Islanders have heard "the bridge is coming" for years. Design meetings, bid delays, utility relocations, more meetings. It became the kind of promise you stopped adjusting your calendar around. That changes this September. According to reporting from the Anna Maria Islander on July 8, crews are expected to break ground on the new Cortez Bridge in early September, with construction running roughly four years and bringing cranes, barges and heavy equipment to the water between Cortez and Bradenton Beach.

This is not another announcement of an announcement. The Florida Department of Transportation has a contractor under contract, a staging site secured, and a construction window that overlaps directly with the two things that already define island life every fall: school starting back up and BayFest filling Pine Avenue for its 25th year. For anyone who lives on Anna Maria Island, in Holmes Beach, in Bradenton Beach, or in Cortez itself, this is the season the bridge project stops being background noise and starts showing up in your actual drive to work.

What's Actually Different This Time

The project has moved past planning into logistics. Manatee County commissioners voted June 16 to approve a 60-day agreement letting the contractor, SEMA Construction Inc., access the county-owned former Seafood Shack property at 4110 127th Street West in Cortez while a longer four-year staging arrangement gets finalized. In exchange for using that site, SEMA will build a fueling station and parking area for the sheriff's marine unit and the Gulf Islands Ferry, repair sheet pile walls damaged during Hurricane Milton, and construct a bypass road connecting 127th Street West to the work site. County officials picked that property specifically because it affects fewer nearby owners and businesses than staging on the south side of Cortez Road, where more of the historic fishing village sits.

The Islander reported that a public preconstruction meeting will happen before work begins, though the exact date, time and location hadn't been announced as of early July. Early site work will focus on traffic-control devices, mobilizing equipment and barges, and pile driving from the water, along with improvements to the roadway near the bridge approaches.

The bridge itself is a full replacement, not a repair. FDOT is swapping the 1956 bascule drawbridge, which has a 17-foot clearance and lifts for boat traffic on State Road 684, for a 65-foot fixed span that eliminates the need for openings entirely. The project carries an estimated construction cost of $123 million.

That clearance difference is the whole point. The current drawbridge has to lift for marine traffic, and every lift backs up cars on both sides, sometimes for miles during peak season. A fixed 65-foot span lets most boats pass underneath without ever stopping vehicle traffic. Once the new bridge opens, that daily gamble of getting stuck at a lift goes away for good.

The Four-Year Commute Locals Are Bracing For

Here's the part that matters for daily planning. The drawbridge will stay open to traffic throughout construction. FDOT's plan routes drivers onto temporary lanes alongside the existing roadway while crews build the new bridge approaches. Once that portion is finished, the old bridge comes down and the rest of the new span goes up. Boat access underneath will continue to meet U.S. Coast Guard requirements the entire time.

In plain terms, nobody is closing Cortez Road for four years. But anyone who drives that stretch regularly, whether heading to work at the Cortez Fish Market, dropping kids at Anna Maria Elementary, or just making a Publix run to the mainland, should expect a construction zone that outlasts a full school career from kindergarten through third grade. That's a long stretch of orange cones and shifted lanes to build into your routine, especially during the winter season when island traffic is already at its heaviest.

The Escape Valve Most Residents Don't Know About Yet

There's a second piece of this that hasn't gotten as much attention as the bridge itself. Back in November 2025, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Elliott Falcione confirmed the county was adding a third Gulf Islands Ferry specifically to ease congestion once construction started. Falcione called it another step toward "easing traffic congestion" and giving residents and visitors more ways to get around during the work.

For anyone who has never used the Gulf Islands Ferry, this is worth filing away now rather than during the first bad backup in October. A third boat means more capacity and more departure windows for people who want to skip the road entirely for a beach run, a grocery trip, or a commute. It won't replace the bridge for most daily traffic, but it gives islanders and mainland commuters a real alternative during the years when the bridge itself is a work zone.

Meanwhile, the Rest of the Fall Calendar Isn't Slowing Down

None of this construction is putting the island's actual rhythm on pause. Teachers returned to Anna Maria Elementary on August 3, and students followed on August 10. This year they walked in to find something new: a 25-foot mural featuring a surfing dolphin, a sunglasses-wearing turtle and a pink flamingo, painted by mural and fine artist Cory Wright and sponsored by the school's Parent Teacher Organization. It's a small thing, but it's the kind of detail that tells you the island keeps investing in itself even in a season when a lot of the news is about heavy equipment and barges.

Then there's BayFest. The island's largest and longest-running festival turns 25 this year, returning to Pine Avenue in the City of Anna Maria on Saturday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free admission, a full day of live music, local food vendors, a classic car show and the kind of walkable, all-ages afternoon that's defined the event for a quarter century. If you've been to one BayFest, you know Pine Avenue gets packed with pedestrians and parking gets tight even in a normal year. This year, with active bridge construction just down the road in Cortez, it's worth building in extra time to get there, whether you're driving in from the mainland or catching the free Anna Maria Island Trolley.

What This Means If You're Already Here

The honest read is that this fall marks the actual start of something islanders have watched get delayed for years, not another slipped date. The bridge project is real, it's funded, and it's going to be part of daily life on Anna Maria Island through roughly 2030. That's worth knowing whether you're planning your commute, timing a Bayfest visit, or just trying to figure out why there are suddenly barges near Cortez.

The upside is that none of this changes access to the island day to day. The drawbridge keeps operating during construction, the ferry system is expanding rather than shrinking, and the fall calendar, school mural and all, is moving forward exactly as it always has. Four years of construction is a long stretch, but it's also the last stretch before Anna Maria Island gets a bridge that doesn't stop traffic every time a sailboat needs to pass underneath.

For more on what makes daily life on the barrier islands worth paying attention to, including how residents get around, where the seasonal rhythms shift, and what's changing on the mainland side of the bridge, visit our Gulf Coast Barrier Islands neighborhood guide. If you're weighing what it's like to live on this stretch of the Gulf Coast, or you're already here and thinking about what comes next for your home, the team at S&J Hill Realtors knows this island down to the bridge schedule. Reach out anytime to talk through what's happening in your specific corner of Anna Maria Island.