BRADENTON BEACH – Following the demolition of the colorful Joe’s Eats N Sweets building to make way for a 106-room hotel/restaurant/retail project, the cleared site is being used as an interim paid parking lot – until construction begins.
The city commission approved the hotel project on the corner of Bridge Street and Gulf Drive South on Dec. 7. On Dec. 11, demolition began on Joe’s Eats N Sweets. The drawings for the hotel project show that the area of the paid parking lot will be replaced by the hotel loading dock.
Co-applicants for the hotel are local developer Shawn Kaleta and former Bradenton Beach city commissioner Jake Spooner.
The pay-by-plate parking lot at 219 Gulf Drive S. has 33 parking spaces with 24/7 rates of $15 per hour.
According to the sign at the pay station, “You are on a privately owned and managed parking lot that’s not associated with any municipality.”
The lot is managed by Easy Parking Group.
Violators will be booted or ticketed at the owner’s expense to a maximum boot fee of $200.
“Must pay, don’t run away,” according to the pay station sign.