- November 25, 2024
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Army Corps Lt. Col. Todd Polk, commissioners Erik Arroyo, Hagen Brody, Jen Ahearn-Koch, Liz Alpert and Kyle Battie, City Manager Marlon Brown, Lido Key resident Carl Shoffstall and City Engineer Alex DavisShaw bat beach balls.
City officials credited City Engineer Alex DavisShaw for taking a lead role in ushering the Lido Beach renourishment project from concept to reality.
Attendees listen to remarks from Army Corps Lt. Col. Todd Polk. The Army Corps and the city teamed on the shoreline protection project.
Mayor Hagen Brody reminds the audience of the precarious state of the beach prior to the renourishment.
“They say you don’t bring sand to the beach, but today, we make an exception,” City Commissioner Erik Arroyo joked during the event.
City Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch credited past commissioners and other officials who contributed to the project and kept it moving forward.
City Manager Marlon Brown said Lido Beach was packed this spring — and he hopes it will continue to draw crowds following the addition of more sand.
Carl Shoffstall, president of the Lido Key Residents Association, said the key word that defined the renourishment effort was perseverance.
The first wave of ceremonial beach-ball-batters gathered together prior to the big moment.
A group of Lido Key residents also partook in the celebratory beach ball batting.
The city had branded beach balls on hand for the event.
In addition to renourishing the beach, the city has refurbished the concession area as part of a pavilion renovation project.
Addressing a crowd of dozens at Lido Beach, about 100 yards from the Gulf of Mexico, City Manager Marlon Brown made clear the degree to which a recently completed sand-dredging project had reshaped the barrier island’s shores.
“Where you sit today, you’d be sitting in water,” Brown said of the beach before the project.
Brown was speaking at the city’s Lido Beach Renourishment Celebration, held today to commemorate the completion of a shoreline protection initiative that dates back to the 1990s. The city teamed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to replenish Lido Beach with sand taken from Big Pass, which had not been dredged before.
The idea was dormant for years before 2013, when the Army Corps and the city publicly reintroduced the proposal. Although the dredging drew opposition from Siesta Key residents — including a series of failed legal challenges — the project team ultimately gained state approval and began construction last year.
The renourishment added nearly 700,000 cubic yards of sand to a 1.56-mile segment of the barrier island, widening the beach by an average of 300 feet, the city said. The project also included the construction of two sand-retaining groins on south Lido Key.
In addition to Brown, speakers at today’s event included all five city commissioners, City Engineer Alex DavisShaw, Lt. Col. Todd Polk of the Army Corps of Engineers and Carl Shoffstall, president of the Lido Key Residents Association.
“It took us a little while to get here, but it’s certainly worth it,” DavisShaw said.
In lieu of a ribbon-cutting, officials and residents commemorated the project’s completion with a celebratory batting of beach balls.
