BRADENTON — At Tuesday’s BOCC meeting, Manatee County Commissioners will be asked to approve the $0 transfer of a county-owned downtown Bradenton property appraised at $1.2 million to the City of Bradenton.
Resolution R-26-97 would convey the former GTE building at 1009 4th Avenue West to the city. The three-story, 13,473-square-foot building has been the subject of several county transactions in recent years.
In August 2022, Manatee County sold the former GTE building to the Florida Cultural Group Inc. (aka the Manatee Performing Arts Center) for $150,000. The nonprofit planned to renovate the building into a conservatory. However, a year later, in August 2023, county officials presented plans for a new parking garage to replace the existing garage, which was showing signs of deterioration from age and water intrusion. Those plans included the GTE property as part of the proposed replacement garage’s footprint…