PALMETTO, Fla. (SNN TV) — Construction advances on the Bradenton Area Convention Center Expansion and Renovation project, with the connected hotel opening soon.
A question was asked: why Palmetto?
The answer: because Palmetto.?
“Everybody told me Palmetto was a drive-thru community,” said Greg Ciaccio, the general manager of Marriott Palmetto Resort & Spa. “You drive through Palmetto to get to Sarasota. You drive through Palmetto to get to St. Pete. Well, we’re going to change that.”
The convention center project is twofold. The first part is expanding and renovating the convention center in Palmetto that first opened in 1985.
“Palmetto has waited a long time,” said Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant.
And the second part is opening the attached Marriott hotel, still under construction with a targeted April 2024 opening.
This will be the only full-service upscale property resort in Palmetto with hundreds of thousands of estimated guests.
“We don’t have enough space to feed all the people,” Ciaccio said. “We have to connect with the community. We’re reaching out to the local restaurants, Chiles Hospitality, Gamble Creek Farms.”
The outdoor community space and expanded convention center will allow for more community involvement.
“It’s a way for us to do multicultural events, weddings, but it’s also a way for us to connect when we’re doing the winter wonderland for the rallies. We’re doing food truck rallies,” explained Ciaccio.
“Palmetto, we don’t want it to be a drive-thru. We want it to be an anchor,” Bryant said.
SNN was told by Manatee County this is being paid entirely by the tourist tax.
The convention center originally opened in 1985, but there wasn’t enough money then for everything the city wanted. So how did Manatee County finally decide it was time to allocate money toward the area?
“You do that based on seasonality,” explained Elliott Falcione, the executive director Bradenton Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Peak leisure season runs from Feb. 1 to May 1. That’s Manatee County’s biggest source of tourism.
Fifteen percent of the Manatee County’s business is sports, the county’s second biggest source, which is why sports tournaments are targeting heavily from May through around Jan. 15.
But only 5% of county business is corporate group business. This project helps fill that void.
“It’s an easy story to tell commissioners, ‘You already have a convention center, we need a hotel, and when we get that hotel, we need to expand,'” Falcione said. “And then that 5% of business will grow to about 12% of our business. Now you have assets that you’re investing in that help sustain visitation on a year-round basis to the Bradenton area.”
And everyone, from the county and city on down, said the way to sustain visits to Palmetto is to show people Palmetto.
The targeted opening for the convention center’s expansion is the second quarter of 2025.
One of the biggest things SNN learned: it’s pronounced “marry-it,” not “marry-ought,” according to the hotel.