As we’ve reported, the new resort-style Bay Oaks pool and the rebuild of Newton Park, both destroyed by Hurricane Ian, will be paid for using CBDG-DR grant money managed by Lee County. How much money is in that bucket to spend?
According to Lee County, Fort Myers Beach was awarded a little over $13 million for three projects. Those three projects are the North Island Water Tower, The Bay Oaks Pool and Newton Beach Park. Lee County says $4.7 million must be used for the tower, leaving $8.3 million for the park and the pool. At every step of the way, Lee County must approve what the town is doing for each of these projects. The rules to spend the CDBG-DR funds are very strict.
On Monday, the Fort Myers Beach Town Council was shown drawings for a rebuilt Newton Park and pictures and video of a resort-style Bay Oaks pool. Neither J.R Evans for the park and Opulent Pools for the pool mentioned construction costs. Vice Mayor Scott Safford tells Beach Talk Radio he was told the estimate for the pool is $4.675 million and the estimate for the park is $3.995 million. We texted the owner of Opulent Pools to get the estimate directly from him but he did not respond.
Here is a picture of the new Newton Park as presented by J.R. Evans Monday.
Also coming out of that CBDG-DR funding is the cost of the design phase of each project. For the pool that cost is $135,000 and for the park it’s $497,500.
The construction price for the pool does not include ongoing maintenance that the community will have to pay for. The town did not yet have those monthly estimates. The town is also anticipating the pool will generate some revenue. Safford says the town would also need to find an additional revenue source for tables, beach chairs, umbrellas, etc. Anything to set around the pool.
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AGAIN FMB, Has anyone even thought about the “RISK Factor” of how this “GROUND LEVEL” pool would survive another future hurricane, tropical storm or just a common high storm surge that would (or could) flood that area, which would destroy or damage this NEW pool ! Just look what happens to the Margarita Pool every time a smaller storm / water surge hits this “Barrier Island” ! Seriously, how much would this ADDITIONAL maintenance cost every year during any seasonal flood storms ! A Community Pool would be nice, but is it really worth the potential cost and storm maintenance “RISK” on this BARRIER ISLAND ? Wake Up people and just STOP with the BS Island Entitlement comments !!!!
$4 million for a park that is basically a beach! Excellent government bloat example. Stick a volleyball net in some picknick benches and done…
497000 bucks to design Newton park rebuild? Jeez we could have built the whole thing with landscaping, showers, chickee huts and bocci/ horseshoe pits for that amount of money. Even throw in a bathroom trailer! Wait that is already there! Come on. These costs are crazy in my opinion.
The Town received insurance money from FMIT for the pool after the hurricane. Those funds should be available to purchase the tables, chairs, umbrellas that Scott mentioned.
Any FMIT money must be used for the pool before any HUD funding can be used. And the HUD money cannot be used for FFE.
Where can I get a clean print of the Newton park proposal?
Why are people forgetting that we will have another hurricane that will destroy all of these nice things.
The owners of homes cannot put a ground level bathroom in related to FEMA but we can put in ground level water parks that sand and salt water will invade and destroy with the next hurricane. Why are we making the same mistakes? Ask Margaritaville how many times they have scooped out sand from their pool? How many times have they had to drain it and redo it in the past 4 years? This makes no sense to me.
What will this cost the tax payers to repair?
I want nice things too, but this will fail related to what we can not control, the weather.
Amazes me on the cost to design the pool. A design is in place, why not just use the same design and just repair it? Why does it have to be bigger, better and fancier than it was? The old pool seemed to work for the community. Same thing for the park. Save some money so u have money for maintenance etc.
My thoughts exactly Mary.
Looks like staff better get all the numbers pulled together before anything moves forward. (Not like last week’s insurance premium discussion where TC asked about some of the numbers, HR director didn’t have the information but said she would provide it, but TC didn’t say ok…. Let’s table this until we get all the facts…..they just went ahead and approved the 11% increase!!! Guess it’s easy when you’re spending other people’s dollars.
Hopefully someone at the Town has some business experience (sarcasm) and can figure out how other water parks can make profits so that FMB can do the same. Go talk to Margaritaville, they seem to know what they’re doing. Doesn’t seem like rocket science.
Community input session on pool design will be held during the BORCAB meeting on September 16. I’ve received many comments about ongoing costs and safety. Please come to the meeting.