14 Facts About Panama City Pops Orchestra

THE PANAMA CITY POPS ORCHESTRA
FACT SHEET

2009-2010 season, the 14th season, is comprised of four concerts
all concerts will be presented at Arnold High School Auditorium, Alf Coleman Drive, Panama City Beach
“Anything Goes,” Saturday, October 17, 2009, 7:30 pm, Arnold High School
“Battle of the Batons,” Saturday, January 16, 2010, 7:30 pm, Arnold High School
“To Our Heroes,” Saturday, March 13, 2010, 7:30 pm, Arnold High School
“Enchanting Escapades,” Saturday, May 8, 2010, 7:30 pm, Arnold High School
The POPS belongs to Panama City; the majority of our musicians live, work and
‘play’ in Bay County
Maestro and Artistic Director, Eddie Rackley
season tickets available at http://www.panamacitypops.org
single tickets for performances are available at Cher’s Hallmark, Lynn Haven and Panama City Beach, and Paul Brent Gallery, downtown Panama City
single ticket prices: $25 for Adults; $20 for Seniors 65+ and Active Military; $10 for Children
membership in The Panama City POPS Orchestra is by audition and open to all residents of Bay County
The Panama City POPS is a mentoring orchestra; all qualified, advanced student musicians of all ages are welcome to audition; if selected they are mentored by current musicians who help teach and guide them while they have the opportunity to play with the orchestra
formerly the Orchestra of St. Andrew Bay, The POPS was founded in 1996
for more information, visit www.panamacitypops.org or call
(850) 785- POPS (7677)

EVP Pro Volley Ball Tour on Panama City Beach

Spike It! EVP Pro Volleyball Tour

On September 5th and 6th, the Boardwalk Beach Resort on Panama City Beach will host. The 2009 EVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour is coming to Panama City Beach. The top players from across the nation will bump, set, and spike their way through this years Labor Day Weekend tournament, and compete for $6,000 in prize money. There is also a juniors division tournament with Under 21 College, Under 18, Under 16, and Under 14 divisions.

Sponsored Event: Boardwalk Beach Resort at Royal American Beach Getaways has teamed up with the EVP Tour to host a televised beach volleyball event September 5th – 6th, 2009.

For more information on the event, please go to www.evptour.com

Wear Your Best Hat: March of Dimes, A Night Through The Looking Glass

Wear your best hat, because this is an event that you and your guests will be talking about for a long time.

This August 29 enjoy an evening of fine dining and entertainment while benefiting the March of Dimes’ mission of preventing health defects, premature birth and infant mortality. The evening, presented by 5th Gear Creative Group and Magnum Property Management begins with a three-course meal and wine hosted by a participating restaurant.

“Enjoy a night filled with a three-course dinner from one of the area’s premier restaurants followed by an amazing party at Edgewater Beach Resort. The party will have dancing, food, drinks, entertainment and wonderful prizes. One lucky person will walk away as the winner of a 1-carat diamond donated by Coins and Bouillon Reserves. Join us for hedgehog golf, martini bar, music by Jim Lawson, and lots of other fun activities. Your table purchase allows you to choose the restaurant (first come-first choice) where your party of 10 will have a wonderful three-course meal and three bottles of wine. Then you move on to Edgewater where the fun really begins! You will walk through the looking glass and enter a fantasy world based on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. Desserts, fun drinks, martini glasses filled with diamonds, Wii Golf, a hat contest, and other activities. But, the best part is you are helping to save babies by supporting the Bay County March of Dimes. Gather your friends, associates, or employees, put on your fanciest hat and enjoy the evening!”

Participating Restaurants include:

Schooner’s

Boatyard

Breaker’s

Angelina’s

Spinnaker Cantina

Triple J’s

Calypso’s

Carrabba’s

Ferrucci Ristorante

For more information please go to http://www.lookingglasspc.com. To purchase a table email Kim Tatum ktatum@marchofdimes.com or call 850-785-6460

10 Solutions for Panama City Beach’s Spring Break Problem

Before reading any further:

First, these are not my solutions, but solutions brought forth by attendees at the Spring Break community forum held by the Tourist Development Council this past Wednesday. Second, no single one of these is a final solution rather together, or in any combination, can help handle the raucous season order to benefit businesses and residents alike.

Management

The idea is quite simple; Spring Break’s biggest problem isn’t the college breakers but the city’s and local businesses’ inability to manage them. If Panama City Beach is willing to accept its identity as a Spring Break destination, businesses can provide a clean, safe and respectful atmosphere for Spring Break guests. Without a doubt the college kids will act up, but if they are in a situation where they understand clearly the consequences of what they do and those consequences are enforced in a respectful way, that 10% or so of the rowdy ones will be weeded out. But, in order for this to work, Businesses have to take the initiative to be responsible for how things are managed and expect more from the city on their part.

Handle Public Relations

When you think of Spring Break on Panama City Beach, what do you see? Kids, rowdy and drunk, cruising the strip? Now, imagine what is being reported in other cities. In fact, go on youtube.com and type in Panama City Beach Spring Break and see what comes up. More drunken half-naked students going bonkers. For a city trying to change it’s image it is a PR nightmare. Now, while some of the outgoing public relations cannot be contained, some can. The idea is to corral what you can and then flood the markets with positive video and information about Spring Break on Panama City beach. It’s not difficult. One suggestion was that Panama City beach sponsor a scholarship program and go out and encourage eco-spring break. Panama City Beach shows the side of Spring Break it wants to show rather than allow youtube.com, MTV and the Travel Channel do it for us.

Enhance/Increase Law Enforcement

This one is big. Law enforcement must be not only visible during Spring Break but assertively enforcing the law with regularity. I am one to tell you I think our current Law Enforcement does a GREAT job during Spring Break but the fact of the matter is, they are woefully undermanned. It is physically impossible for them to cover the entire beach, while still taking the time to enforce laws even on a small scale. We need more officers during this time.

Year-round Marketing/Targeted Messaging

To handle the PR and flood news outlets is one thing, but truly focusing your marketing efforts is another, infinitely more successful, way of changing Spring Break. An example of this was talked about in the community forum. A gentleman said that we used MTV as a sort of gunshot trying to hit everyone with our message. But if we know that the problems mainly come from kids who, if evicted from hotels for bad behavior, can very easily go the two hours back home, we should be targeting kids in Ohio, Michigan and Chicago. With the new airport coming online this will be easier in the future, but the reality is, Spring Break fills the beaches but there are only so many rooms. If you fill the rooms with the kids that got your message rather than just anyone it will decrease the chance of problems occurring.

Signage Ordinances

This is a two-fold ordinance. On one hand you would have an ordinance requiring the posting of specific laws visibly in specific places, say, in hotel lobbies. Perhaps even having a large blinking sign at the entrances over Hathaway Bridge and 79 showing the frequently broken laws and establishing, before even the partying begins, that certain things will not be tolerated. The other is an ordinance restricting certain messages on signs throughout the beach. This is not something that will come easy, but signs that read “XXX or Xcstacy Sold Here” will only underscore the belief that Panama City Beach is a place that has no inhibitions.

Security Ratio Ordinances

This was an interesting idea brought up by Mr. Julian Bennet. He suggested we have a capacity/unit to security guard ratio. The idea is that for every, say, 100 people based on capacity or for every 25 units the establishment has at least 1 officer. This could do a number of things like provide jobs during the season and help out the limited law enforcement maintaining the beach. But most of all, it should keep the properties of businesses safer. The key is to hire quality security guards.

Lighting

For those 3-6 weeks of Spring Break, the turtle lighting ordinance adopted by Bay County could be rescinded allowing businesses to fully light their properties. Businesses can have their beach and parking lots fully lit during Spring Break, dropping the risk of incidents and liability.

Drinking Ordinances/Kangaroo Court

Currently, Spring Breaker’s are allowed to drink outside of establishments. What does this mean? Higher chances of drinking and driving incidents and mindless behavior. There should be in ordinance in place that does not allow drinking outside of an establishment. If these laws are broken kids should be subject to the old “Kangaroo Court.” Make them pick up trash and bottles down Front Beach Road. Not only would you have cleaner streets but fewer drunken kids walking them.

Hospitality Training

Hospitality Training in its simplest form is really just knowing how to manage and host a group. As of right now, Panama City Beach severely lacks in standardized hospitality training and is in need of the service. Too often Spring Breakers are met with authority that is too laxed or too eager to punish. As Mr. Hilton, extensively experienced in hospitality, said; “we have to learn to hold the reins just enough to let them know they can have fun but there is someone else in control.” Panama City Beach is essentially trying to handle Spring Break based on past experience. It is time that we have training to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Provide More Activities

When Spring Breaker’s come to Panama City Beach, they come with a semester’s worth of bridled energy ready to explode. Frankly, there aren’t many things for them to explode onto except hotels and the few attractions Panama City Beach offers. In PCB’s golden years there was Miracle Strip and various small attractions that provided breakers something to do other than hit the clubs, hit the strip and hit each other.

19 Reasons PCBDaily is Awesome

PCBDaily has been a wild ride for me over the last few years. We’ve had our ups and downs, great comments and not so great comments and had tons of fun meeting people in the community. We’ve grown as a company and have diversified the content we offer. Our traffic has far exceeded any of the initial expectations we ever had when creating the site and how we do things has changed a handful of times. But, one thing remains clear, we wouldn’t be able to keep doing any of it without our sponsors. I will say that the actual cost of running PCBDaily is not covered by advertising revenue, but is sure does help.

Following is a list of our sponsors. Most of them, I’ve had a long-standing relationship with. All of them I find great value in their products or what they are offering. I ask that you patronize these local businesses.

Jim and Ivanette Free

Again, the Free’s have been with us since the beginning. Jim has had the exclusive Realtor spot on the newsletter since we first started offering ads on it early 2007. Ivanette has been the number one condo selling agent in Panama City Beach for a while and is well know in the condo community for her experience and knowledge in this PCB niche.

Calypso and Sterling Breeze Rentals

Mitch Warren owns several condos on the beach. When he first decided to start advertising with us, his comment to me was that he would gladly pay the cost of advertising just to support PCBDaily and what it does for the community, the ad was just icing on the cake. – thanks Mitch!

Gwen Scott and Trista Paton

Gwen Scott has been advertising with us since the very beginning. She recently added her daughter Trista to her team. Gwen is one of the most thorough and professional Realtors I’ve ever met and she has not only been a great friend of mine, but a loyal PCBDaily advocate over the years. She understands the real estate market and has been very successful in helping people buy and sell homes.

Edgewater Beach Resort

Edgewater has been a supporter of PCBDaily since almost the very beginning as well. They have always maintained at least two ads with us at any given moment. Well known in the local tourism industry as being at the center of all the family-oriented fun, Edgewater Beach Resort stays packed all season and much of the off season. If you are looking for an awesome full service resort, this is the place.

Sandy Thompson

Sandy Thompson has not only been an advertiser of ours for almost a year now, she’s also been a friend of mine for quite some time. She is a well accomplished Realtor and works hard to be sure her customers are happy. Right now she’s running a special where if you list your home with her, she’ll through in a free home warranty. That’s a huge deal for buyers.

Buffalo Wild Wings

If you are looking for wings in a sports bar atmosphere, this is the place to go. Not to mention they are located in Pier Park, my favorite place to go. With wing specials on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they are also offering a special right now where if you just tell your waiter or waitress that you saw their ad on pcbdaily, you’ll get $5 off any final order price of over $20. Sweet, sweet deal.

Karen Smith

Again, a long time friend, Karen is my real estate partner in The Beach Show. She knows the west end of Panama City Beach like no other and is well known for her voicemail that ends with “leave me a sweet message,” and her email signature that reads: The only ones we have to get even with are those that have helped us. She advertises her Hot Sheet, which has become well known to have rare deals that often don’t last long on the market.

Panama City Beach Seafood Wine and Music Festival

This is a great festival for our area and does well to not only bring people in from out of town and infuse our area with a weekend of cash, but also give us locals something to do. I have a deal worked out with them that whoever buys advanced tickets online using promo code pcbdaily, gets a special discount.

Betsy Ann Riverboat and Airboat Adventures

Rick Ackerman, besides being a friend has a great business in recreation and entertainment. The Betsy Ann Riverboat is truly a dining experience with themed cruises or comedy zone nights. The price is great and the value is better. Rick’s Airboat Adventures is unlike anything we have here providing eco-tours on a fan propelled flat-bottom air boat in West Bay. If you haven’t experienced either, you need to now.

Hofbrau Beer Garden

Authentic German food and beer in an authentic German atmosphere. Located in Pier Park, Hofbrau is the only German food and beer joint in the area. With a huge local following and tourists that ensure they make it by when they are down, they’ve done well and we’re proud that they’ve continued to advertise with us. All during the month of August, they are running $8 liters after 8pm. I don’t drink beer, but that’s a great deal.

Miracle Strip Carousel in Pier Park

Teddy and Jenny Meeks brought it back, rescued it from the now defunct Miracle Strip Amusement Park and brought it back to life in Pier Park. Droves of people have come out of the wood work to tell them how much they enjoy seeing the old ride alive again. With rides for $2.5 and day passes for $5, this is sure to bring a grin to your face, and the face of your kids.

Cyber Sytes

Cyber Sytes has been the web developing authority in the area for years. Providing services from web sites to social media creation and management, if you haven’t worked with them in the past, you’ve probably heard of them. They are everywhere.

CitiStar Realty

CitiStar Realty is a newer advertiser of ours that focuses specifically on foreclosures in Panama City Beach. This niche, hot market and advertising direction has yeilded them one of the highest click-through rates of all, clearly indicating how hot this segment truly is.

CitiStar Rentals

CitiStar Rentals is a newer rental company that focuses on a boutique vacation style catering to someone who wants a more personal vacation on Panama City Beach. Located on the quite end of Panama City Beach, Thomas Drive, CitiStar Rentals has a wide selection of vacation rentals on Panama City Beach.

Panhandle Helicopters

If you’ve seen the yellow helicopter roaming up and down Panama City Beach, then you’ve see Panhandle. They take off right over Pier Park giving people rides all up and down are white sandy beaches. With rides starting out at as little as $30 per person, this could be a true memory for you while your here.

Counts-Oaks Resort Properties

Counts Oaks is a newer advertiser of ours and specializes in condos, beach homes, townhomes and cottages all up and down Panama City Beach. Although they are a relatively new company, they are one of the largest property management groups in Panama City Beach. With properties from the east end all the way to the west end, they have several check-in locations to maximize convenience.

TravelPCB

Travel PCB is a full service vacation planning service that will ensure your time spent here maximizes the term tourist. When you utilize their service they’ll be sure that you’ll do everything you want and everything that you don’t know you want yet.

Beach Bouncers

You’ve seen these guys out at Pier Park and most of the local festivals. They are the ones that keep your kids happy giving them something great to bounce on and have fun. But these guys can come out to your party or function too and they are very well priced. I remember back when I was a kid thinking you must have to be rich to get one of these at your party, not so. Not with Beach Bouncers. Give them a call for your party.

Brian Combs

Looking for excellent architectural advice? Need to build anything? Brian’s your man. Designing anything from homes in Carillon to new decks for an existing home, he’s done it all and is here to help. Be sure to ask him about his recession specials.

Episode #19 – Huge Gulf-Views in Quiet Inlet Beach only $399k

This week’s features:

Deal 1 – Inlet Beach Gulf View Home, steal it at $399k
Deal 2 – Cute Florida cottage steps from the Beach for $295k
Deal 3 – Super clean least expensive home in Summer Wood only $245k (not a short-sale of foreclosure – very quick closing)

The Beach Show is your ONLY internet TV show all about Real Estate on Panama City Beach.

Download the podcast

Remember, it doesn’t cost anything to work with us if you are a buyer.

Click the “more” tag for show notes and pictures.

Call us at 850-527-5651 to see these properties or for anything else you need regarding real estate in Panama City Beach.

Show Notes

Deal 1 – Inlet Beach Gulf View Home, steal it at $399k

List Price: $399,000
Square Feet: 1,851
Price/SqFt: $215.56
3 Bedrooms, 3 Bath
Built in 2001
Located in the highly coveted, quiet Inlet Beach, west of Panama City Beach, this home has unobstructed views of the gulf overlooking government owned and county maintained land. From the driveway, you can see the public boardwalk with benches that carry you over the protected dunes to the pristine Gulf waters. From the second floor you have phenomenal views of the water. This home is spacious and in a perfect location. Located right next to Rosemary, you couldn’t touch anything over this way for twice as much as this just a few short years ago. Steal this home today at just $399!

Deal 2 – Cute Florida cottage steps from the Beach for $295k

List Price: $295,000
Square Feet: 1,439
Price/SqFt: $205.0
3 Bedrooms, 2 Bath
Built in 1955
Remember the good ‘ol days, when the fam went to the beach for a week, staying in a cute little Florida cottage right across the street from the beach? Karen does, I’m too young, but that doesn’t change how cute this place really is. Perfect for a rental, sleeping up to 10, this home is laid out in a way that makes it seem so much larger than it really is. With a huge living area and a great split floorplan, this is a vacationers dream. Of course, when you add the amazing back yard, this place is just irresistible. With pavers, a few separate sitting areas gorgeous landscaping and a beautiful pool, this is the place for entertaining.

Deal 3 – Super clean least expensive home in Summer Wood only $245k (not a short-sale of foreclosure – very quick closing)

List Price: $245,000
Square Feet: 1,790
Price/SqFt: 136.87
3 Bedrooms, 2 Bath
Built in 2001
Summer Wood is located right down from Pier Park of Back Beach Road in Panama City Beach. This neighborhood features underground utilities, sidewalks and houses that look clean and consistent. This particular piece of real estate is a very well maintained, emaculate, super clean home that features not only a new A/C, but also hurricane shudders, two car garage, professional landscaping, great light fixtures, high vaulted ceilings and custom paint. This is the least expensive home in Summer Wood, and will offer a truly unique quality of life. And, the best thing yet is that it is NOT a foreclosure or a short sale!

Call us at 850-527-5651 to see these properties or for anything else you need regarding real estate in Panama City Beach.

Spring Break Forum: Answer to Cash vs. Chaos Conundrum? Management

Wednesday morning, the Panama City Beach TDC held a community forum for local residents to air out their opinions on the raucous season and to, together, find solutions to the polarizing can of worms. The comment of the morning came from Mr. Charles Hilton. The respected Mr. Hilton addressed the board directly and said, “If you are thinking of getting rid of anything in this economy, you’re out of your mind.” An attentive audience leaned in to listen as he went on. “It’s not about Spring Break, it’s just us screwing it up. We can’t afford to run off anyone, we need to learn how to manage Spring Break better. Spring Breakers are just people and we know how to manage people.”

His sentiment was repeated throughout the morning forum; Panama City Beach businesses and councils need to work together to better manage spring break. Peter Yesawich and Dr. Klages returned to reacquaint the community with their respective reports concluding that Spring Break has a negative impact on Panama City Beach’s image. The reports showed that Panama City Beach’s customer satisfaction during the month of March is 90.3% percent when talking to spring breakers but drops considerably to 56.5% when talking to guests who are visiting Panama City Beach in March but aren’t Spring Breakers. What this report underscored was the theme of the forum; people come to Panama City Beach during Spring Break and more will come after the airport, but the rowdy Spring Breakers need to be met with better management.

Several quotes were aimed at this notion. Mr. Jack Bishop acknowledged this by saying, “It’s not a question of whether we are in or out. We are in the business of Spring Break. But the crux of the problem is hosting. We host Spring Break. We just do a bad job of it.”

While there was lots of talk of management being the problem, there were just as many possible solutions spoken ranging from additional law enforcement and drinking ordinances to a better handling of public relations and a more targeted messaging campaign. One interesting comment came from Mr. Julian Bennet about creating a capacity/number of units to security ratio ordinance, meaning that a certain building capacity or certain number of units would require a certain number of security guards; i.e 1 guard every 25 units.

No final decisions were made, but it was clear that the future of Spring Break will not lie in marketing or advertising, but in Panama City Beach’s ability to manage the event properly.

Click here to see the 10 Spring Break Solutions

The Beach Show Secrets to Success

This is really not a tip, rather an explanation of what Jason and I are up to and how and why we do the thing we do (sounds like a song). As many of you know, for the past 19 weeks we have been having a great time doing thebeachshow.com. It is the ONLY INTERNET TV SHOW ALL ABOUT REAL ESTATE on Panama City Beach. If you know both of us and many of you do, I do not have to tell you who the techno brain child is. . . AND it ain’t me.

Realtors and others call me each week to find out how can they get on our goofy little show and does it cost anything for their property to be featured? So I thought an explanation was in order. Jason came up with the idea that this format would be an incredible, far reaching way to get the word out about hot properties and be an incredible marketing tool. It has far surpassed that and we are having a great time while doing it. WE do not charge any money for listings to be on our site and we have a high integrity level of what makes the grade for the show. I am in charge of searching the internet and the streets in hot pursuit of what I think is a great deal. We consider price, rental dollars, affordability and basically finding what the real customers are looking for. Bottom line, if it looks great to me I bet you will like it too.

Each week I pick 3 great deals and many times they are not our listings so I call and get permission from the listing Realtor and we go shoot a video. WE give a very informal preview of the home and why we think it is a hot deal. It is not rehearsed as you can tell and we just want to be fun and informative. It is our quest for people to feel like we are having a conversation with friends about the Real Estate that we find while living and loving our beach. We have met so many nice people because of this adventure and have built great relationships with other Realtors as well. We just love it when one of the properties sells whether it is ours or not. It is kind of our version of paying it forward.

We shoot every Tuesday, rain or shine, and Jason spends the better part of that day and night uploading and editing the video. About midnight I usually write my Real Estate tips because who wants to do it early? Thanks to Hunter Palmer each week for providing us with a Mortage minute. You will find thebeachshow.com on the air and up and running each Wednesday at 11:00 AM and again on PCBdaily the following Monday. Please feel free to share it with your friends and let us know what you think.

You will notice that sometimes we keep visiting an area and it seems that some areas become hot areas because the price has finally hit the point where people start buying. A perfect example of that would be Wild Heron. Last year much of nothing sold and this year it has busted wide open with over 20 houses and condos selling since January, not to mention the lots are moving now as well. I am excited to say that condos on the beach are moving too and the buyers just keep on coming.

We so appreciative of all the Realtors who have been so kind to cooperate with us and also are tickled when they call us up and say, “Karen I think I have a hot one.” If we think it is a super deal then we may switch properties at the last minute and go shoot that one. Last week was great example as we were heading in one direction and found out about a foreclosure that just hit the market we turned the jeep around and headed west. Of the 3 properties that we featured in Episode 18 we are happy to report that 2 out of 3 are under contract. Wow you just gotta love it!!!!

What an exciting time to be a Realtor, no more business as usual. But who wants business as usual, NOT ME. I love that we are having to stretch and grow and reach and climb and find different ways of reaching our market. I think the thing I most like about challenging times is the power and the persistence that I see in people. Creativity is born and new ways of doing life are fostered. Hellen Keller put it just right for all of us today. . . “One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.” I do not know about you but I am not much for creeping and it is a good thing because our market today calls for us to SOAR!!!!!!

Mixed Signals in Housing Data

We got a mixed bag of economic data on the housing front this week that, on one hand disappointed, but upon closer analysis showed yet another sign that the battered housing market is recovering. On Tuesday the Commerce Department said that initial construction of new homes fell in July after surging in June. Housing starts fell 11% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 581,000 down form 587,000 in June. Commerce also reported that applications for new building permits also fell in July by a more modest 1.8% though both reports came in below economist’s forecasts.

One caveat, however, was that when broken out by construction type, housing starts for single-family homes actually posted a 1.7% gain in July and applications for single-family permits rose by 5.8%. This is the silver lining in these reports as single-family homes are considered the core of the housing market and the overall numbers include the hard hit multi-family sector.

Mortgage rates remain very attractive after last week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee reassured investors that interest rates would remain low for the foreseeable future as inflationary pressures are anticipated to remain weak for some time. Stocks have also helped out rates as consumer spending and consumer sentiment figures released last week have cast more doubt about a speedy recovery for the economy.

The thirty-year conforming fixed rate is sitting right at 5.25% for single-family purchases and the fifteen-year is at 4.625%. Government rates have been just a tad higher at 5.50% and 5.00% respectively. As long doubts linger over the economy, we will continue to have the uncertainty factor that tends to maintain demand in the bond market and keep rates low. Without any inflationary pressures in the short-run, I don’t see any significant rise in rates over the coming weeks and we may even see some further easing.

Construction Contract Awarded for New Grand Lagoon Bridge

These are exciting times, exciting times indeed. I can remember just a few short years ago attending a meeting about the Grand Lagoon Bridge reconstruction and seeing the cool plans, dreaming of a time when larger boats and more traffic could traverse the area, knowing it was all just hopeful aspirations. The plans had been in the works for years, but funding for the project was a pipe-dream, until just recently.

As quoted from our previous post on the new Grand Lagoon Bridge:

“Currently, Bay County has $19,462,409 to fund this project with $5,629,822 from local stimulus funds, $9,299,990 from state stimulus funds and $4,532,597 from grants that Bay County has been working on for years. Based on the cost estimate, Bay County has all the money necessary to fund the entire project.”

As of today, the Bay County Commissioners have awarded the construction contract of the Grand Lagoon Bridge Replacement and Roadway Widening to C. W. Roberts Contracting, Inc for $14,833,745.75. In addition, the Bay County Commissioners awarded the Construction Engineering and Inspection (CEI) contract for the Grand Lagoon Bridge Replacement and Roadway Widening Project to Metric Engineering, Inc. for $1,389,992.00.

Construction has been planned to start soon after Labor Day, beginning with the construction of a temporary bridge and the demolition of the existing structure. You can bet I’ll be there.