First Look: New yacht club planned for Cape Coral

Writer: Drew Hill
Published: Updated:
CAPE CORAL YACHT CLUB

A new yacht club is coming to Cape Coral, equipped with shops, boat slips and a water park. But not everyone is happy about this big reveal.

Kathy Sousa can’t wait to see the renderings for the Cape Coral Yacht Club come to life. She wants the splash pads and water slides to be a reality.

“We’ve gone to the splash pad off of Chiquita, we’ve gone the lakes park,” Sousa said. “I can sit here and relax and still watch my kids, they’re having a blast.”

The City of Cape Coral wants to move forward with plans to add boat docks, an ice cream shop and a three-story parking garage.

Susan Halverson says bring it on. “We usually have a really hard time finding parking,” she said. “We sometimes end up at the pool up there. We try to get here to the beach but usually, it’s pretty difficult to find.”

Vincent Buenfil lives about a mile away from the yacht club and he and his neighbors aren’t too excited about a parking garage coming.

“I have to pay my taxes for the GO bond and I hear now they want me to pay for parking,” Buenfil.

He said he’d rather the city use that tax money to maintain the park instead of building new structures. “Why build something that we don’t need why not just make our amenities better?” Buenfil asks. “If I knew this I would’ve never, ever gone for it.”

However, the deal is not finalized. City Council is expected to vote on the plans next week.

In total, the project will cost about $34 million, with $14 million coming from that ‘GO bond’ money. Other amenities, such as the parking garage and boat ramps will be separate costs.

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