The Bay Is Half Construction Zone This Season. The Open Half Has a Full Calendar.

The Bay turned four this month with fences around the middle of its 53 acres. Its two newest pieces sit at opposite edges of the park. One is a palm-lined walkway along North Tamiami Trail. The other is a free floating dock on the Centennial Park boat basin. Between them, crews are building the Plaza and reshaping the shoreline. Through December, the easiest way into the park is through one of those two edges, timed to one of the free weekly sessions that keep running on the open lawns.

The park is turning to face the street and the water

Phase 1 opened in October 2022 at a cost of about $35 million. It gave Sarasota the mangrove walk and the lawns on the bay side of the site. Phase 2 is a $65 million project covering 14 acres. It adds three districts, and each one points the park in a new direction.

• Cultural District: a tree-lined Promenade along the historic buildings at the front of the park, plus a new gathering space first called the Town Square.
• Canal District: a cleaned-out boat basin, a rebuilt seawall, a floating day dock, boat slips and the park's first bayfront restaurant.
• Resilient Shoreline: more green space, walking paths, stormwater ponds, and more of the roughly one mile of bayfront converted to living shoreline.

The Cultural District faces U.S. 41. The Canal District faces the water. Its new dock lets boaters arrive at the park directly. The Bay Park Conservancy's September FAQ says Phase 2 construction should be done by the end of 2026. The conservancy's October 2025 release gave a 2026–27 window. So the fences could stay up into next year.

The front door on Tamiami Trail is finished

The street side is the part you can walk today. The conservancy opened the Promenade last October and calls it the park's "front door" along North Tamiami Trail. The walkway is 1,000 feet long and 16 feet wide, lined with 20-foot Royal Palms and canopy trees. It links the Blue Pagoda, the Chidsey Library and the Municipal Auditorium. All three are on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the Sarasota Garden Club.

The Chidsey opened in 1941 as Sarasota's first public library. Its 18-month, $3 million rehabilitation kept the Streamline Moderne details: terrazzo floors, glass block, corner windows and sections of the original stacks. The building is now the conservancy's headquarters. The work was led by Sweet Sparkman Architecture & Interiors and built by Jon F. Swift Construction.

The Plaza is the one part of the Cultural District you can't use yet. In May, Your Observer reported that the Town Square had been renamed The Plaza and was expected to open this October. The conservancy's park notices, updated Sept. 30, still list the area between the Municipal Auditorium and the Art Center as closed for Plaza construction. No newer opening date has been posted.

Where to park while the shoreline is torn up

Construction has moved the parking, too. Per the conservancy's park notices, the western edge of the lot just north of the Van Wezel is closed for shoreline work, and so is the Centennial Park parking lot. Free parking is available here:

• the north side of Boulevard of the Arts
• the lots in front of the Van Wezel
• the lots in front of the Municipal Auditorium, Art Center and Blue Pagoda

The conservancy asks visitors to stay out of the designated Sarasota Orchestra spaces and off the south side of Boulevard of the Arts.

The lots in front of the historic buildings put you right on the Promenade, so a car visit now starts at the street-side front door. The boat basin works differently. Its parking lot is closed, but its dock is open.

The water-side door, and the restaurant that will sit behind it

The floating day dock on the south side of the Centennial Park boat basin is finished and open to the public. After a City Commission vote on May 18, Your Observer reported that docking is free, with a five-hour maximum. That's enough time for a Sunday concert and a walk through Mangrove Bayou before you head back out on Sarasota Bay.

The dock is also the first piece of something bigger. On Oct. 7, the team behind a planned restaurant at the end of 10th Street went before the city's Development Review Committee for a pre-application conference, according to Your Observer. The site sits across the basin from the boat launch. The plan calls for a 4,999-square-foot building, one foot under the 5,000-square-foot line that allows administrative site plan approval in the Bay Park Zone district. It would be the first of potentially three restaurants at The Bay. An additional boat ramp and more floating day docks are also planned around the basin.

The operator will be the Venice Pier Group, which runs Sharky's On The Pier and Fins at Sharky's and has handled concessions at Sarasota County's Snook Haven Park. The restaurant is also meant to earn money for long-term park operations. No opening date has been announced.

What's open every day in the meantime

The conservancy lists the Phase 1 features as available daily:

• The Nest
• Common Ground
• The Oval
• Ibis Playground and Picnic Area
• Reading Room
• Sunset Deck
• Mangrove Bayou and the Mangrove Bayou Walkway
• the ADA-Accessible Kayak Launch

The Fountain Garden, the Promenade and the Floating Day Docks are on the same daily list.

The free calendar, November through December

The four-year anniversary program wraps up Nov. 1. After that, the weekly schedule takes over. These are the recurring free sessions on The Bay's November and December calendars:

Yoga is taught by a rotating roster of local instructors. There is no class on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve.

The Sunday lineup changes from month to month. November's roster includes The Pops Orchestra Brass Quintet, Clover's Revenge, J Santi, and Grace Burke & Gannon Torrella. December brings the Barbara King Quartet with Jazz Club Sarasota, Cover Girl Band, Ace Suggs, and Copper Piano's dueling pianos.

Two more programs use the construction itself as material:

1. Free guided kayak tours with Ride & Paddle run Friday and Saturday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. in November. Registration opens four weeks ahead, and The Bay advises checking for weather changes. Ride & Paddle's kayak and paddleboard rentals are separate, paid, offered Friday through Sunday, and timed to the tides in winter.
2. Architecture Sarasota's "Moderns that Matter: The Bay Architecture Tour" is a guided walk on Friday, Nov. 13 and Friday, Dec. 11, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. With the Chidsey restored and the Plaza going in next door, this is a good season to hear the site's architectural story.

December pulls the whole bayfront in

In early December, the crowds spread out from the park to the rest of the downtown bayfront. Selby Gardens' Downtown campus is a short drive south on U.S. 41. Its Orchid Show, featuring installations by artist Christian Sampson among the living orchids, runs through Dec. 6. Lights in Bloom starts there on Dec. 5, with more than two million lights through Jan. 2, 2027.

The same Saturday, Dec. 5, the Sarasota Holiday Parade returns downtown for its 30th year with an "America 250" theme. WWSB reported that the parade typically draws 15,000 to 20,000 people.

A week later, on Saturday, Dec. 12, the 40th Annual Sarasota Holiday Boat Parade goes out on Sarasota Bay. Admission is free, and organizers recommend watching from Bayfront Park and Marina Jack.

For more of what's changing across the city this year, see our look at where Sarasota's new restaurants clustered in 2026 and our Sarasota neighborhood guide.

The Bay is filling in its frontage along Tamiami Trail and its edge on the boat basin, and over time that changes how close every nearby street feels to the water. If you live near the bayfront and want to know what your home is worth as the park takes shape, Echo Belser and our team are happy to talk it through. You can start with a free, instant home valuation.