Say Good-bye to Manatee County Public Beach Pier

Posted by David McRee at BlogTheBeach.com

Lifeguard Curtis Mcfee sent me this cell phone photo today of the pier at Manatee County Public Beach being torn down. I don’t remember when this pier was originally built, but it must have been before 1960, the year I was born, because I can never remember a time when this pier did not exist.  It’s been extensively repaired and has suffered damage from storms but has served us well.

I fished on it when I was a kid; walked out on it with my family; jumped off of it with my surfboard back in the 70′s when the waves were big enough to make it too hard to paddle out; and just generally used it as a place to relax and unwind. I caught my first Spanish mackerel off that pier in about July 1975. I’ll miss it.  Here it is a few months ago:

In the photo above, the pier has steel railings on it, I guess to keep people from falling off. For most of my life it never had railings. I never fell off.

Here’s a memory for you old-timers. Remember when you could climb the stairs to the roof of the snack bar? That was a big thrill for me as a kid–climbing up those concrete steps with my Dad and going up onto the flat roof with the seagulls and looking at Mom down below.

There’s an article in the Islander by Nick Walter about the difficult decisions surrounding the replacement for the old pier. The article is titled “County wavers on 700-foot beach pier.” It seems that replacing the pier with a new one of the same length will cost about 1.5 million. Increasing the length to 700 feet will add another million to the cost. And of course, there are “no funds available.”

This is typical of Manatee County. Every structure that has ever been built, with few exceptions, has been obsolete before the paint was dry.  Take Cortez Road as an example. My whole life it has been under construction.  They should have four-laned it back in 1970. But no. Every few years they widened it by another 5 inches. Same thing with 75th Street, 59th Street, 51st Street, 43rd Street, 26th Street, 53rd Ave., etc. When the current Manatee County Jail was originally built it was filled to capacity before the last coat of paint was put on. Is there no one in the County that can look even 5 years into the future? And don’t even get me started on the schools. Now it’s the pier.

I think the County doesn’t understand the difference between price and value. The old pier lasted at least 50 years. The new one should last just as long. Let’s see, $2.5 million divided by 50 years is $50,000 per year. The price of a nice SUV. Surely a 700-foot pier will add $50,000 per year worth of value to the island. And what would it cost to add to the pier in another 10 years? A lot more, that’s how much.

I’m not saying we need a 700-foot pier, or that a 200-foot pier isn’t good enough. But surely it deserves more than being dismissed with “no funds available.” Put some thought into it. 50 years is a long time. A 700-foot pier will hold a lot more people than a shorter pier. And as we all know, people just keep coming.

I’ve been to every beach between Dunedin and Marco Island. I’ve walked every rabbit trail that leads to a beach, and I’ve been to many other beaches all over the state and all the way down the Keys to the Dry Tortugas. Anna Maria is still my favorite. And parking is still free.

Tagged as: Anna Maria Island, Islander, pier