Cortez Road West Gets Finished From East to West, and Cortez Will Be Last

Two days apart, the two ends of Cortez Road West marked different milestones. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, the Florida Department of Transportation held its preconstruction open house for the Cortez Bridge replacement at Kirkwood Church, 6101 Cortez Road W. On Thursday, Oct. 22, a Publix of more than 50,000 square feet opened at 7535 Cortez Road W., near 75th Street West, as the anchor of the new SeaFlower Village Center.

At the east end, a finished destination. At the west end, the start of a project FDOT measures in years. Between them sits a 3.47-mile resurfacing job that will keep the middle of the road under cones until late 2027. The SeaFlower end of Cortez Road is now usable for everyday errands. The Cortez fishing village end, with its fish houses, porch music and February festival, will be the last stretch to see its construction end.

Three work zones, three finish lines

Three separate projects share the corridor, each on its own schedule.

The 75th-to-86th permit work was scheduled to wrap up first, and it sits right at the new shopping center. The bridge project on the far end has the latest finish date. That order shapes the next few years of trips along this road.

The east end already works as a destination

The new Publix carries the full lineup of departments, including deli, bakery, seafood and pharmacy. It also has a pharmacy drive-thru, a Publix liquor store and delivery, and it is open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, according to the Bradenton Herald. Publix was announced in 2024 as the center's first store, and the Business Observer identified it as the first tenant to open.

The center's other confirmed tenants make it a place to grab food and coffee as well as groceries:

• Dave's Hot Chicken
• Whataburger
• Dutch Bros. Coffee
• Playa Bowls
• Pecan Jacks
• Potbelly Sandwich Works
• Club Pilates

None of these has a public opening date yet. Until they open, Publix is the whole of the center. Nothing Bundt Cakes also appears in the center's own tenant directory, and the Herald included it in its list.

The center is one piece of a much larger plan. The Village Center belongs to the first phase of the SeaFlower development, which covers 400 of an eventual 1,200 acres. NDC Construction recently broke ground on The Fields at SeaFlower, a 362-unit apartment complex. The turn lanes and median left turns being built between 75th and 86th Street West are road work designed for the traffic that growth will bring.

The middle stays coned until late 2027

West of the shopping center, FDOT's resurfacing project covers the stretch most West Bradenton residents drive for everyday trips. The MPO's Traffic Watch for the week of Oct. 18 listed these conditions:

1. An eastbound traffic shift from 66th Street West to Timber Lane, with the westbound left turn lane closed and detoured at 66th Street.
2. A temporary closure of the eastbound left turn lane onto 63rd Street West.
3. A westbound lane shift between 66th and 63rd Streets that began Oct. 15.
4. Intermittent daytime and nighttime lane closures anywhere within the project limits, along with sidewalk detours where sidewalks are being replaced.

The specific shifts will change as crews move along the road. Completion is estimated for late 2027. The work goes beyond new asphalt. It also includes drainage, signal work, mast arm replacement and traffic technology additions. That means intersections along this stretch will keep changing for two more winters, and the weekly MPO bulletin is the most current place to check them.

At the west end, the work started before the agreement was signed

The Cortez Bridge has already slipped once. Construction was originally planned for summer. FDOT held off while Manatee County finished water main work tied to the bridge, and Your Observer reported in mid-October that the project was expected to begin in November. Contractor SEMA Construction was already staging equipment and doing site inspections.

The new $123 million span will be a fixed bridge with 65 feet of clearance. It replaces a drawbridge built in 1956. According to the FDOT project page, Phase 1 builds the north half of the new bridge beside the existing one. Traffic shifts slightly south at both approaches, which FDOT expects to happen by the end of this year. That phase also covers utility relocations and a new road connection, Hunters Point Way. Phase 2 is expected to start in mid-2028. Traffic will move onto the new span, and crews will demolish the old bridge and build the rest of the new one.

Two details matter most for daily trips. An FDOT fact sheet says daytime lane closures are not anticipated, and marine traffic will not be affected during construction. The project is listed at about 1,200 days and is expected to continue through late 2029.

The most visible change in Cortez so far is the staging yard. It sits on county-owned land where the Seafood Shack restaurant once stood, on the north side of the bridge. WWSB reported that the site had been growing since mid-summer under a county right of entry issued June 16 and extended through Oct. 16. County commissioners then approved a 48-month license on Oct. 20. The license covers staging, material storage, contractor parking, office trailers and crane access. As part of the agreement, SEMA will build the county's ferry boat parking, storage and fueling area at its own cost. County staff say keeping large equipment next to the bridge means it will not have to repeatedly back into and out of the narrow FDOT right-of-way.

WWSB found neighbors split. Some worry about long-term access to their homes and about how the staging plan was arranged. Others see the yard as a rough but necessary step. Karen Bell, a partner at Tide Tables, told the station:

"We are all going to have to deal with some discomfort for a little while. In the long run it is going to benefit all of us, so I would hope we would come together and work to not make it worse on any one particular group."

Cortez keeps its own calendar through the construction

Bridge work will not pause the village's own calendar. Stone crab season opened Oct. 15. Ahead of the opener, the AMI Sun reported that Cortez crabber Wayde Campbell and his crew were readying more than 3,000 traps, to be set about six miles offshore starting Oct. 5. He expected to find crab but called fuel costs a real pressure this year.

A few more Cortez-area details shape a visit this season:

• Anna Maria Oyster Bar Cortez paused service Aug. 3 to 7 for new booth seating, takeout-area improvements and refreshed finishes.
• Florida Maritime Museum, 4415 119th Street West, has its 1912 schoolhouse closed for rehabilitation. The museum says programming continues during the closure.
• Music on the Porch is listed by the Cortez Village Historical Society for the second and fourth Saturdays on the Bratton Store porch at the museum. The listing shows two different times, so check it before heading over.
• Tailgatin' Sports Tavern opened in August at 12012 Cortez Road, just east of the village.
• The Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival is listed for Feb. 13 and 14, 2027, and benefits FISH and its Preserve.

The festival weekend will be the first big Cortez event of the Phase 1 years. By then, if FDOT's year-end estimate holds, traffic on both bridge approaches will already have shifted south. The next date to watch is that shift. FDOT takes questions about it through the Cortez Bridge project page.

If you are deciding whether to stay, sell or buy along this corridor, Chiaro REALTORS® follows these projects stretch by stretch and can show you how they affect the streets you are looking at. Get Access To Our Private Listings.