Sunday, May 19, 2013
Friends of the Island Parks officials said building an observation and interpretive facility on Caladesi Island is more complex and costly because of its location.
Cindy Farris is excited about plans to bring a 25-foot observation deck to Caladesi Island. Farris, president of Friends of the Island Parks, told Dunedin city leaders May 16 that the group is close to naming a contractor for the project and fundraising efforts are going strong. The proposed $700,000 Caladesi Discovery Center would provide a panoramic view and include hands-on exhibits in a planned interpretive facility on the popular barrier island. An additional $150,000 would be for educational exhibits. The expense of the project is due, in part, to the high cost of transporting materials and equipment to the remote project site, Farris said. "It's not easy to build on the barrier island," she said. The group's first major fundraising …
Friday, April 19, 2013
Park officials are hoping to move forward on plans to build an $600,000 to $700,000 observation deck at Caladesi Island State Park.
Designs for a 25-foot education and observation tower on Caladesi Island are complete. And state officials already approved them. Now it's just the matter of funding, Peter Krulder, park manager, says. Friends of the Island Parks is spearheading recent fundraising efforts to build the observation deck, which has a $600,000 to $700,000 price tag, Krulder says. He hopes to have it completed in 2014. Plans for the up-and-coming Caladesi Discovery Center indicate that it would be an open-air, ADA-compliant structure at the site of the old tower, which was torn down in the late 1980s, Krulder says. "It had rusted to a point that it was no longer safe for park visitors to climb," Krulder explains. The new tower would provide a panoramic view and…
Saturday, February 23, 2013
An 11-page claim demanding more than $8 million in lost revenue points to visitor declines at Dunedin's major natural tourism destinations Caladesi and Honeymoon Island state parks after the 2010 BP oil spill.
A claim for more than $8.8 million against BP is on its way to lawyers in South Carolina, Dunedin city attorney Tom Trask said Thursday. Trask said he "rushed in the last 14 days to get" Dunedin's claim against BP ready for high-powered, national plaintiff litigation firm Motley Rice LLC. The 11-page document boasts of Dunedin's two largest natural tourism destinations Caladesi and Honeymoon Island state parks and points to revenue lost from declined tourism after the company's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The claim for $8,812,133, plus another estimated $20,000 for recent forensic accounting fees not yet tallied, had already been sent through overnight mailing services by the time Dunedin city leaders voted to approve the claim …
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Liz Taylor
8:56 am on Sunday, May 19, 2013
I think that spending $700k on mangrove restoration would be a better idea than building anything on a barrier island. We need far less coastal and island development, not more more ›