CORTEZ – The construction company contracted by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to build the new Cortez Bridge wants to use the former Seafood Shack property as a construction staging area.
On June 16, with Commissioner Jason Bearden absent, Manatee County commissioners unanimously approved a short-term right of entry agreement with SEMA Construction Inc. The commission also requested the preparation of a subsequent long-term agreement to be discussed at a future meeting.
SEMA proposes using the county-owned waterfront property in Cortez as a bridge construction staging area and field office for four years. In exchange for those rights of entry, SEMA will perform approximately $300,000 worth of work on the county-owned property.
Manatee County Commission Chair Tal Siddique said, “The two actions we’re requesting today is to authorize staff to negotiate with SEMA Construction, Inc. regarding the terms and conditions of a transaction whereupon SEMA Construction would be permitted to enter upon the county-owned property in Cortez and perform certain work and services and then to prepare such agreement to return the matter to the board for potential approval at a future meeting.”
County Attorney Pamela D’Agostino said, “The right of entry that’s before the board right now would end on Aug. 17, 2026, so it’s only meant to be a short-term instrument. If the board wanted a longer-term agreement that would come back before the board at another time.”
Manatee County purchased the Seafood Shack and marina property for $13 million on Dec. 31, 2024, with the stated intention of turning the parcel into a public boat launch and marina. Two longtime businesses, Annie’s Bait & Tackle and the Seafood Shack restaurant, were demolished after the county purchased the property.
Later, when it was determined that funding for a marina and boat ramps was not available, county commissioners discussed creating a park there. They have also discussed the property being used as a landing site for the county’s Gulf Islands Ferry service.
SEMA REQUEST
FDOT recently stated the construction of the new Cortez Bridge is expected to start in early September and take approximately four years to complete.
On June 16, SEMA requested the county commission execute a right-of-entry agreement with an initial 60-day term to allow county staff and the county attorney’s office time to draft the appropriate documents needed for a long-term agreement to be presented for commission approval after the commission’s upcoming summer recess.
In exchange, SEMA proposed, at its cost, to construct an area to park, store and fuel the county’s Gulf Islands Ferry boats; to remove within 120 days the vacant house at 4327 127th Street W. and the utilities and improvements attached to the house; to restore the sheet pile wall areas damaged by Hurricane Milton; to construct a bypass road from 127th Street W. to 126th Street W.; and to construct a paved area for use by the county.
Much of the discussion during the June 16 meeting centered around how much of the 5.9-acre county-owned parcel would be used for bridge-related construction activities and whether it should be used at all for those purposes.
At issue was whether SEMA access should be limited to using zones one, three and four at the south end of the property to stage construction vehicles and materials, or to also include zones two and five for construction employee parking and a construction trailer at the north end of the parcel, which would effectively utilize most of the Seafood Shack property.
“This (bridge) project has challenges with access. DOT does have right of way to the south of the existing structure,” SEMA representative Justin Oakes said. “There’s room for offloading of materials there, but there’s not enough room for equipment and the delivery truck so the truck would have to sit in a lane closure to offload that truck to a barge directly over the waterway.”
The FDOT right of way Oakes referenced currently encompasses most of the parking area for the Tide Tables restaurant on the south side of Cortez Road.
“The right of way is about 10 feet from the front of Tide Tables,” Manatee County Director of Public Works Chad Butzow said.
“I believe that’s how the DOT contemplated access,” Oakes said, adding there are no restrictions in the SEMA contract with DOT regarding lane closure times or durations.
Siddique said he has been in contact with surrounding businesses, particularly Tide Tables.
“With a project of this scale, it’s impossible not to have an impact on the area, so the reality is we have a property that can make construction easier and faster because you’re not dealing with road crossings,” Siddique said. “It seems like we’re getting a good deal out of it. I’m in favor of the arrangement.”
Oakes said SEMA hopes to use parcel five for employee parking to avoid taking parking spaces away from the local businesses that currently use the FDOT rights of way for parking.
“The Tide Tables restaurant would have little or no parking in that area, so we were trying to solve those problems as well as lane closures for deliveries on a consistent basis,” Oakes said.
Commissioner George Kruse questioned the reason behind using the entire Seafood Shack property.
“You can’t make what you want to make work with just parcels one and three and four? You’re taking all of it?” Kruse said. “We spent over $13 million on that and to say we’re getting a good deal? This is a terrible deal. $300,000 worth of work for four years of leasing our property works out to about a 0.5% return. That’s about $75,000 a year to lease multiple acres of waterfront property, while we carry $13 million of cost.”
Kruse asked about alternative options.
“When this bridge was being contemplated, Seafood Shack was a privately owned restaurant before we bought it. You had no idea you even had the opportunity to use this. DOT had no idea that this was going to be available, so clearly there was an alternative option,” Kruse said.
“The tradeoff is there’s going to be a temporary road built while there’s heavy construction starting early in the morning. There’s residences surrounding this place that thought they were getting a boat ramp. They hoped they were getting a green space. I understand the inconvenience of building a bridge, but this isn’t an inconvenience, this is a big ask,” Kruse said.
Kruse said he was not in favor of the proposal, but he later joined the other commissioners in supporting the initial three-parcel proposal.
“I’m not a fan and I don’t think we’re being appropriately compensated for what we’re going to put people out for the loss of a park, as well as a loss of quality of life,” he said.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
During public comment, Cody Lee said, “The citizens bought that land with our property taxes. Do the citizens get to decide what goes in there or is this just turned over to a private company and they get to decide?”
Cove Pointe Condominium Association President Mark Silagyi said, “It’s been six months since planners were to create two conceptual plans for this area, as well to develop a proposal to develop some green space area for Manatee County citizens to use until it was permanently decided what was going to happen. What is the status of that? You’re proposing to use 4.6 acres of the 5.9 acres of this and yet when we’ve done research on similar bridge projects it’s suggesting you’d need one to three acres for staging.”
Silagyi said the priority should be the bypass roads and the sidewalks for the 300 residents on the north side of Cortez Road.
“We’re going to be living with this for four years and we’ve already lost this property value for two years,” he added.
Mariners Cove Homeowners Association President Mike Albert said, “We have homeowners trying to sell with diminished property values. We’ve made our home here. Our dreams are coming true here, but we don’t want this to be another six years of hell for us. We want to have a sunset on this lease agreement.”
District 4 county commission candidate Glen Gibellina said, “Don’t make your problem my problem – and that’s exactly what you’re doing to those residents out there.”
COMMISSIONER COMMENTS
“I think we have philosophical differences over the tangible and intangible benefits,” Siddique said. “There’s a perception we’re not getting the value out of it, but I choose to take a different approach that there’s a mutual benefit and not everything requires you go dollar-for-dollar. I would like to see something that also contemplates a case in which the construction takes five years or six years and we have some contemplation for our own project whether we do a boat ramp or a marina. Right now, there’s no money for it.”
“The concept of this conversation was the long term,” Kruse said. “I think we need more money for it and I think it should be less space. I do not agree that it should be more than parcels one and three. I think this is a mistake. I think three years from now, when there’s still pilings there and we’re looking at another two- to three-year minimum to build this bridge, it’s going to take six-plus years. That’s how government works. All those people around there are going to be miserable and people on this board are going to be answering questions about what we did with the $13 million of the money we put in a pile and set on fire to give DOT free space to store materials.”
Siddique said in terms of voting to formalize the right of entry agreement, the board could focus on properties one, three and four and bring the discussion about the additional parcels back to the board in the future.
“We need a defined end time,” Kruse said. “Once they get started, they’re not stopping. It could take 10 years and if it does there’s not a thing we can do because the entire incentive we’re being provided with is built upon a scare tactic of the worst possible case scenario. Our incentive is not to watch the world burn on the south side of Cortez if we don’t give our land to somebody effectively for free.”
“I prefer nothing, but I can be convinced to having a right of entry on (parcels) one and three and then saying go find parking,” Kruse said. “It keeps everything away from the houses and creates a passive park so we can do something with our $13 million and not just collect 0.5% return on it.”
Related coverage: Cortez Bridge construction expected to begin in September
