Bradenton Mayor: Facing it, Fixing it in the Friendly City
By Lisa Neff
Bradenton is known as the Friendly City, but around city hall there’s also another saying expressed: Face it, fix it.
Mayor Gene Brown, facing the Bradenton Kiwanis Club in October, delivered his State of the City remarks, talking about facing issues, identifying solutions and fixing problems.
The mayor also talked about togetherness and commonality in the Friendly City.
“We want interesting things happening,” Brown told Kiwanis members during a gathering in the Kiwanis Hall at the Manatee Performing Arts Center in late October. “It’s about working together, whether it’s on the Avenue of the Arts, whether it’s in our downtown, whether it’s in the Village of the Arts, whether it’s LECOM (Park), whether it’s Old Manatee.”
With city council members and city staff in attendance, Brown described for the Kiwanis a city “on the move,” a city where there’s a sense of transformation and progress, as well as investment.
To showcase a lot of the “interesting things happening,” he screened a five-minute video focused on major construction and improvement projects, including:
• The new police headquarters under construction on Sixth Avenue West to replace the outgrown, flood-vulnerable downtown station. The modern new headquarters will feature what the city has described as a “state-of-the-art crime center.”
• The recently opened fire station No. 2, a 15,930-square-foot station built at 2233 Manatee Ave. E to withstand a Category 4 hurricane and provide faster, safer response in the area.
• The public safety operations center that opened on 59th Street West in 2024 and won a 2025 award from the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. The city has described the command hub as a nerve center in an emergency.
• The $100 million initiative to overhaul the wastewater treatment and collection system, which involves increasing treatment capacity, building a deep injection well for treated wastewater, replacing and relocating lift stations and improving drainage.
The campaigns to build new, accessible sidewalks to promote “safer walks and smoother rides” and support affordable housing projects also received attention during the Kiwanis address, as did the City Park project to expand and complement the amenities at LECOM Park.
The park project on Ninth Street West involves collaboration with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the School District of Manatee County, Manatee County government and the Police Athletic League to add a third ballfield, parking, concessions, public market space, art installations, a public park and more.
Brown, a vocal champion of City Park, envisions an amenity that expands and builds a sense of community in the area, linking the Riverwalk, the downtown, the theater district and the Village of the Arts neighborhood.
“If you go to a big city, you’ll walk three or four miles,” the mayor said. “But you won’t walk from downtown to LECOM, which is barely a mile, because it doesn’t feel connected.”
But it will feel connected because a fix is in the works.
“We’re working together to make it better,” the mayor said.