The Lens, St. Petersburg, Florida. Click to view more images.

Waterfronts get architects—and politicians—thinking big, and sometimes too big. Even Daniel Burnham (he of “make no little plans”) proposed festooning Chicago’s lakefront with five massive piers, of which only one was ever built. Now that structure, the 3,300-foot-long Navy Pier, is about to get a face-lift that residents hope isn’t too large a financial burden for the “City of the Big Shoulders” to bear.