Holmes Beach Mayor Rich Bohnenberger and Commission Chair Sandy Haas-Martens met with Sia Mollanazar, deputy director of Manatee County’s engineering services department, and Walter Sowa, Manatee County project manager, on the morning of March 2 to walk through plans for installing lighting at Kingfish Boat Ramp.
The plans and permits have been approved by the Florida Department of Transportation. They are to be cobra-style lights that shine down and are considered turtle friendly.
Plans call for 11 lights to be installed the beginning of April.
According to Haas-Martens, pictures supplied by Mollanazar and Sowa show that there were six lights at Kingfish prior to the boat ramp improvements made more than a year ago. The lights were removed in order to add new drainage pipes around the ramp.
Of the six original lights to be replaced, Haas-Martens said three will go on the water and three by the roadside in the same locations as before.
The five additional lights, she said, will be along the roadside.
“I think it will be OK,” said Haas-Martens. “I’m more comfortable with the plan having seen where the lights will be placed. When they reconfigured the parking area it was designed to park more vehicles. With the parking area extended toward the bridge, I see why the additional lights are being installed.”
The lights along the shore will only shine 8 to 10 feet out onto the water and those along the roadside will shine out to the middle of the road said Haas-Martens.
Ingrid McClellan, executive director of Keep Manatee Beautiful also attended the walk-through to determine how the lighting project might impact landscape plans.
Keep Manatee Beautiful has funds from a Florida Division of Forestry Grant for putting in shrubs at Kingfish Boat Ramp in April.
Holmes Beach also has grant funding to plant trees in coordination with Keep Manatee Beautiful. Turner Tree and Landscape was awarded the bid for the trees and Accent Trees and Nursery will provide the shrubbery.
The overall plan includes planting nine Jamaican Dogwood, three gumbo limbo trees, eight tamarind, five live oak, fourteen buttonwood, five dahoon holly, and 20 cabbage palms.
There will be a 6,000 square-foot flowerbed of a mixture of beach sunflower, Indian paintbrush and seaside heliotrope.
Wheel stop triangles near the road will be layered with grass.
Regarding the overall plans to light and beautify the boat ramp, Haas-Marten said, “It’ll look nice.”