The City of Anna Maria Island has made more progress toward rebuilding its beloved city pier, which was destroyed by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.

City commissioners met last week to approve a $4.6 million construction bid from Tampa Bay Marine, Inc., the company that will rebuild the pier. According to the Bradenton Herald, construction on the pier will begin within the next two months—with test pilings installed in the next two weeks—and the pier will be "substantially complete" by April 2026. 

Built in 1911, the pier was commissioned by the Anna Maria Beach Company and was the brainchild of Will Bean (whose father, George Emerson Bean, was a homesteader on the island in the late 1800s and for whom Bean Point is named), and Charles Roser, the inventor of Fig Newton cookies. The pier originally welcomed residents and visitors arriving to the island by steamship; during the 1910s and '20s, it was also home to private residences and a bait shop. After Hurricane Irma caused extensive damage in 2017, the pier was razed in 2018 and rebuilt in 2020 before sustaining damage again last year.

Tampa Bay Marine, Inc.'s plans for rebuilding replacing the pier's 730-foot-long walkway and installing sanitary sewer lines, gas and lighting, fire protection and potable water. Plans for the structure at the end of the pier, previously home to Mote's Marine Science Education & Outreach Center and the City Pier Grill and Bait Shop, have not yet been announced. The entire project is expected to cost between $6 million and $7 million.