Building Bradenton’s Buzz — Events, Culture & Community with Andrea Knies

Today, Jim digs deep into what makes downtown Bradenton feel so welcoming with Andrea Knies from Realize Bradenton — the nonprofit that’s turned a master plan into vibrant markets, free concerts, and local pride you can feel on every block.

Andrea shares how this grassroots group bridges city government, local businesses, and artists — keeping the Riverwalk beautiful, supporting small biz dreams, and giving families reasons to stay, play, and smile together year-round.

💡 What you’ll discover:

✅ A quick history: Born from a 2007 Cultural Master Plan, Realize Bradenton became the flexible, people-focused nonprofit that connects the city’s creative energy with local needs.

✅ Beloved events:

• Bradenton Public Market: Every Saturday, October–May, 35 weeks of local produce, handmade art, fresh food, shaded garages & free parking. A market family where locals bring out-of-town guests just to show it off!
• Music in the Park: Free spring concerts on the Riverwalk — families on blankets, boaters dancing from the water, sunsets closing the show.
• Winter Wonderland: Main Street transforms with “snow,” Santa and Mrs. Claus (who compete for the longest line!), holiday games, treats & local gifts.

✅ The Riverwalk rebirth: Once an empty “sand pile,” now a vibrant mile of playgrounds, volleyball courts, skate park, open lawns, and community events — exactly how residents imagined it.

✅ Hidden local treasures: Village of the Arts, the Historical Records Library, the Manatee Village Historical Park — and why these living pieces of history matter.

✅ How Bradenton lifts up small businesses:

• Startup Circle: A free 8-week course helping locals craft real business plans with local bankers, experts & mentors.
• Flexible vendor stalls: New makers can rent space at the market for just one Saturday or an entire season — test ideas, meet shoppers, grow step by step.

✅ What’s next: BAM Fest is already big — now the team plans to expand with more partners, creative zones, and spin-off events as Bradenton grows.

✅ Want to help? Sign up to volunteer for BAM Fest or Winter Wonderland at realizebradenton.com or follow @RealizeBradenton on socials.

✨ Bradenton isn’t just another Gulf Coast town — it’s a place where your neighbors become friends and you feel proud to show off your community.

👉 Have questions about moving to Bradenton or the Suncoast? Want to make this lifestyle yours? Connect with Jim anytime at JimSellsTheSuncoast.com!

A Personal Note from Jim:

Hey there, I’m Jim Ahearn, your go-to real estate guide and host of Jim Sells The Suncoast podcast! 🎙️✨ Dreaming of Florida life? I’ve got you covered! As your dedicated buyer's agent, I’ll handle everything from walk-throughs to closing, making your home-buying journey as smooth as a Florida breeze.

Whether you're local or tuning in from afar, I’ll bring the Suncoast to you with virtual tours and expert advice. Let’s chat about your dream home and I'll connect you with all the right people to make it happen.

Ready to move to paradise? Drop me a line – I can’t wait to help! 🌴🏡

Transcript

Jim: 0:51

welcome to Jim Sells the Suncoast. Today I'm really excited to have Andrea Kise here from Realized Bradington. We've talked a lot on Jim sells the Suncoast about different developments and places to live. Now we're gonna talk about why you want to come here. What's going on in the area, what's going on in Bradenton. She is, intimately tied into the downtown and what's going on, and we're gonna talk a lot about that. So Andrea, I know you've been with realize Braden for about four and a half years, and in the same vein for a little while. Welcome.

Andrea: 1:20

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Jim: 1:23

Fantastic. So maybe we could talk a little bit about realized Bradenton and its background. I know it formed a little while ago 15, 16 years ago. And how does the cultural Master plan guide your guys' work today? What are you doing?

Andrea: 1:36

Yeah, so what's really interesting realized Bradon is a nonprofit and we have been around since 2010, but really the seed of realized Bradon came from, there was a cultural master plan that the city was doing and they were conducting that 2007, I believe is when they began. And from that. They actually realized that there was a need to develop a master plan about how to utilize the arts culture and heritage of Bradenton to bring the community together. And that plan initially was just called Realize Bradenton. So it was the name of the plan they put together. And so that was completed in 2009. And part of that plan was, you know what? We need an organization to do this. This isn't just going to happen on its own. Somebody has to put the intention and the time behind it. And so that came together and they formed the nonprofit, our founding director, John Isha, who a lot of people know, she was intimately into this creation of such an amazing organization. So we were founded officially in 2010, and we've been really moving forward to bring people together for exactly that reason, arts, culture, and heritage. Since then.

Jim: 2:46

Fantastic. How does your collaboration with the city downtown partners and sponsors. strengthening the community as well as economic development down there?

Andrea: 2:55

We 100% believe in the old saying that high tides rise all ships. We truly believe that is true and we've seen it happen over and over. And another one of the things we say is working together works. And that is another one of our favorite little sayings. So we work closely with the city that is definitely one of our partners. We wanna make sure that we're not. Duplicating efforts. It's about letting everyone do what they do best and then we fill in the holes, and that's one of the things that makes. Being a nonprofit so amazing is that we're actually flexible and we're able to change and pivot in a way that a municipality can't just be, they have so many other things they have to worry about and things that they have to do, and systems and processes that we're able to adapt to the changes and the changing needs of the community, which is again, why It was decided that we'd be a nonprofit. It's amazing. And so with that, we work with all of our, we have cultural partners that we work with. We meet them on a regular basis to find out what they are doing, what they're planning and areas of collaboration. Not only between us and a cultural partner, but between the cultural partners as well. I think one of my favorite examples, we had a cultural partners meeting and the Bishop Museum of Science Nature. Was going to have a stargazing event and the person at the library said, oh, did you know you could check out telescopes? And all of a sudden now there's this great collaboration that happens. So things are starting to become right, synergistic. So not only are we partnering with our sponsors and with our cultural partners and with the city, we are creating avenues for them to partner with each other as well.

Jim: 4:34

You have the ability to tap into each one and make those connections to

Andrea: 4:38

absolutely

Jim: 4:39

synergistic, as you said, make it a little bit bigger than it would've been. So you run some signature events, band Fest, winter Wonderland, Brandon Blues Festival. So what roles do these have in building community, in local pride?

Andrea: 4:52

So we have, I think the event that people often don't think about,'cause it's actually 35 events, is the Bradon public market that we do every week. And so that is every Saturday, October through May. And there's so much pride in that market. And it comes not only from our vendors who refer to each other as family and a community, but you have people who come every week. We see people bringing out of town guests, and they specifically are bringing them to the market because they feel like the market is the showcase of our city Bradenton is referred to as the friendly city. And the number of times people say, we are bringing our guests here because this is what the friendly city embodies. And so I think that is sign. that people are proud of it when they bring other people to show them. So we see that with the downtown Bradon public market. We see it with. Our music in the park series, which are free concerts on the river walk. And then we also have an event Winter Wonderland, which is incredible, families add it into their holiday traditions. That's an amazing testament for how important it is to them. It's part of their family holiday traditions to attend this event and see it snow on Main Street. So we do believe it builds civic pride and unfortunately civic pride is one of those things that's tricky to measure. But I think you really do see it. If you walk down Main Street Bradon, you can feel it. You can feel it in the people who are smiling and saying hello. You can see it in the streets by how clean it is. We had one of our concerts at the park on the river walk and city of Bradon has incredible public works. Employees and the gentleman that was there that night to take care of the solid waste, he stopped at the end of the night. He said, look at that. And I said, what are we looking at? He said, there is not a single piece of trash on this lawn right now. I was like, you're right. I didn't pick any up. cared everyone. We had thousands of people here for a concert, and they cared so much about this concert in this place that they threw all their trash away. That says something. So again, civic pride is hard to measure, but those are the moments when you can see it in action.

Jim: 6:56

Absolutely. They have pride because they wanna do it again. You don't wanna bring a friend to something that's, not in great shape. Yeah. And you know what, I know we talked a little bit the last time we touched base about the farmer's market. And yes, the fact that there are so many ways to actually attend it with the parking and everything going on there, that it's not a typical, you know what, I'm gonna park seven blocks away and then hoof it over there. The free parking is there to help facilitate it.

Andrea: 7:23

Yes, and Bradenton does. On the weekends, we have three parking structures that are free. So during the week all the time, the city has the city center garage right downtown that is always free. And then on the weekends, the county garage is also free in the judicial center garage is free. Two of those garages are in our footprint for our market, and one is just a beautiful two block. Walk away. So we have three parking structures free on the weekends that you can use, and not only does it mean you can find parking and it's free, it's also shaded.

Jim: 7:53

Yeah. Then you don't mind going back to your car afterwards. I love the downtown. I had the fortune to live right near River Walk for two years and it's amazing. So let's talk about the river walk. Community gathering spot, it walks right along the river. You've got volleyball and beach and kids playground and water park and amphitheater. How much has that really transformed and made what we're doing able to do it

Andrea: 8:18

well, what I love about the story of the Riverwalk, you had a river walk that was, it's dredged land, so what we're talking about is land that was dredged from the bottom of the river, shoring up the banks. There were a lot of reasons why they did it, and it was dredged in the fifties and then it was just. Empty, and it was locally known as the sand pile from the 1960s all the way up into the two thousands for over 40 years. And so many people had ideas, but nobody, it was one of those things. It was such valuable space and so beautiful that. Everyone wanted to get it right. You didn't wanna do something there. That wasn't appropriate for that site. So when our organization was founded in 2010, that was actually one of the first things that our founding director tackled and what she did. We didn't build the Riverwalk, we didn't design the river walk. We went into the community, realized, Bradenton went into the community and asked them what they wanted. And that's how this was created. And then it became truly a community effort. The city really listened and they worked with a design firm that really listened to what was happening and a local builder that built it with NDC construction. And so I think what's so wonderful and why that park is so beloved is that it actually was what the community wanted. And so that's why you do have things like a skate park. May, maybe a skate park on a river isn't the first thing you're gonna think of, right? If you're a city official. But it's used all the time and it's a fantastic space and we have Olympic skateboarders who have practiced and learned on that skate park. That's amazing. You have the large green spaces and you're gonna see. All kinds of activities happening there. You'll find kids kicking soccer balls around, but you're also gonna find a family having a picnic sometimes. It just has become a space that the community owns as their own. And I think that so much has to do with the way it was developed. And the thoughtfulness that was put into it. And so we use it for a lot of our events. We use it for music in the park, which are a free concert series in the spring. We use it for BAM Fest, which is Brayton Art Music Festival. It'll be March 28th in 2026. We take a mile of the river walk and we just add visual art and demonstrations and music. And everything you can think of. And another great thing about us being a nonprofit and being able to get sponsorships and grants is that we do these things free for the community, which we think is really important as well, because we don't ever want to limit anyone. If you have a family of five and you're trying to go to an event and there's a ticket price, it gets pretty pricey. So we wanna make sure that everyone is able to attend these events as well.

Jim: 11:03

I think that's that plays a big part when you look at like the farmer's market coming in there, if you're paying, like a weekend event to a baseball game or a football game every weekend, you're probably not coming back. But the fact that you can get in there and walk around and experience all the different things with the regular vendors and the rotating vendors, huge payoff for that.

Andrea: 11:22

Yeah. we love and we do things that we call market magic days where we add a little extra something to the market. So for example, every year we celebrate the city's birthday, and we have cake for the birthday. We sing to the town. But we just, do little extra things in there. Just to add to it, this last May when we celebrated the town's birthday, we had an open house at the historical records library as well, so they have some things going on in there and we just, we love adding these little, like I said, we call'em market magic days because we have so many people there. Let's just add a little extra something every now and then for the people that are attending

Jim: 12:00

And I love those little things that maybe wouldn't drive down to go see a records building, but it's there and it's got the history and the fun stuff that can go along with it. Just puts that fun twist on it.

Andrea: 12:11

Yeah.

Jim: 12:13

How are you involved with the Village of the Arts? Anything that goes on there with the artist, home studios, galleries.

Andrea: 12:19

So we are involved with them as a cultural partner like we are with any of the others. So with the Village of the Arts, for example, when we do Bam Fest, so many of our artists are part of the Village of the Arts as well. We work with them collaboratively to make sure we're working on a few things for the next season. But it's just, it's a collaboration to make sure that we are able to work together and support each other through everything.

Jim: 12:45

What historical or heritage experiences should someone new to Bradenton explore?

Andrea: 12:50

The heritage. So I do think the historical records library it's absolutely beautiful. I think. That in itself. You can go to this old carnegie Library, just gorgeous building, and they have all kinds of fun things. They have a postcard collection, but the historical records library is part of. Overall historical museums that we have in the county. And the way our historical museums are set up is really interesting because they fall under the clerk's office. So they're set up as for as records offices, basically. But they're beautiful. And so Manatee Village Historical Park. Is a space. It's a beautiful free space, free park. And what has happened is through the years since it was founded in 1976, any historically significant building that was possibly gonna be demolished and could be moved, was moved to this space. So now. It's interesting to think about buildings as historical records, but they are, and that's how the clerk has seen them. So now you have these buildings in one space that you can see. We have a maritime museum that goes through and helps you understand all of the fishing in that industry of this area. And then we also have, we have an agriculture museum and all of these are free. They are incredible to stop by. So definitely look into the historical museums that are owned by the Manatee County Clerk's Office. They're incredible.

Jim: 14:16

Cool. So walk us through then, like a typical music in a park night. Who shows up? What's the vibe? What's going on?

Andrea: 14:24

Music in the park. So music in the park is, we get a local band, and so usually we have different followings based on who comes out that night.

Jim: 14:33

As the

Andrea: 14:33

band, we used to have it in the amphitheater. Unfortunately that only seats 400 people and we got way too big. So music in the park is now, it's in Rossi Park, which is also known as the Pavilion. So we still have an elevated space for the bands to play. And it's a large grassy area, so people bring chairs, they bring blankets, they bring coolers, they sit out. We have a couple of food trucks. When you come to music in the park, it's always one like dinner, truck, and one. Dessert truck. But they're there. They are our local vendors. Again, people that you're gonna see. Next door. There are people that live here in the area and it starts filling up pretty early. the music starts at six and goes till eight, but sometimes people will come out, five o'clock just because they wanna chit chat with their friends before and pick their spot and have their picnic before the music starts. So it fills up. We also have a lot of people who, as you had mentioned, we have condos and apartments along the Riverwalk. So there are people who walk from their condos or apartments. Down to it. We have a lot of those. And then you have people who just were walking the river walk and heard the music and stopped by, which is another piece. And then you also have people who pull up on their boats. So people pull their boats up along'cause we're right on the river and they can listen to the music and hear it from there. We see we know they hear it'cause we can see'em dancing to it on their boats. So we have all of these people gathering together and then of course we time it so that it is time to the sunset so that you get to watch the sunset over the river as the concert is ending. It's part of the essence, I think, of the entire event. But one of my favorite things, obviously we have to work closely with the city of Bradenton. The Riverwalk is a city of Bradenton Park, and after the hurricane Milton happened in October, we had our concert scheduled, and we're like, we're gonna have to. Just cancel these, and the city said, you know what? This is really probably more important now than ever. Our community needs to get to be together. They need each other, they need the support. They need a place where they can relax their nerves for a little bit. As they were working on the cleanup, that park became their priority on the Riverwalk to clean up first so that we could get a concert as soon as possible because the city felt that the community needed and deserved that space. And I think that says a lot about the value of coming together as we were. We were able to bring people together in a time when they truly needed community.

Jim: 17:06

Nice. Let's go to the other side then. Winter Wonderland.

Andrea: 17:10

Yes.

Jim: 17:11

What's being set up and how's old Main Street working for that,

Andrea: 17:15

Old Main Street and Winter Wonderland? We make it snow on Old Main Street. I think that's the most important part. the snow machines are on timers and when it gets to. five seconds before they go, they do a few beeps and you actually see kids listening for the beeps and they go running to that snow machine to be under it when it starts, which is so cute. We have a winter carnival that we do, so it's a snowball toss and ice hockey. It's all with cute little prizes. And then we have, of course, Santa Claus has to be there. Our Santa is actually Santa D, who is a very well known Santa in the area. He was the Santa at DeSoto Square Mall for many years. So we have parents who are bringing their children because that is the Santa they know, which is. Really sweet. We added Mrs. Claus last year. It turns out Mrs. Claus is also very popular. So we had Mrs. Claus and Santa and they have started their own little very friendly rivalry of whose line is longer. So we have actually had to move their locations this year so that they can have longer lines so that they can see whose line gets longer. Again. It's just super sweet. And then we have a. Stage at one end that's gonna have all kinds of holiday festive performances, and then vendors throughout. So food vendors throughout, if you wanna stop and have crepes, or if you just want something like hot chocolate for the night, those types of things. And then some vendors as well for some last minute holiday gifts. Again, everything local, everything is, from people who own their businesses here in Bradenton.

Jim: 18:55

Yeah, I love it. Some places have dueling pianos. We've got dueling Santas, so we do,

Andrea: 19:00

it's just, we had no idea. Sometimes you have to just go with what happens at the event. We had no idea that we were gonna have a Santa rivalry, but we're fine with it. Yes. We're gonna play up.

Jim: 19:12

So how does realize bradon support the small business and entrepreneurs, things like Startup Circle, the public market? What else do we have going on?

Andrea: 19:20

Yeah, so we really believe that. Supporting local entrepreneurs is a huge piece about CRE for creating community. And so we have a program called the Startup Circle Entrepreneurship Program, and it is a free eight week program and at the end, you leave with a completed business plan. And it is specifically designed for people who either have a small business or are wanting to start a small business in Bradenton What makes it so special is you have subject matter experts and they come to the classes, but it's not just a general, this is how you get a business loan. It is Jason who works at the bank down the street. Who can tell you all about it. And also he's your contact if you need a small business loan and you get to meet him in that environment. So it's really amazing to build that with the people who can support and help you and then beautifully. They form a cohort, so they end up supporting each other. The people who are in this class together, we've had people in the class together that have found ways to actually collaborate in business. With some of their things that they're doing, which is amazing. And then we have our market. So the Bradenton public market. What makes us a little bit unique to some others is that we do have part-time rental spaces. So that is a logistical nightmare, but we think it is totally worth it for some of the value it. And one of the things, in addition to having a diverse group of vendors, every time you come to the market, it's gonna be a little different. But we also think it's important to give small businesses a chance to try out their product. So you don't have to sign up for 35 weeks. You can sign up for one, you can sign up for a month, you can sign up once a month it gives those small businesses a chance to see, okay, I have this product, I'm trying it out. This is what I'm thinking on pricing, does this work? And we think it becomes its own little small business incubator in a way, which is amazing. And then on the reverse side, we've seen people who have their stands and their businesses at the market What the startup Circle has done for their friends. now even though they have that business, they're going through the startup circle and they're refining their business, right? So now their business at the market is even more successful. So it just works all around and it's really, great the way it all works together. It compliments each other.

Jim: 21:42

Yeah, I think it's nice because it creates support across all levels as opposed to straight competition, right? It's everybody wants to get their friend or their buddy or their business in there and enjoy that, that camaraderie.

Andrea: 21:55

Again, high tide, it's rise all ships. We really believe it.

Jim: 22:00

So looking ahead, what exciting projects or plans does realized Springton have maybe over the next three to five years?

Andrea: 22:06

Yeah, so our big thing, bam Fest in 2025 was our first year for the festival and it's a mile long and we had about 10,000 people attend. So it was. A big for a first festival for sure. But we are really looking to expand it in a variety of ways. we want to expand it by getting more partners involved. for example, one of our amazing partners for this first Bat City comic books. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but you should be. They're nonprofit comic bookstore in Bradon. They are incredible. They came and they said, we want this space. There was a little space, a meandering path. okay, what do you wanna do with it? And they said, we're gonna create a comic book creation journey. they created along that path, what it's like from start to finish, from concept to printing to make comic book amazing. Very popular, really cool. We wanna get more of that type of thing where we bring people in and say, okay. As a partner, here's a space. What would you do with it from your point of view? And get just new ideas like that. We're also looking at, can that be expanded? this was an eight hour event, which is a lot. Again, one mile, eight hours. But are there things that could be, kickoff types of events that could happen before or closings after? Because that was the first year of the event we're doing a big focus on figuring out. What worked, what didn't work, how we can collaborate more and expand and what that can really be for our community to meet the needs. Because we have a lot of people moving to downtown Bradon, a lot of apartments that are being built, and it's really important for us to continue to serve the people who are in our area.

Jim: 23:41

If anybody wanted to volunteer, what can they do or how can they reach out?

Andrea: 23:46

Yeah, so we have two major volunteer opportunities each year which are Winter Wonderland and Bam Fest. Bam Fest, like I said, it's. A mile and eight hours. So we have about 150 volunteers we need for that one event, which is not easy. So the easiest thing to do you either can follow realize Brayton on social media, we have Facebook and Instagram, or go to realize brayton.com and sign up for our newsletter, and we will send out our calls for volunteers when we have them for those two events.

Jim: 24:16

That's fantastic. Andrea, I want to thank you so much. I think I talked to a lot of people, like I said about moving here and now we wanna look at how do we make that move and then open up their lives to what we have going on in Bradenton and on the Sun Coast, right? We have the beaches, we have the sun and here's a fantastic event that has multiple events throughout the year. You can pretty much plan your whole year around each of the different events and have a fantastic time.

Andrea: 24:42

Yeah, we always say it's about the quality of life you can have, affordable life, you can have the necessities, but what is the quality of life? And that's what I think we bring to the table.

Jim: 24:53

Thank you.

Andrea: 24:54

You're welcome.