Martini Glass To Be Filled With Homes





Development plans will be presented to the Brooks Council of Presidents January 21 for a vacant tract of land, which resembles a martini glass.

Development plans will be presented to the Brooks Council of Presidents January 21 for a vacant tract of land, which resembles a martini glass.

Estero — Corks are popping in Estero. The Martini Glass will soon be full of homes, and the controversial Coconut Road Interchange is no more.

The so-called Martini Glass is actually not quite 40 acres left vacant for a potential future I-75 interchange west of the interstate at Coconut Road in The Brooks. On aerial maps, the land resembles a martini glass.

The area became national news when a $10 million earmark for the intersection mysteriously appeared between congressional approval and presidential sign-off in a 2006 federal transportation bill. The bill was written by Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska, according to published reports. Young, then the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, is also known for steering $200 million to the so-called “bridge to nowhere” project.

In 2005, Young attended an event at the Hyatt Coconut Point that raised over $40,000 for Young. Local development and business interests contributed the money. They included Daniel Aranoff, a parttime Naples resident who owned Edison Farms, the 4,000-acre tract east of the proposed intersection. Young denied any connection between the contributions and the earmark. His website today states that interchange had local support, including the Bonita Springs City Council and the Technical Advisory Committee of the Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Estero residents and environmental groups fought the interchange. Studies by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and the Federal Highway Administration all warned it could threaten wetlands.

Local representatives, including then-congressman Connie Mack, a Transportation Committee member, denied any knowledge of the suspect earmark. Plans for funding the interchange were dropped at the MPO and the money reallocated to other projects, including the Bonita Beach Road interchange with I-75.

The proposed interchange became moot when owner Oakbrook Properties sold the Martini Glass to Taylor Morrison in 2012. The land was zoned for 91 single-family homes during 2013.

The proposed residential development is called Pebble Pointe. Representatives of Taylor Morrison and Oakbrook will present specific development plans to the Brooks Council of Presidents on January 21.

Aranoff had development dreams for Edison Farms, but the insurance company holding the note foreclosed the property in 2012. Aranoff has appealed the foreclosure judgment, which handed the land over to Investors Warranty of America.


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