St. Andrews

Historic St. Andrews is a bayfront district of Panama City — a former fishing village on St. Andrews Bay, with marina activity, waterfront dining, and weekend markets.

Every year

Annual events

February
St. Andrews Mardi Gras
The Krewe of St. Andrews runs the bayfront parade. Floats live here the rest of the year too.

Dates vary from year to year; current dates are on This Week.

Panama City’s historic bayfront of shrimp boats and marina lights.

St. Andrews is Panama City's west-side waterfront, on St. Andrew Bay about five minutes from downtown. Beck Avenue and Bayview Avenue run past the marina, and Oaks by the Bay Park anchors the corner of Beck Avenue and West 10th Street.

Older than the city

The first settlement on the bay was here, along Beach Drive between Frankford Avenue and Lake Caroline, where retired Georgia governor John Clark built a home in 1827. The town made salt for the Confederacy and was destroyed by Federal raids in 1863. It came back on fishing, boatbuilding and shipping. In the 1880s the Ware brothers ran Ware Mercantile and Ware's Wharf, where Harbour Village and the marina are now. St. Andrews incorporated in 1908, and Panama City annexed it, along with Millville, in 1926. In 1902 the post office dropped the final "s" by mistake and never restored it, which is why you'll still see both spellings.

The marina

The city-owned St. Andrews Marina dates to 1960 and has been under a full rebuild since October 2024, with 160 new slips and repairs to the Bayview Avenue boardwalk, the fuel dock and the ship store. By September 2026, boats were back in the slips and most rental spaces were full, with bulkhead work still to come. By the boat ramp, the Pelican Tree, a live oak killed by Hurricane Opal in 1995 and carved into a sculpture, is the favorite sunset photo.

Everyday life and local favorites

Saturdays start at The Market at St. Andrews, a year-round waterfront market under the oaks at Oaks by the Bay Park, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The park's Sentry Oak, nearly 300 years old, came through Hurricane Michael, and every December the park fills with lights. The Panama City Publishing Company Museum at 1134 Beck Avenue has the historic trail map. For dinner, Hunt's Oyster Bar has been shucking on Beck Avenue since 1966, and Uncle Ernie's Bayfront Grill and The Shrimp Boat both face the water.

Homes

Houses share these streets with shops and restaurants. In the city's 2018 plan for the 138-acre St. Andrews redevelopment area, single-family homes took up about a third of the land, and commercial uses a little more.

Getting around

Downtown Panama City is about 5 minutes east. HCA Florida Gulf Coast Hospital and Ascension Sacred Heart Bay are each about 10. Pier Park is about 20 minutes over the Hathaway Bridge, St. Andrews State Park about 20 by road, and the airport about 40.

Before you buy

St. Andrews is inside Panama City, so city zoning and services apply, and projects here go through the St. Andrews Community Redevelopment Area, created in 1989. Zoned schools depend on the street address. Check it with the Bay District Schools zone lookup.

Explore nearby

Historic district of Panama City