Central Avenue Median Restoration

Central Ave Median Restoration Project

The Central Avenue medians within this project are between 6^th Street and Gulf Shore Boulevard in Old Naples.  The existing median vegetation has provided a beautiful streetscape for many, many years.  However, it has been damaged by storms and hurricanes, and much of the landscape vegetation has outgrown their planting space.  In addition, there are irrigation upgrades necessary that have contributed to the decline of mature plantings.  A major goal of the City of Naples’ Vision Plan is to preserve the City’s distinctive landscape character that makes Naples the green jewel of southwest Florida. 

The City has developed plans to restore the medians along Central Avenue with the design assistance of Kimley-Horn & Associates landscape architect team.  This project does involve the complete demolition of the existing landscaping and irrigation; that includes removing the 127 trees and palms, ground cover, irrigation, and about 6-12 inches of soil.  There are 2 large Royal Poinciana trees in the 300 block of the medians that remain and will have new landscaping installed within the understory. This project includes new ornamental shrubs, groundcovers, irrigation and adds to the canopy capacity by replanting new trees and palms.

This project is funded by Capital Improvement Project 23F23 and 23F24 for Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Department.  The city originally scheduled this project for Spring/Summer of 2023.  However, when the competitive bids were opened, the pricing was higher than the funding available.  Staff requested to “roll-over” the project and request for additional funding under the fiscal Year 2023-24 budget.  On June 17, 2024, The City Council approved a contract with VisualScapes, Inc. for the amount of $472,133.70 to complete the Central Avenue median landscape project. 

We anticipate the project will start in mid-July 2024 and will be completed within 90 days.  The contractor’s work should result in minimal disruption or impact to the neighborhood.  Should you have any questions or concerns please reach out to the Heather Shields at hshields@naplesgov.com.