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Coquina Beach Trail improvements delayed

Coquina Beach trail improvements delayed

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Bradenton Beach, Community News.

BRADENTON BEACH – Improvements to the Coquina Beach multi-use trail have been delayed.

The trail is a paved path about the width of a city sidewalk that begins at the Longboat Pass parking lot and runs 1.5 miles along the beach north to Fifth Street South.

Manatee County commissioners approved $1.3 million in tourism funds for improvements to the trail at an Aug. 8 meeting. Under the scope of the new project, workers will resurface and widen the trail, but its location and length are planned to remain unchanged.

The project also includes the removal of 96 Australian pine trees whose roots are damaging the pavement.

The removal was scheduled to take about eight months to complete, but work was recently halted.

The Sun contacted Manatee County Information Outreach Manager Bill Logan to find out why. Logan responded with an email statement from Manatee County Public Works Senior Project Engineer Michael Sturm.

“The trail restoration project began back in October, clearing the area around the trail of 20 trees,” Sturm said in his email. “We are currently installing root barriers in areas where the trees could impact the trail in the future. As for the actual removal and replacement of the trail, I received an update yesterday (Nov. 29). The asphalt plants are getting ready to shut down until the beginning of the new year. This supply issue will impact our schedule and push out the completion date. We plan to mill segments of the trail that can then be paved on the same day. So, the actual work on the path will start in early January, making it hard to provide project phasing and timeline estimates.”

Manatee County leaders are no strangers to delays due to supply chain issues. The drainage project at Coquina Beach, which caused the long-term closure of hundreds of parking spaces in 2021-22, also fell well short of the original completion timeline due to supply issues.

The county currently spends between $35,000 to $40,000 a year maintaining the trail and public works says that the steps being taken with the new trail will save that money because the tree roots will no longer be an issue. If this holds, about a third of the cost of the project would be covered by the nearly half a million in repair dollars that wouldn’t need to be spent over the next decade.

Bradenton contractor Woodruff & Sons has been retained for the trail project.

Big changes could be coming to the Coquina Beach Trail.

TDC approves proposal to use Coquina Beach Trail for shuttles

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Featured, Tourism.

BRADENTON BEACH – The Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) is recommending a plan to Manatee County commissioners to widen the Coquina Beach Trail for shuttles.

The trail is a paved path about the width of a city sidewalk that begins at the south end of the Coquina Beach parking lot and runs 1.5 miles along the beach north to Fifth Street South. The plan, discussed at the April 24 TDC meeting, would resurface and widen the trail, potentially for the use of the Old Town Tram golf cart shuttle service owned by Josh LaRose’s Easy Parking Group and partially funded by the Bradenton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). 

Big changes could be coming to Coquina Beach Trail
Easy Parking Group’s ‘Old Town Trams’ currently service Coquina Beach to Bridge Street, but are not allowed to drive on the current beach trail, making for a bumpy ride for passengers, or long waits in heavy beach traffic. This tram stopped for a break in the shade near 13th Street South. – Jason Schaffer | Sun

“They desperately need a way to get people back and forth from Bridge Street to here without sitting in traffic for an hour,” said Doris Snyder, who comes to the beach from Palmetto on a regular basis. “We like to hit one of the restaurants on Bridge Street for lunch or dinner when we come down here, but it’s impossible to park in that area unless you get incredibly lucky. We use the golf cart service a lot, but even if they drive off the road in the parking area instead of sitting in traffic, the ride beats you to death. A cart path would be amazing.”

Project Manager Mike Stern told TDC members that the trail improvements would cost $1.5 million – including the removal of 96 Australian pine trees whose roots are damaging the pavement – and take about eight months to complete. Stern said a large part of the cost will be building a root barrier, which will require the current trail to be removed so that the barrier can be placed underground to prevent future tree roots from growing under the trail and destroying it, causing more unnecessary cost in the future. With the barrier, the trail should last for many years with little serious maintenance, he said.

“While this sounds like a large investment, we hope this will last much longer than the original trail did because we are fairly confident that there was not as much root barrier, if any, used the first time around,” said Chad Butzow, director of Public Works for Manatee County. “Hopefully we’ll get a bit more longevity this time around.”

The county currently spends between $35,000 to $40,000 a year maintaining the trail, and Public Works says that the steps being taken with the new trail will save that money because the tree roots will no longer be an issue. If this holds true, a third of the cost of the project would be covered by the nearly half a million in repair dollars that wouldn’t need to be spent over the next decade. 

When asked by TDC members if the trail could be widened enough to make ample room for golf carts and pedestrians, Stern explained that as long as they were working from the existing footprint, no new permits would be needed, but because of environmental issues due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, any size expansion proposals would require permits at the state level that could take months or even years, and be potentially costly.

Big changes could be coming to Coquina Beach Trail
Beachgoers enjoy the picnic area and shade provided along the Coquina Trail. – Jason Schaffer | Sun

While not addressing Easy Parking Group’s Old Town Tram by name, TDC member and Bradenton Beach restaurant owner Ed Chiles stated that six-passenger golf cart trams should be allowed to use the path so people could park at the beach and not have to endure the sometimes impossible task of finding a parking space near the Bridge Street shopping and dining area. 

“The biggest single issue in Bradenton Beach is lack of parking,” Chiles said. “Coquina Beach may be the most parking spaces anywhere in one place in the county. This trail offers connectivity. I don’t want to see all the golf carts on there, I want to see one set of trams. That connects 1,200 parking spaces that this county has worked so hard on to what the CRA has worked so hard on in downtown Bradenton Beach.”

Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the trams using the trail would also be a big help for water taxi passengers to get to and from downtown Bradenton Beach when the service begins in July of this year. 

TDC Chairman James Satcher moved that the proposal be presented to the Board of County Commissioners, with the option to expand the scope of the proposal, such as a wider trail with a shell path adjacent, at a later date. The proposal was passed at the close of discussions. 

In other business, it was reported that phase one of the ongoing drainage project at Coquina Beach is now complete, which added 192 parking spaces. Phase two is estimated to be completed by early July, adding 862 additional parking spaces, according to Stern.

Stern said the paving of the parking lot should be completed by the end of May, but there will still be more work to be done. He was pleased to report that fewer of the Australian pine trees that offer shade to the picnic area along the beach and parking area would need to be removed than first thought. This will not only save time and money, but keep much-needed shade in the area.

Pines plague parking project

Pines plague parking project

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Bradenton Beach, Community News, Featured.

BRADENTON BEACH – Controversy over Australian pine trees in the Coquina Beach parking lot may slow down or stop the second phase of a $6 million drainage project, county tourism officials learned on Monday.

The county removed 103 of the non-native pines and replaced them with native species in phase one at the southern end of the parking area, scheduled to be completed by February or March, Mike Sturm, project manager at the Manatee County Public Works Department, told Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) members.

Another 126 pines will need to be removed at the northern end in phase two, he said.

Spirited discussions at city and county meetings about removing the first batch of trees caused the project to fall three to four months behind, he said, adding that the city of Bradenton Beach required the county to replace the 103 pines with 103 native, salt-tolerant trees, mostly black olive, gumbo limbo and green buttonwood. The county exceeded the city’s height requirements, choosing trees 8-12 feet high, Sturm said.

TDC Chair and Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore was not appeased by the effort, citing the Australian pines’ shade and aesthetic appeal.

The nearly-completed portion of the southern parking lot “looks like Siesta Beach or one of the other sterile beaches we have south of us… I wanted to save some of the character of Anna Maria Island,” said Whitmore, who voted against the project as a county commissioner. “People come to us because we aren’t a sterile beach like you see in other places in Florida. If you go for phase two, I’m really going to fight it hard,” she said.

In phase two, which Manatee County commissioners have not yet approved, the county public works staff can try to mitigate the impact to the pines by changing the pavement design to save some of them, Sturm said.

But Australian pine opponents, like Island restaurateur and TDC member Ed Chiles, say the trees are unstable in high winds due to shallow root systems and produce acidity that discourages the growth of native plants.

Pines lining Gulf Drive could topple into the roadway, which is a hurricane evacuation route, Chiles said, complimenting the county on removing the pines and on the drainage project’s progress, saying it “provides access to our crown jewel, the beaches.”

The county worked with an expert who determined that 90% of the time, the Coquina Beach parking lot gets an inch of rain or less, he said, so the system is designed to keep the lot dry 90% percent of the time. During a heavy storm, it may take a day or so to clear, he said, but any water coming off Gulf Drive will be routed around the parking area.

The system also should help reduce harmful algal blooms, Chiles said; the project incorporates carbon filters under pervious parking surfaces to help filter out nutrients from stormwater runoff, which will drain into the Intracoastal Waterway.

Pervious concrete was used at Riverwalk and Lecom Field, TDC member and Bradenton Mayor Wayne Poston said.

“It’s worked very well, we’re very pleased with that,” he said, predicting that the improved beach parking lot will attract more visitors and locals when it is finished in January.

But the Australian pines made the beach “look like the Island,” he said.

“I think Carol’s right,” he said. “You get a new puppy and everybody forgets about the old dog who has served you so well.”

“I lost this one,” Whitmore said. “As a TDC member for a long time now, I just don’t want the character to be inching away… I’m just trying to preserve a little bit of the character and that to me was a big thing. But they’re gone.”

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County submits Coquina Beach tree replacement plan

County submits Coquina Beach tree replacement plan

Written by Joe Hendricks on . Posted in Bradenton Beach, Community News.

BRADENTON BEACH – Manatee County has provided the city with a landscape plan that shows where 103 new trees will be planted at Coquina Beach. The new trees will replace 103 Australian pines to be removed from the south end of the Coquina Beach parking lot.

Bradenton Beach Building Official Steve Gilbert met with county staff on Wednesday, June 26 and he now has the county’s 60 percent draft version of the county’s landscape plan.

According to the draft plan prepared by Kimley Horn and Associates, the city-required tree replacements will include 83 green buttonwoods, 10 gumbo limbos and 10 shady lady black olive trees.

“They weren’t quite finished with the plan yet. There may be some revisions still to come. The main goal was to all be on the same page and talking to each other throughout the process,” Gilbert said on Friday.

Gilbert said the receipt of the landscape plan alleviates the threat of a city-issued stop work order that could have temporarily halted the project and the tree removals.

The city’s Land Development Code (LDC) prohibits planting or replanting Australian pines and other non-native nuisance species. If existing Australian pines are removed as part of a development plan, each tree removed must be replaced with an allowed species on a one-to-one basis. City code requires the replacement trees to be at least five feet tall.

The county’s landscape plan does not include a cost estimate for the tree replacements. Gilbert said an irrigation plan is expected this week.

“The requirements of the Land Development Code are being met. Planting will be toward the end of the project after all concrete work is done and the irrigation system is installed and working,” Gilbert said.

The city commission and Gilbert discussed a potential temporary stop-work order on June 20. The commission supported the potential issuance of a stop work order if the county did not submit a landscaping plan in accordance with the LDC. That discussion took place in response to the Manatee County Commission’s 4-2 decision on June 18 to remove 97 Australian pines in addition to the six previously removed.

The approved phase one tree removals are part of the county’s two-phase Coquina Beach stormwater and drainage improvement project. The $3.1 million phase one project includes paving all unpaved access roads and parking areas in the south parking lots with pervious concrete that will allow rainwater to drain down through it.

County Commissioners Vanessa Baugh, Steve Jonsson, Misty Servia and Priscilla Trace approved the removal of the additional 97 trees. Betsy Benac and Carol Whitmore opposed the decision and Commissioner Reggie Bellamy was not present during that discussion.

County commissioners have not yet approved the plans for a second and similar phase of the project that calls for the removal of approximately 130 Australian pines from the center and northern Coquina Beach parking lots. County staff said the phase two plans could be revised to eliminate the removal of 80-90 percent of the phase two trees currently slated for removal.

According to county staff, there were 991 Australian pines on the county-owned Coquina Beach property before the tree removals began and at least 75% of those pines will remain standing after the drainage project is completed.

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