BRADENTON BEACH – The main components of Manatee County’s drainage improvement project at Coquina Beach are complete.
What remains are the completion of the second unpaved overflow parking area, the installation of an irrigation system and the planting of new trees that will replace the Australian pine trees previously removed.
Manatee County Public Works Director Chad Butzow provided city and county officials with a project update during the Aug. 1 Council of Governments meeting in Palmetto.
“Short of planting trees, we’re finally done,” Butzow said of the two-phase drainage improvement project that began at the south end of the Coquina Beach parking lot in mid-2019.
The drainage improvement project included paving the previously unpaved parking areas using pervious concrete that allows rainwater to drain downward through it and into the new drainage system below.
The pervious concrete in the Coquina Beach parking lot allows rainwater to drain downward through it. – Joe Hendricks | Sun
“It was a drainage project. The parking lot just happens to be the drainage system for that,” Butzow said in reference to some people referring to the project as a parking project.
“Within that project, we even added some overflow parking with our geo-web system in the former overflow grass area. Even if it’s a heavy rain, you’ll be stable in there. You won’t be parking in mud. That area will only be open when it’s needed,” Butzow said.
The Coquina Beach parking lot now includes this overflow parking area that can be opened as needed. – Joe Hendricks | Sun
The first gated, unpaved overflow parking lot is finished and located north of the picnic pavilions. The second unpaved overflow parking area still under construction is located just north of the first overflow parking area.
The drainage project and parking improvements resulted in the somewhat controversial removal of approximately 200 Australian pine trees.
“I will point out to some of the naysayers, there’s a lot of trees left,” Butzow said.
Butzow referenced the one-for-one tree replacement required by the city as part of the its initial permitting approval for the county’s drainage improvement project. The Bradenton Beach City Commission stipulated each non-native Australian pine tree removed must later be replaced with a new, native Florida tree.
“One tree down, one tree in,” Butzow said, noting he expected the tree plantings to take place within 30 to 45 days.
Butzow said it’s hard to determine whether the mostly completed project created more or fewer beach parking spaces, but there’s an upside either way.
“You get a lot more organized parking is the overall consensus. We’re very thrilled with how it looks and how it feels overall,” he said of the project as a whole.
After a recent rain, standing rainwater pooled in the cul-de-sac near the center of the parking lot. – Joe Hendricks | Sun
According to Manatee County Information Outreach Manager Bill Logan, the revamped Coquina Beach parking lot, including the two overflow parking areas, will provide 1,042 parking spaces.
On the morning of Aug. 16, The Sun visited the Coquina Beach parking lot. Even after a recent rain, most of the parking lot surfaces were dry and free of standing water. But there was some rainwater pooled a few inches deep in the lower-lying paved areas near the cul-de-sac and overflow parking areas toward the center of the parking lot.
When contacted later that day, Logan said, “Regarding drainage, the playground area holds stormwater that falls on it. When it is full, it backs into the pervious parking area at the phase 1 cul-de-sac. It will slowly drain into the drainage system over a couple of days.
“All of the standard parking areas are complete and open to traffic,” he said. “The unfinished area is the second overflow parking lot and tree mitigation area. Irrigation is currently being installed so crews can plant the 80 some-odd trees in the former green space that occupied this area. Once the trees are in, staff will hydroseed the remaining space to get grass growing.”
