What do you actually do with 39 acres of orange groves once the trees stop paying the bills? The Mixon family answered that question twice. The first time was in the 1990s, when citrus canker tore through Manatee County's commercial groves and pushed them out of straight farming and into something closer to an attraction, with tram tours, a gift shop, and the orange swirl ice cream cone that a couple generations of local kids grew up on. The second time was in 2022, when the family closed the attraction, then shut the store's doors for good the following summer, on July 29, 2023.
What happened between that closure and this September is a story most residents only got in fragments. Here's the whole thing, and the part of it that actually matters if you live anywhere near 27th Street East.
The Counteroffer Nobody Expected
After the Mixons shut the attraction down, the family listed the property at $15.8 million in 2023. A 39-acre parcel that close to downtown Bradenton, with existing commercial infrastructure and a 38,026-square-foot store already sitting on it, reads to a developer as a very legible opportunity. Manatee County Commissioner Amanda Ballard has said as much herself, describing her own reaction the moment the Mixons announced they were done: she wanted the county to buy it before it turned into more townhomes.
It took her two years of negotiation. In July 2025, the county closed on the purchase for $13.5 million, about $2.3 million under the original asking price. That gap is the whole story in one number. It's the difference between a private sale to whoever could assemble the financing fastest and a public purchase that took two years of a commissioner arguing the case internally.
The reasoning wasn't nostalgia alone. Ballard has pointed out that the surrounding neighborhood has limited grocery access, calling it, in her words, "kind of a food desert." A private buyer optimizing for return doesn't necessarily solve that problem. A county acquiring land for a park and a farmers market does, at least partially.
What The Property Looked Like Then, And What It Is Now
The redevelopment kept some things and replaced others. Here's the shift, piece by piece.
| Feature | Mixon Fruit Farms (through 2023) | Mixon Farms Park (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Tram tours | Ran through the citrus groves as the farm's signature attraction | Discontinued; one tramcar from "Mixon's Orange Blossom Express" salvaged for static display |
| Frost-protection turbines | Working equipment used to keep freeze damage off the citrus | Nonworking display, several old units combined into one installation near the event lawn |
| Retail store | Working farm store and ice cream counter | Vacant for now; discussed as a future library site, current use limited to a library book drop-off |
| Event lawn and pavilion | Weddings and private events booked through the family business | Same use continues; three weddings were on the calendar as of this past July |
| Public access | Paid admission tied to tours and retail | Free public park with a farm-themed playground and a monthly market |
The table understates how deliberate this was. County staff didn't bulldoze the site and start over. Parks Maintenance Supervisor Joel Thomas has described the tramcar restoration as a "rainy day project," meaning nobody is trying to get it running again. It's being kept as an object, a piece of the farm's identity preserved without pretending the farm itself is coming back.
What's Actually Open Between Now And Next May
The market is the part residents will notice fastest, and it's returning for the first time since spring. After launching March 15, 2026, and running through third Sundays in April and May, the market paused for the summer. It comes back September 27, 2026, for what county staff are calling its first full season, a monthly run that continues through next May.
If you're planning to go:
- Where: Mixon Farms, 2525 27th St E, Bradenton, FL 34208
- When: Third Sunday of each month, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., starting September 27
- What's there: More than 40 vendors sold out the inaugural March market, selling produce, baked goods, and handmade items alongside food trucks
- Contact for vendors: [email protected]
The market isn't the only thing running now. Manatee Movie Nights started in November 2025 and continues on the second Friday of every month. In July, the county launched Crafty Critters, a children's program for ages 4 to 10, its first standalone kids' program at the site. Combined with the barn-themed, wheelchair-accessible playground and a putt-putt course that opened alongside the March grand opening, Mixon has quietly become a place with something scheduled almost every week, not just a once-a-month event.
The Library That Isn't There Yet
The piece of this project residents are most likely to assume is finished is actually the least resolved. When the county first floated buying Mixon Farms, converting the old store and warehouse into a library branch was part of the pitch. As of this past July, that plan is still just a plan. A county spokesperson confirmed the library addition is contingent on inclusion in the capital improvement plan, public input, board approval, and funding that hasn't been secured.
In the meantime, the county has stood up smaller stopgaps. A library book drop-off is already available on site, and once Manatee County's new bookmobile is running, Mixon Farms is expected to become a regular stop. The bookmobile itself is a bigger deal than it sounds. It's a $587,100 custom coach ordered from Matthews Specialty Vehicles in North Carolina, and it will be the county's first bookmobile since the last one was taken out of service in 2011. Library officials noted in late 2025 that the county's roughly 144,000 square feet of library space falls about 125,000 square feet short of the state's recommended benchmark, which is part of why a location like Mixon keeps coming up in the conversation even without a firm construction timeline.
If you've been telling people the library at Mixon is coming, the accurate version is: a design phase, a funding gap, and a book drop-off in the interim.
Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Already Live Here
None of this changes property values or school zones or anything a listing sheet would track. What it changes is what's actually available to a family in East County on a Sunday morning, or a Friday night looking for something free with the kids. A market that draws more than 40 vendors, a playground built to be accessible rather than just new, a movie series that's been running monthly for close to a year, and a farm-themed program aimed at grade-schoolers are the kind of ordinary infrastructure that makes a neighborhood feel lived in rather than passed through.
The county didn't restore Mixon Farms. It replaced a private attraction with public programming and kept just enough of the old farm, a tramcar, a wind turbine, the pavilion where weddings still happen, to make the transition feel like continuity instead of loss. Whether the library ever gets built is still an open question. The market coming back this month, with a full season on the calendar instead of a three-month trial, is not.
If you're weighing what living in Bradenton actually looks like day to day, beyond the market data and the school ratings, this is the kind of thing worth knowing about a place before you commit to it. Jessica Batten works this market year-round and can talk you through the neighborhoods, old and new, that make Bradenton function the way it does.
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