The Sanibel Lighthouse Beach and Fishing Pier parking lots will be temporarily closed from Monday, Jan. 22 to Friday, Jan. 26 for repairs to the island’s iconic lighthouse and ongoing beach renourishment work, the City of Sanibel announced. Work on these two projects is happening simultaneously to shorten the closure time of the parking lots.
Contractors this week will replace the temporary wooden support on the lighthouse with a permanent cast iron replica of the original support column. Repairs will also be made to the cast iron ladder and window stops. The lighthouse damage was from Hurricane Ian in September 2022.
Beach nourishment contractors are expected to complete work near the Tradewinds neighborhood (Reach 1) ahead of schedule and anticipate moving operations for the west end of the island to Lighthouse Beach (Reach 5) on Tuesday, Jan. 23.
The island’s shoreline lost an approximate total of 600,000 tons of sand from Ian, which left gullies as the storm water receded. This project will put about 410,000 tons of sand back into the system from Bowman’s Beach to the lighthouse. The remainder of the lost sand will be part of a separate state project on the north end of the island.
While the Lighthouse Beach and Fishing Pier parking lots are closed, the other five public beach parks will remain open this week – Algiers Beach (Gulfside), Blind Pass, Bowman’s Beach, Tarpon Bay Road and Trost Parking Lot, and Turner Beach.
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