Where the Cortez Bridge Crews Park Shapes Your Next Four Winters

At the Oct. 20 Manatee County Commission meeting, a SEMA Construction representative laid out what the Cortez Bridge job will need. It calls for more than 3,000 truckloads over a 1,200-day contract, or three to five trucks a day, every day, for years. Where those trucks stop will shape how Cortez Road works through 2029.

Commissioners voted 5-1 to give SEMA a four-year license to stage on the county-owned former Seafood Shack property, The Anna Maria Island Sun reported. Commissioner Jason Bearden cast the lone no vote. SEMA's crews are tentatively set to start on Nov. 9. The deal is already done, and it sets the trade-offs everyone else lives with.

The Yard on the Old Seafood Shack Land

The county bought the Seafood Shack property in 2024 for $13 million. The new license splits it into two working areas. Parcel 1, at the south end, will hold semi-permanent structures, including a crane access trestle. Parcel 2 runs along the water north of the humpback bridge on 127th Street West. SEMA described it as overflow parking for employees plus a place to assemble forms and rebar cages and load them straight onto barges. It will be fenced, gated and posted.

The county got something back. Its own project to run a new water main under the Intracoastal Waterway is well behind schedule, and the old main sits in the way of the pilings SEMA has to drive first. That first stage was supposed to start in June. In return for the land, SEMA agreed not to seek delay costs from the county or the state, which county utilities chief engineer Chad Butzow put at about $1.4 million. SEMA also agreed to remove an existing house from the property and to build a docking, storage and fueling area there for the county's Gulf Islands Ferry.

Parcel 2 drew the most debate. Residents of the neighborhoods north of the bridge told commissioners that at a July 10 meeting they understood the parcel would hold only light-vehicle overflow parking. They said they learned of the expanded "contractor material assembly staging and parking" label from documents posted online only days before the vote. One resident said more than 300 people pass that parcel to get in and out of neighborhoods that have one way in and one way out to Cortez Road. SEMA's representative said the company did not intend to mislead anyone. Bearden said his concern was transparency.

What Stays Open Because the Yard Went There

Without Parcel 2, SEMA said, it would have leaned heavily on the state right-of-way in front of Tide Tables, and that would have required daily lane closures on Cortez Road. Tide Tables co-owners Karen Bell and Bobby Woodson told commissioners the restaurant employs about 50 people and serves 500 to 1,000 customers a day. They said staging in front of it would take away the restaurant's parking. Woodson also warned that more lane closures would back traffic up to 75th Street during the busy spring season. The approved agreement keeps staging out of the Tide Tables lot.

Commissioner George Kruse summed up the vote this way, as quoted by The Sun:

"The best way negotiation works is everyone walks away a little bit unhappy."

In practice, the heavy material handling sits on the water side north of the bridge, while the restaurant lot and the main road stay as clear as a four-year bridge job allows. If you drive Cortez Road to the island, eat at the south foot of the bridge, or live off 127th Street West, the October vote settled where the friction lands for you.

The Order Things Change on Cortez Road

FDOT's project page lists the replacement at $123 million and roughly 1,200 days, with the new span built next to the existing bridge before the old one comes down. It is designed with 65 feet of vertical clearance, The Sun reported. At FDOT's Oct. 20 public information session, senior projects engineer Dustin Spears walked The Sun through the sequence. Every date below is tentative and subject to change.

1. Starting around Nov. 9. Work begins on the north side of the existing bridge at its east end. Crews build a temporary trestle and drive pilings one pier at a time. Prep work on the south side of Cortez Road gets ready for traffic shifts.
2. This fall. The south sidewalk closes and pedestrians detour to the north side. Crews build Hunters Point Way, a new road connecting to 127th Street West and serving Tide Tables on the south side of Cortez Road. A stormwater pond, county sewer work and seawall construction also begin.
3. Early 2027. Traffic moves to a temporary diversion roadway, construction starts on the north side of Cortez Road, Hunters Point Way opens, and the county water main installation begins.
4. Spring 2027. 127th Street West is expected to close temporarily, with traffic detoured over Hunters Point Way. Phase 1 ends after this stage.
5. Spring 2028. Traffic shifts onto the new bridge and demolition of the old span begins.
6. Summer 2029. The full bridge opens to traffic and the final asphalt goes down, with punch-list work running into late 2029.

Cortez Road will not close completely at any point. Individual lanes will close intermittently, and FDOT has set no limits on when. "Those can happen any time during the day," Spears told The Sun. Most of the closures that matter to daily trips, like the 127th Street detour and the traffic diversion, arrive in 2027, after this winter.

The Claws Are Coming From the Panhandle for Now

The pile driving starts less than four weeks into stone crab season, which opened Oct. 15 and runs through May 1. The local catch is off to a slow start, The Sun reported on Oct. 27. Jim Gowett, manager of Star Fish Company Market and Restaurant, said unusually clear water is keeping the crabs hidden in the mud and out of the traps. "We won't know until the water gets muddied," he said.

The Panhandle is landing claws, so Star Fish has been buying from there. Those boats are bringing in mostly jumbo and colossal claws, and colossals at the Star Fish market run about $45 a pound, which gets you one to two claws.

For a sit-down plate, Adam Sears, general manager of Swordfish Grill and Cortez Kitchen, told The Sun that Cortez Kitchen's medium stone crab dinner runs about $35 to $40 for roughly six claws and two sides. He called it one of the most affordable options in the area. He also described what the boats are facing: fuel "as high as it gets," a dock price that has barely moved, and big fleets elsewhere that can flood the market. The bridge work is starting on the same stretch of water those boats use, at a point when the season still has six months to pick up.

The Village Calendar Runs Right Through the Construction

None of Cortez's own dates have moved for the bridge. Here is what is on the calendar from publish day forward, according to the Florida Maritime Museum and the Cortez Village Historical Society:

The festival weekend falls in the early-2027 window when FDOT expects traffic to move onto the temporary diversion roadway, so allow extra time getting to the village that weekend. Project updates go to the FDOT Cortez Bridge page, and The Sun covers Cortez commission and FDOT meetings as they happen.

Twenty years in New York City construction taught me that the staging plan often shapes daily life around a job site more than the structure being built. If you own near Cortez Road or 127th Street West and want to think through how the 2027 detours could affect a sale, a renovation or a move, Gerry Tomchinsky can walk the phases with you against your own address. Let's Connect.