Artist renditions for Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina to be located at the foot of the Cape Coral Bridge and open by late 2024. It will feature 10 food trucks, open-air bar, shaded areas, and waterfront views. There will be 30 boat slips and 120 parking spaces./Artist renditions provided

After years of planning, design, and enabling city ordinances finally being passed, ground broke for Cape Coral’s first food truck park Thursday morning.

Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina is slated to be open to the public by the end of 2024, and is located at the foot of the Cape Coral bridge. Project partners and local dignitaries gathered at the site Thursday, shovels in hand, to signify the park’s impending construction and catch a glimpse at what the venue will provide to resident foodies.

“It’s really exciting,” said project partner and President of Aubuchon Homes Gary Aubuchon. “This project has been three years in the making. And to get to the point where we’re breaking ground is really exciting just not for the partnership group, but for the community that will be able to enjoy this wonderful place.”

Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina will be a 3.1-acre site with hundreds of feet of walkability along the Caloosahatchee River. Designers hope for it to be a one-of-a-kind destination for Southwest Florida residents and visitors to enjoy with friends, family, and even pets.

The site is set to feature 10 food trucks, a centralized, open-air bar that seats 154, and six shaded seated areas scattered around that seat an additional 150. There will be live entertainment, with hopes for Slipaway to become a “hot-spot” for fundraisers, festivals, events, and waterside dining.

Groundbreaking for the first-ever food truck park in Cape Coral took place Thursday morning in Cape Coral. Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina, to be located at the foot of the Cape Coral Bridge, is slated to open in late 2024. Pictured are project planners and Cape Coral dignitaries. CJ HADDAD

“We see it as a great vehicle for entertainment, for food, for sharing time with family and friends,” Aubuchon said. “For people to have access– to be able to walk through the park and stroll along and see the vistas from every direction, we think it’s going to be really exciting.”

There will be 30 boat slips along the riverside, and parking spots for 120 vehicles, so that the venue is accessible in more than one way

A special feature of the park will be a promenade with pathways allowing visitors to walk more than a quarter of a mile, as well as waterfront seating. The venue is handicapped accessible.

“We think people will enjoy coming here by boat, by car, by bicycle,” Aubuchon said. “And once they’re here, they’re not going to want to leave. We’re going to have an elevated, yet casual experience with live entertainment, a gorgeous bar pavilion, and everything open-air, so people can really be out in the environment.”

Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter was present at the groundbreaking, and said the city wants to “take Cape Coral to the next level” with projects such as Slipaway, and hopes to see more projects like this come to fruition in the future.

“A project like this does exactly that,” Gunter said. “When you see a project that breaks barriers — something we’ve never had before — if we can bring that to Cape Coral, no matter what that business is, for me, that’s more satisfying.”

The site has sat relatively vacant since the city’s inception, other than being a model home center for different builders through the years. That is until prospective developments for the food truck park were presented. Cape Coral did not have an ordinance for such a venue in place, so after many drafts, revisions, and even being turned down by council on occasion, regulations for food trucks were put into place this past April. The ordinance requires food trucks to remain mobile, moving each night unless stationed in a food park.

At the groundbreaking, interim City Manager Mike Ilczyszyn said, “We’re standing here today because of our city leaders recognizing that we did not have a food truck park ordinance, or regulation in place to make this happen. And it wasn’t easy.

“But the vision to create a destination like this was only possible through working with this team, and the planning staff that ultimately coming up with regulation that allowed a development like this to take place.

“We’re going to have, at the front door of our city, the right project, with the right look, in the right place. And not only that, it’s the right time”

The Slipaway Food Truck & Marina’s logo boasts the smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species that calls Cape Coral home.

“We want to shine a light on (the species), and be supportive of our environment,” Aubuchon said.

Applications are currently being taken for food trucks that would like to operate at the venue.

Aubuchon said the 10 trucks at the location will be permanent, as long as their quality of service stays up to par.

“(The trucks) will stay as long as they provide great good and great service,” he said. “If we see that the quality is falling on either (food or service), we can change out a truck. But we want variety, and we want people to come here not just because the location is amazing, we want people to come here because the food is amazing, the service is amazing, the experience is second-to-none.”

Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina owners are Gary Aubuchon, Sandra Dean, Scott Fischer, John Kulhavi, Chuck McGuirk, Rick McGuirk and Jeff Miloff.

Other project partners include Stokes Marine, Chase Builders, Christopher J. Lee Architects, Wegman Design Group and Sanibel Captiva Community Bank.

Project partners are finishing the installation of a new seawall at the location, raising it to help mitigate flooding. Aubuchon said as soon as that work is done, they should have their permit from the city to start site work.

For more information on Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina, or to submit an application to be a vendor, visit www.slipawaycape.com.

Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina will be located at 1811 Cape Coral Parkway E.