Local map for Bimini East properties. City of Cape Coral

The Cape Coral Community Redevelopment Agency and the Cape Coral City Council each approved a contract to purchase 43 parcels — 19 acres — for Bimini Basin East for $40 million-plus.

Cape Coral City Council acts as the CRA governing commission.

The votes to acquire the properties, which are south of Cape Coral Parkway between Tarpon Court and Coronado Parkway, were unanimous.

“We do not intend to be the developer, nor hold the property — putting it back out on the market for the price of the land for someone to acquire,” said CRA Executive Director Michael Ilczyszyn, who also serves as the city’s manager.

The request before the CRA board was to provide the financial mechanism to fund the purchase of the Bimini East properties.

The interlocal agreement between the two entities is to enter into a contract for the sale and purchase with Bimini Center of Cape Coral and Four Palms Condominium Association to purchase Bimini East for $40,089,504.

“The purpose of the CRA is to be a catalyst for redevelopment,” Ilczyszyn said. “We are seeking to go into this property that has been assembled by an individual and his family over several decades and purchase the properties.”

Ilczyszyn said they will turn around and put the piece of property back out on the market for the free market providing private developers the ability to acquire and turn around and develop a much larger, bigger development.

Bimini East has the potential to be more than a quarter billion dollars as a private sector, 18-acre investment, Ilczyszyn said, adding when the project becomes taxable, the new value comes back to the CRA to further develop projects within the district.

Ilczyszyn said when you have to go in and buy properties that have buildings on them, some have to absorb the cost of demolition and that loss of value.

“That is why Bimini West, and The Cove was successful. They are going into raw land,” he said. “The owner of the property was a willing seller. He has been looking to sell. No developer would pay him what the property is worth today. The CRA is the entity the state has created, and we have adopted with the county to be the catalyst to go in and absorb the cost of demo and turn around and sell and get (tax increment financing funding) money.”

An appraisal was done, which separated the properties with a structure from the unimproved property sites.

He said there is $5 million worth of property that the owner has left unimproved, and $35 million for the developed sites with structures.

“We are paying fair market value,” he said.

The streets cannot be purchased, Ilczyszyn said.

He said when buying all property on both sides, the city will be able to vacate that public right of way, which then becomes private right of way, which will then generate $3.5 million in land that is inaccessible.

“The odds of finding someone to buy the whole property would be tough,” Commissioner Dan Sheppard said. “With the land being cleared, the city has multiple ways of developing it and involving more than one developer.”

Councilmember Tom Hayden, sitting as a CRA commissioner, said this is a key piece of land that can continue the stimulation by making the land attractive.

“I think it continues the growth we are seeing in a very popular area of the city,” he said.

Councilmember Richard Carr asked during the City Council meeting following the CRA session how the management will be handled for some of the properties that are currently occupied.

Ilczyszyn said all the leases have a 90-day clause if the owner sold the property.

“If we execute this when the property closes, as the property management firm, he will move forward with ending those leases and getting those buildings unoccupied, so we can move forward with the redevelopment,” he said.