Boaters could have new day dock on Manatee River by the end of summer

Riverside Park has already become one of Palmetto’s best amenities, but the city is far from done from making it better.

If all goes well, a new day dock will be installed by the end of summer just west of the recently completed first phase of the Florida Department of Transportation’s multimodal trail and stretching out beyond the seawall and new living shoreline. Jeff Burton, community redevelopment agency director, said the original plan was to have the day dock built during the multimodal trail’s construction, but the permitting process held it up.

“It was planned when we designed the waterfront and a space is already allocated off the seawall,” Burton said. “Conduits for electricity are already in place to light it up at night. The reason we weren’t able to do it during the first phase was because of permitting. That requires an amount of time to go through all the proper channels.”

Burton said that process is wrapping up and it’s only a matter of deciding on the materials after the city commission signed off on some preliminary details Monday. The $75,000 project is being funded through the CRA. Unlike the new docks at the Riverside Park boat ramp, the day dock will be a floating dock.

Commissioner Jonathan Davis said due to fluctuating tides, some boaters are having issues getting in and out of their vessels at the fixed boat ramp docks. Burton said the dock will not accommodate larger vessels due to the water depth, “but gives those boaters a place to pull over for other uses in the area because the boat ramp is a busy place.”

Police Chief Scott Tyler is working to update the city’s ordinance to address boat parking at the new dock to ensure that boaters cannot tie up a limited number of spaces throughout the day. Burton said preliminary numbers show that the dock can accommodate about 10 vessels at a time.

“At some point in the near future, we’ll be bringing back a (request for proposal) for the day dock and bring back a finalized version of it, including the type of products,” Burton said. “It puts a finishing touch on Riverside Park and we are really excited about having that amenity there.”

But the city isn’t stopping there. Plans continue to transform the existing restroom building near the boat ramp into a possible new restaurant and potentially a bait shop in tribute to the site’s original Seahorse facility. Additional plans also call for a future overhead boardwalk that would allow guests to walk out over the mangrove shoreline and enjoy the view of the Manatee River.

This story was originally published May 3, 2017 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Boaters could have new day dock on Manatee River by the end of summer."