Lee County commits $50M to Greenwell Park overhaul

Lee County Commissioners on Oct. 6 voted unanimously to award $50 million in federal disaster-recovery grant money toward an overhaul of Mike Greenwell Regional Park in North Fort Myers. 

That includes replacing the park’s centerpiece, the Lee Civic Center, home of trade shows, concerts, 4-H programs and county fairs since opening in 1978. 

Commissioners and public speakers at the meeting agreed that a new civic center space should be a regional venue with the capacity to accommodate arena-sized events. 

But discussions about exactly what the finished product will look like are just beginning, with county staff presenting a project timeline that includes an initial 30-month design and permitting process and a completion date in 2031. 

Using federal grant money also restricts how much the county can spend on the civic center rebuild itself to less than $4 million — or about half the structure’s appraised $7.9 million value, Assistant County Manager Glen Salyer said. 

The federal money comes from a pool of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds the county was awarded after Hurricane Ian in 2022 and subsequent hurricanes. The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Among other regulations, the funds are tied to a 50% compliance rule. If the county spends more than 50% of the building’s appraised value on improvements, the entire building must be brought up to current flood-zone regulations. 

That would require funding the county does not now have available. It would cost $15.6 million to repair the 90,000-square-foot civic center structure alone, based on a 2023 assessment by Weston & Sampson. The assessment evaluated 14 buildings on the roughly 100-acre civic center complex. 

To fit within the grant limitations, county staff prepared initial design plans that would distribute the $50 million across other areas of the park, including its 4-H buildings, barns, trails, lighting, utilities, emergency operations and other features. 

That would leave roughly $4 million to demolish the old civic center and replace it with a much smaller, 30,000-square-foot indoor “community center” combined with an outdoor amphitheater. 

“It’s an intricate web of rules and funding constraints that apply to the project,” Salyer explained. “And that’s why we’ve presented what we did today.” 

The smaller concept would likely require larger trade shows or events that use the existing center to scale back or use outdoor areas, county staff said. The proposed community center would be a flexible space capable of handling a wide variety of events. 

“This is just a draft concept,” Lee Parks and Recreation Director Mack Young said. “It can be changed at any time. It’s not set in stone.” 

The draft concept didn’t sit well with commissioners or public speakers. They discussed workarounds that would allow the county to use the $50 million in grant funds while still creating the larger venue they have in mind. 

Lee Commissioners Cecil Pendergrass and Brian Hamman argued that the late Lee Commissioner Mike Greenwell also envisioned a larger civic complex during previous discussions. 

The Lee County Civic Center Complex was renamed Mike Greenwell Regional Park shortly after Greenwell’s death Oct. 9, 2025. 

“I was pretty adamant, I wanted to see a larger center,” Pendergrass said, referring to discussions several years ago. “I want to build something huge for people to go to, bring their families to.” 

Hamman agreed. 

“That wasn’t just your vision that was Mike Greenwell’s vision for the civic center, as well,” he said. “Mike, I remember very clearly, sitting at that strategic planning session, outlined what you just outlined. He wanted something big for this area, something that would match the growing population of Lee County.” 

Exactly how the county ends up using the $50 million to meet grant guidelines may come down to semantics and the total size of the civic center structure. 

“I think staying away from the terminology of ‘arena,’ because it would not qualify, so if we say large space, large meeting room space, something to that effect,” County Manager Dave Harner said. 

Hamman quipped, “Like a civic space? Like a center … that’s civic … in nature?” 

At least 10 speakers Oct. 6 agreed with commissioners that the new civic center should be larger rather than smaller. 

“That sounds like a multiuse educational indoor event center to me,” Alva resident James Kennedy said. 

Another speaker argued that Florida’s weather and wildlife make the idea of an amphitheater an impractical, uncomfortable proposition for much of the year. 

“The mosquitos will carry you right into the swamp and drown you in the river if you turn the lights on at night,” she said. 

Pendergrass floated the idea of spending most or all of the $50 million on park improvements such as 4-H facilities while coming up with other funding later for a larger central building. 

“Bigger barns. Air-conditioned barns,” he said to laughter and applause. “I mean, seriously … you could build a lot of things. And then we’d find funding sources, and we’d find a way to build that big, huge building. We’d call it a community civic center.” 

That remains under discussion. 

County staff plan to take the direction suggested by commissioners and public speakers as the process of spending at least $50 million on park improvements begins. 

“We can eliminate the amphitheater and look at options to increase the size of the building for educational purposes and those components that meet (CDBG-DR) requirements,” Harner said. 

Commissioners agreed that the next step should include a workshop to discuss Greenwell Park improvements at a date to be determined.