Historic cottage set to move through Longboat Key on Wednesday

The Longboat Key Historical Society is planning to move one of the historic cottages on Wednesday morning from the Longbeach Village neighborhood.

Starting around 6 a.m. Wednesday, Parrish-based Johnson & Son, Inc. crews will move the smaller cottage from its site at 521 Broadway St. to the Town Center site.

“Finding a permanent home for the Historical Society is something they’ve worked for, for a long time,” said Planning, Zoning and Building director Allen Parsons.

Crews will move the historic cottage to a temporary spot at the Town Center site. Crews must first work on the foundation of its final location on the northeast part of the property, which is between the Longboat Key Public Tennis Center and the Shoppes of Bay Isles.

The move is about 6.3 miles from Longbeach Village to its destination. Parsons said moving crews will put the structure on a flatbed truck as it moves about 30 mph down Gulf of Mexico Drive. He said the cottage move is not expected to take up both lanes of traffic on GMD, and it should not require having to relocate overhead power lines.

As soon as February, the town’s Planning and Zoning Board could receive a site development plan amendment for its consideration to move the larger L-shaped cottage to 6920 Gulf of Mexico Drive just north of Whitney Plaza. The Chiles Group, which owns Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant, purchased the larger cottage late last year.

Built in the late 1930s, the two historic cottages were among the original structures of Whitney’s Beach Resort.