ENGLEWOOD, Fla. — Charlotte County’s plan to reopen Englewood Beach aims to have a part of the park open in about a month, and to fully reopen the park in about six months.
Currently, the park surrounding the Englewood Beach coastline is fenced off, limiting parking and access to the water. It has been that way since October when Hurricane Milton destroyed much of the park and surrounding Manasota Key.
Watch Fox 4's Alex Orenczuk report on the plan to reopen Englewood Beach:
On Tuesday, the county announced a phased approach to reopen the park, starting with the south end of the parking lot.
“We wanted to come up with a couple of different options and phases that we could provide access to the community,” said Tommy Scott, Community Services Director. “Because we know that it is important to not only our residents, but our snowbirds, our visitors, businesses, we want this park open as well.”
The phase one opening is expected to be completed in about a month. Scott said fully reopening the park will take about six more months due to the extreme damage the park took during Milton.
“Significant damage is really the boardwalk system, its a wood based pier that provides walk over access, that sustained damage in both Helene and Milton,” Scott told Fox 4. “That’s a significant hazard along with a myriad of smaller things. The sidewalks had to be taken out because they buckled and were destroyed, the parking area in general the asphalt needs to be relaid because it has been undermined and damaged.”
Following Milton, the county used the parking lot to conduct a large sand sifting operation. Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand was piled into the parking lot and dubbed Mount Milton. That sand has now been sifted and put back on the beach.
“I joked for a while that we had the highest point in Florida, which was Mount Milton,” said Jim Beeson, who lives on Manasota Key. “We could see it from our house.”
Beeson said with the parking lot closed, people have been finding their own parking spots on the island.
“We have cars parked on the street, we have cars parked on the sidewalk,” said Beeson. “People want to go to the beach particularly on a Saturday or Sunday and with very limited access, human nature takes over their going to find a way to get there.”
For those looking to head to Englewood Beach, limited parking is available at the nearby Chadwick Park.
The county is also working on a shuttle bus route that would take beach goers from the Tringali Community Center to Englewood Beach, aiming to implement that into phase one.
