"It's meant to feel casual and approachable, a South Florida fish shack spirit." That's how Pier Sixty-Six's leadership described Pelican Landing to Forbes Travel Guide this year, previewing the return of the dock bar every boater in Harbor Beach has been asking about since the marina next door went dark for its billion-dollar rebuild. Conch fritters, cold beer, a boat slip instead of a parking spot. Nothing complicated.
Except getting it open has turned out to be the slowest thing happening on the property. Pier Sixty-Six reopened its resort and marina in January 2025 after years of construction. Pelican Landing wasn't part of that reopening. As of this summer, the operator was still filing paperwork with Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation, with no confirmed date attached. The resort's own FAQ page, which once listed a late 2025 target for the restaurant, now lists late 2026.
Meanwhile, in May, Tavistock Development Company walked into Fort Lauderdale with a plan for four 23-story towers on the eight acres surrounding the resort and walked out with a real answer. The proposal covers 339 new residences split across a 1.4-acre parcel north of 17th Street and a 6.6-acre parcel to the south, tied together by what the city calls a first-ever development agreement, one that lets entitlements move across both sites as a single master plan instead of two separate fights. For a project of that size, that is fast.
For anyone whose front door sits three minutes from that marina, the two timelines are worth tracking side by side. The expansion plan has an approval framework in place, and Pelican Landing is working through its own licensing and build-out steps toward a late 2026 target.
What's Already Running While the Bar Waits
Not everything at Pier Sixty-Six is stalled. The property now runs most of its planned food and beverage concepts, and several of them have been open long enough to become part of the regular rotation for people who live nearby rather than a special-occasion outing.
- Calusso and Sotogrande anchor the signature dining, drawing on French, Italian, Southern Spanish and Eastern Mediterranean menus.
- Pier Top, the rooftop lounge inside the original spire, still completes one full rotation every 66 minutes, the same detail that made it a local fixture back when Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli were regulars.
- Garni Café covers the brunch shift, and The Nectar Room handles cocktails poolside on the adult deck.
- Zenova Spa, a 13,000-square-foot wellness space, includes a snow room, believed to be the first of its kind in the region, paired with a ceremonial sauna.
Only Pelican Landing and the two members-only outlets remain outstanding. Pelican Landing is the part of that gap the fish shack quote was addressing, and it is the one most tied to the marina's original, walk-up character rather than its resort side.
Two Timelines, One Marina
The mismatch has a straightforward explanation once you separate what each project actually required.
Phase II needed one thing: a unified entitlement. Once the city agreed to let both parcels move under a single master plan, Tavistock had a green light for four towers, office space, retail, expanded marina facilities, and a new water basin carved from about an acre on the south side. Zoning and site plan approval, once granted, apply to the whole package at once.
Pelican Landing needed a different sequence: construction completion inside a working marina, state licensing through DBPR, staffing, and a supply chain for a restaurant meant to serve boaters pulling up dockside. None of those steps compress just because the tower next door got approved in an afternoon. A single restaurant's return runs on its own clock, and that clock has slipped by roughly a year based on the resort's own public timeline.
For residents, this means the property's visible skyline is likely to change before its street-level texture does. The cranes may go up around the same time the conch fritters finally come back.
| Open now | Still on the way |
|---|---|
| Calusso, Sotogrande, Garni, Pier Top, Nectar Room, Zenova Spa | Pelican Landing (late 2026 target) |
| 164-slip marina, Foreign Trade Zone status | Phase II towers, new south marina basin |
| Existing marina promenade retail and dining | Community gathering space under the 17th Street bridge |
The Marina Piece That Matters If You Own a Boat
Harbor Beach has long been one of the few Fort Lauderdale addresses built around deep-water canals without fixed bridges, which is why it draws yacht owners in the first place. Pier Sixty-Six Marina, right at the top of that same corridor, carries a Foreign Trade Zone designation, reportedly the first of its kind for a marina, that lets brokers show foreign-flagged vessels for sale to U.S. buyers without the vessel first clearing duty. It is the kind of infrastructure detail that means nothing to a visitor and quite a bit to a neighbor who keeps a boat at the dock.
That same marina, with its 164 slips and 5,000 linear feet of dockage, hosts the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show each fall, an event industry estimates put at roughly $1.8 billion in economic output across five days. It is not a new addition to the neighborhood calendar. It is the same show that has run past Harbor Beach's front door for years. What has changed is the campus around it, not the show itself.
The One Piece of the Plan That Isn't for Sale
Buried in the Phase II filing is a detail that has nothing to do with towers or restaurants: a new public gathering space planned beneath the 17th Street bridge, developed in partnership with the City of Fort Lauderdale and the Florida Department of Transportation. The stated goal is to activate space currently used for parking and turn it into a public connection between the north and south sides of the property, open to anyone walking or biking through, not just resort guests or residents.
It is a small piece of the plan compared to four 23-story towers, but it is the one that extends the walkable waterfront rather than adding density to it. For a neighborhood that already treats its own stretch of A1A as a walking route to the beach, a new public link at the foot of that same road is worth watching for what it actually becomes, not just what the rendering shows.
What This Looks Like From the Dock
Nothing about the next twelve months changes what Harbor Beach is. The gate stays where it is, the private beach club keeps its 300 feet of sand, and the canals still run without fixed bridges. What changes is the view from the top of the street, where a resort that spent years as a construction site is now running two different clocks at once. Phase II has its entitlement framework in place and its next steps ahead of it. Pelican Landing, the dock-and-dine spot many boaters remember fondly, is finishing its state permitting on the way to a late 2026 target.
If you are watching Pier Sixty-Six from a boat slip in Harbor Beach, the honest read is that late 2026 is the number to circle for the fish shack, and the towers will likely take longer to actually rise than they did to get approved. Keep an eye on both, because the neighborhood's daily rhythm will shift with whichever one lands first.
If you are weighing what any of this means for a home along Harbor Beach's canals, or want a closer look at how the marina's next phase might reshape the corridor you use every day, Heather Lefka is a good call before the next permit clears.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
