ST. PETERSBURG Consultants are proposing a big change of scenery for the downtown waterfront: islands.

Man-made, eco-friendly barrier islands made of organic materials like planted rock piles, sea grass or mangroves a living breakwater would protect the city against storm surges associated with higher sea levels.

They would also smooth out an often choppy basin, making for an easier ride for kayakers and small watercraft enthusiasts.

That was the pitch by AECOM, the global consultant hired to come up with a long-term waterfront plan, delivered at a meeting Friday to the City Council and the Community Planning and Preservation Commission.

"This is a big idea," said Pete Sechler, a consultant working for AECOM. "If you think about visitors coming. With a really unique environmental move like this? You think about what a draw this could be. I think it could be a really big deal."

New York City has embarked on a similar project in Staten Island, but not a lot of other such breakwaters have been built, potentially putting St. Petersburg on the cutting edge of environmentally creative solutions to rising seas, the consultants said.

Details, including how much it will cost, aren't available yet. On Friday, consultants showed a map of the waterfront with green squiggly blobs resembling caterpillars representing breakwaters and looking like tiny barrier islands.

The consultants wanted to get early feedback before developing the idea further. The public will get a look at the plan in a series of workshops at the end of the month.

Still, a general picture emerged Friday of a string of islands and other barriers along unprotected stretches of the waterfront made up of underwater breakwaters of sea grass, rock piles and other measures to dissipate wave energy far from shore.

"They won't all be 8-foot islands," Sechler said. "Some will be underwater, others barely at water level."

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