By Steve Plunkett
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s observation tower, missing in action since 2015, is now scheduled to be rebuilt and open in nine months.
Briann Harms, executive director of the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, announced the timeline at the district commission’s May 15 meeting.
“The Gumbo Limbo tower is a project that everybody’s kind of been waiting to see it happen,” Harms said. “It looks like it’s going to start construction July 3 and anticipated to finish in February of 2024. So we may have a tower at Gumbo Limbo again, which is super-exciting news.”
The new tower will have a multi-level ramp to make the top deck accessible to people with disabilities. The Boca Raton City Council in February approved a $2.4 million bid for the project, down about $200,000 from a bid a year earlier.
The city owns and manages Gumbo Limbo, which is part of Red Reef Park. Except for the now-shuttered sea turtle rehabilitation unit, which the nonprofit Coastal Stewards have pledged to fund, the Beach and Park District pays for all of Gumbo Limbo’s salaries, operations and maintenance, as well as all capital improvements.
Engineers in early 2015 declared the tower and the adjoining boardwalk unsafe, and the city removed them. The boardwalk was rebuilt and reopened in July 2019.
Around that same time, six 40-foot wooden posts for the tower were embedded in concrete, but construction stopped when officials decided the replacement would have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Coastal Stewards, then known as the Friends of Gumbo Limbo, proposed building an “inclined elevator.” A Boca Raton couple, Stephen Kosowsky and Sharilyn Jones, gave $250,000 for the project in return for naming the tower after their son, Jacob, who died in a car accident. The Friends collected more than $250,000 to match their donation.
City officials later scrapped the elevator plan in favor of the multi-level ramp, which they estimated, along with the tower itself, would cost $1.4 million. They and district officials were shocked early last year when they received only one bid — for $2.6 million.
The project was rebid in November and three companies responded, with the award going to Walker Design & Construction Co. West Palm Beach-based Walker’s portfolio includes construction of the Mizner Park Amphitheater.
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