ANNA MARIA – Mote Marine met its Oct. 13 deadline to present the city with detailed plans for the marine education outreach center to be installed on the City Pier, averting the possibility of the city commission terminating the project.
Mayor Dan Murphy mentioned the plans during the Anna Maria City Com- mission’s Oct. 13 meeting, saying he picked up digital copies of the plans that morning and forwarded copies to the city commissioners about an hour before that afternoon’s commission meeting began. He also provided copies to the city’s building official and city planner.
The plans were created by Mote Marine’s contracted architect, Barron Schimberg. Murphy said the plans are technical in nature, contain a lot of verbiage and address architectural elements, electrical elements, fire suppression elements and more.
Murphy requested a special city commission meeting to be held on Thursday, Oct. 20 at 10 a.m., at which he and the commission will discuss three primary objectives.
The first objective is to receive the building official and city planner’s analysis of the plans. The second objective is to pro- vide the commissioners the opportunity to pose questions to the building official and city planner and to also relay any commission questions to Mote representatives. Murphy said it wasn’t necessary for Mote Marine representatives to attend the special meeting.
“This is our chance to review those plans collectively and put together our concerns, comments or questions both for our building official and for Mote,” he told the commission.
The third objective is to establish the timelines to move forward with the completion of the project. Murphy said this would include holding another meeting during which Mote representatives can directly respond to any lingering questions posed by the commissioners. Permitting and installation schedules must also be formulated for the completion of the pier-based Mote Marine facility.
The initial concept for the Mote Marine educational outreach center was first presented to city commissioners in February 2021. The commission later voted 4-1 to move forward with the outreach center as its preferred use for the vacant city-owned pier building. Commissioner Mark Short opposed that use of the city building for that purpose and expressed his preference that it be used for an open-air cantina or a full-service restaurant.
In response to ongoing planning delays experienced by Mote Marine, the city commission, on April 22, gave Mote until Oct. 13 to submit its completed plans for the facility or face the possibility of the project being terminated by the commission. During that meeting, the commission also established a March 1, 2023 deadline for the Mote facility to be completed and opened to the public.
Conceptual plans
During the April meeting, the commission also reached a majority consensus in support of the latest conceptual plans presented that day by Mote Marine representative Kevin Cooper. The conceptual plans Cooper presented were in the form of colored renderings that illustrated four live exhibits, with the centerpiece being an invertebrate touch exhibit that includes horseshoe crabs, starfish and other marine life.
The mangrove exhibit will include a mangrove tree and marine species inhabiting the mangrove’s submerged root system. The grass flats exhibit will feature marine species found near the City Pier. A fourth exhibit will employ live cameras and a hydrophone to provide real-time sights and sounds of the marine life and environment underneath the City Pier.
Additional interactive and educational exhibits will include microscopes, a game fish identification exhibit, a “Draw Alive” exhibit that allows visitors to create digital marine life images and an exhibit that allows visitors to create textured rubbings of fish and other marine life.
Funding
Using tourist development tax revenues, Manatee County will provide the city with $500,000 to cover the majority of the initial costs incurred during the installation of the Mote Marine facility. Mote Marine will cover any additional installation expenses. Mote Marine will not pay the city rent for the use of the pier building but will staff and operate the pier-based facility at its own expense. The city will cover the facility’s ongoing utility expenses.
