A boat dock could be coming to Founder’s Park in Cape Coral

There’s a plan to bring boats closer to downtown Cape Coral. Cape Coral CRA plans to talk about adding a boat dock to Founder’s Park. This is so that people can dock their boats within walking distance of the entertainment district.

For now, these are only discussions. There are no concrete plans.

John Gunter, the mayor of Cape Coral, wants to use the small space and wants it to be enhanced. Downtown Cape Coral has restaurants, bars and places to shop, but it doesn’t have a dock. Gunter is a boater himself, and he wants to change this.

“One of the reasons you live in the City of Cape Coral with over 400 miles of canal is boating,” Gunter said. “But when you have boating you have to have accessibility to restaurants to the downtown area.”

Cape Coral Community Redevelopment Agency is looking into the possibility of adding docks to Founder’s Park. The CRA has $250,000 set aside for future development at the park. Gunter says the City may have to get creative because there isn’t much room.

“Taking a catwalk type approach where boats park parallel because I don’t know how much room there is to actually add dock space,” Gunter said.

There may not be room for larger boats either. City Councilman Tom Hayden says he supports the investigation of multiple possibilities. “There’s other projects being played in the downtown area that might provide better access for the bigger boats,” Councilman Hayden said. “Especially along the Bimini basin should projects there, move forward.”

The manager of Duval Street, a restaurant in Cape Coral, says more people could mean more business for them. Takis Lastre is the manager of Duval Street. “I actually have a couple of customers that will go boating elsewhere and will come here in the afternoon for happy hour so that’ll help bring people to come and stay,” Lastre said.

The Cape Coral CRA will debate whether or not this project is even feasible in its next meeting. Eventually, if it goes forward, the Cape Coral City Council would have to approve the project.