Coast Guard Auxiliary 95 Ready for New Home

After years of planning, fundraising, overcoming obstacles and making-do, Marco Island’s United States Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 95 is now counting the days before moving into its new headquarters.

By this summer, the flotilla will be operating from a new, permanent structure being built about 100 feet from the time-worn, double-wide mobile home in Caxambas Park that’s been the organization’s base since 1999. 

At 3,000 square feet, the new facility doubles the current building’s size and it will offer enlarged classroom space, a dedicated office and a training room that will be available for public use with a reservation, communications technology improvements and other features enhancing the flotilla’s operations. Located near the park’s South Collier Boulevard entrance, the building is owned by Collier County, which will locate a park ranger’s office there. The auxiliary will have a 30-year lease with the county. 

“It is truly a shared-use building,” said Doug Johnson, a past flotilla commander and president of the nonprofit organization. “It’s a building for the community. But it will be the home of Flotilla 95.”

Work began last April and was originally slated to be completed near the start of 2022. That projection was scuttled by supply chain-related delays in securing materials caused by the pandemic. A late May finish is now expected.

The Coast Guard Auxiliary is the civilian, uniformed, volunteer partner of the U.S. Coast Guard that supports the service branch by promoting recreational boating safety and providing trained crews and facilities to enhance safety and security on America’s waterways, including search and rescue missions.

Founded in April of 1967, Auxiliary Flotilla 95 works with the Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard station, providing service in the Ten Thousand Islands. The group utilized a number of facilities before moving to its current home 23 years ago. Information isn’t available on where the organization based its operations and boating safety classes. 

However, in 1974, the flotilla constructed a station on Bald Eagle Drive, where Rose Marina is now located, that was only used for radio operations. Meetings were held at the Macro Island Yacht Club and in the Lake Drive building currently occupied by the IslaMarotta-The Lakeside Eatery. 

In 1979, the Collier County Commissioners leased the toll administration station on S.R. 951, at the foot of the S.S. Jolley Bridge, to the flotilla. The small, one-room building was so small that classes had to be held at Mackle Park and the Deltona Corp. administration building, located off San Marco Road, on the site of the recently demolished firehouse. 

“This was the be-all, end-all, because we’d have a station and we’d have a classroom,” Keith Wohltman, a past flotilla commander and the group’s historian. 

Johnson said the new building has its beginnings in the renewal of a second 10-year-long lease on the doublewide in 2009. 

“As we went through the process, we started working with Donna Fiala and Barry Williams, Director of the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation, to discuss whether there was a way we could have a more permanent home,” he explained. 

Those discussions led the auxiliary to hire an architect and have the Friends of the Auxiliary start raising funds. The organization also began considering a different location, because of the need to meet the building regulations of FEMA, which didn’t exist when the group moved into Caxambas Park location. 

“We found that if we were going to replace this building with a doublewide, which is what we had intended to do, it would have to be on 17-foot stilts at this location to meet flood elevation requirements. If we moved the building a little further, to where the new building is being constructed, we only had to be up on 10-foot stilts because it’s where the flood zone changes.”

Johnson said the county considered its options for about two years, a time period that saw the auxiliary solicit bids for a new double wide at the current location. 

“One bid came in so high that the county said, ‘There’s no way we can do that,’” explained Johnson. “So, we stopped and started all over again, looked at other sites and looked at maybe moving to Goodland instead of doing it here. We just went around and around for years and years. It was one thing after another. We thought we were staying, we thought we were going and then we had to delay it again.” 

The way forward became clear during a 2016 meeting with Dan Rodriguez, then the county’s Director of Facilities Management and now, the Deputy County Manager. 

“He made the decision, along with the county manager, that we’re not going to bring another double-wide in and put it at Caxambas Park,” said Johnson. “If we’re going to do this, it needs to be a brick-and-mortar building. It needs to be sturdy. It needs to be safe. So, they started a whole new process looking at how to accomplish that.” 

After some investigation, the county estimated the cost of the new building at about $1.6 million, far more than the Friends of the Auxiliary had been able to raise. Johnson said the county opted to use impact fees for the project, which required the building to be open for community use, rather than exclusive to the auxiliary. 

The new station’s technology will be state-of-the-art, with 75-inch flat-screen, smart TVs replacing the mounted video projectors and pull-down screens in the classroom, all-new radio room equipment and more powerful antennas on the building’s exterior. 

The additional range will enhance the auxiliary’s Rescue 21 abilities, said Walter Jaskiewicz, past commodore of Coast Guard Auxiliary District Seven, which encompasses Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Puerto Rico. Rescue 21 is the Coast Guard's advanced command, control and direction-finding communications system for search and rescue operations. It allows boats equipped with Rescue 21 equipment to transmit automated distress signals, vessel location and other information with the push of a button. 

“These improvements are for the community, but also so that we can provide better service to the Coast Guard,” added Jaskiewicz. 

Joe Riccio, the flotilla’s current commander, said with its location near Collier Boulevard the new station will heighten the auxiliary’s visibility in the community. 

“A lot of people don’t know that we’re here in Caxambas Park,” he said. “We run classes all the time and people will say, ‘Where are you located? Oh, I know where the park is, but I’ve never seen your building.’ So, the fact is it’s a new building, it’s brick and mortar, it’s going to have our logo on the outside, so people will see that and know it’s the Coast Guard Auxiliary.” 

Greater awareness should translate into more students taking boating safety classes, added Riccio. 

“Our main thing in the Coast Guard Auxiliary is safe boating, helping people learn to navigate the waters around here, along with our regular boating classes: what’s a day marker and what do the lights mean and general boating safety,” he explained. “The new building will make us a lot more visible so people will know we’re the safe boating icons on Marco Island.” 

United States Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 95 is located at Caxambas Park, 905 Collier Court. For more information, visit http://wow.uscgaux.info/content.php?unit=070-09-05 or call 239-394-5911. For emergencies, dial 911. Guests are welcome at the auxiliary’s meetings, which are held at 7:00 PM on the third Wednesday of every month at the Caxambas Park station.