Editorial | A look back, a look ahead
For many of us, year’s end is a time for both reflection and plans for the future.
With 2025 nearly behind us and 2026 right upon us, we’re going to acknowledge that this year — like the one before and the one before that and the one before that — had its controversies, some painful including the total conversion of two historic and beloved parks into “destinations.”
There also was an abundance of applauded successes with more — many more — on the horizon for 2026, if more places to play, places to shop, places to work and places to live define what a growing community needs.
Let us look to where we are and where we are going in the new year.
First, the contested.
Many longtime residents — and a whole heck of a lot of relatively new ones — protested the city’s plans to raze and wholly re-envision the Cape Coral Yacht Club and Jaycee Park a few years ago.
Many still are not happy.
The parks, though, are on their way back with 2026 to be a milestone year in terms of getting there.
The more-than $12 million rebuild at Jaycee Park, with its waterfront boardwalk, bandshell and bistro-in-progress, is expected to be completed in late spring.
With federal and state permits secured, the final resort-style design for the near-$200 million Yacht Club rebuild is expected to be completed in February. Contracts for the replacement of the seawalls and other marine improvements, including dredging the basin for the new marina, were awarded in November.
Now the heralded.
Crystal Lake Park, a $10 million facility with a “hillside lookout” opened in July.
Festival Park, a 200-acre, $35.4 million-plus complex which broke ground in 2024 is right behind it. To be anchored with an outdoor amphitheater and a lighted sports complex, Cape Coral City Council just moved forward with a design for a community center and more ball fields.
On Wilmington Parkway, the park is expected to open early next year.
Meanwhile, a decades-long dream of turning the 175-acre old golf course parcel in the South Cape into a park got a major boost this year. Now city owned, plans to turn the site into “urban green space” are in the public-input phase.
On the economic development side, 2025 was a good year for Cape Coral with 2026 promising more to come.
Among the projects:
• Bimini Square, a $100-million project that opened in 2025, offers 190 upscale apartments on the waterfront in the South Cape, boat slips, infinity rooftop pool, parking garage and restaurant and retail space and an outpatient clinic, Lee Health Bimini Square, which opened in October. Bimini Square is currently leasing.
• Bimini Basin East. The city began seeking private sector proposals in October for Bimini Basin East, a hoped-for multi-use re-development project to be built on a package of parcels the city deemed blighted in the wake of Hurricane Ian and so purchased in the South Cape. The city and the South Cape Community Redevelopment Agency have invested approximately $43,416,872 in acquisition costs for the various parcels in the project area, and $1,521,648 for demolition costs to clear existing buildings for private re-development with a total investment, as of June, sitting at $45,021,290. The city’s desired elements for a project to embody “the ultimate combination of a live-work-play lifestyle” include a boutique hotel or craft brewery, observation tower, boardwalk, parking garage, retail, office, mixed-use residential and a possible marina as well as a pedestrian bridge over Cape Coral Parkway. The possible relocation of Four Freedoms Park, which sits on 3-plus acres on Bimini Basin, would offer direct access to the Caloosahatchee. Those proposals are expected to come before Council some time after the first of the year.
• The Cove at 47th, a “premier luxury apartment destination” with resort-style amenities in the South Cape launched as a five-phase, $103 million mixed-use project with its groundbreaking taking place in August of 2022. Amenities include pool, Rooftop Sky Lounge and public spaces. A ribbon-cutting was held in October and the development has since added multiple commercial elements including the Seed and Bean, which opened in November, and Oak & Stone, which opened this month.
• Cape Coral Grove, a $1.3 billion project to include 1,234 luxury apartments, a hotel and 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space as well as entertainment venues, parks, paths and gathering spaces. Council approved some changes this year with movement expected in 2026, commerce infrastructure beginning in the first quarter and phase 1 of commercial construction beginning in the third.
• Seven Islands. Cape Coral City Council approved additional modifications in September and November for the estimated $650 million Seven Islands project. Gulf Gateway Resort and Marina Village, to be built off Old Burnt Store Road along the North Spreader Canal, is to include a mix of residential, hotel and resort lagoon, eateries and a community center park.
• Hudson Creek, a $100-million master-planned community in the northwest Cape. As submitted to the city, the “bike friendly, walkable” community project calls for 3,500 homes, 425,000 square feet of retail, 150,000 square feet of office space, a hotel with space earmarked for an assisted living facility and an educational center.
And a few more.
On the business side, Slipaway Food Truck Park and Marina opened at the foot of the Cape Coral Bridge, offering a unique waterfront destination by land or by river. The immediately-popular venue offers 10 food trucks, a marina with 26 boat slips, ship store, six pavilions and a main pavilion with a bar, and seating on the water. It caps the South Cape on its east side, which gives new development there a boundary-to-boundary run of new projects completed or pending.
Meanwhile, the are two major projects for both the far east and the far southwest sectors of the Cape, one pending, one done.
The $484 million Cape Coral Bridge replacement project, to replace the current four-lane bridge with a new six-lane structure and bike and pedestrian paths is set to commence in 2026. Construction of the county project is to begin in 2028.
And one more after years of effort: The Chiquita Lock, a water control structure in the South Spreader was removed this year. Proponents say the removal makes traversing the waterway safer — and a lot more convenient.
2025 has been a busy year in Cape Coral. 2026 promises to give it a run for its money.
May the new year be all you want it to be for you and yours.
Breeze editorial