Mound House expected to be open in 2010
The Fort Myers Beach Town Council sent a clear, majority message during its direction to Town staff regarding the Mound House at a work session Thursday evening: Let’s get it open.
“It’s been long enough,” said Mayor Larry Kiker. “We ought to have one goal which is to get Mound House open. Don’t spend any money anywhere else doing anything else until the thing is ready to go.”
Mound House Director Theresa Schober said the property’s landscape plan was approved in 2007, while capital funding was provided for the house’s interpretive plan by the existing Town Council in 2006.
“All of the components were designed with the educational focus for the property in mind both in terms of on-site education, an on-going archaeological laboratory, passive recreational opportunities and some active recreational activities,” said Schober. “Including the acquisition grant, almost $3.4 million has been awarded for the capital components and another $500,000 or so for the operational components. Both are in terms of maintenance grants and operational grants.”
Schober broke down the project specifics into three large topic restoration areas: the grounds (which the Town has received more than $1.3 million from TDC); the house (exterior= $368,650 restored; interior= $350,000 needed for finishing interior construction and installing most museum exhibits with expected grant looming due to state budget constraints); and underground exhibit room (received grants in amount of $677,290; $66,000 remains unfunded.)
Kiker said if the needed work would begin tomorrow, it would take seven months to a year to get the facility open.
“The Council has instructed Jack (Green, interim Town Manager) to come back with a plan to get the Mound House open,” said Kiker. “One of the choices to do so would be to either re-direct funds or find ways to come up with some other funds.”
According to Kiker, it will still take quite a bit of money to rehabilitate the house portion of the property. He hopes some of the money may come from the Tourist Development Council.
“We may ask to see if the TDC would consider using the $450,000 observation deck money to fix up the Mound House,” he said.
Even when the work is done and the Mound House is open for tours, the projected amount of yearly paying customers to break even in keeping the Mound House rolling is expected to be over 50,000. Residents in the Connecticut Street neighborhood are thinking twice about the needed business and the overflow of traffic on the street, according to Kiker.
“According to calculations, it takes 52,000 people a year to break even on this property,” he said. “Neighbors of the Mound House are saying they are unsure if they signed up for that many people coming up and down the street.”
Councilman Tom Babcock gave a summary of what he believes is needed to re-open the Mound House.
“I think I heard agreement that we want to move forward aggressively to open the Mound House that we will continue to look for ways to minimize the operational costs during the opening process,” he said. “Pulling off what the ad-hoc committee has provided, once it’s open we will work as hard as we can to go find $746,000 of capital money which is needed to actually do the work.”
The Mound House is a 2.77 acre parcel that was bought by the Town in 2000. The site is composed of a Native American Indian Mound that dates back 2,000 years.