Sneak peek of Marina Village at Bahia Mar, the new Fort Lauderdale food hall and entertainment village on the water | PHOTOS

Standing at the rail on the upper deck of The Shorely, a 499-capacity ferry permanently docked at Fort Lauderdale’s Bahia Mar Yachting Center, developer Jimmy Tate gazes around, smelling the sea-salted air.

“Here’s why our ferry is special: No one can ever block this view,” Tate says, gesturing toward the Intracoastal Waterway, with its nautical painting of megayachts against the backdrop of Fort Lauderdale’s downtown skyline.

“Or this one,” he says, spinning around, his arms theatrically spread open, to face the palm-swept tranquility of Fort Lauderdale beach, where Spring Breakers are sunbathing on the warm sand, where the Atlantic looks like a thick, misty-blue syrup.

It’s hard to beat the panoramic splendor of two bodies of water aboard Fort Lauderdale’s only floating ferry bar.

The Shorely is the centerpiece of Marina Village at Bahia Mar, a $16 million open-air entertainment village scheduled to open to the public in early May. The 250-seat ferry overlooks a mainland food hall, where 10 pavilions line a two-block-wide promenade framed in market lights and native flora. Both the ferry and promenade sit on the eastern edge of the sprawling Bahia Mar peninsula, a space that used to be aging boat slips for fishing charters.

“We’ve got a Water Taxi stop on the south end and a new Jungle Queen ticketing office on the north side,” says Tate, pointing up and down the tree-lined promenade during a recent tour of Marina Village. “These trees create a lush visual barrier so people can enjoy the ocean without seeing cars rushing by on A1A.”

The project is still under construction. On a recent Friday, some workers jackhammered into old sidewalk on the southern end while others laid blue sidewalk bricks farther north.

Almost seven years in the making, the project comes from Tate, the president of Tate Capital, and his partners, brother Kenny Tate and Sergio Rok, who have ambitious plans for the taxpayer-owned Bahia Mar property. Coming soon to the marina are 245 new boat slips, a 256-room resort with 60 condos, 350 residential units in four towers, a 1,200-space parking lot and 87,000 square feet of commercial space.

Promenade aside, the views aboard The Shorely are worth the visit alone, he says.

The ferry is technically three bars — a main full bar on the lower deck and two more on the upper — with each slinging 18 craft cocktails, wine and other seaworthy libations. The man behind the beverages is hospitality guru David Cardaci, whose Knallhart Management Group runs Fort Lauderdale drinking dens The Wilder, Rhythm & Vine and Roxanne’s Liquor Bar & Kitchen.

“How many chances do you get to operate a ferry bar that turns into a nightlife venue, with megayachts on one side and the beach on the other?” says Cardaci, who also operates Holly Blue and Mexican chain The Whole Enchilada. “And there’s another bar that’s right on A1A’s sidewalk. It’s incredible.”

Cardaci came to Tate’s attention via Landon McNeill, an entertainment producer whose Marina Village title is “lead director of daylife and nightlife.” While The Shorely will host DJs on the vessel, the mainland promenade will have “more acoustic acts every day.”

“David is a super-ambitious family man with great drinks, and his bars are great,” McNeill says. “Marina Village is an upscale place, too. That’s why we didn’t open during Spring Break. It’s not a place for party animals.”

The South Florida Sun Sentinel got a sneak-peek tour of the new Shorely, the promenade and the food vendors, which you can check out in many pictures below.

FOOD AND DRINK

• Marina Village at Bahia Mar announced its final three food vendors in March: Taco Vibez, a taqueria that left Pompano Beach’s The Bite Eatery and will reopen here; Sushi Song, a Deerfield Beach-based sushi bar with multiple South Florida locations; and Mason’s Famous Lobster Rolls, a Maryland-spawned seafood franchise with another location in Miami’s Bayside Marketplace.
• The other five vendors include: Yip (steamed dumplings, bao buns, boba teas), Quore Gelato (gelato and liquor), Blue Steel Pizza Co. (Detroit-style pizza baked in a blue-steel pan), Fresh Garden Bowls (salads, wraps, fruit smoothies), Burgers & Shakes (Angus beef patties and hot dogs, mahi mahi sandwiches).
• When Marina Village opens in May, roughly half of the food vendors are expected to be open, Tate says, with the rest arriving later this summer. The vendor lineup was winnowed down from a pool of 50 vendors who applied, he adds.
• A 44-seat outdoor mainland bar, lined in navy-blue subway tile, will feature seaglass countertops, six TV sets, beach-themed cocktail glassware and 12 craft cocktails that are distinct from the 18 cocktails aboard The Shorely.
• Fun fact: “These are solid concrete bunkers,” Tate says of the mainland bar and kiosks. “At night, we can roll down these hurricane shutters. They’re rated to withstand a 15-foot storm surge and 180-mile winds. If you got caught in a hurricane, you’d want to hunker down here.”

THE SHORELY

• Decorated in nautical whites, navy blues, tropical-green tile and natural wood accents, the vessel has four VIP cabanas, 120 seats on the lower deck and another 100 seats on the upper, for a total of 250 seats. Part of this seating includes high-top tables and custom sofas lining the perimeter of the upper and lower decks.
• Fun fact: After several decades of shuttling passengers between Fisher Island and Miami Beach, the formerly named Fisher Island Ferry was retired and permanently moored at Bahia Mar’s marina. One of the restroom doors on the upper deck still bears the old Fisher Island Ferry logo, which Tate is planning to keep as a nod to the vessel’s history.
• Its lower deck measures 5,000 square feet, while its upper deck spans 3,000.
• The ferry’s three bars, which are built from solid-wood tambour, have a porcelain backsplash themed with tropical prints.

The promenade

• Taking over two blocks of former State Road A1A sidewalk, the promenade is 35,000 square feet of open space that will seat 350 people.
• The promenade wraps around newly planted palm trees and black street lamps, designed to point downward and away from the beach and its nesting sea turtles.
• A 700-foot-long drink rail runs along the backside of the promenade, overlooking the marina.
• It overlooks 250 linear feet of public docking space, which will be charged to visitors for a to-be-announced fee.
• Eight food vendors will share four 250 to 280 square-foot solid concrete kiosks. Customers can order food from their tables on the Toast app or from the kiosks.

Marina Village at Bahia Mar is located at 849 Seabreeze Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Go to MarinaVillageFTL.com.