After months of saying “Requests For Information” would be going out for the Yacht Club, they were finally sent out at the end of January. The city is looking for developers and businesses that may want to partner in the rebuild of the Yacht Club.
The Yacht Club is a project the entire community is talking about. Residents want to know why the project is taking so long and how much it’s going to cost them and where that money is coming from. After years of delays, and the rising cost of building materials, the price tag to rebuild all the elements for the new Yacht Club has ballooned to nearly $200 million. The Yacht Club is also going to be a major issue in the upcoming Cape Coral election with 4 of the 8 seats on the ballot.
This week at a City Council meeting you can start to see the disagreements on how to proceed starting to bubble to the surface. Council member Rachel Kaduk showed little confidence that the RFI process would net positive results and wanted the city to work a parallel track just in case there was no interest.
Kaduk suggested staff work with their consultant, Kimberly Horn, and prepare a phased-in approach to the rebuild in case there are no responses to partner and the city has to go it alone.
City Manager Mike Ilczyszyn says he expects the RFI’s to be submitted to the city by the end of March. Staff will then go through the submissions, if there are any, and prepare a package for the city council to consider. The elements the city is considering partnering on include the community center, the pool, a parking garage, and a second restaurant.
An RFI is not as specific as an RFP (Request for Proposal). An RFP lays out specific requirements and a budget on a project that a developer has to meet in order to be considered. An RFI is more like a “fishing expedition.” The city is basically looking for any company, developer or business that might want to partner, and it could be several.
Council member Joe Kilraisne did not like Kaduk’s suggestion. “I totally disagree with that. You can have these potential people out there and give them a different sense of what we’re looking for. Waiting 8 weeks is miniscule. Doing it this way is going to be time well spent. ”
Council member Keith Long is in Kaduk’s camp on this, “I’m in agreement that we take parallel tracks. We’re not spoiling the soup. We’re traveling on parallel tracks. From a timing perspective, we’ve got to take some action. It’s not 8 weeks. It’s probably another year.”
Mayor John Gunter was also opposed. “Having a public discussion with an RFI out there is a bad idea.”
The consensus was 5-3 against Kaduk’s idea with Council member Jennifer Nelson-Lastra joining Kaduk and Long. So for now, the plan is to stay the course and not get into a parallel track.
Until told otherwise by a majority vote of the City Council, staff is proceeding with designing the Yacht Club as if all the elements, as pictured above, will be what built. However, it has become more clear that a majority of this council does not want to fund the entire project with taxpayer money.