For the first time since Hurricane Irma clipped the deck in September 2017, something other than a survey crew is scheduled to be on Anglin's Fishing Pier this month. The Town's published timeline shows April 2026 permit issuance from the Army Corps, FDEP, and Broward County, May bidding to contractors, and July as the anticipated construction commencement, with an estimated two-year build.
That is the headline. The quieter story, the one that matters if you already live here, is how little of your summer routine actually has to change. Most of it moved off the pier years ago.
What July Actually Looks Like
The pier is privately owned, which is why the timeline reads more like a code-compliance schedule than a public-works notice. The structure has been for sale for $45 million, opened in 1963, and is named for the town's first mayor, Melvin I. Anglin. A full rebuild will cost the owners roughly $20 million, and the physical work is not cookie-cutter: pilings have to be fortified underwater with materials specially designed and made.
What this means at street level: staging equipment, a barge or two, and a hard perimeter around a structure that has been fenced off for years already. If the project stays on schedule, repairs begin in earnest this July with the pier expected to reopen in summer 2028. Residents who have watched the deadline slip since 2019 will recognize the caveat.
The town's current timeline optimistically presumes no named storms will hit the site between 2026 and 2028.
The Two-Block Rule Is Older Than the Construction
The exclusion zone is the piece worth understanding, because it is the practical constraint on your beach summer, not the machinery behind the fence.
This year the town closed the area one block north and one block south to swimmers and fishermen, though the pier is privately owned so there is only so much the town can do. That is a public-safety line, not a construction line, and it existed before the contractors arrived. For anyone who has been swimming here since Nicole, the July 2026 change is that the reason for the closure finally has a completion date attached to it.
If you already live in LBTS, your summer swim spot is almost certainly not the sand directly under the pier. It is probably one of these:
| Access Point | Distance From Pier | What It Actually Offers |
|---|---|---|
| El Prado Park (4500 El Mar Dr) | ~4 blocks south | Restrooms, the beach that hosts the winter farmers' market off-season, closest lifeguarded stretch |
| Washingtonia Park | ~6 blocks south | Quieter access, less foot traffic from Commercial Blvd |
| Datura / Codrington accesses | 1–3 blocks north | Straight shot to reef, minimal parking |
| Anglin's Square sand | Adjacent | Café-side sunbathing, still accessible, no swim |
El Prado Park is Lauderdale-By-The-Sea's most popular beach park and is also the location for the town's weekly farmers' market December through May, which puts it back in play as a summer swim anchor once the market packs up. If you have been defaulting to the sand right off Commercial for a decade, this is the summer to stop.
BugFest Still Happens. The Pier Is Not the Point.
The one summer event that used to be inseparable from Anglin's is BugFest-By-The-Sea, and this is where the outsider version of LBTS gets it wrong. The pier was the mascot. The reef 100 yards offshore is the actual venue.
Lauderdale-By-The-Sea's nearshore reefs are 100 yards from land, and the Broward County Commission named the town Shore Dive Capital of South Florida in 1997. BugFest is built around Florida's two-day lobster mini-season, always the last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday of July. Divers can legally take up to 12 lobsters per day outside the Keys.
Here is how the week actually threads through town, using the anchors that have run for the past several editions of the festival:
- Kickoff at Anglin's Square. The BugFest kickoff party is held at 7 p.m. in Anglin's Square, which sits at the base of Commercial Boulevard and is not fenced off. This is where you go for the lobster-hunting seminar with Jim "Chiefy" Mathie.
- Registration and gear at Gold Coast Scuba. Divers coordinate underwater pier cleanup reservations through Gold Coast Scuba at 954-616-5909, which functions as the operational hub for the week.
- Weigh-in at El Prado Park. Weigh-in stations are open at El Prado Park, 4500 El Mar Drive, from 12:20 a.m. to 2 a.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m., and at Sands Harbor Marina, 125 N. Riverside Drive, Pompano Beach, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you have never watched the midnight weigh-in, it is one of the more genuinely local things this town does.
- Scuba 4 Good concert at Plunge Beach Resort. The "Scuba 4 Good" Benefit Concert runs from 6 to 9 p.m., raising funds for a non-profit that teaches people with disabilities how to dive.
- Underwater cleanup at the pier. BugFest concludes with an underwater cleanup at Anglin's Fishing Pier on the beach from 8 to 10 a.m. This one may need a construction workaround this year, and it is worth checking with Gold Coast Scuba before you show up with a mesh bag.
None of those five anchors is on the pier deck. Four of them are within a five-minute walk of it.
The Café Is Open. That Is Not a Small Detail.
The single most useful thing to know about the pier this summer is what the Town keeps repeating in its public FAQ. Anglin's Beach Café is open. The kitchen and bait shop kept operating even through the collapse and the fines, and residents who assumed the whole property was shuttered have been walking past a working restaurant for years.
For the arithmetic of a normal LBTS summer weekend, that matters. Anglin's Square gives you the café at one end of Commercial Boulevard and the full walkable core at the other. The town is a walkable community of 6,000 people, on foot from the beach to the restaurants and shops of Commercial Boulevard from Anglin's Square to the Intracoastal. Nothing about the construction fence changes the two-and-a-half blocks between them.
A Resident Sunday Loop That Never Touches the Fence
If you want a practical way to use the neighborhood this summer without staring at a jobsite, this is the loop that works:
- Start at El Prado Park for the swim, because the lifeguarded stretch is south of the exclusion zone.
- Walk north on El Mar Drive to Anglin's Square for coffee or breakfast at Anglin's Beach Café.
- Cross Commercial Boulevard and use the Intracoastal-side sidewalk for the return leg, which puts the construction sightline behind you.
- If parking on Commercial was full, Circuit-By-The-Sea, a free shuttle, closes the last stretch back to your car.
Sunset diving on the reef, which is the reason a lot of you moved here, does not require the pier at all. It requires a shore entry and a compass heading. That has never changed.
The Real Read on 2026
The construction start is a milestone the town has been chasing since 2018, when the first notice of violation was issued. Fines against the pier owners crossed $145,000 in 2023, and the legal, environmental, and engineering choreography has taken longer than the pier itself will take to rebuild.
What is interesting, as a resident, is how thoroughly the neighborhood adapted while everyone was waiting. The dive shops routed around the closure. BugFest kept its calendar. The café stayed open. El Prado quietly absorbed the swim traffic. The pier is finally about to become a construction site, and the answer to "so what does that change for me" is closer to "not much" than anyone would have guessed in 2022.
The pier will come back in 2028, assuming the storm season cooperates. The version of LBTS that learned to live without it is the version you already live in.
If you own a condo or a single-family home in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and you are thinking through how the next two years of construction, insurance renewals, and association budgets fit into a sale or a purchase, Hunter Taravella works this micro-market every week. Let's Connect.
