Anna Maria Pier reopens to smiles after a three-year wait
Almost three years after Hurricane Irma destroyed the historic Anna Maria Pier, and $6.8 million later, a newly constructed pier opened Friday morning.
It won’t be open full time, however. Friday’s reopening was a “soft opening,” for visitors to enjoy the pier Fridays through Sundays, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day.
“We want to work the kinks out and make sure we have everything copacetic,” said Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy. “We’ll have a grand reopening at some point, but we still have construction going on so I don’t want to be open seven days a week, but we might be able to expand the hours and add days. We’ll see how that works out.”
Even if it’s just for the weekends, there was nothing but smiles from those attending Friday morning. And you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful morning on the bay.
A slight breeze left the waters of Tampa Bay calm and serene as a few dozen people gathered to take a stroll onto the boardwalk over the bay. There was little fanfare as city workers simply slid the gate off to the side and gave the honor to a young girl to be the first to walk onto the new pier.
Adults trailed behind her and some took a seat on one of the new benches offering a spectacular view of the bay. Many others were loaded with fishing poles and bait buckets, anxious to dip a rod into waters that have been largely untouched by anglers since the pier’s destruction in September 2017.
Alexander Barthalis has been tracking the progress since reconstruction began and had fishing poles in hand.
“I was devastated when Hurricane Irma washed it away,” Barthalis said. “I’ve been coming here for 15 years. It’s a nice quiet area and a very friendly environment. And the police are always here so you feel comfortable even at night. I feel great. I live on the Manatee River but it’s nothing compared to here. It’s much cleaner, nicer and more fish here.”
The pier reconstruction suffered several setbacks. Murphy said after Irma, the city had to contend with two more tropical storms that forced all of the construction barges to be evacuated and then the bout of red tide in 2018.
“Everything was so toxic you couldn’t even come out here,” Murphy said.
The city celebrated a soft reopening of the pier in September of 2018 but that was short lived as the pier had to be closed again after one of the construction barges hit the pier and forced a significant delay.
The new restaurant wasn’t even constructed at the time, but the materials for it were stacked high. The restaurant is completed now, but still empty as negotiations continue for a new tenant. The Hungry Grouper out of Holmes Beach is the leading contender.
“I feel really good about the discussions we are having with the Hungry Grouper and it’s progressing well,” Murphy said. “I’d like to have a restaurant here probably toward the end of the quarter if we get lucky and everything works out right.”
Luck hasn’t exactly been kind to the progress of the new pier, but on Friday any sense of foreboding slipped away into the morning sun and gentle bay surf.
“This is the social and recreational hub of our city and it means an awful lot to us to finally have it open again,” Murphy said. “It’s good to see so many people out here this morning to enjoy it.”