Tropicana Park opens
Supporters of Cape Coral rowing club turn out to protest lack of lease
A decade ago, John Niehle’s granddaughter became a member of the Cape Coral Rowing Club. The club, started in 2007, has been a popular place for local rowers of all ages to connect and build strength on the water.
“It is a great activity for a young person,” Niehle said. “Anytime our young people want to be outside, being active, with their noses out of their phones, we should encourage it.”
On Friday, Niehle, joined a group of close to 100 rowing club supporters who rallied in protest as the city of Cape Coral officially opened Tropicana Park with the traditional ribbon cutting. The park opening came in the wake of a Cape Coral City Council deadlock on a long-promised lease arrangement with the club for a designated spot at the park where they could store their boats and easily launch from the public dock.
The deadlock vote meant the lease agreement effectively failed just weeks before the park opening and the event, usually a celebratory occasion, was filled, instead, with contention.
Protestors carried “Let them Row” signs in support of the club and its rowers. They wore T-shirts. At least one wore a costume evoking the Handmaiden’s Tale.
The new park has two public docks dedicated to non-motorized water craft, including kayaks and paddle boards, but the rowing club — long promised a lease to use the $500,000 dock specially designed for rowing — failed to garner final approval of a proposed lease from the Cape Coral City Council, which deadlocked 4-4 on an arrangement.
Club supporters say they do do not understand the reasoning.
“Barring these kids from rowing at Tropicana Park is ridiculous,” said Amy Gaziano, a neighbor of the Spreader waterway, at the opening. “Taxpayers had our money spent and the dock is here. I don’t understand the confusion.”
Half of city council — council members Rachel Kaduk, Jennifer Nelson-Lastra, Bill Steinke and Dr. Derrick Donnell — supported the lease agreement at Tropicana Park
Half of the elected board — Mayor John Gunter and council members Joe Kilraine, Laurie Lehmann and Keith Long — voting against.
Those opposed contend the rowing club would be better located at another city park, Crystal Lake, where another organization, which rows with dragon boats, is to be located.
There is, however, no dock at Crystal Lake.
Without a lease, and despite a subsequent voted 5-3 by council to pursue a plan B for the organization, club officials said the nonprofit is left without a home.
“I just don’t understand it. During the design of this park, Mayor Gunter asked for heavy input from the rowing club in designing the dock, and he got it,” Danielle Fitzsimmons said. “My son is a member of this club. Our taxpayer dollars of around $480,000.00 went to this design, and now my son and his friends can’t row here.”
Wade Johnson, a Cape Coral Rowing Club member and student at Bishop Verot High School, said his goal is to get a college scholarship in rowing.
“I have no idea where we are going to row,” Johnson said.
He glanced at the ground and shook his head.
“Without the use of Tropicana Park, it’s just month-to-month for us.”
Following the morning ceremony, Johnson asked Lehmann, who was among the city officials who attended Friday’s ribbon cutting, if she might reconsider her vote.
“I have no plans to reconsider it,” Lehman replied.
“I have had citizens coming to me constantly, mostly homeowners from the top of the North Spreader, and they don’t want the rowers here,” Lehman said of her position. “I have a permanent home for the rowing club, three miles away. It is the third island. And, I have a private bid for a dock that would cost around $40,000.”
Lehman said she hopes to secure corporate sponsors for a new dock, she proposes, that would be a permanent home for the rowing club further north along the spreader.
Niehle is among those not convinced.
“I have watched this proposal as it has progressed,” he said. “Even in 2022, city planning had provisions at Tropicana Park for the rowers. The city paid nearby homeowners for additional parking spaces. Mayor Gunter added a 60-foot dock, for other non-motorized water sports, to accompany the 150-foot dock that rowers need. Everything was in place.”
City representatives, including Cape Coral Communications Manager Melissa Mickey, shared their commitment to the new park.
Mickey said she hopes the community will enjoy the “beautiful new space, which includes not only the public docks but a beach area, gazebo, pavilions, playground, fitness stations and rest rooms.
The park at 4101 Tropicana Parkway abuts the Seven Islands property an 47-acre site of Old Brunt Store Road to be developed as Gulf Gateway Resort and Marina Village.
The developer, who purchased the property from the city, has been allowing the Cape Coral Rowing Club to launch from one of the manmade “hammerhead” islands, dubbed island three.