- December 13, 2025
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Swim teams have been waiting years for a 50-meter pool in East County, and they’re now one step closer.
A competition-size pool is in the ground at Premier Sports Campus North. The pool’s panels were installed last week, and the inner liner is due to be installed next.
The Athletics and Aquatics Center broke ground in January and is currently on schedule for a Sept. 2, 2026 opening.
The therapy pool is prepped for installation, and the bathrooms, offices and support buildings are taking shape.
The overall plans for the Premier Sports Campus North are also moving along, albeit not as concretely.
Commissioners approved the general development plan and the tourist development tax plan during two separate meetings in November. The actions open up several possibilities for the campus, except a hotel.
County staff had included a hotel with up to 300 rooms for the site, but commissioners removed the hotel from plan.
Commission Chair George Kruse said he tried to get hotels to build within walking distance of Premier, but nobody wants to build that far off the interstate when they can only fill a hotel three nights a week.
He noted that more amenities opening at Premier and The Concession Golf Club attracting more tournaments could change things for the private sector.
As far as the public sector, he posed a question: What if the county opened a hotel on the newly purchased Mixon property?
“We’d get killed,” he said. “Why is Premier different? Our job is to build a park.”
Outside of a hotel, what remains within the development plan is the possibility to build public facilities, such as sheriff and fire-rescue stations, softball and baseball fields with concession stands, playgrounds, shade pavilions, a dog park and fuel island.
The fuel island is the only item mentioned that has a corresponding project sheet within the county’s capital improvement plan. The purpose of the $2.9 million project is to fuel the permanent generator on site to keep Premier functional during a hurricane.
“Even in my five years, there’s been so many versions of what could go into Premier,” Kruse said. “It’s just a matter of what does.”
He rattled off a few of the mentions — a cloverleaf of baseball fields, a BMX track, an ice rink and a gymnasium that could double as community event space.
The BMX track was nixed, as a pump track is being installed at Hidden Harbor Park on the north side of the Fort Hamer Bridge.
Until a project is included in the capital improvement plan with a funding source, it’s only conceptual.
The tourist development tax plan lays out ways in which revenue from hotel-bed taxes can be spent, and two of its line items set aside money for Premier — $30 million for a special event auditorium and $10 million for sports stadiums, venue and parking.
The latter is $10 million per fiscal year and includes construction and maintenance at Premier and other publicly owned and operated sports facilities.
In Nov. 2024, Manatee County voters approved increasing the tax by 1 one percentage point. The now 6% tax is charged to operators of rentals of six months or less.
Elliott Falcione, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the tax enhances the quality of life in Manatee County with no cost to its residents.
By the end of the year, Premier Sports Campus South will have generated about $50 million in economic stimulus from tournaments.
“Those new dollars into that corridor help small businesses be sustainable in good times and in bad,” Falcione said. “So indoor sports venues will just enhance and diversify that business.”
Falcione and Kruse agreed that whatever venue comes in, it will be a public-private partnership.
An auditorium and stadiums being included in the tourism development plan doesn’t mean they will be built, or even that the county will pay for them, but it allows Falcione to start courting partners because the uses have already been approved by the board.
Another 126 acres of the property were rezoned from Agriculture to Planned Development-Public Interest when the GDP was approved, so just over 236 acres are dedicated to Premier Sports Campus North.
Building heights were limited to five stories, and access to the campus was also laid out in the GDP.
One access will come from Uihlein Road, four from Rangeland Parkway, two from Post Boulevard, and pending approval from the Florida Department of Transportation, one from State Road 70.
And never say never to a hotel.
“I believe there will be more hotel development east of the interstate as Premier Sports Campus gets built up,” Falcione said.
