Bonita requests more than $1 million to build 4 canoe, kayak launch sites

The city of Bonita Springs is seeking $1.128 million for four new canoe and kayak launch sites and a new bayside beach access site. The city turned in an application to the Tourist Development Council in time for the Wednesday deadline.

While the concept of new canoe and kayak launches is being welcomed by tourism officials, the project will be competing against several other funding requests.

One site would be east of Interstate 75 on Kent Road; two sites would be located on both sides of the river near Band Shell Park on Old 41 and one site would be just down river from the existing Imperial River Boat Landing.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $1.628 million. The city of Bonita Springs already has a $500,000 allocation in its budget for the project. Included in the funding request is $1.125 million for 15,000 square feet of boardwalk to connect the Imperial River Boat Landing to the proposed launch site under the U.S. 41 bridge.

The boardwalk would serve not just the new launch site but the proposed Imperial River Park as well.

The city acquired the park site for more than $2 million. But the park site is designated for “passive recreation” only, said Councilman Bob Wagner. The site would not have any car access or parking.

“Each site has a different charac teristic because of the configuration of the parcel,” Wagner said. “Where there’s enough land available we will have some space and make that space available for parking.”

The Imperial River Park site also has a lot of exotic vegetation that will need to be removed. About $10,000 of the requested money will go to restoring sea oats that were damaged in Hurricane Charley along Bonita Beach Road.

The city received $75,000 last year to develop the Kent Road site as well as money from Florida Community Trust Grant for one of the sites near Old 41.

Having more canoe and kayak sites — anything that draws more people to the area — is always good, said Nancy Keefer, president of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce.

“Eco-tourism is big business.

There are state programs and groups that focus just on eco-tourism,” Keefer said. “Having more sites gives us another asset for the area and something else we have to bring people to the area.”

But the city’s funding request will be competing against requests from the city of Sanibel, town of Fort Myers Beach as well as the Lee County Department of Natural Resources.

With money added to the beach and shoreline funding by this year’s two-cent bed tax addition, there will be approximately $5 million available for allocation this year, Pigott said.

She has already received 27 requests for a total of $6.4 million.

Among them are a $1.37 million request from Lee County Natural Resources for the Beach Renourishment Trust Fund.

“That one is obviously getting funded first,” Pigott said. “We always start with renourishment and move to maintenance.”

With a tighter budget the council has not approved any major capital improvement requests in the past few years, Pigott said.

The launch site request would fall under the capital improvement category.

“In the past few years we just had enough money to fund maintenance and renourishment so we were funding very few capital improvement requests,” she said.

“This is the grand opportunity to get caught up on that.”

But she also has requests from more than $1 million from Lee County, $145,000 from Fort Myers Beach and $500,000 from Sanibel for beach maintenance.

“In terms of the (canoe and kayak launch) concept... anything we can do to bring more people to paddle along the Blueway ...

and non-motorized boat recreation is exactly the kind of thing good for our eco-system,” Pigott said. “But I have $6.5 million worth of requests for $5 million to be given out.”

That means not all requests will be funded. Wagner, who represents the city on the Tourist Development Council, refused to consider the possibility that the request would not be approved.

“It is a moot point whether the TDC will approve the request.

They will approve it,” Wagner said. “I would be in shock if they did not approve all of it. I don’t care how many other requests are in.”