Town Park restoration begins Easter Monday

BY THE GICIA 

The Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association (GICIA) will start restoring the Town Park between 3rd and 5th Streets, beginning on Monday. Stormwater intrusion from both Helene and Milton damaged and killed much of the vegetation along the five miles of Bike Path.

The Town Park is a highly visible and extensively used section of the Bike Path in the heart of Boca Grande. This restoration is an opportunity to create a true park feel while enhancing safety, creating a park-like setting with attractive and shaded seating areas, and improving the vehicle and cart parking areas that are so important to the downtown area. In keeping with the Bike Path Master Landscape Plan, native, salt- and drought-tolerant grasses, shrubs, and trees will be used.

GICIA has been working with a landscape architect to create welcoming street entrances, define walking access in and out of the park area in multiple locations throughout the downtown, design comfortable seating areas, and improve signage.  It is anticipated that work will be completed by July 4th.

Once construction begins on Monday, everyone should be aware and cautious while on the bike path between 3rd and 5th Streets. The groundbreaking was delayed until after Easter to avoid seasonal congestion on the path. While GICIA does not anticipate the path being closed for construction, there may be times when a section of the path may be temporarily closed for safety reasons.  Please adhere to signs or instructions from work crews during this construction phase.

GICIA’s landscape architect is also working to finalize plans to restore the remainder of the bike path. Due to almost three weeks of saltwater inundation along sections of the Bike Path, over 300 trees and countless shrubs and grasses have perished. Rick Joyce, certified arborist, has been working with GICIA crews since the water receded to carefully analyze the trees along the path to save and maintain as many as possible. Until recently, Joyce had high hopes that most of the large gumbo limbos on the path would survive. 

In an unfortunate twist, it was recently discovered that while the trunks of the trees are still alive, the vascular system at the base of almost 30 additional trees has failed.  Joyce has had calls with multiple experts over the last few days and has been told that this catastrophic damage to gumbo limbos is being experienced in other storm-surge ravaged coastal communities, and that there is no hope for their long-term survival. Sadly, work to remove the additional 27 trees will begin next week. The good news is that planting of nearly 13,000 salt- and drought-tolerant trees, shrubs, and grasses on the remaining five miles of Bike Path will begin with the rainy season in June. This enormous planting effort will take almost two months to complete, but will revitalize the Bike Path, and over time bring it back to pre-hurricane condition.

The estimated hurricane restoration cost for the GICIA Bike Path is $1.3 million. With generous gifts from two island families totaling $1 million, the restoration of the 35 acres of GICIA Bike Path, the gateway to Boca Grande, will be beautifully replanted by the end of 2025.

While enjoying the Bike Path, please remain alert, slow down, and provide ample space in areas where crews are working. To encourage safety, GICIA has partnered with the Boca Grande Woman’s Club to provide four to six hour safety details conducted by local deputies along the Bike Path.