If you have driven west on Bayfront Drive since late October 2025 and hit a closure just past Moe's Original BBQ, you already know the short version. The long version is more interesting, and it changes where you take the dog, where you catch the sunset, and what the bay end of Daphne will look like a year from now.
The city broke ground on the Bayfront Park Amphitheater on October 30, 2025, and the site has been fenced off since October 27. Bayfront Park Drive is scheduled to stay closed to vehicles through April 2027. That is a sixteen-month interruption to what many residents treat as their default waterfront, and it is worth understanding what the tradeoff is actually buying.
What is behind the construction fence
This is not a repaving project. According to the City of Daphne's October 2025 announcement, the 15-acre build includes a lawn-and-folding-chair amphitheater sized for roughly 2,500 seated patrons, a 90-foot stage, a splash pad, new and expanded restrooms, added parking, and a boardwalk system connecting the Daphne Recreation building down to the water.
The waterfront boardwalk is the piece worth flagging. It is designed as the first phase of a longer connector that will eventually tie Bayfront Park north to the D'Olive Bay Boat Launch. If that phase gets fully funded, it stitches together a stretch of shoreline that has always felt like separate parcels to anyone walking or biking it.
Mark Rodgers, project manager for general contractor Triptek Construction of Atmore, told Construction Equipment Guide in May 2026 that most of the deep-foundation work is already done, along with erosion control, safety fencing, and the floating basin boom along the bay. His superintendent Grant Hyche described the main challenge as working around wetlands, which requires more planning and compliance than a dry-lot build. That is part of why the calendar reads sixteen months rather than eight.
The design team behind the project: Dewberry leading engineering, WAS Design on landscape architecture, and Adams-Stewart Architects on the building side.
Where the money is coming from
The published price tag has climbed as scope solidified. Early 2025 estimates ran around $10 million. The groundbreaking documents in fall 2025 pegged it at $13.5 to $15 million. By February 2026, WKRG was reporting a $16 million total.
The single largest funding source is a $7.2 million GoMESA grant awarded to Daphne in 2023 and administered by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources under Commissioner Chris Blankenship. GoMESA money comes from offshore energy revenue and is restricted to coastal conservation and recreation. The remainder is coming from the city. Fox10 has reported the municipal share at roughly $6.3 million against the $13.5M figure, with the delta between that and the $16M number covered by additional funding secured after the initial award.
Whether you consider that a bargain or a stretch depends on your baseline. For context, the phase-one streetscape and traffic circle that opened in 2024 was funded entirely by the city, without grant money. Phase two is the first time an outside grant has done the heavy lifting on Bayfront Park.
Two bay parks locals are underusing right now
Here is the practical question. If Bayfront Park is your usual walk, where do you go for the next year? Two answers, both already owned by the city, both open, both walkable to a pier.
Village Point Park Preserve
Village Point sits directly adjacent to Bayfront Park on the north side, off Main Street near US 98. It is the larger of the two properties at roughly 70 to 80 acres, and it is the reason the Bayfront pier is still reachable at all during construction. The city confirmed that the pier remains accessible on foot only through Village Point during the closure.
Locals who have not walked the preserve in a while are missing three specific things:
- Jackson's Oak, the 95-foot live oak with a 28-foot circumference that appears on the 1787 Spanish Land Grant survey map. There is an observation platform built around the trunk so foot traffic does not compact the roots.
- D'Olive Cemetery, with headstones dating to the early 1800s and several inscriptions in French, marking the family that received the original Spanish land grant.
- A 3,000-foot main trail that ends at the bay, along with narrower Eagle Scout side trails through mixed pine and hardwood. The Alabama Coastal Birding Trail lists the site as an official stop.
The Mobile Baykeeper walk-through published this spring is a fair snapshot of what the preserve feels like on a weekday. Signage identifies Beautyberry, Sparkleberry, Sweetgum, and Horse Sugar along the main path. In summer months, take repellent seriously and stay on the boardwalks. In winter, ducks stack up on the bay in visible numbers.
May Day Park
May Day Park is the other option, and it is often overlooked because it hides a few blocks off Scenic 98 at the end of College Avenue. It was founded in 1887 and hosted Daphne's May Day Festival from 1911 into the 1970s, which is where the name comes from.
What it offers that Bayfront does not right now: a working boat launch, a small sandy beach, a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk, and a fishing pier that is open. Parking is free, and the main lot handles boat trailers. Regular anglers pull hardhead catfish, Atlantic croaker, and gafftopsail catfish off the pier. The pier stays open past dusk for night fishing, though swimming is not permitted after dark under city rules.
If you have kids and were using Bayfront for the playground and picnic tables, May Day is the closer functional swap. If you were using Bayfront for the trail and pier walk, Village Point is.
Why April 2027 is the deadline
The completion date is not arbitrary. Daphne is turning 100 in 2027, with the official centennial recognition scheduled for July. Mayor Robin LeJeune has been explicit that the amphitheater opening is meant to anchor the celebration.
"For over 25 years, the citizens of Daphne and city leaders have envisioned a waterfront recreational facility with an amphitheater venue at Bayfront Park. The Bayfront Park Amphitheater will be enjoyed for generations to come."
The city is planning a series of centennial-year events, including a concert at the new venue in the fall of 2027. That gives the venue roughly six months of soft-open programming before its formal debut on the centennial calendar.
For residents doing math on the calendar, that also means the pier boardwalk connection to the D'Olive Bay Boat Launch will likely open after the amphitheater rather than with it. An $800,000 Innovate Alabama grant is already appropriated for that connector, and the city has said it hopes to finish it in time for the April 2027 opening, but the funding language leaves room for a later completion.
What to watch between now and opening
A few things worth keeping an eye on if you live near the site or use the surrounding streets:
- Construction traffic routing. Heavy trucks are being routed away from the main Bayfront Drive traffic circle, which was completed in phase one. A separate construction entrance was cut in to the north. Expect that pattern to hold through 2026.
- Milton Jones Road and County Road 13. Unrelated to the amphitheater, but relevant if you drive across town: the intersection has been closed since May 2026 and is scheduled to reopen at the end of August. The city timed that closure to summer specifically because school traffic is lighter.
- The Al Guarisco Boardwalk connection. Once the new boardwalks tie in, this stretch will become the longest continuous public bayfront walk in Daphne. If you want to see the "before" version, this is your window.
What this means for the neighborhood, plainly
Waterfront parks are one of the reasons people choose Daphne over comparable Baldwin County towns. Losing default access to one of the two anchor parks for sixteen months is a real cost, and there is no point pretending otherwise. What the city is buying with that cost is the first waterfront amphitheater on the Alabama coast, a splash pad the town has never had, and a boardwalk system that will functionally double the length of the public bay walk residents can take without getting in a car.
For anyone whose morning routine ran through Bayfront, the near-term move is simple. Village Point for the trail and pier. May Day for the beach, the boat launch, and the playground. Both are open dawn to dusk, both are free, and both are closer than most residents remember.
If you are thinking about a move within Daphne over the next year and the walking distance to bay access matters to your search, that math is about to change once the connector boardwalks come online. If you'd like to talk through what the new footprint means for specific streets and neighborhoods on the west side, Bo Nichols is happy to walk it with you. Book a consultation or request a home valuation anytime.
