The light at the end of the 800-foot-long Anna Maria City Pier is finally coming into focus.
The city of Anna Maria will host a grand-opening ceremony for the Mote Marine Laboratory educational outreach center on the city pier at 10 a.m. Friday, May 5, at City Pier Park, 103 N. Bay Blvd.
The center will be housed in the 1,800-square-foot building on the pier’s T-end, the space originally planned to house a full-service restaurant.
The center will feature interactive and live exhibits with about 1,000 gallons of recirculating seawater.
The city extended Mote’s contract after a slow start on the project with new deadlines, which were all met after a 14-day extension was granted and Mote met the timeline.
The ceremony to celebrate the center’s grand-opening will begin at City Pier Park and will be followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the landside entry to the pier.
Mayor Dan Murphy has said he and Mote Marine president/CEO Dr. Michael Crosby would speak at the park ceremony, which he projected to last about 45 minutes.
Several local officials have been invited to the public event, which will require the closure of sections of Pine Avenue and Bay Boulevard, according to Murphy.
Attendees will have a chance to be among the first to step inside the completed center, which will open for daily operations following the ribbon-cutting.