Nils Richter docked the boat. He climbed to the landing area on Lofton Island off downtown Fort Myers.
Crews over the past couple of weeks have cleared all the non-native trees and plants and three damaged royal palm trees.
Gone are hundreds of Australian pines. Visible instead: mulch from the downed trees and the few remaining palms and a strangle fig tree.
“Now, you can see the land,” Richter said. “Now, we can determine what we want to do with it. We want to make it an amenity for downtown.”
The island of more than three acres, visible and about 1,500 feet from downtown Fort Myers, a short boat ride just north of the new Luminary Hotel and Oxbow Restaurant, was formed in 1910 by work crews who had dredged to deepen the Caloosahatchee River at the city’s marina.