Redevelop Seafarer’s Village and Gulf properties
To the editor:
As Jeff Werner rightly says, our Town now has a wonderful opportunity to redevelop this large parcel of land in a way that will really benefit the whole town, its residents, current business owners and visitors. It is very encouraging to learn that the County is prepared to examine the possibility of buying the entire parcel, assuming that the current value as a foreclosed property is only around $4 million, and then presumably negotiate with our Town about its development and use.
From what has been said so far by County officials, it seems that they are worried that by taking this property into public ownership, it would reduce the Town’s tax base. Really, this should not be an issue. Our Town and County has already suffered greatly by previous over-development, triggered by property developers and associated realtors, whose greed has led to more and more condos being built on our small island, not to mention all those ‘residential communities’ hidden behind trees on main roads a few miles away, all being encouraged to believe that property prices and numbers of annual visitors to Fort Myers Beach would continue to rise forever! The result for many years has been continual traffic jams for many months of the year, environmental damage to our waterways through bad infrastructure inland (for example, no proper sewerage system in the huge inland town of Lehigh Acres) and water starvation of the Everglades from these freewheeling development policies. All this has spoiled the charm of our fragile island, not to mention other places further south. Now finally, even a Republican Governor has recognized the need to put the environment first, restore good water flow to the Everglades, possibly remove or raise roads, change the flow of the Caloosahatchee waterway and stop massive discharges, so that no longer will we get massive outpourings of polluted water from Okeechobee clouding our local seawater and covering beautiful neighbor Sanibel with algae deposits.
All this has taken several years to achieve, and it will take a few more, but at last these signs are good. Now what about our island? Have newer residents forgotten that the previous refusal by Lee County to recognize the over-development that had already taken place here by the early 90’s was what led to OUR TOWN COMING INTO BEING? It was, I think, after Lee County had given approval for the construction of the large DiamondHead condominium, despite many local objections to yet another condo being built, that led to popular anger channelled into a positive decision to seek and obtain independence as a new town in 1995. Sadly, this did not stop some further building developments being ‘grandfathered’ in, despite our new town council’s unsuccessful legal objections. But at least we residents (my wife and I bought our home in 1990) had a Town Council responsive to us and did their best to improve the Town for the future.
Now we have a real chance to make the Town really attractive as people enter over the bridge from the north. A large public beach added to Lynn Hall Park, Seafarer’s Mall redeveloped simply for Town Council use with some modest parking adjoining, but NO PARKING GARAGE, and (most important), complete re-routing of Estero Boulevard both on and off the Skyway Bridge, doing away with all traffic lights and speeding traffic flow. Good design will be essential for all this, which can include proper bike paths built in this area as well, connecting north and south throughout our slender island.
This will cost money to achieve….and united effort by our community. But it will be money well spent in the public interest.
Really, we just do not need further hotels or condo blocks, and our current business owners in Times Square and elsewhere are quite adequate to serve residents and visitors.
We must continue to attract day visitors, or ‘day trippers’ as we say in England, but vigorously discourage them coming in future by car. How? By building a really good-sized multi-story parking garage in the Winn-Dixie mall area connecting to plenty of FREE TROLLEYS every day throughout our busy winter season. Please, let’s do it!
If other readers agree with me about this, then please contact our County Commissioner, Ray Judah, urging him to act strongly to achieve this, and Town Council members to support this too. The means will surely be found if our determination and willpower is strong enough!
Michael Short
Fort Myers Beach