Palmetto earns $1.5 million infrastructure grant to help build new Sheraton hotel
The city of Palmetto received a $1.5 million economic development grant Thursday afternoon, bringing the Palmetto Sheraton hotel project one step closer to reality.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the Community Development Block Grant funding award, which will go toward the street, water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure needed to support the hotel, in a press release. Palmetto received the largest share of $5.2 million in grants for small and rural Florida communities.
“We will continue to invest in our state’s infrastructure to help attract new businesses and create opportunities for residents,” DeSantis said in the press release.
Palmetto officials gave the final approval for the eight-story, 251-room hotel last January. The hotel is also expected to feature a full-service restaurant, a VIP rooftop lounge, 10,000 square feet of meeting space and a more than 32,000 square feet of outdoor event space. Its completion will generate at least 43 full-time jobs, DeSantis said.
The $60 million hotel will be just north of the Bradenton Area Convention Center at 1 Haben Boulevard. County tourism officials have pitched a $15 million plan to renovate the convention center with more meeting space, a parking garage and an expanded lobby.
The Florida Small Cities CDBG program is a partnership between the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Cities with populations smaller than 50,000 may apply for funding. Palmetto is home to about 13,000 residents.
Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. In a previous meeting with county officials, she called a the hotel a “real game-changer.”
“We are in so much need of a hotel north of the river and who can do better than the Sheraton?” she told commissioners in August.
“These programs provide communities with the funding they need to make major infrastructure improvements, allowing them to set the stage for future development and economic resiliency,” Ken Lawson, executive director of the FDEO, said in a prepared statement.
The Palmetto Sheraton hotel is expected to open in April 2021.
