Public meeting slated to discuss marina expansion

A public meeting will be held by the Gasparilla Inn and Club in reference to a proposed expansion of the Inn’s marina on 8th Street.

The meeting will be held on Monday, May 19 at 4 p.m. at the marina. Jack Damioli, the Inn’s president and general manager, said that they have been contemplating expanding the marina for quite some time.

“We’re putting together our thoughts for the proposed renovations,” he said. “At this point nothing has been approved, nothing has been done on the permitting level with the county. We’re just getting our thoughts together, to find out what will work well.”

Damioli said he will walk through the renovation process with neighbors to get comments and suggestions.

“We want to be inclusive in the way we go about this plan,” he said. “As you know, public marinas and storage have become an endangered species … there’s fewer and fewer of them. We want to keep  our marina public. It is a really important part of the resort operation, and we have a lot of people that come by boat to the island. We don’t want to change that, it wouldn’t be in the public’s best interest.”

The Gasparilla Inn and Club  has operated the marina since 1990, and this will be the second renovation. The current boat storage facility holds 142 boats that are 25 feet in length or less. With the proposed renovation, 75 storage units would be added. They would be able to accommodate boats up to 30 feet in length.

Other changes in the marina would include building a new maintenance facility, new restroom facilities for patrons, a new ship’s store and the addition of a viewing deck for the public to use that overlooks the bayou. Damioli said the vegetative buffer that exists between the marina and the nearest neighbors will not be touched.

“The public can come, watch all the activity around the marina, watch the manatees, just relax,” Damioli said. “We plan to have some rocking chairs out there, and hope people will come and use it.”

Damioli said that Inn representatives have already met with Lee County zoning officials, but the meeting was informational only. No permitting processes have begun yet.

“Our plan is to build to the east of the current building, away from neighbors and close to the bayou,” Damioli said. “All the work is in compliance with historical district regulations.”

Damioli said they are also working with Lee County Parks and Recreation to create a new kayak launch at the end of 8th Street.

The old maintenance building and ship’s store building will be torn down, as well as the Marina Cottage. Damioli said that neither one is a contributing structure to the historic district.

Several neighbors say that the biggest concern on their mind is the additional noise and traffic.

One of them, John Bourgoin, said he is willing to go to the meeting and see what the Inn’s representatives have to say.

“I am willing to listen,” he said. “Right now, I’m against it because of the noise. But I will go and see what they have to say.”

Another neighbor, Tom Shaffer, expressed the same sentiments.

“We are concerned about more noise and traffic, but we’d like to see what they’ve got in mind,” he said. It’s fine to say that there won’t be noise and traffic, but they don’t have enough buffering already.”

Another one of Bourgoin’s concerns is the noise from the current forklift that lifts boats in and out of racks.

“If they get an electric forklift instead of the one they’ve got, that would be good,” he said.

Damioli said that, on average, they currently lift anywhere from eight to 10 boats a day. He didn’t think that the number would increase by more than a handful with the renovations. He also said that there was a possibility of routing large trucks and construction traffic through the Inn’s dormitories, away from other residents.

“I live at the end of the street, too,” Damioli said. “I think the proposal works well for the neighborhood and the island. There’s a big public demand for boat storage now. There a lot of things we still need to explore on many fronts, though. Now that we have a decent plan, we can go to the neighbors and explain what we’re talking about. We want to hear from our neighbors, to hear their thoughts on what could make this better, and ways to be better neighbors as we go forward.”

Neighbors should receive letters this week inviting them to the meeting.