renamed Mike Greenwell Regional Park<\/a> shortly after Greenwell\u2019s death Oct. 9, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI was pretty adamant, I wanted to see a larger center,\u201d Pendergrass said, referring to discussions several years ago. \u201cI want to build something huge for people to go to, bring their families to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamman agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t just your vision that was Mike Greenwell\u2019s vision for the civic center, as well,\u201d he said. \u201cMike, I remember very clearly, sitting at that strategic planning session, outlined what you just outlined. He wanted something big for this area, something that would match the growing population of Lee County.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Exactly how the county ends up using the $50 million to meet grant guidelines may come down to semantics and the total size of the civic center structure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think staying away from the terminology of \u2018arena,\u2019 because it would not qualify, so if we say large space, large meeting room space, something to that effect,\u201d County Manager Dave Harner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamman quipped, \u201cLike a civic space? Like a center \u2026 that\u2019s civic \u2026 in nature?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At least 10 speakers Oct. 6 agreed with commissioners that the new civic center should be larger rather than smaller.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds like a multiuse educational indoor event center to me,\u201d Alva resident James Kennedy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another speaker argued that Florida\u2019s weather and wildlife make the idea of an amphitheater an impractical, uncomfortable proposition for much of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mosquitos will carry you right into the swamp and drown you in the river if you turn the lights on at night,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pendergrass floated the idea of spending most or all of the $50 million on park improvements such as 4-H facilities while coming up with other funding later for a larger central building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBigger barns. Air-conditioned barns,\u201d he said to laughter and applause. \u201cI mean, seriously \u2026 you could build a lot of things. And then we\u2019d find funding sources, and we\u2019d find a way to build that big, huge building. We\u2019d call it a community civic center.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That remains under discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
County staff plan to take the direction suggested by commissioners and public speakers as the process of spending at least $50 million on park improvements begins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can eliminate the amphitheater and look at options to increase the size of the building for educational purposes and those components that meet (CDBG-DR) requirements,\u201d Harner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commissioners agreed that the next step should include a workshop to discuss Greenwell Park improvements at a date to be determined.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lee Civic Center anchors Mike Greenwell Regional Park in North Fort Myers. Lee County has committed $50…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,16160,60024,50710,164770,356],"class_list":["post-421555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-civic-center","tag-disaster-recovery","tag-federal-grant","tag-greenwell-park","tag-lee-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421555","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=421555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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