give you an itemized written floor price for the packet.

Getting a number

Send a photo of the bare floor, a close shot of the worst spot with a coin beside it, the square footage, and when the water came in. Tell us whether the carpet and pad are already out. You get a range from the pricing page. Our post on Helene, saltwater and terrazzo floors goes deeper, and we also work in Sun City Center to the southeast.