For most of the last four decades, the excuse for why Crystal River's Kings Bay Riverwalk still isn't finished was money. That excuse is gone. The city says it can complete the project without asking voters for a new property tax. What's holding it up now is a single boat ramp, and the fight over it says more about how this town balances its waterfront than any brochure ever will.
If you've walked Citrus Avenue this summer, you've probably noticed the decking piled near the water and the pilings being cut behind the Crab Plant. That's real progress. But the last stretch of path, the one that would finally connect the whole loop around Kings Bay, is paused while engineers try to answer a question that has split the city council for years: can you finish the Riverwalk without tearing out one of only two public boat ramps inside city limits?
The Ramp Nobody Wants to Lose
The Third Street boat ramp sits right in the path of the Riverwalk's final segment. Under the current design, it goes away. Two councilmen, Robert Holmes and Chris Ensing, have said publicly they aren't willing to accept that trade without a harder look at alternatives. Holmes put it plainly at a July meeting, saying the thing that bothers him most is losing the ramp, and that once it's gone, it's gone.
City Manager Audra Curts confirmed the council asked staff and engineers to determine whether the Riverwalk could be redesigned to keep the ramp in place, with findings presented at a public workshop on Aug. 7 at the Citrus County Chamber of Commerce and Welcome Center. As of this writing, the council hasn't announced a final decision, and the outcome will decide whether Crystal River's nearly four-decade effort to build a continuous waterfront path finally closes the loop or heads back to the drawing board, as the Citrus County Chronicle reported.
That's a real tension, not a manufactured one. This is a boating town. Losing one of two public launch points isn't a footnote for the people who trailer a skiff down to Kings Bay every weekend.
The Money Problem Solved Itself First
It's worth sitting with how fast the financing story flipped. Not long ago, city officials described paying for the remaining Riverwalk phases as the project's single biggest obstacle. Then, this June, financial advisers told the council the city likely has the capacity to finish the project by combining Community Redevelopment Agency revenue with other funding sources, without a new property tax.
The numbers behind that shift are specific. The city estimates roughly $17.2 million remains to complete the Riverwalk, with about $9.5 million of that still needing to be financed after existing grants are applied. City officials this year also moved to extend the Community Redevelopment Agency itself by 12 years, pushing its termination date to Sept. 30, 2056, specifically to give the city room to fund large waterfront projects like this one over time. The proposed capital plan pencils in about $19.1 million in Riverwalk spending between fiscal years 2026 and 2028 alone, according to the Chronicle's coverage of the redevelopment plan.
So the thing everyone assumed would sink the project turned out to be solvable. The thing nobody built a contingency plan for is one boat ramp.
What's Actually Under Construction Right Now
| Segment | Connects | Status as of August 2026 | Target completion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current phase | Kings Bay Park toward Northwest Fifth Street, near the Crab Plant | Under construction, over-water decking and pilings underway | January 2027 |
| Final segment | Continues along Kings Bay down to Paddle Tails Hotel and Crackers | Paused pending the boat ramp study | Not yet determined |
The city broke ground on the current phase earlier this year, and crews have been cutting pilings and removing sections of an old lower bridge to make way for new decking. Curts told the Chronicle the project is coming along nicely, and the contractor remains on track for a January 2027 finish.
The timing isn't accidental. City officials have scheduled in-water work to wrap before manatee season begins each November, the same approach the contractor described on an earlier segment, ordering long-lead materials like decking planks right away, then holding full water-access work until after manatee season closed. It's a small detail, but it tells you something about how this city treats the bay: as infrastructure and as habitat, on the same footing.
"I can't believe it's actually happening. This is a huge night for the city."
Crystal River Mayor Joe Meek said that after the council approved $4.85 million in Riverwalk and road funding.
The Restaurants Already Sitting on the Route
While the council debates the last stretch, the businesses along the finished sections aren't waiting. Bayside Kraft Kitchen, which took over the old Charlie's Fish House space on Kings Bay, has built a strong local following, holding a 4.6 rating on OpenTable with reviewers pointing to the water view. The Tipsy Tarpon opened right behind it, both positioned to be walkable stops once the Riverwalk connects fully to downtown.
Further down the path, the Crab Plant and Pete's Pier Marina remain the old-guard waterfront names, the kind of places locals already find without needing a map. Paddle Tails Kayak Shop sits along an older section of the path near Northeast Seventh Street, close enough that the city recently spent nearly $39,000 repairing a stretch of walkway the shop's utility work had cut through. Crackers, at the far end of the planned final segment near Paddletails Hotel, marks where the whole loop is supposed to end once the boat ramp question gets settled.
None of this is speculative. These are working businesses on an already-walkable stretch of path, not renderings of what might exist someday.
The Rest of Downtown Isn't Waiting Either
The Riverwalk debate is a City Hall story. Life on the ground in Crystal River keeps its own rhythm regardless of how that vote goes:
- First Friday, held monthly in Town Square, brings live music, food trucks, and shopping vendors to Citrus Avenue, run by the city itself.
- Art on the Avenue, hosted by Crystal River Main Street on the third Friday of most months, rotates a new theme each time and pulls local galleries and artists into the same stretch of downtown.
- Jimmy Buffett Day, a free concert in Town Square, lands on Aug. 30 this year, with music from the Landsharks, once the house band at Buffett's Margaritaville.
None of these depend on the Riverwalk finishing. They're proof the civic core of Crystal River, Town Square and Citrus Avenue, already functions as a gathering point on its own terms.
What This Means If You Walk or Boat Kings Bay This Fall
If you're a regular at First Friday, expect construction fencing and equipment near the Crab Plant stretch through the rest of this year, with the current phase on track to open by January 2027. If you launch a boat from the Third Street ramp, the honest answer is that its future is still an open question the council hasn't resolved as of this writing, and it's worth watching the city's public meeting agendas if that ramp is part of your routine.
Either way, the story underneath the story is this: after 40 years of assuming the Riverwalk's obstacle was funding, Crystal River found the money. What it hasn't found yet is a way to give everyone on this bay, the walkers and the boaters, exactly what they want at the same time. That's not a knock on the city. It's just what happens when a small waterfront town finally gets close enough to done to have to choose.
Whether you're watching this project because you walk it every week or because you're weighing what life on Kings Bay actually looks like day to day, that kind of detail is the difference between a headline and the real texture of a place. If you want a closer read on what's happening in Crystal River or anywhere else along the Nature Coast, The Finley-Terrell Team is always happy to talk through what we're seeing on the ground.
