A Florida city wants to be the next tourist hot spot. Can this new building be the draw?

James A. Jones Jr.
·4 min read
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After more than 30 years of frustration in efforts to co-locate a hotel with the Bradenton Area Convention Center in Palmetto, the payoff is in sight with the planned April opening of the Marriott Palmetto Resort & Spa.

The eight-story, 252-room hotel, costing more than $100 million, promises to be a game changer for Palmetto, Bradenton and the entire county, officials said Monday during a Manatee County Tourist Development Council meeting.

It will be the most significant convention site on Florida’s west coast between St. Petersburg and Naples, officials said.

“This is one of the projects that exceeded the original vision,” County Commissioner Ray Turner, chair of the TDC, said.

Groundbreaking for the hotel, at 600 U.S. 41 N., was in January 2020, just ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, and progressed through labor shortages and a run-up in construction material prices.

The new hotel and a $48 million project to expand and update the Bradenton Area Convention Center next door will allow the area to host conventions and conferences of up to 800 people.

Palmetto Marriott set to boost tourism

The transformation from gateway to destination point is getting closer as the Marriott Palmetto Resort and Spa nears completion and the expansion and renovation of the Bradenton Area Convention Center begins. Workers on the 8th floor complete the exterior of the resort.
The transformation from gateway to destination point is getting closer as the Marriott Palmetto Resort and Spa nears completion and the expansion and renovation of the Bradenton Area Convention Center begins. Workers on the 8th floor complete the exterior of the resort.

Tony DeRusso, managing partner for the project, said he was originally pessimistic about prospects for the hotel.

But after getting better acquainted with the area — its beaches, its environment, its rich history and its geographic location — he became a believer and a resident of Palmetto.

The Marriott promises guests an elevated experience with the Oyster River Rooftop restaurant, the ground-level The Social restaurant, over-sized rooms, a 15,000-square-foot pool deck, 45,000-square-feet of outdoor event space, an amphitheater and a fitness center.

Plus, at Riviera Dunes, the Beach Club is planned with pickleball courts, a nine-hole putting green, a lap pool, a bourbon lounge and other amenities.

Also integral to plans for the hotel are planned retail space and a second, smaller hotel coming in the future.

Places like Palmetto Estuary Preserve and the Bradenton Riverwalk, along with the expansion of the water ferry and its connection to Anna Maria Island beaches are also key, DeRusso said.

The next phase

The Anna Maria City Pier is the first location on Anna Maria Island for the new water ferry linking downtown Bradenton with Manatee County beaches. Manatee County tourism officials want to add a stop in Palmetto as well, which would serve, among others, guests at the Marriott which is forecast to open in April.
The Anna Maria City Pier is the first location on Anna Maria Island for the new water ferry linking downtown Bradenton with Manatee County beaches. Manatee County tourism officials want to add a stop in Palmetto as well, which would serve, among others, guests at the Marriott which is forecast to open in April.

But with all that said, the opening of the hotel this April and expansion of the convention center, allowing it to seat 900 banquet-style, set for completion by Easter 2025, is just the beginning.

“We have to keep our foot on the gas,” Elliott Falcione, Manatee County’s tourism director said. “We need to collaborate in good times and bad.”

To assist with the anticipated new business, Falcione announced that Kirsten Lovett, formerly of the Bradenton Area Economic Development Council, had been hired as sales manager for the convention center to attract conventions and conferences.

Several other staff members will be working to recruit business as well, he said.

Once the hotel-convention center complex is completed, it should bring in $25 million to $30 million in revenue annually, Falcione said.

Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown said that he is excited about what the new complex means to the community.

Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant called the complex long overdue.

“Every time we thought we would get a hotel, it was dashed in the end. There are many people who have seen the vision and have done everything to bring it to fruition,” she said.

The state of tourism

In November, the most recent month for which figures are available, there were 80,700 visitors staying overnight in Manatee County, down 6.4% from the same month a year earlier. Room nights were also down — 174,100, compared to 188,200 a year earlier.

The figures represent a return to normalcy after the pandemic, Falcione said.

Taking a broader view, however, the data also showed that the number of visitors to Manatee County in November was 45% greater than in the same month in 2019, before the arrival of the pandemic.

The number of visitors in November from almost every geographic area tracked by the TDC was up sharply from 2019: up 42% from Florida, up 79% from the Southeast, up 84% from the Northeast and up 60% from the Midwest.

One area, Europe, has not yet regained its pre-pandemic vigor. The number of European visitors was down 23% from 2019.