Yacht Club price tag could hit $300 million

Oct 16, 2025 8 min read

COW Yacht Club Staff Presentation CIP REV1 (1)With the Yacht Club project’s current price tag of $225 million, and guestimates nearing $300 million, Cape Coral City Council raised looking into public-private partnerships to help fund the project.

“It’s $225 million plus,” Mayor John Gunter said of plans to rebuild the razed riverfront park on Driftwood Parkway. “We will be closer to $300 million. I think we need to direct staff to broaden their approach and look for private opportunities along with what we have here.”

The first consensus given to city staff Wednesday during a council workshop was to move forward with construction of the new seawall, a starting point for any rebuild.

The seawall will be constructed from south to north to steer clear of the rebuild of the Boathouse Tiki Bar & Grill. The city has the resources to finance the cost of the seawall upfront.

City Manager Michael Ilczyczyn concedes the $225 million estimate — which does not include the cost of replacing the pier — is sticker shock and provided information as to how the city arrived at that number.

“It goes back to the history of the progression of the plan itself. When we hit the 50% rule at the ballroom it then became an issue of what are we building for – today, or a facility that has a 75-to-100-year life span,” he said.

In 20 to 30 years the number of residents is projected to increase from 224,000 to 400,000.

Recovery of the cost of the project also would be spread over time.

“It’s a piece that is not overlooked, but misunderstood. Part of the idea of stretching out the payments is so you are not putting the full cost on the people living here today, but stretching it out,” Ilczyszyn said.

Assistant City Manager Mark Mason said this is the third time staff has come forward with a financing plan – Costs have increased from a projected $120 million to $150 million to now, at about $225 million. The an annual debt service would be $14.2 million if all $225 million was financed at one time.

The presentation to council included some of the Yacht Club’s history.

The Yacht Club was originally built in 1962 by the city’s developers and it served as a hub for the then-fledgling community. About 60 years into its life span it was slated for renovation with “horizontal”improvements set for 2022. This was about the same time the seawall was inspected and it was determined to have failing elements and needed to be restructured.

Shortly after, Hurricane Ian devastated much of site, and the city opted to rebuild, pretty much from scratch.

City Council then met with designers, which pivoted the city into planning for a much larger-scale redevelopment to include a coastal-design two-story community center, resort-style pool, a four-story parking garage, expanded and upgraded marina and more.

In April the city received the Army Corps of Engineering permit, which allows for marine improvements and is good for the entire project for five years.

The original marine package has an estimated $30 million plus inspection services cost with a 30-year annual debt of $3 million. The estimate includes marine demolition, marine dredging, 3,000 linear seawall, boat ramp, marina fueling, box culvert, and boat slips.

The revised marine package includes marine demolition, marine dredging, 3,000 linear feet of seawall, boat ramp, and box culvert for $24 million and annual debt services over 30 years of $2.2 million.  

Both have a 20-month construction duration.

Staff said if the city builds all of the slips and docks but cannot utilize them for potentially two to three years, the component would be left in the elements without use. To construct the boat slips and fixed floating docks within either the upland phase one or two would be about $11 million today.  

The marine package was revised to trim down the docks, as it is essential that the seawall is constructed before any other items can be done with the project.

After the marine construction, the project can then go into the first phase of the “upland,” which includes civil site improvements, harbormaster building, parking garage, maintenance building, and underground fuel tank for an estimated $85 million construction cost. The estimated debt is $6 million for 30 years.

The upland phase two includes the community center, concession building, resort style pool, beach, playground, future restaurant pad, and landscaping for a total of $90 million. The 30-year estimated debt service is $6.5 million.

The construction of these both have a projected 24-month construction duration.

Staff said ideally the phases would overlap with construction taking four years.

Ilczyszyn was very open about the likely project schedule at Wednesday’s meeting.

“People want to rush to get this open. When you look at what we need to construct and build down there – it is years away,” he said. “Every time you try to phase in a piece of it, you put out an RFP (request for proposals) to run it. You need parking, a harbor master building, lighting and all the amenities. The plan has always been to shut down the entire park down and deliver it all at once.”

Upland amenities are needed and to be in place in order to service and make the docks leasable.

“The plan for this marina is not what was there. We are not talking about a 20-foot sailboat,” Ilczyszyn said, adding that the intent is to bring in much larger vessels that would bring in higher rents to the marina. “The clientele that is coming into that type of marina needs upland services – shower facilities, washer and dryer and a room to relax.”

Ilczyszyn said  they could open the park in pieces but it does not make good business sense.

“Spending money to have it just sit there – moving fences, liability – the project takes longer. It costs time and money,” he said.

Financing

Mason said the estimated for onsite revenue sources are not expected to begin until 2029 and the Boathouse may begin operations in 2028.

“The revenue associated with the Boathouse is limited in upfront years. You don’t see their revenues until the second year of operations,” he said.

Mason said the project relies on public service tax funds. He said they had broached the subject for utilizing the additional 3% allowed in addition to the city’s 7% tax on public service tax to finance the project – approximately $6.9 million in the first year plus $2.64 million for 500kWh applied to the City charter schools.

“The city will need to carry the cost of any debt issue for the first three or four years – carrying the cost of $28 to $43 million over time,” Mason said.

Councilmember Bill Steinke took the numbers and broke them down into estimated payments the residents could make. He said when breaking down $225 million with 220,000 residents, the payment would be $2,343. 

“The overall impact of what our residents have and visitors to be attracted to and look at, the way I think about it is a pretty good value of the city to become another beacon of the city as what the old Yacht Club was,” Steinke said. 

When he took the annual debt service it equaled about $12.50 a month. 

“I ask when we go through this process that we wall consider the tremendous addition this is to our city, the crown jewel it will become,” Steinke said. 

The price tag lead conversation on another way to pay — considering a private-public partnership involving business partners.

“For a municipality to take on a project like this when there is not a whole lot of vertical,” Councilmember Keith Long said, does not make sense.

He said he has reservations about the new cost, which led him to saying they need to either significantly limit the scope of work or bring in a partner to bear some of the burden.

Councilmember Rachel Kaduk agreed the project either needed to be scaled back or go out for a General Obligation Bond funding for the project. GO bond funding would require voter approval.

After discussion, council agreed exploring a public-private partnership is something they want to look into. Council talked about doing a request for interest, as well as unsolicited proposal and solicited proposal.  

“If we can offset those expenses and not put the burden on the taxpayer, but still provide the same amenity,” Gunter said it would be a good idea.

City Attorney Aleksandr Boksner said there are so many different components of the project.

“I don’t know if we will have one global operator managing all of it,” he said. “We don’t know what may be out there, or what is available to us. Maybe someone that will operate all components, or separate proposals.”