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Bimini Basin: Development finally in its future?

5 min read

For years, city leaders and property owners in the Bimini Basin area have tried to get something going for that waterfront area abutting Cape Coral’s oldest business district.

Today, after many near-misses and promises that have always fallen through in the end, another lifeline could be in sight.

Last Monday, the Cape Coral City Council voted 5-3 to appoint the University of South Florida to conduct a feasibility study on the area off Cape Coral Parkway near Four Freedom’s Park. The narrow vote came amid concerns of whether USF was the best entity to conduct the study and the swiftness with which council made its decision but everyone on council agreed – a study is needed.

USF School of Architecture & Community Design professor Taryn Sabia predicted she would have the feasibility study finished by the end of the year. Then “charrettes” – a type of town meeting – would begin by February in time for the design process to be finished by next April.

Joe Mazurkewicz, president of BJM Consulting, said the outcome of this project could be a long-awaited path to development, which they have not had in the past.

“It’s exciting that the city is contemplating a path to development rather than just another study,” Mazurkewicz said.

Annette Barbaccia, president of AMB Planning Consultants, whose client owns a 20-acre assemblage to the east of Bimini Basin going from Tarpon Point to Coronado, said Sabia has the experience and that getting it through a university comes at a smaller price tag.

“You get more bang for the buck if you have someone in charge who has experience. Their focus is more than urban design,” Barbaccia said.

Mazurkewicz took a similar view.

“USF has a proven track record of being able to bring these projects to fruition and I welcome their educated and experienced eyes,” he said.

Others, though, would have preferred the city open the proposal to other entities.

Councilmember Rana Erbrick was among those who took that view, although she would like to see a plan brought forward.

“I have concerns over what the end product will be and how usable it will be,” she said. “I would have put it up for RFP (request for proposal) and gone through the process. A professional firm that does this day in and day out would allow us to continue further on than what we may do with USF.”

Erbrick also expressed concern about the vagueness of what people want there and that nobody is bringing forward definitive the ideas as to what could work.

Most agree, though, that the area – and the city – needs the economic boost that development would bring.

Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce president Mike Quaintance said the key is to attract younger people to the area, and grad students from USF may be the ones to generate those types of ideas.

“The more we do to retain younger folks, the more sustainable our community will be as we try to expand economic development,” Quaintance said. “The reality is the product that comes out is a marketing product which they could market to developers.”

Hope of development interest is nothing new – not among city officials, not among the business community and certainly not among prospective developers who have long seen the area as a diamond in the rough, just waiting for the proper project to shine.

Barbaccia said her client purchased the property in the early 2000s in anticipation of something special. They paid a high price for the land then, and have held on through the recession and only now have started to make back their investment.

There are some inherent challenges, though, to the type of upscale, destination-driven development of the sort some in the city, including Mayor Marni Sawicki, would like to see.

First, there are many owners who have small parcels within the area.

That would make it difficult to put any kind of large-scale plan together, Barbaccia said, adding that during the recession, parcel ownership switched quite frequently as properties went into foreclosure.

That was one of the things that quashed previous large-scale, multi-site plans for Bimini.

Still, Barbaccia and other developers did put potential projects out there of the type the city would like to see, Mazurkewicz said, only to have those plans shelved when the economy tanked.

To make things work now, those stakeholders and others new to the game need the city council to get behind the concepts developers may want to achieve downtown.

The important thing for her client, Barbaccia said, is a connection to Bimini Basin through roads and parks.

Also key will be the necessary infrastructure.

“Any development of this size is going to need a Planned Development Project, but that’s OK. The problem with downtown is you have mostly older buildings and antiquated infrastructure, so you have to put the pieces together,” Barbaccia said.

“The lack of infrastructure limits what you can do. Any improvements will have to support whatever the result of the study is,” Mazurkewicz said. “You have to decide what the best use of the property is for the city and that will drive whatever infrastructure you need.”

Mazurkewicz said once any plan goes to RFP and the contractors are decided upon, shovels would not likely hit the ground until the beginning of 2016 at the earliest.

He said he would like to see a project that utilizes Bimini Basin’s largest asset – the water.

“I’d like to see a destination center and a place of gathering that would enhance and facilitate access to the water. What that would entail, I don’t know,” Mazurkewicz said.

But while a finished product could be years in the making, the opportunity to do something special in the downtown area has everyone excited.

“This is an opportunity to bring some of those folks together on both sides of Bimini Basin to do something grand,” Quaintance said.