- June 6, 2026
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The Dock on the Bay is one of Longboat Key's longest-standing condominium facilities, celebrating 46 years of operating alongside Sarasota Bay.
Jeoff Chipman's father, Robert Chipman, bought the property and redeveloped it, and the 73-year-old said it has been a unique experience growing up in the tight-knit, 19-unit community, watching as multiple generations of residents started calling it home.
The 2024 hurricanes, as in many other Longboat Key neighborhoods, significantly damaged at The Dock on the Bay. But residents are now celebrating reaching the final stretch of what Chipman has called a long road to recovery.
"The major hurricane winds absolutely devastated our marina," Chipman said. "Boats there came undone, lines snapped, boats crashed and broke. Basically, our marina was destroyed."
The marina on Sarasota Bay is one of the residents' favorite assets, so seeing it so badly damaged was a blow. However, the community recently completed rebuilding the portion of the docks that existed before the storms arrived, and it is working to add several new slips, with the Department of Environmental Protection's approval.
Frank Biondello Jr., the facility's marina manager, led a tour of the rebuilt docks, pointing out where the additional slips would go.
"We were able to repair and rebuild what we had initially, and that's what you see now," he said. "Any modification goes through a different process and application. In the inner basin here, that will include another six slips. We used to have boats along the seawall, but it's better for them in a slip where they can take on waves head-on as opposed to the side. That's going to happen, hopefully, in the next month."
He has been a longtime Longboat Key resident, and even though he knew it would be no small task to help guide the rebuilding effort, he said he felt up to the task. They worked with the Sarasota-based company, Storm Marine, to get it done.
Rebuilding the marina is a win for the residents and the wider Longboat Key community. Biondello noted the docks have multiple slips available for public leasing.
Chipman, who is a resident and the board treasurer, explained that the path to rebuilding the marina was often a rocky one. Residents had to shoulder the cost of the project while also feeling the loss of revenue from renting out the public slips and dealing with flood damage in their own homes.
Board members worked to reach a consensus on how to move forward. The association has updated roofing and siding on the buildings within the past decade, and they fortunately didn't have any substantial damage, so it allowed residents to focus on rebuilding the outdoor facilities.
Seeing the marina built back to its former glory made the effort worth it, Chipman and Biondello agreed.
Looking ahead, their next undertaking is the million-dollar Amenities Rebuild Plan.
The Dock on the Bay will be rebuilding the athletic courts — to include dedicated tennis and pickleball courts — and shifting landscaping and pool facilities farther from the shoreline to open up space along the bay.
The property used to be home to the Fields Yachting and Tennis Resort. Its namesake, Herb Field, was also behind the opening of some of the island's most iconic properties, the Colony Beach Club and the Buccaneer Restaurant. Field developed the Buccaneer Inn Marina in the late 1950s next to the restaurant and accompanying docks.
"I had the opportunity to meet Herb a few times, and he was quite the interesting character," Chipman said.
Chipman and his father came to Longboat Key in the late '70s. They had places at the Colony and the neighboring Aquarius Club, built in 1975.
"My father was able to strike a deal with Herb, because Herb wanted to develop the Buccaneer into condominiums," he said. "He made the deal to buy the Fields, because he had been wanting to do some development in Florida, and he found Longboat Key to be a wonderful place."
When it came to naming the new facility, Chipman's musician brother-in-law suggested "The Dock on the Bay" to highlight the condo's unique bay access.
Taking on a new development project in the early '80s was "a real challenge" amid a financial crisis and high interest rates. But Chipman said his father navigated through it all successfully, and the first families started moving into the units in 1981-82.
"It was a wonderful place with a really unique community, with people from New York City, Buffalo, and some Canadians," said Chipman, who also resides in Canada part-time. "It became a very social place, where we played lots of tennis and had parties."
With the main docks rebuilt and work about to get underway on the courts, Chipman looks forward to seeing residents and slip users fully enjoy those shared spaces again.
"Surprisingly, there are at least five original families that are still owners," he said. "This next generation has all grown up together. It continues to be a really great community."
