Work on the southern part of Coquina Beach’s parking lot has stalled.
“A change in contractor has put the parking and drainage project behind, so there is no reliable timeline for this project at this point,” Bill Logan, information outreach manager for Manatee County, wrote in a March 18 email to The Islander.
The sub-phase 4 and sub-phase 1 portions of the parking and drainage project at the southern end of the county-run beach sit in unfinished limbo.
Manatee County in April 2019 began work to improve stormwater drainage and parking conditions at the Bradenton Beach lot, the largest beach parking area on Anna Maria Island.
The projected completion date had been December but, with the contractor change and the pause, the timeline is likely to change.
Before the project, many sections of the Coquina Beach parking lot would flood during heavy rains, rendering much of the parking area unusable, according to the Manatee County Coquina Beach Parking and Drainage Project website at mymanatee.org.
The parking renovation, which to date has cost $2.7 million out of an allotted $5 million, is funded with tourist development tax dollars and includes covering access roads and parking areas in the south parking lots with pervious concrete.
Such a surface allows the percolation of stormwater into an underground filtration system. The system allows stormwater to run off gradually into Sarasota Bay and Longboat Pass while removing some pollutants.
The project also has included the removal of a number of Australian pine trees and the addition of other vegetation.