City sets Grand Reopening Celebration for Jaycee Park on Saturday
The ribbon-cutting for Jaycee Park will take place at 10 a.m. today with a movie in the park celebration to follow on Saturday.
The May 9 Grand Reopening Celebration will take place from 4 p.m. to approximately 9:30 p.m.
The fest, also in celebration of the park’s 50th anniversary, will include live music, free food and beverages and a showing of “Lilo & Stitch: the live-action movie.”
City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn said the rebuild of Jaycee Park was done sooner than some of the other parks because of an unsolicited public-private partnership arrangement that identified a revenue stream to help pay for the rebuild that has cost $18.7 million to date.
While that vendor arrangement ultimately did not come to fruition, the city partnered with another for the planned bistro and food truck component and is looking forward to the next phase, which will continue with more work on the Caloosahatchee waterfront.
To accommodate the traffic that the city is anticipating for Saturday’s event, officials have activated five parking lots that will have shuttle services to the park.
Lot one is at 4117 Coronado Parkway and lot two is at 4140 Coronado Parkway.
Overflow parking will be at lot three at 4508 S.E. 15th Ave., lot four at 4427 S.E. 15th Ave., and lot five at 1629 S.E. 47th St.
There is going to be a drop off area on the south side, he said, for people to drop off members of their family, as well as rideshare like Uber drop off at the front entrance of the park.
The Jaycee Park parking lots are reserved for disabled parking with valid permits, Ilczyszyn said.
“Everyone else will park outside of the park and shuttle in,” Ilczyszyn said. “It’s not the intent of this event to impact anybody on Beach Parkway. We believe we have put together something that will allow us to enjoy the waterfront activation and enjoy a movie in the park.”
A bevy of businesses are sponsoring the event.
The new amenities at the park include an elevated boardwalk along the Caloosahatchee offering views that expand to the Cape Coral Bridge and Midpoint; a band shell; bathrooms; three new playgrounds, including a splash pad; beach volleyball courts; cornhole, pool, and shuffleboard tables; misting/drinking stations for dogs, as well as numerous places to sit.
Along the paths are 425 new trees, as well as new native vegetation.
The park is at the end of Beach Parkway at 4215 S.E. 20th Place.
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