Tampa Bay's In-House Marine Contractor
Tampa Dock Builders has been on the water since 1992. Two generations of the same family, a single Tampa yard off Bayshore, and a crew that has poured concrete seawall panels in Apollo Beach the same week we framed a 90-foot Davis Islands dock. We do four things: build new docks, build seawalls, install boat lifts, and repair the structures that the last 30 years of Tampa Bay storms have beat up. That's it. No pool cages, no landscape lighting, no "we also do tile." Specialists, not generalists.
The reason that matters: every category on this page is its own animal. New dock builds live and die on permitting — most homeowners don't know that an FDEP submerged-lands lease can take 10 weeks even when the design is clean. Seawalls live and die on geotechnical analysis — the wrong tieback design in Apollo Beach silt will rotate a wall in five years. Boat lifts live and die on the math — a 6,000-lb lift under a 27-foot center console is going to fail, and the homeowner usually doesn't find out until the cables snap. We've been doing each of these long enough to make the unsexy decisions that prevent the call-backs.
What Every Project Includes
Whatever you hire us for — a $4,000 piling wrap or a $90,000 yacht-class dock — the process is the same. Same crew. Same fixed-price contract. Same permit work. Same warranty paperwork at the end. The price on the contract is the price you pay; we don't write "change orders" for things we should have caught at the quote.
- Free on-site visit. A real builder (not a salesperson) comes out, measures the waterfront, checks water depth at high and low tide, and walks you through what's possible at that property.
- Fixed-price written quote. Itemized by material, labor, permitting, and disposal. Emailed within 48 hours of the site visit.
- In-house permitting. County, FDEP, and USACE handled by our office. You sign a property authorization form and that's the last paperwork you touch.
- Construction by our own crew. Same faces from quote to finish. No subcontractor shuffle.
- Final walkthrough & warranty. Punch-list walkthrough, written warranty handed over in person, and our cell numbers if anything ever needs a tweak.
Materials We Use (And Why)
Tampa Bay water is brutal on the wrong material. Salt, sun, marine borers, and storm-driven impact loads will shred anything that wasn't engineered for it. Here's what we build with and why.
Structural pilings: Southern Yellow Pine, marine-grade pressure-treated to .80 retention (CCA where permitted, MCA where required). Driven to refusal — usually 18 to 24 feet below the bay bottom. We don't auger and drop; we drive.
Framing: Pressure-treated pine for stationary builds, marine-grade aluminum (6061-T6) for floating docks and high-end residential. Stainless steel fasteners only — galvanized doesn't survive Tampa Bay salt past year 12.
Decking: Three options, picked by budget and timeline. Pressure-treated wood ($) — looks great new, fades to gray, 15-20 year life. Composite ($$) — TimberTech or Trex, no maintenance, 25-30+ year life, our most common pick. Aluminum decking ($$$) — zero maintenance for life, doesn't get hot, what we'd put on our own house.
Not sure which service applies? Call us at and describe what's going on. We'll tell you straight whether you need a repair, a partial rebuild, or to start over — and we'll tell you what we'd do if it were our own dock.
Where We Work
We cover all of Tampa Bay — Hillsborough and Pinellas County, from the Alafia River up to Anclote Key. Most of our work clusters in Tampa, Davis Islands, Apollo Beach, Riverview, Westchase, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Safety Harbor, Palm Harbor, and Dunedin. Outside that footprint — Anna Maria, Sarasota, Crystal River — call us and we'll let you know honestly whether we're the right fit.
