Nearly 3 years to the day Hurricane Ian came through Fort Myers Beach and destroyed the building the Fort Myers Beach government operated out of, the new Town Hall at 6231 Estero Boulevard is ready to open.
Town officials will officially cut the ribbon to open the new Town Hall building Wednesday, one day before the Town Council holds its first meetings in the building.
With an $8 million grant from the state of Florida, the town purchased the building for $7 million and also bought the old 7-11 property next store and converted it into a parking lot.
The 3-floor 24,000 square foot building sits at the corner of Estero Boulevard and Bahia Via. It’s a storm-hardened structure, having survived the two most recent hurricanes, including Ian. The Town Council chambers is on the first floor with offices on the second floor.
The old Town Hall building at 2525 Estero was completely destroyed by Hurricane Ian scattering government operations everywhere with meetings being held at a restaurant off the island, DiamondHead Resort, the Bay Oaks Gymnasium, and eventually temporary trailers.
The old building sat untouched for nearly a year as the town waited for FEMA to give the go ahead to demolish it. Mayor Dan Allers took the first few whacks at the building with the bulldozer. The old building was formerly the home to Bank of America since about 1996. The town purchased the building for $1.1 million in 2014, originally holding meetings on the second floor. A Town Council meeting room was eventually built on first floor.
Not too long before the storm the town had purchased all new AV equipment to improve the quality of their meeting broadcasts. All of that was lost in the storm. Also in the old building, there was a mural of the old Arches at the base of the Matanzas Pass Bridge. A similar picture has been painted in the new council chambers. Jan Atkielski who painted the original mural in the old town hall chambers was invited back to paint The Arches in the new Town Hall chambers. Jan will will be at the grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony.
The 9A-11A event includes a ribbon cutting with guest speakers, tours, and refreshments. On Thursday, September 11th the Town Council will hold its first council meeting at 9AM and a budget hearing at 5PM.
Did we really need that big of a building? I want to Allers to answer the question about the old lot that the previous building was sitting on. What are the plans for that? They want to raise our taxes to pay off a loan and yet there is an empty lot sitting that could be sold and pay off that loan. Why are they not telling us what their intention is???
Well Carol… I’d assume the town hasn’t had any deliberative processes amongst themselves about this property as they could be in violation of Florida sunshine laws for doing so. So… are we to believe they haven’t discussed this between two or more of themselves?