The clear emerald water is the same. So is the bright white sand that squeaks as you walk on it.

Beyond the high-tide mark, however, there is plenty new at Panama City Beach, Fla. New restaurants and shops. New condominium resorts, bringing total rooms available to more than 21,200. Heck, there's even a new circus.

Florida State University (ENLARGE)

Florida State University's Flying High Circus will perform at Frank Brown Park in Panama City Beach, Fla., for the next decade.

Much of what's fresh this summer will be found at Pier Park, a $143 million, 920,000-square-foot open-air shopping, dining and entertainment complex. You'll find major retailers such as Dillard's, Target and J.C. Penny's, as well as local specialty shops.

And you'll find plenty of places to eat: Back Porch Seafood, Five Guys Famous Hamburgers & Fries, Guglielmo's Italian Restaurant, Hofbrau Beer Garden, Panera Bread and Quizno's.

There may be no better place, though, to grab a beer and a bite by the sea than Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. Snag a table on the roof deck where you can look across Front Beach Road to the white sand and blue-green water stretching to the horizon.

When the sun goes down, you might head to Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, a little bit of Nashville moved to the Gulf Coast. Tootsie's, a landmark honky-tonk in the country music capital, is where many musicians got their start. Or at least a few free drinks. The Panama City Beach branch will bring live music to Pier Park.

The 93-acre complex also has a 16-screen movie theater complex for that rare rainy day.

The Florida State University Flying High Circus moves into a big top pitched at Frank Brown Park, just across Back Beach Road from Pier Park.

The FSU circus has performed at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain for more than 40 years. A second troupe is set to perform at Circus by the Sea for the next 10 years, producer Donald Hamrick said.

"The beach is craving family entertainment," he said.

Trapeze artists, jugglers, clowns and other acrobatic daredevils will perform six nights a week beginning June 13.

The performers will also be instructors during a four-day Circus Camp for children ages 7-12.

Parents are already registering children for the camp before they know where they are staying, Hamrick said.

Those parents will have plenty of lodging options. More than a dozen condominium resorts have arrived in the last year or so, including Sterling Breeze, a complex a half-mile from Pier Park that opened in March, and Splash, a 276-unit complex with its own water park that opened last February.