Wining and dining at Florida’s independent waterfront restaurants could lead to wheeling and dealing at Port St. Lucie’s Riverwalk Boardwalk restaurant site.
City Manager Russ Blackburn plans to meet with several waterfront restaurateurs to ask what it would take for them to set up shop in the riverfront park under construction on Westmoreland Boulevard. “I think it would pay some dividends to talk to professionals operating successful restaurants,” Blackburn told the City Council Monday. “We believe our most successful target will be independent Florida waterfront restaurants that might want to expand in Port St. Lucie.”
“We want to make sure that when we go back out (to the market), that we are able to bring home a restaurant that speaks to our community and will be successful for us and the restaurateur,” Blackburn said.
Making a personal appeal to certain independent waterfront restaurateurs may succeed where the shotgun approach failed, Blackburn said.
The city has been searching for a restaurateur since October 2017 to build, lease and operate a waterfront restaurant overlooking the North Fork of the St. Lucie River at the south end of the Riverwalk Boardwalk.
The operators of Cobb’s Landing restaurant in Fort Pierce submitted the lone proposal for the waterfront restaurant project 10 months after the Nov. 30, 2017 deadline. But they pulled out of negotiations with the city in March because it would cost $2.6 million to build the restaurant.
With several council members adamantly opposed to the city constructing the restaurant on a speculative basis, Blackburn said he wanted to turn to experts for advice on how to get it built.
The basic goal of meetings is to ask what elements would be needed at the Riverwalk Boardwalk restaurant site to make it attractive to waterfront restaurant operators, Blackburn said. The information would help city officials craft a request for proposals for a restaurateur to construct, lease and operate a waterfront restaurant at the Riverwalk Boardwalk, Blackburn said.
The deeper goal would be to develop relationships with the waterfront restaurant operators and get them thinking about the location, Blackburn said. They might eventually figure out a way to make the project work.
Vice Mayor Shannon Martin and Councilwoman Jolien Caraballo said they would like Blackburn to invite waterfront restaurateurs to the Westmoreland Park site so they can see its beauty for themselves. Martin also expressed frustration with the lack of progress on the waterfront restaurant project.