Quick Point repairs wrap up while Durante gazebo fix gets underway

Two popular parks on Longboat Key are having some work done.

Joan M. Durante Park, at 5550 Gulf of Mexico Drive, recently reopened to visitors with rebuilt boardwalks, but the gazebo is still closed to the public. Built in 1996, the gazebo was closed in 2024 after being deemed structurally unsafe. Now, the town has selected a contractor to rebuild it. It will cost a little more than $138,000.

“They’re going to start mobilizing equipment as soon as next week,” Public Works Director Charlie Mopps said. “They’re looking at three to six months of construction work because they actually have to lift the roof off in order to preserve it.”

Mopps explained that the process will take months because it will be done incrementally, with contractors lifting one section at a time to replace the material underneath before moving to the next section of the gazebo.

“It’s the posts going up. It’s the underneath. It’s the handrails going around with the little pin boards going up,” Mopps said. “After that’s all done, it’s going to be like a brand new gazebo.”

Finishing the gazebo project quickly could be paramount, for another project in the same area is planned to start soon.

“In June, we want to start the subaqueous project, and we might start on that side,” Mopps said.

Down on the southern tip of Longboat Key, Quick Point Nature Preserve is the last remaining item for the town to punch off its hurricane repair to-do list. Quick Point is a preserve that consists of two lagoons, one man-made and one natural that wading birds and a large variety of marine life call home.

Progress is well underway on repairs, with the boardwalks already rebuilt.

“They’re working on just the small little section at the very end and they already have the barges sitting there to start setting the further most overlook that’s over the bay,” Mopps said.

Photo by Carter Weinhofer

The projected completion date for the project is April 1, according to Streets, Facilities, Parks & Recreation Manager Mark Richardson, and the cost of repairs total $376,266.

In other park news, some new signage is coming soon to alert visitors of Bayfront Park’s new living seawall project and the benefits to Sarasota Bay. Concrete panels formed in the shape of mangrove roots were affixed to 300 feet of Bayfront Park’s seawall last October, which serve as a habitat for oysters, algae, barnacles and other marine species.

Mopps said the sign has shipped and is en route to the town. He expects the sign to be installed in the next week or two.