Lee County Commissioners are working on plans to purchase two privately owned pieces of property just off Fort Myers Beach and transform the land into a public boat ramp. If successful, the county will turn what is a blighted area now into a nice new park facility.
The property is located just off main street before you get to the Matanzas Pass Bridge. Lee County is planning to purchase 1.9 acres of property owned by the Semmer family and another .65 acre lot located closer to San Carlos Boulevard.
Commissioners discussed expediting the purchase earlier this week because it appeared there was another potential buyer kicking the tires for the smaller lot and without that parcel the entire plan falls apart. The county needs that smaller lot to allow vehicles with boat trailers to have the room to drive into the property, offload their boat, and maneuver their vehicles to the parking area.
A draft of what the boat ramp facility would look like was shared at the County Commission meeting Tuesday (see the picture below). It includes room for two boats to launch, 34 boat trailer parking lots, 14 parking spots for cars, elevated restrooms, and a building for staff that can also be used for community meetings.
And, as anyone who drives to Fort Myers Beach knows, when it rains the corner of Main Street and San Carlos Boulevard turns into a giant lake. According to Commissioner David Mulicka, making repairs to the drainage is also part of the bigger plans for that area, which also includes repaving the road. Last year Lee County was awarded a $7.5 million grant from the state’s Job Growth Grant Fund to repair the shrimp boat dock down the road at what is called San Carlos Maritime Park. When repaired that dock will be used to dock shrimp boats and to launch barges during emergency operations.
The county has both properties for the boat ramp under contract and is now going through what is called a 90-day due diligence period. That includes getting the properties assessed so the county doesn’t overpay and an environmental site review. The process allows the county to walk away if major issues are discovered with the properties.
On Tuesday Mulicka asked his colleagues to approve $2 million in county funds to expedite the purchase so they didn’t lose the smaller property to the other buyer. If the deals do close, about 90% of the funding for both the purchase and the redevelopment work will come from funding sources such as state grants and CBDGR funds. The balance will come from tax dollars.
In a perfect world, if everything goes according to plan, that area could be completely cleaned up and the new boat ramp open in 2 years.
There are numerous derelict Semmer properties on San Carlos Island. Finally at least one of their deralict areas will get cleaned up. This will be amazing!
I’m just going to go there; can’t we spend two million as an incentive to get the PIER rebuilt sooner than later, my grand kids will be in college by the time this thing is built lol
Oops I meant Semmer not summer…
I don’t quite understand which two properties? I see the one summer owns off Main Street but which other property? Where the lucky screw was going to build? Sunnyland is in between the two? Confused on which two?
I’m curious what Salty Sams will think about another boat ramp on the street. Maybe it will bring launch rates down.