FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:    Roger Clark or Barbara Manzo, Lee County Parks & Recreation
                (941) 461-7400
   

GROUNDBREAKING MARKS START OF HICKEY’S CREEK PARK IMPROVEMENTS

FORT MYERS, Fla. (August 22, 2001) – The Board of Lee County Commissioners will hold a groundbreaking Saturday (Aug. 25) to begin $765,000 of improvements to Hickey’s Creek Mitigation Park in east Lee County.

The ceremony will be at 10 a.m. at the park, which is three miles west of Alva. Take State Road 80 (Palm Beach Boulevard) east of I-75 and past where the road no longer is a divided highway. Take a right at Gideon Road and follow it until you reach the groundbreaking tent.

After the ceremony, staff-guided tours of the 1,115-acre wildlife preserve will be given, and canoes and kayaks will be provided for trips down Hickey’s Creek. The park will officially open to the public in mid-2002.

The improvements will include: 15 parking spaces; restrooms; five miles of natural hiking trails that include a fishing pier, two pedestrian bridges across Hickey’s Creek and three boardwalks; an outdoor classroom/amphitheater; a picnic area; two overlook platforms over wetland areas; and a canoe launch. There will be a handicap accessible trail to Hickey’s Creek and the amphitheater. Signs along the trails will inform visitors of the various species of plants and animals found in the park. The construction manager is Taylor-Pansing Inc.

The park includes pine flatwoods, forested and herbaceous wetlands, and hardwood hammocks. Hickey’s Creek is the most striking feature of this park and is relatively untouched from the park boundary to the end of the watershed. The park provides habitat and protection for the Florida Scrub Jay and Gopher Tortoise.

Hickey’s Creek Park also complements the nearby 768-acre Caloosahatchee Regional Park on the north side of the Caloosahatchee River. A canoe trail runs from the regional park along the Caloosahatchee River and into Hickey’s Creek and the Mitigation Park.

The county purchased most of the property for Hickey’s Creek Mitigation Park in 1994 and has added acreage since through a Conservation 2020 purchase, a land donation from Lehigh Corporation, and a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) purchase of additional acreage through the Greenways and Trails Acquisition Program. The park improvements are being paid for with a combination of revenues from regional park impact fees and tourist taxes, and DEP grants.

The residents of Alva and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also were instrumental in the creation of the park to preserve this open space from development and provide a Gopher Tortoise mitigation area. The total acquisition cost of the park was $3.9 million.