- December 12, 2025
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With the completion of construction of the floating day dock at The Bay park, the Sarasota City Commission has approved a fee structure for its use.
The Bay Park Conservancy has opened the day dock on the south side of the 10th Street boat basin and, according to Parking Division General Manager Broxton Harvey, approached staff to pursue a policy to enforce fees and time limits in order to encourage turnover and to discourage all-day docking.
By unanimous vote at their Dec. 1 meeting, commissioners approved a rate of $2 per hour with a five-hour limit Monday through Saturday. As with all of downtown vehicle parking, there will be no enforcement on Sundays. Docking enforcement hours are between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
“If we do not have restrictions or rates in place there's a possibility that boaters could park overnight, that they could come and stay all day, and there's no incentive for them to relocate so another boater could come in and utilize that slip,” Harvey told commissioners.
Added Interim City Manager Dave Bullock, “What we don't want to do is have these turn into overnight or live-aboard docks. Let’s try it and recognize that, once we do it for a while, we may learn enough lessons that we want to change it.”
Paying to dock at the slips will be like vehicle parking in metered spaces downtown or in the gateless garages. Boaters will be able to pay at a meter or using the ParkMobile app.
Also, like vehicle parking in downtown, a compliance officer will enforce the docking ordinance.
Before seconding Kathy Kelley Ohlrich’s motion to approve the parking fee structure, Jen Ahearn-Koch added a “friendly amendment” to instruct staff to further research other coastal municipal boat docks and leave room to adjust the policy in the future, if necessary.
This despite Harvey stating earlier in the presentation he had conducted such a study.
“A majority of marinas that have day docks do charge by the linear foot,” he said. “We're not able to do that because we do not have a dock master, and we have no way of ensuring accurate linear calculations. I looked at what the St. Pete Pier does, and they charge $2 an hour, and $2.50 an hour on the weekends.”
The maximum duration there, he said, is six hours, and the fee ca at $15 on weekdays, $18 on weekends.
The day dock fee is an extension of parking fees already enacted in the Centennial Park boat ramp parking lot on the north side of the canal, Bullock reminded commissioners.
They questioned Harvey about whether the city initiated the dialogue with the Bay Park Conservancy, which is building and manages The Bay, or vice versa.
“The Bay park implemented the day dock and they’re not in the fee collecting business, so they actually came to me,” Harvey said.
Just because enforcement hours end at 8 p.m., that doesn’t mean boaters must depart by then. Many may choose to access downtown by boat to take in a show at the Van Wezel or another venue, or have dinner downtown before a moonlight cruise back home. The time when boats must vacate, though, has yet to be determined.
“We're going to set hours that will be posted,” Harvey said. “This is new for us, so we're probably have to make some adjustments, but I would envision having posted enforcement hours from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., but you have to remove your vessel by a certain time, whether it's 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock or midnight.”
With no enforcement on Sundays, however, day docking will be first-come, first-served with no set duration.
The collected fees, Bullock told commissioners, will remit to the city and not the Bay Park Conservancy.
“Just to be clear, the Bay Park Conservancy — funded by the city and county — built these docks,” Bullock said. “We own these docks, and therefore we're treating them as a city asset.”
As part of The Bay Phase 2 construction, they installed the day dock after rebuilding the south seawall of the boat basin and dredging the canal. The next planned improvements to the basin are to refurbish the east and north seawalls, adding a fourth boat launch ramp and more day docks.
