The new vision for the Cape Coral Yacht Club is becoming clearer.

Cape Coral City Council reached a consensus Wednesday on certain amenities, including a resort-style pool, a longer replacement pier, centralized restrooms and possibly a water feature.

Core elements include more beach, a new two-story community center, a three-story parking garage and a revamped marina to accommodate larger boats.

The conversation was brought to Council so staff has direction for the rebuilding of the center part of the park, which was not been discussed during the winter retreat.

“Thanks, or no thanks, to Hurricane Ian, that scope has grown,” City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn said.

Cape Coral City Council discussed a pair of design concepts for the Yacht Club Park rebuild Wednesday, with the concept above garnering consensus with some tweaks.

As a result of the retreat in January, the city moved forward with expanding the planned parking garage, shifting the harbor master building, and earmarking space for a second restaurant.

“We will come back to you after the hiatus to discuss the building itself — the ballroom and more of a convention center in order to include the programming from the senior center,” he said.

James Pankonin with Kimley-Horn and Associates took Council through two concepts, which were similar in design before the board overwhelming gave a nod of approval for the first concept.

This design features the community center in the center of the property, which is fairly similar to where it sits today, but with a different orientation to capture the sunset views. The building will range between 35,000 to 40,000 square feet, an increase from the now 21,000 square feet with no true front or back of the building. The concept includes adding the fountain as a site feature by the center.

Councilmember Bill Steinke said if they use the second concept roadway that veers off to the right leading into the park, the fountain could go somewhere in the entry as a focal point to provide a memorial of the original Yacht Club.

Cape Coral City Council also liked some of the elements of the second offered option.

“That would be pretty cool,” he said.

It was also discussed that a water feature could be added to the stormwater pond at the entry and keep the fountain by the center.

Most of on Council liked the second concept as far as how the road wraps around the retention pond at the entry.

Mayor John Gunter said this option would allow them to have larger trees and offer additional buffering between the community, houses and the parking garage.

This option also has a resort-style pool with layering amenities such as a play area, upper landscape, garden areas and pathways of different surfaces.

Pankonin said the resort-style pool is about 15,000 square feet compared to the 6,000-square-foot pool there today. There was also discussion of adding an area where visitors could swim laps, which Ilczyszyn said could be accommodated through programming of specific times.

There is also an additional restaurant option to the south of the parking garage.

Councilmember Dan Sheppard suggested having a smaller establishment that services people at the beach and pool with quick drinks and light things to eat.

“Not really a restaurant that we have now, more of walkup type of establishment,” he said.

Ilczyszyn said staff will look to see when programming the building if they can accommodate pool-side concessions and quick bites.

“We haven’t finalized programming in the building,” he said.

The concept includes dedicated slips adjacent to the pier for individuals to launch and recover their boats, which was a concern brought up from a few council members.

“We absolutely have a launch and recover facility plan next to the boat ramp,” Ilczyszyn said.

He said they are also changing the nature of the yacht basin with a program for much larger vessels with slips to accommodate boats from 60 feet to 24 feet or less. In addition, there is also a big open spot on the east of the boat ramp for a pump out facility.

The L-shaped parking garage is estimated to have about 500 parking spaces, an increase from 305 parking spaces in the original design.

Councilmember Keith Long said that parking is parking and, in a way, it sets the occupancy limit.

The amount of onsite parking gave much of the City Council angst, as they feared it would not be enough for what they anticipate will be a very popular destination once completed.

“One of the things we are really trying to do here is capture alternative modes of transportation,” Ilczyszyn said.

The concept includes expanding the entire seawall, which currently has parallel parking for 13 boats, to accommodate three times that number.

“We want people to come by boat. Enjoy the location, views, restaurant, and beach and go home by boat. We don’t want to over accommodate vehicles,” he said, adding that there are options to ride share, carpool and boat.

Council also questioned the size of the harbor master building, which Ilczyszyn explained would serve four purposes. The building will house the Cape Coral Police Department Marine Unit in a quarter of the space with workstations, meeting rooms, restrooms and communication networks. Another quarter of the building will be an uplands facility for the marina with washing and laundry facilities to support a higher level of standard. Another quarter of the building will feature a ship store to sell goods and the last will be utilized for the actual harbor master.

The historic ballroom and much of the other structure are awaiting demolition, giving the city a largely blank palette on which to build its new vision.

The Boathouse Restaurant, already refurbished and rebuilt after Hurricane Ian, will remain open through the process and will be part of the new park.

Ilczyszyn said they have some demolition plans that are being put together and are going out for bid.

They are bringing in heavy equipment in December to start preparing for the future of the park, he added.

“We have not stopped any original permitting for the replacement of the seawall, marina replacement, harbor master building. (We have) still been advancing that with Army Corps on there. We are hopeful we can get that permit issued and award that contract to get seawalls going. We think this is all laying out well.”