Q: What is going into the new buildings just east of Aldi on Immokalee going toward the CVS?
Q: Would you happen to have any updates regarding when Tree Farm Plaza construction will be completed and tenants opening? – Alex Balan, Naples
A: Four restaurant chains and a cake shop will join seven other businesses coming this year to the new Tree Farm Plaza on the northwest corner of Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard in North Naples. The certificate of occupancy for the more than 25,000-square-foot retail center is expected to be issued this week, with the first tenants expected to open there this summer. Shortly after land clearing began for Tree Farm Plaza a year ago, the first five businesses to sign leases were reported here first. Another five businesses can be reported now.
Nothing Bundt Cakes, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Mattress Warehouse, Club Pilates and SweatHouz will join Chipotle Mexican Grill, Cava Mediterranean grill, Riko’s Pizza, Luxe Dry Bar and Encore Nail & Spa, said John Cheffy of Investment Properties Corp. of Naples, the center’s leasing agent.
Several of the interior buildouts have already begun for some of the units, said Dan Adams, executive vice president of Stevens Construction, the project manager for building the center.
See ATEN KNOWS, Page 7A
By Tim Aten tim.aten@naplespress.com
Not only has Chef Brian Roland physically and emotionally returned to public life in Southwest Florida after his life-altering tragedy three years ago, his spiritual presence is stronger than ever. A crushing nearfatal fall has strengthened his faith in a higher power.
“God gave me this second chance. He gave me this for a reason,” said Roland, who is still exploring what that reason may be.
“I think my strength [is] in Him and in believing now that God truly has blessed me and I have a lot more to give. When I say that now,
it triggers a lot in me now, in my gratefulness and in my experiences that I’ve endured. I want to make good from all that.” Roland, 45, is not yet ready to reveal exactly what that revival looks like, but he believes he could be a powerful speaker with a platform to help others who have experienced traumatic brain injuries, bladder surgeries, foot damage or major physical trauma.
‘The accident’
On the night of Dec. 4, 2021, Crave Culinaire by Chef Brian Roland catered the grand opening party at Ferrari of Naples. Roland and his
See ROLAND, Page 7A
By Harriet Howard Heithaus harriet.heithaus@naplespress.com
“Don’t always think on the good side, because you don’t know later on when something like this is going to happen. So you need to think about what’s gonna happen and about this stuff sometimes. Because it’s gonna happen.” – Xavier Barbuto, age 10, son of organ donor Jasmine Barbuto Young Xavier Barbuto’s good advice is born of personal experience. He has watched his father and his mother’s family through their decision to turn her death passage into one of life, thanks to the donation of her organs to patients registered with the University of Miami Life Alliance Agency. Three people will live because of that decision, one of them a youngster close to Xavier’s age.
Barbuto family members, along with NCH and UM-Life Alliance, are sharing Jasmine Barbuto’s story because they’re aware of the urgent need to have more people be open to organ donation. According to the Alliance, only three in 1,000 deaths are discovered in time — while the heart is still beating — for the person to become a donor.
See DONATION, Page 10A
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SWFL INSIDER
Services allow seniors to remain at home
Collier County will reimburse five senior care agencies for services that enable seniors to remain in their homes.
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously voted on April 22 to work with All Ways Caring Homecare; Personal Response Corp.; Health Force; Home Health Care Resources Corp.; and Always There Home Health Care Inc. The companies were vetted by a selection committee that ranked them in that order. All worked for the county during the past 20 years and have good work histories, according to an executive summary provided to commissioners.
Annual services provided to program participants cost about $1.9 million. The county Services for Seniors program allows seniors aged 60 and older to receive homemaking, personal care, respite, skilled nursing and emergencyalert response services. The goal is to help seniors live as independently as possible in their own homes or in the homes of relatives or caregivers. For 30 years, the program has provided support services through the Older Americans Act Community Care for the Elderly, Home Care for the Elderly and Alzheimer’s Disease Initiative programs.
The services are geared to prevent, decrease or delay “premature or inappropriate, expensive placement” in nursing homes or other institutions. The funds are reimbursed through agreements between the county and the Area Agency on Aging for Southwest Florida Inc. The county will reimburse each agency at a standard hourly or daily rate that varies for each service, and the one-year contracts can be renewed each year for five years. The county sought bids last July and a selection and ranking committee met in December to review proposals, qualifications and three references from each company about similar services they provided clients during the past five years. To apply for the program, call the Area Agency on Aging Help Line at 866.413.5337 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays or leave a message. Visit elderaffairs.org to view senior programs.
Naples-based company introduces solar-powered battery security camera
Naples-based Night Owl Security
Products introduced its solar-powered battery security camera. Featuring a built-in solar panel, Wi-Fi connectivity and 2K resolution, the camera is designed to extend battery life by harnessing solar energy, reducing the need for manual recharging. Batterypowered cameras often require frequent recharging, particularly in high-traffic
areas where increased activity depletes the battery more quickly. The Night Owl camera uses its built-in solar panel to help maintain battery charge, allowing users to keep optimal settings for motion detection without the worry of frequent recharging. Unlike cameras that rely solely on household Wi-Fi, Night Owl’s point-to-point Wi-Fi connection directly links cameras to recorders or hubs, company officials said, making it more secure and harder to intercept.
Help a Diabetic Child receives $15K grant
Naples-based Help a Diabetic Child was awarded a $15,000 grant from the United Way of Collier and the Keys. The nonprofit is dedicated to assisting underserved, uninsured and underinsured children and young adults who live with diabetes and struggle financially. This grant will benefit local children and young adults in securing necessary life-saving insulin, diabetes supplies and medical services.
Russell’s Barbecue event raises $10K for Grace Place for Children
PBS Contractors’ spring 2025
Russell’s Barbecue event, held April 4 at the company’s Naples headquarters, raised more than $10,000 for Grace Place for Children and Families. The Naplesbased nonprofit’s mission is to break the cycle of poverty through education.
Golf scramble to benefit
Golisano Children’s Museum
Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples will host its third annual golf scramble fundraiser May 10 to benefit the museum’s mission of providing an environment where children and their families play, learn and dream together. This year’s event at The Strand’s championship golf course in North Naples will begin with tournament check-in at 7:30 a.m. and an 8:30 a.m. shotgun start.
Ronald McDonald House Denim & Diamonds event set for Dec. 11
WINK News Chief Meteorologist Matt Devitt will emcee Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southwest Florida’s Denim & Diamonds fundraising event from 4 to 8 p.m. Dec. 11 at Ferrari of Naples. The evening will feature guests wearing their best denim and boots while shining in dazzling accessories. There will be live music, a barbecue feast from Seed to Table, top-shelf bourbon tastings and auctions. This event aims
to unite the community in support of the local organization’s mission to provide essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families and promote healing when children need health care.
North Naples office space sells for $1.4M DJS Park Central LLC purchased 2,954 square feet of office space at 5435 Park Central Court in North Naples from Vicent Prestige Properties LLC for $1.4 million. Rob Carroll, CCIM, MAI, of Investment Properties Corp. represented the seller, and David J. Stevens, CCIM, of Investment Properties Corp. represented the buyer.
Opera Naples Pirates of Penzance Summer Camp. Registration is open
This camp prepares participants to perform the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance in two weeks and enables them to sit in on workshops that teach vocal technique, acting, improv and prop construction. The camp is July 14-25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for ages 13-20 with performances July 25-27. The program costs $400. Scholarships are available. Auditions are May 10 by appointment for those who want a main role. All participants are accepted into the program and perform in the production regardless of experience or audition. To register, visit operanaples. org, call 239.963.9050 or email rfrank@ operanaples.org with any questions.
Skechers, US Open Pickleball Championships extend sponsorship agreement
The US Open Pickleball Championships extended its sponsorship agreement with Skechers, making it the official footwear sponsor of the 2025 and 2026 events in East Naples. This will be the fourth year that Skechers has been an official sponsor of the event. Taking place through May 3 at the USOP National Pickleball Center in East Naples Community Park, the US Open Pickleball Championships will feature the Sketchers Pro-Club, a lounge for the top professional pickleball players at the tournament. Fans and players visiting the Skechers expo booth in the sponsor village can try out and purchase a range of the brands’ on- and off-court footwear and apparel, including the next-generation high-performance style Viper Court Pro 2.0. Skechers also will outfit all U.S. Open volunteer captains with pairs of the latest Skechers footwear throughout the event. The 2025 event is expected to draw more than 50,000 spectators and more than 3,400 players from 40 countries.
Using native plants to restore beach dunes
By Therese McDevitt terry.mcdevitt@naplespress.com
Tiny, but mighty.
That’s an apt description for many of the species of native plants that start out small — when planted on beach dunes — but grow to provide a critical barrier protecting beaches from everyday erosion and from storm surge during hurricanes.
While beachgoers along the Paradise Coast may take those dunes and the plants that grow on them for granted, Naples Botanical Garden is hoping that tourists and residents alike will learn to value the importance of “nature’s shoreline barricades,” since beaches are a major economic driver for the region.
The Garden is part of a Collier County project to restore 13 miles of coastline with a million plants to help rebuild the dunes that have been decimated by major storms, including Irma, Ian, Idalia and Milton, over the past few years.
Since fall, more than 400,000 have already been planted, according to
the Garden, in hopes that the resilient native plants will help strengthen the dunes and help beaches — a primary attraction for the tourism industry that contributes more than $3 billion in economic impact in Collier County each year — rebound more quickly after storms.
Developing plant diversity
Working with researchers at The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University, conservationists at the Garden have been studying for several years how beach dunes dissipate wind and wave energy to help lessen the effects of storms on the coastline and communities.
Simultaneously, the Garden, with support from Collier Community Foundation, has been working with local plant nurseries to cultivate and grow native plants that can help make dunes more resilient.
Chad Washburn, vice president of conservation at the Garden, said the goal in using a diverse range of native plants is to restore an entire ecosystem that will help capture and retain sand, survive and rebound after storms and also provide habitat for wildlife.
8-story hotel plan revised after outcry
By Aisling Swift
A revised eight-story dual-brand luxury hotel received unanimous preliminary approval from the Naples Design Review Board after the developer removed a rooftop restaurant. It had been opposed by neighbors.
The 278-room hotel, on 4.45 acres at 870 Goodlette-Frank Road in The Commons Professional Park, already had received unanimous preliminary approval in January, when two nearby residents opposed it. But after meeting with the Lake Park Neighborhood Association and receiving emails of opposition, the project team removed the restaurant and sunset terrace.
DRB members, three of whom live in the nearby Lake Park community, said the restaurant and sunset terrace, which would have been open to the public, would have drawn business professionals from The Commons and residents citywide — and it’s far enough away from the neighborhood that noise wouldn’t be heard.
“I’m really, really disappointed that the sunset lounge is gone,” DRB member Chae duPont said. “It’s a big thing for the entire Commons to lose that because … we see with the future of The Commons, the direction it’s going in and there’s going to be a lot of residents back there that would love to just mosey on up to the hotel and have a drink and watch the sunset.
“You’re not going to be rolling out heavy metal music from that place. It’s going to be like a lounge.”
She pointed out the “incredible distance” between the lounge and homes. Plans show the hotel is located 225 feet from the property line, with a parking lot, a landscaped buffer and another five feet to six-lane Goodlette-Frank Road, and a linear park on the west side of Goodlette-Frank all buffering homes in Lake Park.
DRB member Doug Haughey, president of Lake Park Neighborhood Association, also supported the rooftop restaurant, noting that of 40-50 residents at their meeting, only eight were concerned about noise and lights coming off the roof. “I don’t think any-
A new day in orthopedic surgery: Hospital for Special Surgery at NCH opens May 5
By Therese McDevitt terry.mcdevitt@naplespress.com
For Naples Comprehensive Health, the May 5 opening of the Hospital for Special Surgery at NCH takes the health care system to “a different level,” according to CEO Paul Hiltz.
The 100,000-square-foot orthopedic facility on the campus of NCH North in Naples — complete with state-of-the-art Arthrex technology and design and staffed with top surgeons recruited from around the country — is a partnership with the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, the world’s leading
academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony and community open house on May 2 will officially open the hospital’s Patty and Jay Baker Pavilion, which includes the Kapnick Foundation Ambulatory Surgical Center.
Total cost for the new hospital is estimated at $140 million, according to NCH, with more than $40 million raised to date through philanthropic efforts.
“This is taking two really strong organizations and creating something brand-new for this region, and I believe we will become a destination for orthopedic surgeries and physical therapy,”
Hiltz said in an interview prior to the ceremony. “It’s a new day altogether: We have never, in Southwest Florida, really had a comprehensive orthopedic hospital like this.”
Hiltz said HSS at NCH is part of the system’s goal to make worldclass medical services available in Naples so that people who live here don’t have to travel for specialized surgery.
Justin Blohm, vice president of the NCH Musculoskeletal Center and Service Line, said during a preopening tour of the facility that HSS at NCH provides patients the
Chad Washburn, vice president of conservation at the Naples Botanical Garden, explains how specific plants can
restoration project. The Naples Botanical Garden collaborates on the dune restoration project with the governments of Collier County and the City of Naples. Photo by Liz Gorman
See HOTEL, Page 9A See PLANTS, Page 9A
NEAPOLITAN NEIGHBORS
Local man lives the island life
By Larissa Rodriguez
Many people wouldn’t associate “hospital” with “food.” But for Mark Flood, hospitals are where he can reach and serve people best.
Flood has been in the food industry for 40 years. He started as a general manager of a large restaurant but switched to healthcare in 1998 when he was searching for more balance in his life after his first child was born.
For 20 years, Flood worked as the director of Food and Nutrition for Physicians Regional Medical Center on Pine Ridge Road. As he was getting ready to retire, Physicians Regional offered him a way to stay — by manning his own coffee shop in its Urgent Care building that opened in October 2024.
“I really enjoy taking care of the patients, the doctors, the nurses, the employees, and I just love to greet them every day, put a smile on their face,” Flood said. “It gives me a lot of good vibes to take care of everybody.”
Those good vibes run his life and inspired the theming of his coffee shop called Mark’s Island Coffee, located at the hospital entrance.
“A lot of patients in and out, they fast before they come here. So, it’s a great spot for everyone to come and grab food after they’re done fasting,” Flood said. Flood loves everything island-related and Caribbean, so coming up with the theme wasn’t a problem.
“Bob Marley and the Caribbean and Jack Johnson, that’s what inspired all of our coffee shop names,” Flood said. “It just makes it kind of a fun vibe for customers, I think, too.”
Though it may seem like he had it all figured out, the creation and planning stages of Mark’s Island Coffee was a team effort.
“My daughter and I, she’s 18, we kind of took a couple of weekends and just did a lot of testing, and we came up with the names ourselves,” Flood said. “We scratched them all on a piece of paper and we kind of made it work.”
They blended the flavors and created those creative names such as “Jamaican me Carmel,” “Three Little Birds” and “Ya Mon Mocha” to tie the flavor profiles back to the island vibe. The flavor list
“It gives me a lot of good vibes to take care of everybody.”
—Mark
Flood, who operates a coffee shop in Physicians Regional’s Urgent
is all on display on hand-lettered signs written by Flood’s daughter.
The laid-back nature of the islands reflects Flood’s career change of pace from hurried restaurant work to the slower art of crafting coffee drinks. He can take time to sit back and enjoy the little things.
“It’s a little bit more relaxed, just a little bit more fun and a bit more just laid-back for me,” Flood said. “I got Jack Johnson and Bob Marley, some mellow music that people like playing — nothing crazy, just a nice vibe.”
Flood has a wide selection of treats and snacks besides coffee and cold drinks. He offers cookies, muffins, scones, juices, fruit and meals such as sandwiches, paninis and pizzas he bakes in a small oven.
“Huge selection, small space,” Flood said, describing it. “Got to have variety or else employees get bored.”
For Flood, nothing he does is ever about himself. He likes being able to engage with customers and staff and being a friendly face to everyone.
“My favorite part, honestly, is taking care of the people and having interaction with them every day and getting to know the staff and talking to them one on one, and greeting everyone every day,” he said.
Besides the island way of life, Flood lives by extending kindness to those he meets.
“Be kind or go home,” a sign on the door to his former office said. “All you can do is be nice.”
After six months of operation, Mark’s Island Coffee has seen success due to Flood. He plans to expand the menu to add a variety of smoothies. He also hopes to expand into another hospital in the future and eventually get a standalone shop.
If they say ‘Don’t call the cops,’ call the cops
“Hello I am the IRS you need to pay me $1500 in Walmart gift cards or you will be placed under the rest.” If you got a text message like that, your first reaction would probably be to laugh. It’s obviously a fake.
But for many people, a text message threatening them with arrest or stating that a warrant has been issued can be a startling and frightening experience. Given a tight deadline, usually just a few hours, and a demand for immediate money in different forms, they’re inclined to comply.
“Law enforcement doesn’t offer pay schemes,” said Lt. Bryan McGinn, spokesman for the City of Naples Police Department. “We’ll never ask for gold, cash or gift cards. There are crimes where warrants come out and they’re delivered in proper ways. We’ll never use Bitcoin or WhatsApp.”
Don’t Get Fooled
David Silverberg
McGinn has specific knowledge of this kind of scam because in March, Naples police arrested a courier who fleeced a couple for $2.3 million cash and gold over a period of time. (The Naples Press provided a detailed account in the April 4 article “Operation Fool’s Gold leads to Naples ‘courier’ arrest in nationwide gold bar scam,” by Aisling Swift.)
As is typical in this type of scheme, the 72-year-old victim was initially told there was a federal warrant for her arrest and she had to pay up to avoid it. Neither she nor her 87-year-old husband recognized it as a scam until they had paid vast sums out of their savings.
But this scam had something in common with other scams: The scammers told the victims not to call the police.
What makes this scam different from internet scams that try to steal personal information is that here the thieves are looking for actual cash or valuables. Therein lies its weakness, too — the currency, or in this case gold bars and coins — have to be physically transferred. This is done by a courier who is largely kept in the dark about the victims, the scheme and even where he’s headed with the valuables once he has them.
But this scam had something in common with other scams: The scammers told the victims not to call the police.
“That’s a warning sign,” McGinn
said. “It’s like when your sibling tells you: ‘Don’t tell Mom or Dad.’
If someone tells you not to call the police, it’s time to call the police.”
In this instance, Naples police were finally alerted and arrested the courier, Soyeb Sarfaraz Rana.
Theoretically, such an arrest would lead to the rolling up of the entire gang, but that’s not the case, according to Det. Timothy Dolan.
“These are multifaceted schemes,” he told The Naples Press. “There are layers between the couriers and the planners. The courier only receives a ZIP Code and as he gets closer to that, the handlers only give him numerics [geographic
coordinates].”
Indeed, in this instance the handler, an Indian national living illegally in the United States, was part of a gang operating scams in 10 states.
Courier scams are a growing problem Southwest Florida, agreed Sgt. Heather Nichols, head of the Economic Crimes Section of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office. Whatever the premise, whether the threat of a warrant or an unpaid toll, the scammers’ goal is always the same: Get you to part with what’s precious in exchange for either peace of mind or personal safety.
Call the cops. Don’t be fooled.
David Silverberg is a journalist who covered security issues as editor of the magazine Homeland Security Today before moving to Naples. He currently blogs at TheParadiseProgressive.com.
Photos by Larissa Rodriguez
Care building
Collier County seeks to boost the safety of cyclists, others
By Aisling Swift
Collier County has a new ordinance to address the proliferation of bicycles, electric bikes and “all devices” on sidewalks, crosswalks and intersections. It is designed to increase safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.
The Board of County Commissioners on April 22 unanimously voted to amend the county’s 2022 Pedestrian Safety Ordinance to include a new section. It affects the county’s unincorporated areas, which excludes the cities of Naples and Marco Island.
The changes, shepherded by Vice Chair Dan Kowal, who retired from the county sheriff’s office after 28 years, will help law enforcement legally deal with accidents.
“Right now, they’re kind of handcuffed because … there’s no language in the state statutes,” Kowal said, noting state law doesn’t distinguish a pedestrian from a bicyclist if they’re not on a roadway. “The state leaves it up to the counties because they don’t have jurisdiction over your sidewalks … We own the sidewalks, the shared paths, the parks.”
Florida Department of Transportation crash data show there were 259 bicycle crashes with five deaths countywide last year and 205 crashes involving pedestrians, 11 of them fatal.
and injuries involving pedestrians, vehicles, bicycles and e-bikes, Kowal wrote to commissioners in a memo. He noted e-bikers may not adhere to the same traffic laws and etiquette as traditional cyclists, such as right-of-way rules and signaling, and may weave through pedestrians and vehicles.
Collier County and its cities, through the Metropolitan Planning Organization, have been researching and working on updates to laws to increase safety. Concerns increased when 14-year-old Clayton Miller of North Naples was killed at the intersection of Lakeland Avenue and Madison Drive on March 15, when he rode his e-bike through a stop sign and was hit by an oncoming SUV.
Since the county’s ordinance was adopted, use of e-bikes on sidewalks and bike lanes has increased countywide, creating more opportunities for crashes
The amendments say:
• The operation of all devices on sidewalks shall not exceed 15 mph.
• Bicyclists and e-bikes on roadways must ride in the direction of traffic.
• Anyone under age 16 is prohibited from riding a Class 3 e-bike. (Class-3 e-bikes are pedal-assist bikes designed to reach up to 28 mph and usually don’t have a throttle, so the motor only engages if a rider is pedaling.)
• Anyone age 16 or above is prohibited from riding a Class-3 or above on sidewalks and pathways.
• Bicycle riding is allowed on public sidewalks, but anyone older than age 16 must ride an e-bike in bicycle lanes, when available.
• Adults operating an e-bike when accompanying children under age 16 may lawfully operate an e-bike on the sidewalk to supervise the children.
• Youth under age 16 are prohibited from riding Class-3 e-bikes on public roads, bicycle paths, shared roadways or pathways.
The amendments, which don’t apply to electric wheelchairs, were suggested by the MPO and the Sheriff’s Traffic Enforcement Unit, which worked with Kowal.
Deputy County Attorney Scott Teach noted the county’s amendments weren’t as restrictive as others and suggested commissioners add an amendment to establish a speed limit for bikes, which other counties and municipalities have done, and address all devices on sidewalks.
“We know we can’t regulate them on private property,” Teach said.
Two residents spoke out, urging commissioners to get the word out to educate everyone and possibly post speed limit signs and rules, as Sanibel did.
Commissioner Rick LoCastro noted that there are 10-year-olds operating Class 3 e-bikes, which reach 28 mph, on sidewalks on Marco Island; the amendments don’t apply to the city.
“Is the sheriff going to be out there with a speed gun? Of course not,” LoCastro said.
“So it’s more of guidance to citizens and that’s not bad. It’s better than what we’ve got up to now.”
Commissioner Bill McDaniel Jr. called it the beginning of a process for the community to address a new issue, adding: “Who would have thought five years ago that folks would be riding around at 30-plus miles an hour on our sidewalks and our streets without any kind of regulation?”
Kowal said there will be a warning period before bikers are cited and fined by law enforcement, and if more amendments are needed, commissioners can reconsider the ordinance to add more.
• Anyone operating an e-bike on a sidewalk or bicycle lane must stop when approaching a school bus displaying a stop signal and remain stopped until it’s withdrawn.
• Passing a school bus on the side where children enter and exit while the stop signal is displayed is a violation of the ordinance.
• Bicyclists traveling against traffic must come to a complete stop before entering an open intersection and must yield the right-of-way if a vehicle is already in the intersection.
• When a bicyclist reaches a signalized intersection, the rider must obey all pedestrian control signals and yield the right-of-way to vehicles already in the intersection.
• On shared pathways adjacent to roads, including those located in parks and recreational areas, all bicycles and e-bikes must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians, and when passing a pedestrian, the bicyclist must sound an audible signal to alert pedestrians before passing.
• Riding an e-bike with more than 750 watts of power on sidewalks, bicycle paths and shared roadways or pathways is prohibited.
Work set for vital Marco intersection
By Aisling Swift
Marco Island’s worst intersection will soon get $4.7 million in improvements.
City Council unanimously voted to award a construction contract to Fort Myers-based Coastal Site Development to improve the intersection at Barfield Drive and North Collier Boulevard, where southbound traffic frequently backs up to the north side of S.S. Jolley Bridge and northbound traffic experiences similar congestion extending to East Elkcam Circle during peak hours.
City Public Works Director Justin Martin estimated the work would take 10 months because it will be conducted in phases — underground and above — and at night, which caused the cost to double.
“This is the first traffic signal intersection encountered when you come in from Naples,” Martin, an engineer, told council. “It takes the brunt of the peak southbound morning traffic coming onto the island and the northbound afternoon traffic leaving the island.” He noted the controllers were manufactured in 2005, and are “more than eight generations behind” — making it difficult to find replacement parts or add safety features.
This year’s budget included funding for the additional intersection improvements, including turn-lane modifications, signal-control upgrades, pedestrian-crossing safety enhancements and replacement of traffic lights and mast arms.
It’s the city’s “most deficient intersection,” Martin said, noting it’s a significant concern for residents, school buses, delivery drivers and employees commuting onto the island. “Most importantly, it is a key route for emergency evacuations,” he told council.
The project will add much-needed, dedicated through-lanes each way on North Barfield on the other side of Collier Boulevard to eliminate shared left turn and throughlanes, which cause “considerable traffic backups” on Barfield. It also will extend north- and southbound turn lanes on Collier Boulevard.
See INTERSECTION, Page 14A
Collier agrees to assist state DOGE team
By Aisling Swift
Collier County has joined dozens of counties that support Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state Department of Governmental Efficiency task force.
The Board of County Commissioners on April 22 unanimously voted to support a resolution to buoy the Executive Office of the Governor’s DOGE team. The resolution, authored by Commissioner Chris Hall, appoints County Manager Amy Patterson or a designee as a liaison to assist the team.
Hall said he wanted to send the resolution to the governor’s office
“to let him know that we’re fully behind his efforts to eliminate any kind of wasteful government spending.
“And we actually have been doing this,” Hall said of making budget cuts and then hiring priority-based budgeting consultant ResourceX last year to trim the budget and find ways to make government more efficient. “We were doing DOGE when
DOGE wasn’t cool and we’re in our third year now … All the questions have to go to the county manager and you have to handle the whole load.”
That remark prompted Commissioner Bill McDaniel Jr. to ask to amend the motion, pointing out commissioners usually include a designee. He suggested Hall, who agreed to assist.
DeSantis created the state team to support Elon Musk’s DOGE.
President Trump appointed the Tesla CEO at the start of his second administration and Musk has led White House efforts to make cuts across federal government departments and agencies.
It was DeSantis who first called DOGE efforts “cool” on X, formerly Twitter.
“Florida was DOGE before DOGE was cool,” DeSantis tweeted on Feb. 24, when he issued an executive order creating the Executive Office of the Governor’s DOGE team. “Since I took office in 2019: Florida has eliminated dozens of unnecessary boards and lifted needless regula-
tions; We’ve saved billions for Floridians year after year, including $3.8 billion in last year’s budget; Florida has paid down 41% of state debt and increased our rainy day funds by over $9.4 billion.”
The executive order says the EOG DOGE team will operate during a one-year term to further eliminate waste within state government, save taxpayer money and ensure accountability statewide.
It will use a multi-pronged approach to “eliminating bureaucratic bloat” and modernizing state government to best serve residents, using AI and new technologies to identify waste and noncompliance, DeSantis said. The task force will look at spending within state agencies, universities and colleges and audit local government expenditures by utilizing publicly available county and municipal spending records to “expose bloat within local governance.”
Collier is the latest government to show its support.
Kevin Karnes, Lee County Clerk and Comptroller, created a new
position, Chief of Government Efficiency, and appointed his chief administrative officer, John Bodner. Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties also agreed to support the state DOGE team, with Manatee commissioners voting to create a DOGE team of residents with financial backgrounds, while Hillsborough commissioners’ vote creates a liaison committee of five registered local voters with the needed expertise, including accounting, finance, auditing, human resources and information technology.
Collier’s resolution says the Board of County Commissioners supports efforts to identify unnecessary spending, create efficiencies and save taxpayer dollars, and supports eliminating unnecessary programs, misaligned grants and redundant county contracts, including those that may be inconsistent with state regulations.
“The board desires to work in good faith with the EOG DOGE team to facilitate their mission and to conduct a comprehensive review of the
county’s budget and operations,” the resolution says. “Through this partnership, the board will grant the EOG DOGE team access to the necessary records and any physical premises to review documents and data, which may assist the county in identifying efficiencies.”
The board will recommend administrative or policy reforms to promote efficiency and maximize productivity within local government.
Through ResourceX, Collier has increased its public-private partnerships as a way of cutting spending, including at East Naples Community Park, where Pickle4 has agreed to pay $1 million to expand and improve pickleball facilities, and at Pelican Bay Community Park, where the Pelican Bay Foundation is spending $6 million to build 20 pickleball courts and make other park improvements.
The county regularly collaborates with ResourceX, which is scheduled to make its next efficiency and cost-cutting presentation in June during a county budget workshop.
Students engage in craft of debate
By Jean L. Amodea
The Corkscrew Middle School debate team made a mark at the Incubate Debate National Qualifier in Immokalee on April 5. Of the 13-member team, eight participated in the qualifier, with three securing spots in the upcoming Incubate Debate National Championships. Another student pre-qualified by winning a tournament. These four students will now compete for a national title May 30 to June 1 in Sarasota, challenging the best schoolaged debaters across the nation. Notably, Corkscrew Middle School is the sole middle school in South Florida to advance to the Nationals.
Incubate Debate is a national organization dedicated to encouraging students to learn about and participate in debate via regional tournaments and through in-classroom debate experiences at no cost to the students.
The four students headed to the Incubate Debate National Championship are Wilnise Cajoux, Ana Sofia Valero Mesa, Robin Cason and Joshua Scarle. The debate team’s advisor, Sofia Christodoulou, a homeschooled junior, has been a significant force behind the team’s success thanks to her commitment and dedication, along with her role as Incubate Debate’s Student Ambassador.
The well-spoken students voiced their opinions on debate topics such as whether the Trump administration has the right to oppose birthright citizenship for unauthorized
immigrants, whether the federal government should pursue mass deportations and whether the United States should leave NATO.
“The debate team has changed the students and given them opportunities without cost, and they can compete for college scholarships,” Peric said. “They become friends and challenge their minds on topics many adults do not understand. The students do their own research and participate in online coaching that encourages them to explore topics, learn how to ask questions and think critically.”
The students commit to some 20 hours of prep work and spend every
lunch period prepping with Peric, attend meetings after school in person once or twice a week, log in to online video meetings twice weekly and meet with Incubate Debate once a week as they get ready for the debate event.
“The kids are facing a future that will be exponentially tougher than anything we have experienced, and if we don’t teach them how to think and make their own sound decisions, there will be great suffering,” Peric reflected. “These are our future leaders, and the better we teach them critical and analytical thinking, the better they will be. Our principal, Rania Pierre-Peacock, has provided
immeasurable support and guidance toward this end, for which we are grateful.”
Sofia Christodoulou, homeschooled junior Christodoulou, showing maturity beyond her years, has assisted Peric in coaching the Corkscrew Middle School team. She said she has accumulated knowledge, understanding, time management and social and communication skills through debate. Two standout topics that have challenged her are NATO, and citizenship and immigration.
“I found that the U.S. does not donate but contributes money to NATO, and due to that contribution, we have a position in NATO whereby we can make decisions and influence other nations,” she said. “The topic
of immigration hits home as it is important for the well-being and safety of our nation.”
Robin Cason, grade eight Debate team member Robin Cason said she has learned more about the world and has become more aware of politics by conducting research rather than relying on news sources. She cites an improvement in focus, memory, work ethic, professionalism and logic as the benefits of participating in the debate team.
“I am more informed about history and found that knowledge of court cases and political terms are essential in forming solid arguments,” she said. “I can comprehend data analytically, which helps me learn more efficiently and think beyond the surface level.”
Cason offered a thoughtful response when asked about a prevailing topic in the news.
“Illegal and legal immigration issues in relation to the Trump administration are ready to boil over into national politics,” she said. “This debate has been raising tensions and distrust in the government since Trump took office for the second time and announced his plans. The controversy of undocumented immigrants and students on visas spreads far and wide, and any policy to change the situation — negatively or positively — would cause ripples throughout the country. As someone who does not align with any political party, I’m eager to see the outcome of this topic and which side earns more approval.”
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SCAN
Corkscrew Middle School Incubate Debate team members with their medals and coach: from left, Ana Sofia Valero Mesa, Wilnise Cajoux, Joshua Scarle, coach Myra Peric and Robin Cason. Photo courtesy Myra Peric
Junior Sofia Christodoulou is inducted as an Incubate Debate student ambassador at the recent Incubate Debate Qualifier Tournament in April in Immokalee.
Photo courtesy Sofia Christodoulou
From page 1A
team were high-fiving each other immediately after the successful event on the second floor of the luxury sports car dealership in North Naples. Moments later, the unthinkable happened at the car lift being used to transport the caterer’s food service equipment from one floor to the other.
“Once we got clearance from them that it was safe to move our stuff from the upstairs back downstairs at the end of the event, my team and I started to load and bring trips of items down,” Roland said. “On the last load, I had put everything in and they pressed the button on the outside for the door to come down and started the elevator — the lift — and I don’t remember from that point forward any detail other than waking up in the hospital.” Roland and his family refer to that fateful night as “the fall” or “the accident.” He sustained severe injuries, including brain trauma, broken bones and organ damage, when he plunged to the ground through a 22inch gap between the end of the car lift and the wall.
“I happened to fall through that gap and I hit my head on the motor that powers the lift and it bounced me underneath the platform, and the lift continued to come down and a couple thousand pounds crushed me,” Roland said.
He retains fleeting flashbacks from being in the ambulance during the trip to NCH hospital before being taken by MedFlight to Lee Memorial, but does not recall details other than paramedics asking him if he knew his name and age.
Court records and depositions show a series of alleged missteps and mistakes by numerous defendants led to the accident, but Roland will not share details about the civil litigation outcome or settlement.
“Unfortunately, by law, I’m not really allowed to,” he said. “Just that we
were able to come to an agreement. It wasn’t what either side wanted, but it’s over. What’s most important is that now I can focus on what the new normal is for me — you know, navigating through all the medical issues that I’m going to have short-term and long-term now, being the best possible father I can be for Remi and husband I can be for Nicole.”
The Rolands are relieved that the legal fight is finally over.
“The three-year, back-and-forth battle with them and insurance was grueling emotionally and physically,” Roland said. “What I can say is I’m just happy that I can find my life again after three and a half years and try to make the best of it now.”
Public return
In addition to physical issues, Roland suffered emotional trauma and depression during the first two years. Although it was emotionally overwhelming at first to recently reboot his public life, attend local events again
and increase participation with his catering team, the popular local chef is a people person who leads with a smile, so stepping out helps him heal and provides proof that he is healing.
After taking baby steps to reintroduce himself to public life, Roland was back in his element April 5 when he participated in a fundraising event for the Alliance for the Arts. It marked his return to hands-on food preparation in public.
“It was unbelievable. The event was so invigorating. It just filled my heart and filled my soul with everything that I feel like I’ve been missing for three-plus years now. I felt alive again,” Roland said. “Even though, after the fact, my body certainly hurt; my foot was throbbing for a couple of days. It was worth every bit of it. I needed that.”
Roland admits that it wasn’t easy getting back in the saddle, but he’s thrilled to finally be back.
“I was a hermit crab for three years because I wasn’t ready yet emotionally,” he said. “I
had a lot of insecurities from the aftermath effects of the accident and just reasons that I just didn’t feel comfortable yet coming out and seeing people as much again, especially in public. I started seeing friends again, but just not in public. So, that feeling was just amazing.”
The public reception has been tremendous. Roland receives physical and emotional hugs from people who stop him to rejoice that he is alive, share how great it is to see him and tell him that they prayed for him.
“This is the message that I get every day, everywhere I go,” he said. “It just makes me feel loved and warm inside. It’s just such a great, great feeling and, again, makes me feel super blessed that I’m still on this earth.”
Faith in future
Roland feels he has a lot more to give the world now because the accident affected his religious faith.
“I think it’s strengthened it a lot,” he said. “I was not a church-goer. I did not really think about religion. I felt blessed, but when you’re not super connected to God and you’re excited for the opportunities that are presented to you, the successes that you’ve had, you’re a grateful person and you feel blessed.”
Although Roland has always felt grateful for what he has and still does, the accident took that to a new level. He and his wife faithfully attend church weekly now.
“So I think now when it comes to what has happened to me, I’ve been able to witness God’s hands and strength and His ability to really save me and give me a second chance at life,” he said. “Now, the things that I’m grateful for have so much different meaning.”
Now, Roland feels he’s on a journey to help others.
“That’s where I think my true calling is going to be now,” he said. “I have always done that through food and I absolutely still want to do that through food because that is still a huge passion of mine. But I do think that there’s a greater purpose for me.”
Stevens also is handling the interior buildout of some of the units. The Fort Myers-based company already has Riko’s rustic-urban decor under construction and has some of the others, such as Mattress Warehouse and Club Pilates, under contract for buildout.
“It is a happening spot,” Adams said. “It’s a great location and it’s filling up fast.”
Tree Farm Plaza consists of two buildings. The largest inline strip at 8710 Addison Place Drive has 10 units; the second smaller building to its east has four units and an address of 15405 Collier Blvd.
Only two units — one in each building — haven’t been leased yet. That includes a 1,560-square-foot unit in the larger building and a highly visible 2,476-square-foot corner unit in the smaller building.
“The tenant mix is already incredible. We’re keeping a very high standard with what we’re doing,”
Cheffy said, noting that IPC has had a great deal of interest in the space but the local real estate firm is being selective to create the best retail mix.
All four restaurants landing in the center will have their own patio spaces for outdoor dining, ranging from 430 square feet at Chipotle to 1,000 square feet at Cava, plans show. The fast-casual Chipotle plans its fourth location and first drive-thru in Collier for its popular burritos and burrito bowls. While not a traditional drive-thru,
at which motorists place orders after arriving at the restaurant, the “Chipotlane” on the western end of the retail strip is intended for customers to pick up digital orders they placed on the company’s app or website.
Tree Farm Plaza will be the first Collier County location for Cava and Riko’s Pizza. Cava will be on the eastern end of the main retail strip, while Riko’s is taking the large center spot in that building.
Cava is a Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant chain owned by the
publicly traded Cava Group, which purchased the former Zoës Kitchen, a similar restaurant chain, in 2018. Cava has two locations in south Fort Myers, but this would be its first in the Naples area. Its health-driven menu features custom-made or chef-curated bowls and pita wraps. Promoted as “home of the hot oil pizza,” Riko’s is a small pizzeria chain founded as a family business in Stamford, Connecticut. The thincut pizzeria’s signature Hot Oil Pizza features a spicy homemade oil flavored with Serrano stinger peppers. Riko’s menu, which claims to have the best gluten-free pizza, also includes oven-baked wings, classic desserts and signature cocktails such as Riko’s Stinger Margarita, made with Riko’s stinger pepper-infused tequila, triple sec, simple syrup and fresh lime juice garnished with a lime slice and stinger pepper.
Tree Farm Plaza will be the second Collier location for Nothing Bundt Cakes, a bakery franchise known for its icing-adorned varieties of flavorful bundt cakes, per-
sonal-sized Bundlets and miniature Bundtinis, sold by the dozen. The center will host the sixth Collier location for Jersey Mike’s, a sandwich shop famous for its hot and cold subs. It will be on the northern end of the smaller building on the corner of Addison Place Drive and Collier Boulevard. Next to Jersey Mike’s in that building will be two wellness-centric businesses: Club Pilates, which offers Pilates classes ranging from beginner fundamentals to advanced challenges; and SweatHouz, a contrast therapy studio that features cold plunges, infrared saunas and vitamin C showers.
Rounding out the retail lineup will be Mattress Warehouse and two businesses with neighboring units in the larger building. Luxe Dry Bar and Encore Nail & Spa will be striving for good first impressions.
The “Tim Aten Knows” weekly column answers local questions from readers. Email Tim at tim. aten@naplespress.com.
Chef Brian Roland sits on a park bench April 23 in downtown Bonita Springs. Photo by Liz Gorman
Tree Farm Plaza is under construction near the northwest corner of Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard in North Naples. Photo by Tim Aten
Washburn, who called beach dunes “our first line of defense against hurricanes,” said that after Collier County invested in emergency berms and beach renourishment projects after Hurricane Ian, the Garden offered to be part of an effort to help maintain and restore other dunes.
“We kept saying, ‘Plants are so vital to holding that sand in place. We’ve [the County] invested a lot of money in that berm and we want to ensure that we can hold it in place,’” Washburn recalled.
He said the Garden and other community stakeholders worked together on a “recipe for beach dune restoration, for truly restoring the ecosystem” based on the data that had been collected over the years on the beach dunes and how dynamic they are.
“We put those protocols together and those were included in the county’s restoration plan, and that has been how we’ve moved forward with the restoration,” Washburn said. “This was really a great opportunity, this partnership between university [FGCU] research, the Garden’s applied research and the City of Naples and Collier County to work together to improve how we restore our beaches. We’re confident that this will help trap and hold sand in place and save money. By stabilizing sand, we should be able to lengthen the time between when we need to renourish our beaches, and help save funds.”
‘The power of plants’ When it comes to helping build and stabilize beach dunes, each plant has a different function, according to Jeannine Richards, assistant professor of restoration ecology at FGCU’s Water School.
“Some are really good for spreading out over the dune and holding sand in place and trapping sand, while some have really large
root structures that make them better at withstanding a storm surge event,” Richards said. “They all have their own benefits and structures.”
One function of dune plants during a surge event is to help reduce the force of wind and waves.
“As the wave passes over, if there’s an over-wash of the dune, that surge strength is diminished by having vegetation there; the plant structure is slowing down the water,” Richards said. “The other function is in the recovery and rebuilding after a storm event. Some of the plants are able to come back really successfully from their roots, even after being buried deeply in sand or completely killed
body was asking for the restaurant to go away,” Haughey added.
DRB Vice Chair Luke Fredrickson, who lives in Lake Park, called the complaints unfounded, saying it was unfortunate and a shame the community would lose the restaurant. And DRB Chair Steve Hruby, another Lake Park resident, said he was looking forward to bicycling to the lounge at night to enjoy a cocktail or two during sunsets.
“I agree it would have been nice to have that, but you have to respond to the will of the community and I respect the fact that you took the
above ground. They still have life left in their roots and can come back quickly after a storm and start performing some of those functions again.”
She said there has been a resurgent interest in “naturebased solutions,” such as the use of native plants to help restore and strengthen the coastline.
“Given the damage that we’ve sustained from some of the recent storm events, we realize something has to change, but we don’t really want to put in hard infrastructure like seawalls or other engineered solutions,” Richards said. “If we can do a lot of that work using the power of plants to help protect the dunes, it allows us to maintain the
effort and you went through the proper process of holding committee meetings,” Hruby said. “That’s what this is all about, to be able early on to expose these designs and be very transparent about it — and if there is concern, you roll up your sleeves and you sit down with people and work out a win-win situation.
“Not everybody gets everything they want, but everybody gets something.”
Architect Mark McLean, of MHK Architecture, said there would be music on the rooftop and added: “We felt it was a battle not worth fighting through this public approval process.”
McLean has said the hotel is working on the dual branding with Hilton and Marriott, but hasn’t settled on the brand.
Dual-brand hotels combine distinct brands
aesthetics of our beaches to a great extent.”
Public-private partnerships help cultivate and grow
Washburn said that while Garden staff collects seeds and cuttings of native plants in the wild — supported by a $325,000 grant from the Collier Community Foundation — there is not enough plant material to restore the dune ecosystems with native, locally collected plants from a wide range of plant diversity.
He said the Garden works with Rookery Bay Estuarine Research Reserve and several other partners to identify the important plants and collect small numbers of seeds or cuttings from them.
“We bring those back to an offsite facility and turn a hundred seedlings into tens of thousands of cuttings or seeds,” he said. “Then we
within one building, catering to a broader range of traveler needs and desires — such as business professionals or vacationing families — while sharing amenities and cutting costs.
The 252,612-square-foot hotel will sit atop two stories of parking, McLean said, with guest rooms, a lobby, hotel operations, fitness center and business center, with an outdoor courtyard restaurant — for guests only — on the third floor.
Hotel rooms will be distributed between the fourth through eighth floors, and there will be parking for 285 vehicles within the building and onsite.
“By removing the restaurant, it freed up a substantial amount of parking that we no longer have to do,” McLean said of a reduction
have a public-private partnership with the nurseries [including American Farms in Naples] where we provide cuttings or seeds, and they can grow the plants.”
‘One of the biggest issues’ Supporting the plant project is part of the Collier Community Foundation’s commitment to the environment, according to Eileen Connolly-Keesler, president and CEO. This effort was identified as one of the top three priorities in the community assessment conducted in 2022-23.
“That almost doubled [from the previous assessment] as far as the number of people who believe that the environment is one of the biggest issues that we have to work on here in Collier County,” Connolly-Keesler said. “A lot of it has to do with resilience and mitigation when these storms hit us, and this was a really unique project coming out of the Garden.
“It made a lot of sense for us to participate and to see if their concept could have an impact on coastal resilience, which obviously it has.”
Collier County contracted with Fort Myers-based EarthBalance on the dune plantings and on placing
“Please Keep Off Dunes” signs to protect the fragile ecosystems as they get established.
Beachgoers can help protect dunes
Those signs are designed to remind beachgoers how important it is to give the dunes a chance to recover and expand, Washburn said.
“It’s vital that the plants we’re planting are protected — they are not just there for beauty, they are there for function,” he said. “And if we have a lot of people walking on the plants, they don’t survive, and then we get erosion. So, not walking on the beach dune plants, not putting your beach chair on the beach dune plants, these are important in treating dunes like protected ecosystems.”
from 355 spaces.
The restaurant took up half the eighth floor, he said, and removing it provides more space for oversized units, combined units and penthouse suites with “really great views out to the Gulf.”
City staff noted removing the restaurant decreased parking demand, allowing parking that previously lined the western boundary abutting Goodlette-Frank Road to be removed and replaced with green space and buffers that will surround the hotel. Mature trees along Goodlette-Frank Road will remain untouched and will help shield noise. The site will be fully landscaped by landscape architect Christian Andrea, of Landscape Design Inc.
ABOVE: Signs remind beachgoers to stay off the dunes to help protect plants as they grow. Photo by Terry McDevitt
LEFT: A seashore dropseed plant, far left, and a sea purslane plant, left. The fast-growing plants are used in dune restoration projects along the Gulf coastline. Photos by Liz Gorman
In Florida alone, you could fill the seats of both the Paradise Coast Sports Complex stadium and Hayes Hall at Artis—Naples with the patients in need: 5,700 of them. With current odds, even if an equal number of people had signed up to be organ donors, only around 171 of those patients — not enough to fill the Hayes Hall stage — could receive help.
They knew, but many don’t Xavier and his sister, brother and dad knew this decision wasn’t hard.
“With her family and myself, we kind of made the decision that [if] that was an option, that was the option we were going to go with, because that’s what she would have wanted,” said Blaine Barbuto, Jasmine’s husband.
“Jasmine was the type of person that she honestly cared about taking care of everybody else more than she took care of herself.”
The privately employed, 41-yearold pediatric nurse flourished in a busy life. She loved family outings, riding her ATV and listening to edgy music such as genre-blending singer Post Malone. The Barbuto household was synchronized like a Swiss watch; Jasmine and Blaine traded off shuttling their children to jiu-jitsu classes and other after-school activities, all of them a healthy drive for a family living out in Golden Gate Estates. Blaine Barbuto is a Collier County sheriff’s deputy, and the two planned work schedules so someone was always home for the kids.
Blaine Barbuto conceded that he’s worried about how he can make those same extracurricular activities work now. He’s currently on leave because of her death, “but this summer, I don’t know,” he mused, not sure
how things will continue without his wife as hard-working partner.
Still, he is glad her death has benefited people in desperate need. Jasmine hasn’t been the only hero in this tragedy. Blaine Barbuto has become a knowledgeable advocate for open conversations around death:
“With this whole process, I’ve had so many people contact me, because these were not things that we had really talked about,” he said. “It has kind of opened our eyes to open
other people’s eyes to things, and we made them have these serious talks.”
Knowing, and respecting, wishes
Under a federal mandate, every hospital in the U.S. has a relationship with some nonprofit organ donor agency. Every patient who comes into NCH after there’s been a severe neurological event that is considered brain death — or, in some cases, even after cardiac death — receives a visit
from Life Alliance. Evie Triozzi, its manager of donor family services, has counselors on call for every hospital in the 8,600 square miles it serves.
“So if someone is called to Naples, or if someone is called to St. Lucie County, you would find we have a team of clinicians and family advocates, and we would send one of our colleagues to assess and see if this legacy was possible,” Triozzi said. If everyone, including NCH, agrees that the patient’s family is ready to have the conversation, they visit.
“Most of our conversations are with families who potentially have not even considered the opportunity, and that’s the most important thing. We believe that every family deserves the opportunity to know that this is possible before it’s too late,” Nicole Adams Scheckler, director of strategic operations, added.
“Unfortunately, in the state of Florida, as compared to the rest of the country, where 56% of the population is a registered donor … in Collier County, it’s down to 34%.”
She couldn’t isolate a particular reason but felt the COVID pandemic played a role. Now that people are making in-person visits for auto registration and driver’s licenses, where intent to donate organs is documented, those numbers are rising, she said.
It’s encouraging to them when a family of an unregistered person tells them, “He [or she] would have wanted to do this.” But that doesn’t always happen.
“If the family says, ‘Thank you so much for this information. We will not proceed at this point in time. Donation is not going to be for us,’ we continue to care for the family,” Scheckler emphasized. They offer aid in the process of finding a funeral home or locating spiritual help.
“It is not a quick conversation and, ‘Oh, I’m sorry you’re not interested.
OK, thank you. I’ll say my goodbyes.’ This is a time that we rally around our families in this space with our hospital partners.”
The hardest scenarios for them, the two said, are those in which the patient has signified in writing that he or she is a donor, but the family vetoes it. Those situations are why Life Alliance emphasizes the importance of not only making the decision but discussing it with your family.
Enough people have made those choices clear that NCH was able to help 13 people through organ donations in 2024 alone, said Chris Raphael, its administrative director of intensive care units.
A complex network
To get everything I wanted in this lifetime
I had to put my beliefs on the front line
In every song that I sing
It’s always been you and me
– From “You and Me,” by Yelawolf
The timestamp is three days from the moment Jasmine’s family found her collapsed on the floor in cardiac arrest to their final somber walk down the halls of NCH, serenaded by the ruminations of rocker Yelawolf. But within those days there was a fixed chain of events that always follow the decision that a patient will be a donor.
Scheckler can name them: “A CT of the chest, the abdomen and pelvis, depending on what we believe that this person has the possibility to donate. And the blood work is important, because you and I, if I wanted to give you a kidney … not only would you and I have to share the same blood type, but we also have to share the genetic memories of the viruses and diseases that our body has been exposed to. So, for example, you and
Blaine Barbuto with his children Eliana, Xavier and Dominic at home in Naples.
Xavier holds a wedding photo of his recently deceased mother. Photo by Liz Gorman
HEALTH
Anyone with lungs can get lung cancer
By Jean L. Amodea
Lung cancer is deadly, and every year, it is the leading cause of cancer death in men and women. It is a cancer that forms in lung tissues, usually in the cells that line the air passages. The types of lung cancer most often seen are small-cell lung cancer (most aggressive) and non-small cell lung cancer, which includes adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and large-cell carcinoma, as well as other less common sub-types.
According to lung cancer awareness advocate Nikki Audia, globally, lung cancer overshadows colorectal, prostate, ovarian and breast cancer as a cause of death. It also affects and kills more women than breast and ovarian combined every year — and, Audia said, there’s more: As many as 20% of non-smokers develop lung cancer.
“While a past smoking history is the leading risk factor, secondhand smoke; radon exposure found in the soil and homes; environmental factors like the asbestos that firefighters are exposed to and exposure to chemicals by military personnel; and genetic predisposition also contribute,” Audia said. “Lung cancer has the lowest survival rate among all major cancers because it is often diagnosed at a late stage when treatment options are limited. More than half of lung cancer cases are found after the disease has already spread, making early detection through screening critical.”
Finding lung cancer early
Increasing awareness and early detection through lung screenings can change outcomes and save lives. However, less than 30%
of people eligible (those ages 50-80 with a smoking history or a 20-pack-a-year smoking history) get screened.
“If lung cancer is caught in its early infancy — stage one or two — there is a survivor rate of up to 80%,” Audia said. “If not, the survival rate is usually less than 2% to 5%; catching it early is where you want to be. A unique thing about the lungs is that they don’t have nerve receptors, so people don’t know they have lung cancer until they are symptomatic. The small cells proliferate and metastasize or spread to other organs, and that’s when it’s too late.”
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF LUNG CANCER
• Cough
• Shortness of breath
• Chest pain
• Hoarse voice
• Coughing up blood
Swelling of the face, neck or arms
• Arm, shoulder or neck pain
Screening, testing and treatments
“The lung screen is similar to getting a chest scan or a mammogram,” Audia said. “A CT scan of the chest is taken with a low dose of radiation, as much as you get from the environment in six months. The scan takes about 10 seconds, and it provides a picture of everything in the thoracic cavity, including the heart, and it can pick up any suspicious nodular activity. Because small cell lung cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of lung cancer, it often requires multiple tests to diagnose and to determine its stage. Testing may include CT and PET scans, MRIs and bone scans, and procedures such as bronchoscopies may be ordered to obtain tissue samples. Treatment typically includes chemotherapy and radiation; immunotherapy is sometimes used.”
How to empower yourself
• If you smoke, visit lungscreen.health, an online resource to help smokers make decisions about getting a lung cancer screening.
• Seek help in finding a way to stop smoking with available resources, support and medicines. Audia said that because she has a family history of smokers, she gets a screening annually and recommends that others with a similar history should also get a screening.
• If you are a non-smoker and have cause to think you have been exposed to environmental chemicals or asbestos, get screened.
• If you have been exposed to secondhand smoke, even as a child in a home with smoking parents, get screened and get peace of mind.
Quit-smoking resources
Visit the North American Quitline Consortium at naquitline.org for more information. Call 800.QUIT.NOW or text QUITNOW to 333888 (message and data rates may apply)
The National Texting Portal: A system built in collaboration with the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health and the National Cancer Institute, it connects people who smoke with free state or national text messaging cessation services to help them quit (NCI’s SmokefreeTXT). The mobile text messaging services offer evidence-based support, plus encouragement, advice and tips for becoming smoke-free and healthier.
quitSTART App: This free smartphone app helps smokers quit, using tailored tips. It monitors progress and helps manage cravings. It is a product of smokefree.gov, a smoking cessation resource. Download from Google Play or the Apple Store.
Medications: Quit-smoking medications include nicotine replacement medicines (nicotine patch, lozenge, gum, oral inhaler and nasal spray) and pill medicines (varenicline and bupropion SR).
opportunity to receive all of their specialized orthopedic care in one location in their own community.
“This is a very unique facility, and we’re able to bring the expert level of surgical care that our surgeons have to where our community is, instead of people having to travel,” Blohm said. “It’s all right here, and the big differentiating factor is that everything is in this one building. Patients are not trying to figure out where to go for imaging or for rehab. Navigating health care is a challenge and we want to take that complication out and be truly a one-stop shop with your treatment plan, potentially your surgery, your recovery and your rehab all in this facility.”
Blohm said procedures available at the hospital include spine and interventional spine surgeries; foot and ankle surgeries; hip and knee arthroplasty; sports medicine surgery; non-operative sports medicine; physical medicine rehabilitation; and musculoskeletal injury care.
High-tech facilities and top-level talent
The first floor of the 100,000square-foot Baker Pavilion includes the 20,000-square-foot Kapnick Foundation Ambulatory Surgical Center, with five operating rooms.
The remaining 80,000 square feet includes clinic space, outpatient and inpatient rehabilitation, 15 private inpatient beds and five additional operating rooms on the second floor. The third floor contains imaging areas for MRIs, CT scans and two X-ray suites, with two additional rooms
for office-based procedures.
On a pre-opening tour of the hospital, Blohm pointed out special capabilities of the ambulatory surgical center, including the Arthrex-supported observation theater that looks into two operating rooms on either side for physician education purposes.
“We can also broadcast the cases that are going on in those operating rooms anywhere in the world,” Blohm said. “If one of our surgeons is presenting, they could be operating here in Naples and presenting in Germany.”
Other technology includes a minimally invasive spine robot and two joint replacement robots.
And while the high-tech bells and whistles are impressive, HSS at NCH Medical Director Dr. David Backstein said it is the surgeons that will make the real difference. Backstein was recruited to
Naples from the University of Toronto, where he led the division of orthopedics at Mount Sinai Hospital, and he said he has recruited a group of nine physicians from around the U.S. to add to two longtime Naples orthopedic specialists.
“We have these great tools to use when we implement our decisionmaking, but ultimately, you can have a great piece of equipment, but if you [the surgeon] are not making the right decisions or not using it properly, that doesn’t help anybody,” Backstein said. “The robot doesn’t do the surgery and doesn’t make the intraoperative decisions that are the difference between a good and bad outcome.”
Backstein said he and the medical staff are looking forward to working in “a real cutting-edge facility in a community that we hope will really benefit from it.”
He added, “There hasn’t been this sort of concentrated experience and skill in one facility to date in Naples, and we’re really looking forward to doing what we do best and providing a good service to the local community.”
Benefactors prioritize health care
Asked about the role that philanthropy played in the project, Hiltz said that it was “a group effort by this community” to bring HSS at NCH to fruition. That effort started with a $20 million fundraising challenge grant from philanthropists Patty and Jay Baker, and ground was broken for the project in November 2023.
The Bakers had high praise for HSS in New York after Jay Baker was a surgical patient there, and as a board member at NCH he set the wheels in motion that ultimately led to a partnership between the two institutions.
Asked why this project, out of the many projects they support, had special meaning, Jay Baker said it came down to prioritizing quality health care.
“We are involved in a lot of things, and I think each one is very important,” he said in an interview prior to the ribbon-cutting event. “But if you pick one thing, there is nothing more important than your health. And to have world-class orthopedics in our area, I think, is just a tremendous thing.
“I know what it was like when I arrived here in 2000 and what it’s like today, and it’s like two different worlds. And to be able to give to the people of Naples that kind of care I think is phenomenal. We have such great leadership in the hospital [NCH], and none of this is possible if we don’t have that kind of leadership.”
Patty Baker said she thinks the new hospital will keep seasonal residents from feeling that they need to travel for surgery.
“It will be a center for people to go to now, who normally would have gone back to where they lived for four or eight months of the year,” she said. “They can have the surgery, they can have the rehab here and not have to worry about commuting or being away from Naples — which they love, or they wouldn’t be here in the first place. So, convenience is one thing, and a state-of-the-art facility and incredible doctors and nursing staff.”
The first surgeries at HSS at NCH are scheduled for May 5.
Lung cancer awareness advocate Nikki Audia recommends a lung screening for non-smokers, as well as smokers. Photo courtesy Nikki Audia
Construction workers put finishing touches in a future lobby of the hospital. Photo by Liz Gorman
From page 3A HOSPITAL
David Backstein
By Tim Aten
Estia Greek restaurant launches in North Naples
tim.aten@naplespress.com
Two years in the making, Estia anticipated proving that it was worth the wait when the new Greek restaurant launched April 17 off Vanderbilt Beach Road in North Naples.
The restaurant debuted at the end of season after its construction experienced some surprises and delays during the past two years.
“We’re here now. All that water’s under the bridge,” said Estia co-owner Gus Pashalis, who is pleased with the final product.
“It’s one of our nicer restaurants, for sure. We wanted to really do something special for Naples. We’re here to stay.”
Pashalis strived to elevate traditional Greek and Mediterranean fare beyond a casual affair in a dinner venue providing a coastal escape and an undeniable wow factor.
“I don’t think there’s anyone doing exactly what we’re doing,” he said. “My goal is to create a full experience where you come in and you really feel being transported to another place.”
Pashalis, his wife and their two young children relocated to Naples from the Northeast, where their family’s Estia Group restaurant company includes three other Estia restaurants in the Philadelphia and south Jersey area, as well as two Pietro’s pizzerias and an Almyra modern Greek restaurant.
The family launched its first Florida restaurant in Galleria at Vanderbilt at 8990 Fontana Del Sol Way. Built in 2001, the 10,500-square-foot restaurant and full cocktail bar previously was home to Bokamper’s Sports Bar & Grill for more than a decade, but it launched as Sanibel Steakhouse before becoming The Keg Steakhouse & Bar in 2008 and Bokamper’s in 2011. It was necessary to gut the longtime restaurant space to create Estia.
“Everything is whitewashed. So just envision that you’ll be going on vacation on a Greek island and getting that whitewashed feeling.
It’s very airy,” Pashalis said. “The color palette here is unorthodox, not traditional to many other restaurants.”
Estia is an approachable,
I would both have to have had chicken pox or the mumps or mononucleosis, and those proteins are there as an imprint, and our bodies remember that.
“That way, if I give you a kidney, your body knows it’s very similar to yours. It doesn’t say, ‘What is this?”’ When the decision is made that certain organs are viable for transplants, a Life Alliance team looks for the best matches. The right patient could be across the street from the hospital. Or in Maine.
Those receiving patients must be tested for their conditions and their availability before surgery is an option. The surgeons heading the transplant teams that will recover these organs must make their way to NCH without delay; a number of them will be flown in privately. In the meantime, the donor patient must be
kept breathing on life support. The Barbutos’ daughter, Eliana, wanted someone with her mother at all times during that wait. Her father honored it. It is a pledge many families make, and it may be the hardest: keeping vigil over a loved one who will never return.
“It was like a recurring nightmare,” Blaine conceded. But Jasmine’s family and friends were able to bid her farewell, he added.
“Throughout the whole time, all the nurses, and all the doctors were very, very, very nice to our family. I mean, we had an ungodly amount of people there visiting.
“But they didn’t blink an eye at it, and they were happy to help us in any way, to any extent.”
He received a notification scheduling the morning all transplant surgeons would be at NCH for the surgery. There are any number of rituals before and around this day. For some families, a thumbprint from the deceased is offered that can be made into a piece of jewelry.
“Every family is different. There’s a lot that
is being done now that, you know, 20-30 years ago, you and I would not have been able to see all these wonderful things so easily accessible,” Scheckler said. Heartbeats, whether as audio tapes or visual strips, are important.
“Some people like to memorialize the specific heartbeat on themselves in the form of body art — tattoos of some kind. And what many people don’t know is that a heartbeat is like a snowflake,” she said. “That heartbeat that is placed on that strip from the hero themselves is not like any other.”
If the family chooses, they can write a short essay about their loved one. The surgical team reads it aloud before the surgery and observes a moment of silence to recall the life that is about to give life to others. At NCH, a special flag flies beneath its American flag for a week, observing the donor’s heroism.
Possibly the best-known ceremony is the walk of honor. Extended family and invited friends line the hallway as the donor is wheeled
upscale casual dining spot, not a high-end restaurant, Pashalis said.
“We’re not white tablecloths. We’re affordable. You could dine here two or three times a week,” he said.
Pashalis is a first-generation American from parents who immigrated from Greece to New York and then moved to Philadelphia. Some of the Greek recipes come from his mother and are used to create traditional dishes.
Popular menu items include Greek salad, charcoal-grilled octopus, lamb chops and whole grilled lavraki, also known as branzino and Mediterranean sea bass, Pashalis said. Estia Chips are a signature appetizer consisting of a stack of thinly sliced eggplant and zucchini served with tzatziki. Of course, Estia also has other traditional Greek dishes, such as baklava, dolmades, moussaka, saganaki, souvlaki and spanakopita.
“We want our guests to experience the warmth of Greek hospitality, along with the incredible flavors of the Mediterranean,” Pashalis said. The restaurant specializes in whole grilled fish procured from independent fishermen and flown in from the Mediterranean, Morocco, Tunisia and Portugal. Guests are invited to choose their seafood directly from an ice display in the dining room.
“Whole fish, simply grilled, is our forté,” Pashalis said. “We charcoal-grill each fish with our signature ladolemono [Greek lemon sauce], capers and oregano for a flavor-packed dish.”
Estia has 320 seats and a large outdoor space on a covered patio, adjacent to a water feature with a prominent fountain. The restaurant includes an open kitchen, a private dining room and décor that includes a fig tree, exotic stone and rustic urns shipped directly from Greece.
“We worked with an interior designer who creates homes in Greece to bring that authentic, coastal feeling right here to Naples,” Pashalis said.
The dinner-only restaurant is open 3-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 3-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. A disc jockey provides entertainment Friday and Saturday nights.
down to the elevator for surgery. NCH staff on the floor also rise and observe silence to honor them, Raphael said.
Occasionally, it is not so silent. Families can bring a play list on a recorder or cellphone for the walk, and Raphael has heard heavy metal and rock echo through the ICU halls: “Some like to go out loud and proud,” he said. More often the farewell melodies gravitate toward ballads such as Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.”
The family dog may even be part of the procession. That wasn’t the case for Jasmine Barbuto, however; there would not have been room. More than 30 friends and family — sheriff’s deputies, coworkers, friends from the Naples High graduate’s school years — lined the entire ICU hall as the stretcher carrying her moved slowly by.
They had come to pay their respects to a hero. For more information about organ donation and UM-Life Alliance, see laora.org
The owners of Estia wanted to create a Greek restaurant that transports diners to a coastal escape. Photo by Tim Aten
LEFT: Estia Greek restaurant launched April 17 off
Beach Road in North Naples.
Photo by Tim Aten
D’Peru Peruvian restaurant opens
By Tim Aten tim.aten@naplespress.com
D’Peru, a new family-owned fast-casual restaurant in East Naples, celebrates Peruvian-style roasted chicken.
D’Peru launched Good Friday, April 18, for an Easter weekend soft opening. The restaurant’s grand opening was Wednesday, April 23.
The centerpiece of D’Peru’s menu is its juicy Pollo a la Brasa rotisserie chicken, which is celebrated in Peru with its own holiday, Dia del Pollo a la Brasa. Roasted over hot coals, the national dish is loved for its tender meat and crispy skin. Before roasting, the chicken is marinated in flavorful seasonings such as Peruvian soy sauce, cumin and rosemary.
“It’s going to have a unique taste which we have not been able to find, in Naples here at least, because our ovens come from Peru,” said Dania Bedoya Puertas, who co-owns D’Peru with her husband, Bassam Bitar. The North Naples couple notes that Peruvian ovens are fueled by charcoal, for special flavor.
Bedoya is the creator of most of the recipes, especially the chicken. She studied culinary arts in Peru and her family owned a chicken store — or polleria — many years ago in the South American country.
“She was raised in that kind of business,” said Cellini Machiavello-Phillips, a longtime local chef assisting the local couple in launching D’Peru.
Machiavello-Phillips, who has a background preparing Peruvian and Italian cuisines for more than 30 years, will serve as general manager and a chef at D’Peru with Chef Bedoya and other experienced cooks joining them in the kitchen.
The restaurant name is a nod to Dania Bedoya, who originally wanted to name it De Peru, which means “from Peru.” One of her sisters suggested she name it D’Peru, with the
“If you’ve ever come onto the island in the morning during peak traffic, you see that there isn’t enough length of a left-turn lane turning from Collier Boulevard southbound onto North Barfield Drive,” he said.
In late 2022, after a survey of residents deemed minimizing traffic congestion a top priority, the city commissioned an Intelligent
Traffic System Study to evaluate traffic flow at the island’s 10 signalized intersections. In January, council saw a presentation on enhancements that were made and heard future recommendations.
Six signalized intersections along North Collier Boulevard from Barfield Drive to San Marco Road were coordinated, saving 1,200 vehicle hours and 2,200 gallons of fuel weekly, and a reduction of 118 seconds per vehicle driving onto the island between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., according to records.
Other improvements included replacing traffic lights and mast arms, increasing pedestrian walk times to meet Florida Department of Transportation standards, increasing the interval between a light turning red and another turning green and recalibrating the city’s 10 intersection traffic lights to optimize length and cycles.
Martin said nationwide studies show the pedestrian-crossing improvements will reduce traffic pedestrian fatalities by up to 40% because pedestrians are more visible to turning vehicles. The additional intersection improvements
D representing Dania.
Peruvian cuisine has grown in popularity for more than a decade in the Naples area. Its bold colors and flavors — with staples such as corn, potatoes and aji peppers — appeal to the meat-and-potatoes roots of transplanted Midwesterners.
“A lot of people are traveling to Peru, so they are finding out that the Peruvian cuisine is good,” Machiavello-Phillips said. “There are a few restaurants here where you can go in and try the authentic Peruvian cuisine. That’s the whole idea with us here at D’Peru; we want to have authentic Peruvian cuisine.”
The local restaurant has counter service featuring its rotisserie chicken whole, halved or quartered with a choice of sides.
“Our chicken in Peru mostly comes with fries and a Peruvian-style salad, but we also have other options,” he said. “We have fried yuca sticks and plantains. We have black beans, white rice and a Peruvian type of seasoned fried rice.”
The menu also includes Peruvian favorites such as ceviche, fried whole red snapper and lomo saltado, a Peruvian beef stir-fry.
“We want to invite everybody to try our chickens and the different dishes that we have,” Bedoya said. To create D’Peru, a vacant retail unit at 1233 Airport-Pulling Road was transformed into a new restaurant space in the center of Promenade Plaza on the southeast corner of Airport-Pulling and Estey Avenue. That’s the same retail strip that already is home to other eateries such as Rumba Cuban Cafe, Joe’s Diner, Papa John’s Pizza, Dragon Palace, Delicias Latina, Naples Ice Cream Shoppe and Mr. Beef.
D’Peru plans to eventually offer beer, especially Peruvian beers. It is open daily for lunch and dinner 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday.
include replacement of underground water and reclaimed water mains with valves, tie-ins, service connections, deflections and related restoration.
More than 200,000 vehicles drive onto the island weekly, and city officials said they’re committed to making investments to reduce congestion, modernize infrastructure and improve safety. In the next few years, improvements to other signalized intersections, including synchronization between intersections, will follow.
Lomo saltado, a Peruvian-style beef
By M. Melanie Pefinis
Finding the right home is no game. But a game often is the determining factor for many when moving to the Naples area. Pickleball has taken the country by storm and Naples is considered the Pickleball Capital of the World.
In fact, the ninth annual Minto US Open Pickleball Championships are being held through May 3 in Naples.
Because of this, Realtors frequently field questions from buyers that go beyond square footage, bedrooms and granite kitchens.
“I just got a call from a guy in New Jersey,” said Barry Waddell, Realtor with John R. Wood Properties and a professional pickleball player. “He said, ‘We need a place not only with several courts but with an established pickleball program. We are addicted.’ He has caught the bug and buying a residence without access to this sport was out of the question for him.”
Waddell knows the effect this sport has had on developers, builders and communities firsthand. The sport is so popular in Naples that existing communities are reconfiguring land to accommodate space for courts. New neighborhoods that are just breaking ground are designing their facilities with this sport in mind.
“That’s the trend,” Waddell said. “As a Realtor and a professional pickleball player, I see it.” And Waddell should know. He started playing the sport more than 16 years ago when most people thought a pickleball was a kind of gherkin.
“I actually wear three hats,” Waddell said. “I’m a Realtor, I teach pickleball clinics internationally and I operate Pro Court, a company that designs and builds courts for residential communities.” And more and more communities are embracing the sport.
The Sports and Fitness Industry Association estimates that
REAL ESTATE
Picking a home with pickleball in mind
pickleball grew more than 200% during the past three years. Nearly 20 million people played the sport last year.
So it’s no wonder that, in a state with year-round outdoor recreation, infrastructure investment is so necessary. The SFIA estimates hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to keep up with the current interest in pickleball.
“The interest just spiked during COVID,” Waddell said. “As an outdoor recreational activity, pickleball allowed for community interaction, appropriate distancing and the benefits of not being enclosed in a confined space. COVID absolutely made an impact. The gener-
al consensus is over these past five or six years it has just boomed.”
What this means for neighborhoods and communities is, if they can’t dink in the kitchen — an area of a pickleball court — prospective homeowners won’t consider buying the actual kitchen or any of the other rooms attached to it.
demands of residents. Complexes in the planning stage already earmark funds for this amenity, knowing it will keep them ahead of the game.
Pickleball gets a mention from sports columnist David Wasson, as well. Read it, Page 5B
Many communities are converting existing tennis courts into pickleball courts to meet the
“When people buy in communities down here, there is an expectation or want for there to be pickleball courts and enough of them,” said Kyle Roeser, professional pickleball and tennis instructor in Naples. His club, Audubon, is on top of this trend. It recently renovated seven of eight clay tennis courts and built five pickleball courts, adding to the two it already had.
Roeser agreed with Waddell that word on the street is that several
Avoid capital gains taxes with 1031 exchange
With each issue of The Naples Press that includes a real estate page, we will ask a real estate professional questions about issues of the day. For this edition, we spoke to Aprile Osborne of Call It Closed International Realty.
Q: Homeowners who sell a property for the first time are often unaware of the hefty hit they may face due to capital gains tax — currently 15-20% depending on income. Is there a way to avoid this federal tax burden?
Aprile Osborne
A: Absolutely. One popular (but little understood) real estate investment strategy is the 1031 exchange, named for that particular section of the IRS tax code.
In short, it allows you to defer capital gains tax on the sale of one investment property by reinvesting the proceeds into another investment property. With planning, investors can use the profit made from one sale by rolling it into the purchase of another investment property.
Q: How does it work?
A: Called a like-kind exchange, the transaction is limited to real estate in the U.S., excluding personal property. After the sale of one investment property, the “replacement” property must be identified within 45 days of the sale of the other property, and the purchase of the new property must
be completed within 180 days. You are then able to defer the payment of those capital gains taxes until the eventual sale of the replacement property
As a complex transaction, this real estate exchange should be done with the help of a Qualified Intermediary, also known as a QI, or exchange accommodator. This company ensures the proceeds of the sale of one property are kept in escrow to help fund the purchase of the replacement property. The QI also manages administrative services and necessary documentation to drive the process.
Q: Does this apply to a primary residence?
A: No. However, a different IRS exclusion (Section 121) for primary residences allows for up to $250,000 of sales profit to be excluded from capital gains taxes for single people, and $500,000 for married couples filing a joint return. In those cases, the property must have been owned as a primary residence for two consecutive years in the five years before the property is sold. And that five-year test period can be suspended for up to 10 years for those serving in the military, Foreign Service or intelligence community.
Aprile Osborne, co-founder and chief vision officer of Call It Closed International Realty, has been a licensed agent in Southwest Florida for 20 years. Naples-based Call It Closed currently operates in 21 states and overseas. For inquiries, contact Osborne at aprile@callitclosed.com or 239.220.8607.
SALES
clubs are converting former tennis courts into pickleball courts.
“Here at the community where I work, our tennis program and participation among members remains strong,” Roeser said. “Pickleball, though, continues to grow and attract new players, and our courts and program for pickleball are an important part of our sports program.”
For Realtors and homebuyers, it looks like the day of the dink is here to stay in Naples. Though attention might volley back and forth between pickleball and other sports, the baseline is that pickleball now plays an important role while choosing a community.
Week of April 21-25
11348 TTE LLC purchased 10.03
and seller.
LEASES
InStoreScreen
Week of April 7-11
Pickleball players in action. Photo courtesy Stephen J. Garthwaite
As an icon rises along the Vanderbilt Beach skyline, there will be a new address in Naples to surpass all others. With coastal residences of unrivaled space and finishes, 50,000 square feet of inspired amenities, and impeccable service by the first name in luxury, every moment of every day will be yours to enjoy at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Naples. With its topping off now complete, this marks a milestone moment in the creation of these extraordinary luxury residences. A rare opportunity reserved for the few, the time to select your residence is now.
Occupancy Early 2026
The best time to select one of these incomparable homes for yourself is now. 2355 Vanderbilt Beach Road Suite 106, Naples, Florida 34109 Phone 239-249-6260 The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Naples Pricing from $5.2 million. RCRNaples.com
FAMLET LIGHTS UP MARCO STAGE
, a new comedy by local author Alex Costello,
Ongoing events
Everglades exhibition
10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon-4 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 21 at The Baker Museum, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples. “Entangled in the Mangroves: Florida Everglades Through Installation” features the work of nine Florida-based artists who explore the critical importance of the Everglades through diverse media. $10, $5 students or full-time military with ID, $1 for SNAP benefits visitors. artisnaples.org or 239.252.2611
Those historic little homes
9 a.m.-4 p.m. TuesdaysSaturdays through June 7 at the Marco Island Historical Museum, 180 S. Heathwood Drive, Marco Island. Marco Island Historical Society presents “The Florida House,” a trip back in time to 1960s Marco Island. See the homes the Mackle Brothers envisioned as the latest and greatest Florida architecture for Marco. Free. colliermuseums.com
‘Eternally Curious’
9 a.m.-5 p.m. April 26-June 29 at Naples Botanical Garden, 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples. Tanya Trinkaus Glass displays her garden-centered artwork in an exhibition. The event is free for members and included with garden admission ($27 for non-members). naplesgarden.org or 239.643.7275
‘Miami to Marco’ Collaborative Exhibition of Latinx Artists
Various times May 5-July 1 at Marco Island Center for the Arts, 1010 Winterberry Drive, Marco Island. In La Petite Gallery, art from Thomas C. Keller will be displayed May 5-27 and art from Matt Fazio will be displayed through the month of June. There will be receptions at 5:30 p.m. May 13 and June 10. Free admission. marcoislandart.org
This weekend (May 2, 3, 4)
‘Lucia di Lammermoor’
7 p.m. May 2 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd, Naples. See Hot Ticket. $65-115. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
‘Sweet Charity’ last weekend
Various times through May 4 at Gulfshore Playhouse, 100 Goodlette-Frank Road, Naples. Hapless but unflappable Charity Hope Valentine desperately seeks love and a better life in 1960s New York City in this exuberant, groovy, hilarious musical comedy. Enjoy pure musical theatre delight in this classic that captures all the energy, humor and heartbreak of life in the Big Apple for an irrepressible optimist. $44-114. gulfshoreplayhouse.org
Beeline grand opening
6 p.m.-2 a.m. May 2 at Mercato, 9110 Strada Place, Naples. An exclusive first look at Naples’ new cocktail lounge. Sip on buzzworthy cocktails, enjoy live music and grab some complimentary swag. There will also be raffles, photo opportunities, giveaways and more. Free admission. experiencemercato.com
‘Famlet’
7 p.m. Fridays, 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays May 2-11 at the Arts Center Theatre, Marco Town Center, 1089 N. Collier Blvd.,
CALENDAR
SPRING COMMUNITY DAY
Noon-4 p.m. May 10 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples. The whole community is invited to experience a day of hands-on activities with art, music and other special activities including an “instrument petting zoo,” face painting, bilingual storytelling, Mother’s Day-themed activity, performance by Masquerade Dance Company and museum exhibitions. Free admission. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
Suite 432, Marco Island. Cross Shakespeare’s gridlocked hero with a dysfunctional American family and you get something a whole lot funnier than the Bard ever dreamed. By local author Alex Costello. marcoislandart.org or 239.784.1186
Rookery Bay Community Day
9 a.m.-3 p.m. May 3 at Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center, 300 Tower Road, Naples. Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve’s free day of coastal fun — Rookery Bay Community Day — includes kayak demos on the water, boat rides, art, kids’ crafts and activities, face painting, photo booths, food trucks, nature and wildlife exhibits, marine-life touch tank and an FGCU student art gallery exhibition. Free. rookerybay.org or 239.530.5959
Marco Island Center for the Arts Annual Golf Tournament Registration 7:30 a.m. and shotgun start 8:30 a.m. May 4 at Island Country Club, 500 Nassau Road, Marco Island. The golf tournament will support the center’s efforts to re-imagine and expand programming. The event will conclude with lunch and awards. $225 for a single golfer and $900 for a foursome. marcoislandart.org
Complexions Contemporary Ballet
7 p.m. May 4 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples. The dance company with Naples Philharmonic, Alvin Ho, conductor, dances by Complexions cofounder Dwight Roden to Ravel’s Bolero, Beethoven, Pärt and more. $65-$109. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
Next week (May 5-8)
Cinco De Mayo Celebration
2-9 p.m. May 5 at Mercato, 9110 Strada Place, Naples. A DJ, Mexican food and drinks will be
out to celebrate this annual event. At 9 p.m., the festivities will be moved inside Rocco’s Tacos. Free admission. experiencemercato.com
Dine & Discuss: Hidden Persuaders
6 p.m. May 6 at The Village Spot, 3150 Village Walk Circle, Naples. Tim Love discusses the impact of “hidden persuaders” such as Google, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and other social media apps when providing sources of information and perception of media with the Center for Critical Thinking. As former vice president for international marketing firm Omicron, Love has depth in marketing and advertising. Open to the public. $39.95, refunds only available up to 3 days before the event and eligible refunds are subject to a $4 service fee. centerforcriticalthinking.com
‘Wildlife and Wild Places in SWFL’ art reception
5:30-7 p.m. May 8 at the Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center, 300 Tower Road, Naples. Rookery Bay has partnered with art students at FGCU to display art projects and sculptures that reflect the wildlife of Southwest Florida. Free admission, reservation requested. rookerybay.org/events
STARability inaugural resource fair
4-6 p.m. May 8 at STARability, 720 Goodlette-Frank Road, Suite 400, Naples. The event will connect families and community to valuable education, resources, services and businesses in Collier and Lee counties to support those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Light refreshments served. Free. starability.org/ upcoming-events
DePue plays Barber
7:30 p.m. May 8 and 9 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd, Naples. Violinist Zachary DePue plays Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto with the Naples Philharmonic to end the 2024-25
“permanent jewelry” from Summie Jewelry and listening to live music. Free admission. experiencemercato.com
Red, White and Blue Party 5 p.m. May 9 at Treviso at the Colony poolside, 23750 Via Trevi Way, Suite 102, Estero. A barbeque buffet — catered by Mission BBQ — will be served. This benefits Gulfshore Opera Community Outreach Programs. There will be performances by emerging artists Aaron Santos and Ivan Demoraes and The GO Harmony Choir youth performs “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” $125. gulfshoreopera.org
A Taste of La Vie En Rose 12-2 p.m. May 9 at The French Brasserie Rustique, 365 5th Avenue S., Naples. Opera Naples invites soprano Laura León to perform for a luncheon to benefit Opera Naples Education and Productions. $110. operanaples.org or 239.963.9050
Spring Community Day 12 p.m. May 10 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples. See Featured event. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
Musical Mother’s Day Tribute
season. $15-79. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
Next weekend (May 9-11)
Bouquets & Bubbly for Mom Various times May 9-11 at Central Piazza in Mercato, 9110 Strada Place, Naples. Celebrate Mom by going to the Vintage Italian Piaggio Mobile Bar for complimentary Prosecco, Dottie Jean’s Flower truck for a complimentary bouquet, getting
3-4 p.m. recital, 4-5 p.m. festivities May 10 at Beverly Hall, United Church of Christ, 5200 Crayton Road, Naples. “Dream Team” teacher-student advanced duets performance of music for violin, piano, guitar and voice. From 4-5 p.m. Reception, mimosas, raffles for all women, arts and crafts for children with a professional art teacher. Reservations required at artsplanetnaples.org
Side-by-side concert
7p.m. May 11 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples. Youth orchestra and Naples Philharmonic musicians perform together. Naples Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Concerto will perform its prize-winning piece. $15-29. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
HOT TICKET
of
di Lammermoor on May 2. Photo by Liz Gorman
to
‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ 7 p.m. May 2 at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd, Naples. It’s Romeo and Juliet in the Scottish Highlands, with warring families, a forced marriage and murder. Gulfshore Opera with the Naples Philharmonic perform Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti’s famous opera set in the 17th century and exploring family rivalry, forbidden love and betrayal. $65-115. artisnaples.org or 239.597.1900
Community Day at Artis—Naples brings entire families to the museum to check out exhibitions at The Baker Museum, enjoy music, go on a scavenger hunt, play games or try a little face paint.
Photo by Darron Silva
Lucia (Susanne Burgess) and Edgardo are lovers from warring families, including a brother (Javier Arrey) determined to kill Edgardo, who is secretly betrothed
FOOD & FLAVOR
EMPANADAS ARE PERFECT POCKET REPAST
By Harriet Howard Heithaus harriet.heithaus@naplespress.com
Empanada Day was nearly a month ago and we are still scooping them up — by the mittful from places including Fernandez the Bull, where their junior size makes them perfect hors d’oeuvres, or in a lavish lunch-on-the-go size from Gigi’s Bakery.
In spring, the season of racing to and from kids’ sports and end-of-season parties in Naples, empanadas fill every need. Yes, even breakfast: You can walk away from Loco x Argentina Bakery with a puffy, rope-crimped pocket of eggs, potato, bacon and white cheddar. And don’t forget to pick up a cortadito, the sweet eye-opener that is a sugared blend of hot milk and espresso.
Empanadas have a broad Latin American history, absorbed from the Spanish who colonized the region. But their mastery has escaped Europe, beautifully refined by their countries’ own tastes:
In Argentina, Peru and Uruguay, they’re baked deep brown inside a pastry of wheat flour. Their flaky crust comes from an abundance of butter in the dough. There’s no limit on the types of fillings, and the empanada devotee can go into gridlock at an Argentinian bakery counter.
In Colombia, Mexico and Costa
Rica, a golden cornmeal flour pastry shell imparts extra crunch. These are fried, served with lime and a Colombian hot sauce, ají picante, to extend the kick or, in Costa Rica, on their own, often with a melty filling of salted cheese.
The Venezuelan version, with its blended shell of pre-cooked white corn meal and wheat flour and stuffed with nearly anything, is made irresistible by deep-frying.
Then there are the fillings. They come savory, from mushrooms to ropa vieja — seasoned shredded beef — or simply cheese or root veggies. Sweet empanadas star as handheld desserts stuffed with jams, custards, seasoned pumpkin and more.
It’s Naples’ good fortune to have inherited a number of these cuisines in its restaurants and bakeries. A taste test, willingly executed by The Naples Press staff and others, demonstrated just how different each can be. The tasters each brought one box to determine their own favorite approach.
For Gulfshore Business Senior Editor David Dorsey, it was the perfect match of filling to crust from Macanudo Mate’s Argentinian-style empanadas ($4.50 each), which range from the classic beef — ground and blended with onion, spices and chopped egg — to an American take: the sausage pizza empanada. There
were Cuban style with ham, pork, Swiss cheese and pickle, as well as one with diced chicken breast and spices, all wrapped into what Liz Gorman, our staff photographer, called the “cleanest, classic appearance.”
Beef is the traditional filling, but ’nada lovers have an array of choices even there. Do you want shredded beef, such as offered by Gigi’s Bakery, the favorite of intern Larissa Rodriguez? It was tender and moist without drippage in a barbecue sauce. Martin Fierro of Naples, on the other hand, sliced its beef into planks, paired with onion and cheese for its classic Argentinian empanada.
For Fernandez the Bull, the 3to 4-inch pockets ($15.95 for an eight-pastry order) were ground beef with the richness of a natural sweetener among its spices — we guessed that raisins, a favorite sweetener in the Cuban empanada, or brown sugar had been ground in with them.
At Loco x Argentina Bakery, there are two ground beef offerings: one with onions, peppers, eggs and olives; the other, the Arabe, blended in lemon, tomatoes and spices for a Middle Eastern flavor. (Argentinian purists can get sliced beef empanadas there, too. All flavors are $5.50.)
Latin Family Bakery’s ground beef empanada ($3.75) gets a Colombian crunch with that cornmeal crust.
CRUNCH TIME
Fernandez the Bull 3375 Pine Ridge Road, Naples, 239.653.9097; and 3250 Bonita Beach Road SW, No. 207, Bonita Springs, fernandezthebull. com or 239.676.7978
Gigi’s Bakery 7211 Vanderbilt Beach Road, Unit 6, Naples; on Meta (Facebook) at Gigi’s Bakery Naples, or 239.228.5238
Latin Family Bakery 5435 AirportPulling Road, Naples; latinfamilybakeryfla.com or 239.598.3244
Lapas Costa Rican Bistro 26251 S. Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs; lapascr. com or 239.221.7016
Loco x Argentina Bakery 3106 Tamiami Trail N., Naples, Florida; locoxargentinabakery.com or 239.302.0156
Macanudo Mate 5417 Airport-Pulling Road; macanudomate.com or 239.325.8173
Martin Fierro of Naples 13040 Livingston Road, Unit 11, Naples; martinfierroofnaples.com or 239.300.4777
Santa Fe Café 5555 Tamiami Trail N., Suite G13 inside Waterside Shops, Naples; santafenaples.com or 239.631.7450
Some of the most popular flavors among the empanada offerings go beyond beef; most empanada bakeries carried chicken and at least one vegetable-based empanada. Silva’s Bakery, which advertises its Venezuelan cuisine, creates a plump, generously stuffed chicken version for $3.75 with a mild flavor that really blooms with a dip into the accompanying creamy sauce. Those are even imprinted with the variety of protein inside, chicken or beef, and one of our reviewers raved about the croissant-type flakiness of the crust.
Santa Fe Café — as do a few others — has a ham-and cheese empanada ($7.50), and Martin Fierro tempts with a medium-spicy sausage variety at its standard empanada price of $5. Some of the unexpected stars among the empanada menus are the vegetarian ones. Martin Fierro had run out of the one we had planned to bring: its spinach-and-cheese, a finely chopped blend of the two satisfying enough for lunch with a side salad or soup. Santa Fe Café’s spinach empanada (six of any flavor for $30) is all business, the greenest of the veggie varieties with just a dusting of cheese into the filling, but amazingly tender. Loco x Argentina, operated by popular tango teaching couple Pabo and Alicia Rapun, has the specialty market cornered, however, with a white sauce-spinach open-face empanada, and a lentil empanada with onion, raisins, corn and sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes star in its vegan empanada, blended with apples, chickpeas and coconut milk.
We like the humita, Loco x Argentina’s empanada stuffed with corn, onions, mozzarella and red peppers. But Gulfshore Business Editor-inChief Heidi Rambo Centrella couldn’t resist bringing in the most exotic one: a blue cheese empanada studded with celery, walnuts and mozzarella. Farewell, diet.
There are more varieties to be found in fortunate Naples. One can start at Collier Boulevard and U.S. 41 and deliciously eat their way north — with a slight detour to Third Avenue South on Saturdays for its farmers’ market bakery stands — clear to Lapas Costa Rican restaurant (three for $14.95) in Bonita Springs.
We’ll be right ahead of you.
Empanadas from Cuban restaurant Fernandez the Bull and Argentinian restaurant Martin Fierro.
Photo illustration Empanada photos by Liz Gorman
An assortment of empanadas from Macanudo Mate, an Argentinian restaurant in Naples. Photo by Liz Gorman
BACK ON TRACK
FC Naples nips Charleston to end skid
By Randy Kambic
Topping a high-quality opponent at home to reverse a two-game losing streak — while debuting in a prestigious tournament — was one positive takeaway from FC Naples’ return to action Saturday. Another was the evolving chemistry between players of the new team that portends well for the rest of the season.
Seventeen minutes in, a well-executed give-and-go midfield pass sequence with teammate Julian Cisneros sent Jayden Onen dribbling down the right side unmolested into the Charleston Battery’s goal area. After drawing the undivided attention of goalkeeper Luis Zamudio, Onen deftly passed to striker Karsen Henderlong, who feasted on a virtually open net for the only goal in FC Naples’ 1-0 victory in the first round of the USL Jägermeister Cup at the Paradise Coast Sports Complex.
There were many other interactions among Henderlong, Onen and Andrés Ferrin in the remainder of the first half that nearly added to the lead. The teamwork displayed in creating those near-misses is still a solid framework to build on.
“We had some good chances in the first half that we didn’t quite finish, which made things a little tougher than they needed to be,” said Matt Poland, FC Naples’ head coach. “But scoring the goal and keeping a shutout at home was exactly the way we wanted to get back on track.”
“The more we train and play together, the more we know what he needs [to score],” said Onen of Henderlong afterward. “He’s a great striker.”
It was Henderlong’s eighth goal of the season. He nearly notched another in the 28th minute, but Zamudio made a leaping save of his header after a crossing pass from Ferrin. A few minutes later, Ferrin intercepted a pass at the top of the goal area, but his right-foot
shot from a tough angle strayed just wide.
Right before halftime, Ferrin’s right-footed blast from short range — after a pass from Henderlong — was batted away.
Charleston pressed hard throughout the second half to try to at least tie the score, but a stout back line and goalkeeper Edward “Lalo” Delgado were up to the task. One of his most difficult saves came off a right-foot blast from Charleston’s Aaron Molloy in the 74th minute.
FC Naples entered the game with a 6-2-2 overall record, 4-1-2 in USL League One play. League standings are based on points, and FC Naples was in first place at press time. The Charleston Battery, the oldest continuously operating pro soccer club in the U.S. and reigning USL Championship winners, went into the match with a 4-2-0 league record.
FC Naples defender Max Glasser said the team went into the match undeterred from losing its previous two games.
“We’re a young team. As the season progresses, we’ll keep improving,” he said, adding that watching game films and going over tactics helped in game preparation.
The USL Jägermeister Cup involves 38 teams from both the Championship and League One divisions. In a World Cup-like format, squads play four rounds and then the knockout elimination round ensues.
“They’re getting more and more comfortable playing with each other. It was a total team win,” Poland said.
Games always showcase many special moments of soccer skills that aren’t reflected in the stat sheet. With less than one minute remaining in the first half, Ferrin wowed the crowd of 4,172 faithful with a successful no-look backfoot pass to a teammate and then a sliding tackle to thwart a Charleston advance.
After a road trip consisting of three away games, FC Naples will return home to face 2024 USL League One champions Union Omaha at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 26.
Random thoughts from a scattered mind …
Seeing a world No. 1 tennis player such as Andre Agassi grace East Naples Community Park with his unique personality wasn’t something I had on my 2025 bingo card, but there was the formerly flamboyant Agassi mixing it up amid the masses at the ninth annual Minto US Open Pickleball Championships.
Agassi teamed with world No. 1 pickleball female Anna Leigh Waters starting earlier this week in the pro mixed doubles — his professional pickleball debut. The flowing locks are long gone, of course, replaced by a glowing dome. But the 54-year-old Agassi showed flashes of genuine pickleball prominence, and he also lent a healthy dose of star power to an overflowing player field that included more than 3,500 players representing 50 states and 40 foreign countries.
As anyone who watched some of the 2024 US Open knows, Waters is already a star even as she is only 18. And the Agassi-Waters dynamic was a cool one to witness. Here’s to hoping we see more of that
cross-celebrity greatness in the years to come at East Naples Community Park.
We make a lot of hubbub , and deservedly so, about FC Naples here in The Naples Press . The start to its inaugural season in USL League One has been fantastic, as has the community embracing FC Naples to the tune of near-sellout crowds every home match so far at Paradise Coast Sports Complex.
Head coach and sporting director Matt Poland’s squad got off to such a fast start that he earned USL League One Coach of the Month honors in March, and Carsen Henderlong was named USL League One Player of the Month at the same time.
And while FC Naples endured a
tough week — absorbing a penalty-kick loss to the established USL Championship league squad Tampa Bay Rowdies and then its first USL League One setback to One Knoxville — the future is extraordinarily bright for Collier County’s newborn team.
Two of the main reasons why are the sublime talent of winger Andres Ferrin, whom Poland pointed out can beat defenders in a maddening variety of ways, and the physical presence of defender Jake Dengler, who doesn’t mind leaning his 6-foot-5 frame into the fray defensively in addition to being an underrated set piece component on offense.
High school football spring practices began last week across Collier County, which also meant the predicted exodus from First Baptist Academy is manifesting itself.
In the wake of the shocking departure of coach Billy Sparacio,
several high-profile Lions have already latched onto new programs — including Sparacio’s son, Sam, who transferred to Naples High alongside teammate Andres DiGrigoli. Unknown at this point will be the 2025 competition homes of Jayden Petit, Brady Quinn and Micah Fils-Aime.
One thing is for (almost) certain: Without the former coach at the helm, all the layers of growth and excellence the Lions enjoyed over the last decade and change went straight down the drain with the Sparacio-FBA divorce … There are a handful of new head coaches in Collier County, as Barron Collier hired alum Brannon Tidwell, St. John Neumann tapped former Super Bowl champ Chris Maragos, Jonah Dubinski latched on at Community School of Naples and Nick Bigica returned to Golden Gate after a season on the sidelines. And then there is FBA, which has still not announced a successor to Sparacio …
The Florida Everblades are showing precisely no signs of letting up one inch in their quest to win a fourth consecutive ECHL Kelly Cup — though they did something in their first-round playoff series that quite possibly has never been done before in professional hockey.
The Everblades downed the Jacksonville Icemen in four consecutive overtime games to advance, a wildly improbable game-by-game outcome that resulted in a fairly predictable overall outcome; the Blades have eliminated the Icemen in the 2022, 2023, 2024 and now 2025 ECHL playoffs.
With the series sweep, Coach Brad Ralph’s Everblades earned some well-deserved time off before their next-round opponent — either the South Carolina Stingrays or the Orlando Solar Bears — is determined.
Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson airs weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on Southwest Florida’s Fox Sports Radio (105.9 FM in Collier County) and streaming on FoxSportsFM.com.
Speaking of Sports David Wasson
Forward Karsen Henderlong and midfielders Kevin O’Connor and Luka Prpa engage in a group hug Saturday after Henderlong’s goal during FC Naples’ 1-0 win over the Charleston Battery. Photo courtesy FC Naples
COMICS & PUZZLES
1. TELEVISION: Which actor was nominated for an Emmy for the same character on three different sitcoms?
2. MOVIES: Who was the first actor to refuse an Oscar award for Best Actor?
3. GEOGRAPHY: Which modern city is in the shadow of the active volcano Mount Vesuvius?
4. FOOD & DRINK: What gas is used to create seltzer water?
5. SCIENCE: What is the center of an atom called?
6. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Who are the six men who have made a career Grand Slam in pro golf?
7. ANATOMY: What is the largest artery in the body?
8. LITERATURE: For which category is the O. Henry Award given?
9. ASTRONOMY: Which star system is nearest to our solar system?
