Belleair Bluffs is a small city of about 0.6 square miles on Pinellas County's western shore, beside Largo, at the mainland end of the Belleair Causeway. It is about 4 miles south of downtown Clearwater and about 2 miles by road from the Gulf beaches of Belleair Beach. Its main street is West Bay Drive (County Road 416), which runs from the Indian Rocks Road shopping district down to the causeway.
Living in Belleair Bluffs
The city was incorporated on March 4, 1963, at a New England style town meeting. A quarter of its small area is water on Clearwater Harbor, and its listed elevation is 46 feet above sea level. Because the city is so compact, most of it is a short drive, and often a short walk, from the shops at West Bay Drive and Indian Rocks Road. This page also includes a handful of homes with Belleair Bluffs mailing addresses just outside the city limits, in the unincorporated Harbor Bluffs and Pinehurst area.
Shopping and dining in Belleair Bluffs
Most of the city's businesses are clustered around the intersection of West Bay Drive and Indian Rocks Road. West Bay Drive's shops and restaurants include the renovated Belleair Bazaar plaza. Off Indian Rocks Road, The Alley at Belleair Bluffs was known for years as Antique Alley. It is a cluster of independent shops selling antiques, furniture, home decor, gifts, art, jewelry and clothing, and the name changed as the mix moved beyond antiques.
The Belleair Causeway and the water
West Bay Drive crosses the Intracoastal Waterway on the Belleair Causeway's high-level bridge, opened in 2009 to replace a 1950 double-leaf drawbridge. The concrete span is 3,350 feet long with 72 feet of clearance underneath, so boat traffic passes without bridge openings. On the far side is Belleair Beach, with Morgan Park, the city's public beach park, at 2650 Gulf Boulevard. On the mainland side, Pinellas County's Belleair Causeway Boat Ramp on West Bay Drive has 10 launch lanes and a fishing pier, which makes Clearwater Harbor and the Gulf passes easy to reach by boat.
Getting around from Belleair Bluffs
Downtown Clearwater is about 4 miles north. The Town of Belleair, a separate municipality, is just to the north along the harbor, and Largo's parks and shopping corridors surround the city to the east and south. St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport is about 10 miles east by road, and Clearwater Beach is reachable either over the Memorial Causeway or south to north along Sand Key's Gulf Boulevard.
