On Monday, the Fort Myers Beach Town Council approved the funds from their road impact fee budget to build the dirt parking lot on the old town hall property at 2525 Estero Boulevard.
You may recall that property had been used to store gigantic piles of town owned dirt transferred over from the Bay Oaks property. According to the town’s Community Services Director, Jeff Hauge, it would cost $400,000 to $500,000 to haul the remaining sand off the island. Rather than do that, it will be compacted down and used as the base for the parking lot. However, as the design of the lot evolved, it became clear that a retaining wall was needed to stabilize the site.
Adding the retaining wall pushed the cost of the project from $$72,466.54 to just over $138,000. The retaining wall cost is $65,586.59.
Town Manager Will McKannay said on Beach Talk Radio last week that a number of those spots can be sold to beach business employees who would be given a discounted rate. Many hotel, restaurant and bar employees have to pay for their own parking and it can be quite expensive during season. The discounted parking passes will be sold in 3-month increments. If a beach employee decides to use the lot, they can then catch the free tram or walk to their workplace.
The lot will have about 80 parking spots when it’s open to the public. It was not announced when the lot will be available, how much it will cost to park there, or how much of a discount beach business employees will receive. The town charges $5 per hour in many of its parking spaces.
Mayor Dan Allers was not happy that the town is not securing its own property. He let staff know there should be a fence around the property. And, he’s concerned about the safety of the retaining wall. “How are we going to prevent people from driving over the wall or people from walking on it and falling off? It just seems to me that we rushed this. There hasn’t been a lot of thought put into this and I would have liked to see this going through the M&P process. My biggest concern is the liability.”
A temporary fence will be installed sometime over the next few days or weeks during construction. Town staff will also look into what safety measures should be considered for the lot such as a permanent fence and lighting, which would also need to be funded.
The town will use this property as a temporary parking lot until its decided what to do with the land down the road.
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