Lovers Key seeks funds for visitor center
Officials from a state park that holds the second highest attendance mark in Florida and boasts the premier outdoor attraction spot in Southwest Florida are generating funds to build a facility to educate the public and to continue serving as an “economic engine” for area businesses.
Lovers Key State Park welcomed nearly 1 million visitors in 2013 and produced a $38 million impact to the local economy last year. Officials are in the planning stages of a $3.5 million visitor center and need help. An indoor facility is needed to reach the masses.
“We try to get people to understand the criticality of the Florida habitat. Once we do that, then we’ve got them here. They love Florida,” said Pamela Jones-Morton, the current chair of capital campaign for the proposed visitor center and volunteer at the park for 10 years.
Jones-Morton called the state park an “economic gem” and told Beach Chamber business members at a luncheon last week at Charley’s Boat House Grill of its beneficial value to each and every company.
“Last year alone, Lovers Key had a 15 percent increase in attendance,” she said. “The more people we bring in, the more it benefits all of you. It benefits the hotels, restaurants, the cleaners, marinas, realtors. It benefits everyone.”
The 1,616-acre park encompasses four barrier islands and features hiking trails, biking trails, paddling waterway trails and a 2.2-mile-long beachfront with clear blue Gulf water. It has a pavilion for weddings and family gatherings, but no indoor facility to instruct and entertain.
Jones-Morton has served in different educational capacities at Lovers Key, including leading beach walks and tours, monitoring bird nesting activities and working with officials in collecting data for the latter. She is a past president of Friends of Lovers Key and a current director of the nonprofit group.
FOLKS is a citizens support organization that raises money to help enhance the park. Jones-Morton has been involved in the project prior to its fruition.
“In order to tell people what a tree does for the environment or the water, we have to have an indoor facility,” she said. “We need to educate the public that come here to visit, and we need to teach the people who are here about how to keep Florida, Florida. Lovers Key is the last marine hammock left in this area.”
Jones-Morton said the facility will feature multi-lingual exhibits to satisfy foreign visitors from places within high visitation countries like Germany and China.
“We have people who are coming here that don’t understand the environment,” Jones-Morton said. “We also have to educate the kids.”
FOLKS decided to help build a visitor center five years ago. The proposed educational facility will house an exhibit hall with coastal, wetland and upland exhibits, an observation deck, a meeting/auxiliary double room and a gift shop. It will have a wrap-around porch, another old Florida feature.
“We are methodologically moving through this process,” Jones-Morton said about the project that has received state approval and location approval from park officials. The 3,000-square-foot building will sit in the center of Black Island.
Education will involve the state park and the environmental area, such as Estero Bay and Fort Myers Beach.
“This building is beneficial to everybody in the area,” Jones-Morton said. “It will also generate revenue for weddings and families.”
Lovers Key officials are putting together a modified rack card with business ads that hold coupons on the back side of it. Companies can advertise their businesses and help in the fundraising project as well. The current card reaches 30,000 people.
Jones-Morton said the improbable dream is to open in two years for the park’s 20th anniversary, but fundraising has not been met sufficiently to get through the first phase of the project. A more realistic goal is to open in five years with a collection of $1 million.
Lovers Key State Park is second only to Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin as far as attendance and logs more annual visitors with 976,000 visits than any other leading Southwest Florida attractions site. Gasparilla Island State Park is second with 799,811; Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is third with 780,000 and every other area site is below 500,000.
The Florida State Parks system is America’s first three-time National Gold Medal Winner (1999, 2005, 2013) for recognition. No other state has won it twice.
Go to www.friendsofloverskey.org to learn more about Lovers Key or help officials reach their visitor center financial goal by becoming a sponsor.