Initiative looks to spruce up Business 41
A coat of paint and a few people cleaning up outdoors will help make an expanded Business 41 in North Fort Myers a much nicer road to drive on.
That’s what Mike Land hopes his “Clean up, Paint up” campaign accomplishes with the help of those businesses along the roadway, including the hotels and senior communities.
Land will hold a meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 6:30 p.m. in Room 104A at the North Fort Myers Recreation Center in an attempt to solicit volunteers and businesses along the 4-mile stretch between the Shell Factory and the Caloosahatchee Bridge to help make the road cleaner.
The North Fort Myers Community Planning Panel held a meeting in April, with one of the ideas being that Business 41 was a mess and that something had to be done about it, Land said.
“After a follow-up meeting in May, we decided we should clean up Business 41. We were spending a fortune widening the road, and there will be lots of traffic,” Land said. “We hope this brings more cars on the road, increases property values, furthers the old Florida decor, brings in Lee Transit and restores pride in our businesses.”
Keep Lee County Beautiful, a non-profit organization, will spearhead the cleanup, but Land has to find the volunteers, and he thinks he’ll need 50 or more.
Land hopes the business owners form a coalition to do things for the benefit of the merchants and building owners along the roadway.
Land said he will write the businesses a letter asking for their help, followed by an in-person visit to ask them to put a poster in their window and a sign-up sheet.
The actual cleanup will take place on Saturday morning, Sept. 13 from 9 a.m. to noon. The cleanup will deal with the rights-of-way and sidewalks, while the merchants will do things to spruce up their properties.
This will be especially true for those businesses north of the Pine Island Road intersection, where there is more frontage to clean up, unlike those to the south, where many businesses are on or close to the street.
“We’re thinking we’ll be done by Dec. 1 because that’s when the merchants get busy with Christmas, then the season. I don’t think they’ll have time after Dec. 1,” Land said.
Land said some of these businesses haven’t added a fresh coat of paint in years, or have a unit that’s painted differently.
For more information, call Land at 823-3631.