County funding for Beach arches proposed
Restore Fort Myers Beach Arches, Inc. may have a success story next month if the Lee County Board of County Commissioners agrees to fund the project.
Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass said he wants the commission to vote on whether the county should permit, design and review, construct and fund putting the arches at Crescent Beach Family Park.
The group has been trying for years to get organized and raise money for the Fort Myers Beach Arches project, Pendergrass said, adding this is why he wants to bring the motion before the elected board.
The motion will include directing the county staff to begin the process of permitting, designing and reviewing, as well as the construction of the arches at the county park.
“The group has been very active as far as trying to raise money,” Pendergrass said. “I would rather do this and get it done, rather than put it back on the community.”
He said he wants it to be a county project and let the county pay for permitting, designing and construction, which would streamline with the project and get it completed sooner.
“The county could get it done in a year. Get it done and move on with it and preserve our history,” Pendergrass said.
He said Crescent Beach Family Park is a great destination because people can visit the park, take pictures and learn about the arches. Pendergrass said it would become a monument for visitors and locals, a piece of history being brought back.
“Our board has been really proactive and supportive of staff when doing monuments. I’m hoping they will agree with me and think it is a good thing for us,” Pendergrass said.
Restore Fort Myers Beach Arches, Inc. President Steven Ray McDonald said he had a conversation with Pendergrass last week, as well as the county manager about the Fort Myers Beach Arches.
“Cecil said I’m sitting here with the county manager and we want to put in a motion on the 5th of November to support engineering and construction of the arches and we want to fund it and I about dropped to the floor. The news brought me a little bit to tears. I kept telling him he is our hero,” McDonald said. “He asked all our supporters to come and support his motion, the arch supporters to come to that meeting on Nov. 5 and show support in front of the Lee County Board of Commissioners.”
He said their group will continue to fundraise because they want to enhance the project with such things as plants and signage to describe the arches – the history and why they are important.
“Our big fundraiser is in April at the Lani Kai,” McDonald said of the third annual Rock the Arches Music Festival on April 25. “It’s an all day event with 13 musical acts, seven bands, raffles and some vendors. It’s a ’60s style rock music festival with something for everybody. We are there to help raise money and are asking people to donate to the cause.”
McDonald said if the motion is passed by the Board of County Commissioners on Nov. 5, “we will have proclaimed success for sure.”
He said they are saving the history of early Fort Myers Beach.
“There isn’t much of it left. The arches meant home to a lot of people. Those of us that grew up on the beach, it was part of home. The first 40 years you had to drive through the arches to get on the beach. They were unique and iconic,” McDonald said.
The Fort Myers Beach Arches, built in 1924, by Developer Tom Phillips, remained until November 1979 when FDOT and Lee County provided a one months notice that the arches were being taken down when the new bridge was installed.
Phillips built the first bridge that went across Mantanzas Pass in 1914. That bridge remained until 1926 when a hurricane devastated the area and created San Carlos Island. Phillips went to Miami, purchased a swing bridge and installed it, charged 50 cents a piece to get across Mantanzas Pass.
McDonald said in a previous interview that he had this big huge archway there for housing after the hurricane. He said Phillips gave up rights to his own property to build San Carlos Boulevard through those arches to the new swing bridge. The swing bridge and arches remained for 55 years.
Fort Myers Beach Jaycees, as well as others, received approval from the Lee County Commissioners to disassemble the arches and reconstruct them in a county park. Unfortunately that piece of information did not reach the subcontractor in time. The subcontractor hit the arches with a wrecking ball not knowing the commissioners decision of saving the arches.
Restore Fort Myers Beach Arches, Inc. have the remains of the original arches and the University of Florida has done some 3D imaging of them. The 3D imagining has helped in recreating the arches in a dimensional data base of the rocks that remain.