"I left my crystal ball in my other pants, but if everything holds and the weather's good, I think November is a timeline we can hit." Dean Jones, the City of Anna Maria's public works manager, told commissioners that in June. He was answering whether the City Pier was still on schedule.
Four months later, the walkway Hurricanes Helene and Milton tore apart in 2024 is complete. The work still standing between residents and a walk to the end of the 1911 landmark is out on the T-end. Those two buildings survived the storms. They will reopen as a different kind of space than the one that closed.
The Part That Survived Is the Part Still Under Construction
On Sept. 8, the city commission authorized Mayor Mark Short to sign a $436,192 contract with Sarasota-based Southern Cross Contracting. Southern Cross was one of three companies that bid on what Short called the "finishing work" at the T-end. The city-owned buildings there were damaged in 2024 but stayed structurally intact. They now need new public restrooms, other repairs, and a new set of doors before a tenant can move in.
The walkway under that work is far sturdier than the one the storms took. "Structurally, it is heads and shoulders above the way it was built," Jones told WWSB in May. He described solid piles driven down to the hard pan, about 40 feet below the deck. The last concrete slab went in on May 15. Decking and the utility lines under the walkway came next.
As of the latest public reporting in mid-September, here is where the project stands:
- Walkway: complete.
- T-end buildings: under the Southern Cross contract, which covers restrooms, repairs, and roll-up doors with hurricane-rated exterior shutters.
- Tenant: signed, and ready to move in once the city gives the go-ahead.
- Opening: the city expects the pier and its new eatery to be "fully open and operational before the end of the year." Operator Brian Seymour said he hopes to open in November.
Neither of those is a ribbon-cutting date. The reporting has not announced a fixed opening day.
Walls Coming Down for a Boat That Isn't Here Yet
The roll-up doors are the biggest design change at the T-end. Earlier this year, the mayor and commission talked about removing at least two walls of the larger pier building and replacing them with glass or overhead doors. The goal was a more flexible open-air space. Part of the reason was the ferry service, which is expected to include Manatee County's new and larger Manatee Belle. That boat currently runs between downtown Bradenton and the Bradenton Beach Pier. The tenant's June renderings showed large, garage-door-like openings in three of the building's walls. Short said the city found the change financially feasible and expected those walls to be gone.
The ferry will take longer than the walls. Service to the City Pier is expected in 2027 or 2028, after the pier reopens and a separate county-funded landing is installed at or near it. So the open-air seating area is designed for ferry passengers who will not arrive until some point in 2027 or 2028. Until the ferry arrives, the shared space belongs to everyone who walks out. Short described the rule plainly when the lease was approved:
"All the seating out there, except for those seats at the bar, are for anybody. There is no obligation. If you want to sit at a table, you can. You don't have to buy anything."
Under the lease terms, the T-end of the 1911 pier is a public room with a bar on one side. The bar does not control the space.
One Tenant, Both Buildings
The other structural change is who occupies the buildings. Mote Marine, which used the larger building, is not coming back. GSM Partners LLC signed a five-year lease, with an option for another five, to run a dining, drinking and fishing business called PIERadise. It will use the former Mote building, and the smaller former City Pier Grill building will serve as its kitchen and bait shop.
The single-tenant setup is a return to an older arrangement. Before Hurricane Irma in 2017, longtime tenant Mario Schoenfelder leased both buildings. Irma's damage closed the pier for three years. That rebuild produced the current T-end buildings, which survived 2024, and the walkway, which did not. Seymour has long pushed for one operator. "It's almost impossible to run two businesses out there with the limited amount of storage space, the functionality of the T-end of the pier and the restrictions to leave some of that space as open space for the public," he said.
The numbers reflect the bigger footprint. GSM Partners will pay the city $12,000 a month and cover ongoing maintenance on the leased space. Annual increases are tied to the Consumer Price Index and capped at 3 percent. Before the 2024 hurricanes, the group paid about $6,500 a month for the smaller building alone.
Here is what regulars can expect, according to the June lease coverage:
- Food and drink: breakfast, lunch and dinner menus with beer and wine. Seymour said the menu will change from the City Pier Grill but stay "family-friendly and as economical as possible."
- Fishing: bait and tackle return, and "the footprint where people can fish all around the pier will remain the same."
- Hours: the lease opens the common areas to the public seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the operator is responsible for closing the pier each night. A July 2025 report described commissioners supporting 24-hour access. We found no later amendment that reconciles the two, so night anglers should confirm the hours once the pier opens.
The Tenants Come From Pine Avenue
The people taking over the T-end already run businesses a short walk inland. Seymour owns and operates the Anna Maria General Store on Pine Avenue. Ben Sato runs gRub Tropical BBQ, also on Pine. Jason Sato co-owns a Pine Avenue real estate office near the pier. Seymour said the three partners bring "a lot of knowledge, expertise and ideas on how to keep it local and family-friendly."
That matters because the merchants at the pier end of Pine Avenue have said the closure cost them traffic. Taylor DeLuca's family has run Two Scoops Ice Cream, Two Sides of Nature and Two Sides of Nature Too for three decades. "We were here when the pier closed for a few years for Irma, that really affected us, when it closed for the latest hurricane and it has affected us," she told WWSB. One of the family's stores took about three feet of water and was a total loss, though it was among the first to reopen. "Everyone comes down Pine Avenue and comes and gets ice cream and walks the city pier," DeLuca told WFLA.
Morgan Bryant, owner of Cool Beans, told WWSB in August that the closure hurt her business because visitors need a reason to make the trip to the island's north end. She told WFLA that the pier is "like the heartbeat of our community," and added, "For two years, we looked out at this empty space that used to be filled with people all the time."
Between Now and the First Walk Out
Pine Avenue gets a busy day before the pier opens. The 25th Annual BayFest runs Saturday, Oct. 17, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. along Pine Avenue, with music, food, vendors and a classic-car show.
In the meantime, the Rod & Reel restaurant is operating from a temporary location at 3246 East Bay Drive in Holmes Beach. The AMI Sun reported its official opening there on Nov. 21, 2025, though earlier coverage dates the reopening at that address to April 2025. The original Rod & Reel Pier was also destroyed in 2024, and a May 2026 report described ongoing fundraising to rebuild it at its original site.
Once the Southern Cross crew finishes and the city signs off, the City Pier opens with a sturdier walkway, one operator in both buildings, and tables at the T-end open to anyone, whether or not they buy anything.
If you own near Pine Avenue or the north end and want to talk through what the reopened City Pier could mean for your property, from foot traffic to seasonal rentals, Janette and John Schafer are glad to sit down with you. Tell us your story.
