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<\/a>CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\nA vacant lot in Cape Coral is set to become a home with a much bigger purpose.<\/p>\n
Bahnam Builders and community leaders gathered Thursday to launch construction plans for what organizers say will be Florida\u2019s first St. Jude Dream Home Showplace.<\/p>\n
Proceeds from the eventual sale will benefit St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital.<\/p>\n
The project is planned for Southwest 24th Avenue. <\/p>\n
Bahnam Builders hosted a community \u201cLot Pop\u201d celebration at the property Thursday morning to mark the start of the project. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is basically the infant stage. This is the beginning. This is where we\u2019re starting,\u201d organizer Queen Ellis said. \u201cWe actually have this lot that we\u2019ve purchased. We pay for it in cash. And we\u2019re going to start building here once we break ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellis said the goal extends far beyond constructing another Southwest Florida home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have never been a home built for Saint Jude\u2019s in the state of Florida until now,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cSo that makes it even more exciting, because being the first and inaugural home is just amazing to see how everyone\u2019s going to come together and make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The builder\u2019s announcement identifies the project as Florida\u2019s first-ever St. Jude Dream Home Showplace. Once the house is finished, the public is expected to have opportunities to tour it during open-house events before it is sold. Net proceeds from that sale will benefit St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of this whole project, we\u2019re hoping to give $1 million or more to the kids at Saint Jude,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Bahnam Builders owner Alan Bahnam said his company builds homes every day, but this project carries a different meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing here differently is we\u2019re doing this for the kids,\u201d Bahnam said. \u201cKids that actually need bright future, you know, overcoming obstacles and the treatments that they need and the financial burden and those type of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bahnam said a home of this type would typically take about six to eight months to build.<\/p>\n
Getting it built will also require help from across the community. Bahnam Builders estimates about 100 trade partners and vendors will be needed, with contractors and businesses encouraged to donate labor, materials, services or expertise.<\/p>\n
Cape Coral Councilmember Joe Kilraine called the project a major opportunity for the city and the families St. Jude serves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe generosity shown in doing something like this, this home is probably going to be in excess of $1 million,\u201d Kilraine said. \u201cI can\u2019t think of a more devastating impact upon the family\u201d than having a child become seriously ill.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Laurie Lehmann said her past experience working in pediatric intensive care gave the project additional meaning for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to many families that had to, that basically sold everything to have the money to go down to Saint Jude because their child was ill,\u201d Lehmann said.<\/p>\n
According to St. Jude, families do not receive bills from the hospital for treatment, travel, housing, or food.<\/p>\n
Lehmann credited the organizers and builder for getting the Cape Coral project to this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey worked very hard to get this done,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd now all of us get to smile and say, yeah, great job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project will rely on donations as construction moves forward. Vendors and businesses interested in contributing can contact Bahnam Builders here<\/a>.<\/p>\n DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s first St. Jude dream home showplace project launches in Cape Coral Bahnam Builders and community leaders gathered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[123324,558,209,211,210,832,70690,104,1089,28,320,1175,213,5204,151676,151677,151675,2007],"class_list":["post-377343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bahnam-builders","tag-business","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-city-council","tag-community-leader","tag-entertainment","tag-family","tag-florida","tag-home","tag-kid","tag-late-news","tag-project","tag-research-hospital","tag-saint-jude","tag-st-jude-children","tag-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}