ANNA MARIA – Duncan Real Estate celebrated the recent reopening of its hurricane-damaged Anna Maria office with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a champagne toast, Chick-fil-A appetizers and the 7 Better Days hat bar.
The Duncan Real Estate sales and rental operations resumed at 310 Pine Ave. in late July after the business operations were displaced by the damage caused by Hurricane Helene in September 2024.
The Oct. 17 grand reopening celebration began with some group photos taken of Duncan Real Estate owner Darcie Duncan, her 28 employees and some invited guests, followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony conducted by representatives of the Manatee County Chamber of Commerce.
After the ribbon cutting, a champagne toast was made inside the repaired, renovated and expanded office space. Appetizers were enjoyed and many attendees stepped outside to design their own hats at the mobile 7 Better Days hat bar owned and operated by sisters Taylor and Kilee Fehd. Duncan employees and invited guests selected a baseball cap-style hat of their choosing and the various patches and other accessories to be pressed onto their customized hats.
The following day, Duncan Real Estate’s Pine Avenue office was open during the Anna Maria Island Chamber of Commerce’s Bayfest street party celebration – an annual event that was canceled last year because of the hurricanes.
Looking back, looking ahead
“I could not be more excited to be back on Pine Avenue. It’s been my company’s home for 25 years and there is nowhere else we would rather be,” Duncan said. “Pine Avenue is more than just a street; it’s our little family too and we love seeing everyone again.”
Regarding the hurricane damage, she said, “With Helene, we had 37 inches of water throughout the office and we lost everything we had not removed with our normal storm preparations. So, we had to gut the inside down to the studs. We just had some little bumps and bruises from Hurricane Milton.”
During the post-hurricane recovery process, Duncan Real Estate operated in the former Barnes Walker Title Inc. office at 5916 Marina Drive in Holmes Beach in a space Duncan Real Estate began using as a maintenance facility in August 2024, the month before the first of the back-to-back hurricanes struck the Island.
The maintenance facility remains at the Holmes Beach location and the additional office space there is now leased to someone else.
“We have a new, expanded office space on Pine Avenue and a great maintenance office in Holmes Beach,” Duncan said.
When asked about the post-hurricane real estate and vacation rental markets one year later, she said, “The sales market has held up relatively well, all things considered. It’s been a bumpy road but I see good momentum as of late. I think one of the driving factors that created the sluggish market is that people just needed to get a storm season behind them to feel comfortable before jumping back in the market.”
“The vacation rental market has also held up well, considering that many of the ground-level rentals just came back online in mid-spring and into the summer. Some guests chose to just wait and come back next year, as they wanted the Island to be more put back together. We have a resilient community and that proves what a great place this is to vacation and invest. I feel very optimistic that we will see continued improvement in 2026,” Duncan said.
