Is north Manatee County the new Tampa Bay hotspot?

PALMETTO — Standing on the balcony of Oyster River, a posh restaurant serving Osetra caviar dip and Wagyu tomahawk steaks in the new Marriott Resort & Spa, you can see the sleepy old Florida town of Palmetto changing in real time.

To the right is the sparkling blue water of the Manatee River, the natural southern border of the small city that spans north Manatee County. Everywhere else: construction, construction, construction.

Just next to the hotel, dirt and rubble surrounds the Bradenton Area Convention Center, the makings of a $48 million renovation expected to wrap up in early 2025. By next year, there will be a bagel shop, brewery and coffee shop adjacent to the hotel’s parking lot. In 2026, upscale restaurants and more retail may pop up.

The city just south of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is expanding rapidly, with several new housing developments in progress in the northern-most areas.

In the past couple years, homegrown businesses like American Honey Creamery and Corporate Ladder Brewing have gained local followings hungry for something cool. Creamery owners Mindy and Ali Converse embraced Palmetto when they opened back in 2018 because it reminded them of their hometown in rural Preston, Conn. They recently sold the business, passing it on to a pair of local women. The Blend Coffee & Cocktails, a St. Petersburg-based company with several locations, opened on Palmetto’s Buffalo Road last year.

There’s much more on the way. Tampa-based Metro Development Group, which brought the largest man-made lagoon in the country to Pasco County in 2018, is building another just outside of Palmetto. The new community, Seaire, will feature a 4.5-acre lagoon along Moccasin Wallow Road in Parrish, another little town seeing rapid growth. This past year, the Creekside Commons shopping center brought stores and restaurants to Parrish, and nearby North River Ranch is one of Manatee’s fastest-growing residential communities, right up there with sprawling Lakewood Ranch to the south.

The new Marriott Resort & Spa in Palmetto is certainly one of the area’s splashiest harbingers of change. With 252 guest rooms, 10,000 square feet of indoor meeting space and multiple restaurants, it’s attempting to bring a different kind of energy to the town once best known for orange groves and boating.

Nine years in the making, it’s the brainchild of managing partner Tony DeRusso, who came from northern California to create the new Marriott concept. The idea was to evoke the feel of a JW Marriott (the company’s high-end hotel concept) but more approachable and affordable. The hotel’s director of sales and marketing, Scott Selvaggi, said DeRusso was skeptical of the concept in a small town like this but was swayed quickly by Palmetto’s landscape and proximity to that sparkling blue water.

The hotel, which opened July 22, is Manatee County’s largest and will offer glitzy amenities. Those include the Marriott Beach Club, a facility that features an infinity-edge resort pool surrounded by 600,000 pounds of sand, a nine-hole putting course, a pickleball court and bocce ball.

The club is one of several ideas planned for the property, said Selvaggi, all aiming to entice a local crowd that may be starved for nearby entertainment. Coming in the next year or two is the Yard, an amphitheater that can hold 5,000 people and will be used for everything from Christmas tree lightings to yoga to food truck rallies.

The food program here is quite ambitious, in a way that’s not common for this slice of Tampa Bay. Executive chef Anthony Castro oversees the hotel’s culinary offerings, which includes The Social on the ground floor, an accessible all-day restaurant. On the eighth floor, Oyster River’s 88-seat dining room has a full bar, a rooftop and a raw bar offering seafood towers. There’s a $68 sea bass dish with chorizo onion marmalade, citrus beurre blanc and chive oil; a Surf and Turf section featuring various seafoods paired with wagyu beef filets. The Caribbean Lobster Bisque ($15) is poured into your bowl at the table, streaming through a delicate black tuile.

The hotel has partnered with Gamble Creek Farms, a Parrish farm and market that provides microgreens and artisanal lettuces for their restaurants. They also work with Cheesecake Cuties, a dessert spot on Anna Maria Island, and local brewery Big Top Brewing in Sarasota.

There are local touches throughout the Marriott. Palmetto’s history as a boating community is reflected in the design of the hotel, which was built to look “like a ship on land,” with details that resemble sails on the exterior. It’s a nod to old Palmetto, permanently affixed to a major beacon of the new one.