Dream Interrupted

The decade of the 1970s was like the Roaring ‘20s on Marco Island, with dramatic highs and lows. Modern Marco was experiencing the highest of highs after a lavish grand opening that attracted nearly 25,000 people to the island in 1965. As the ‘70s roared in, there was every reason to believe that happy days were here to stay.  

The five-story-high Marco River Bridge (now the Judge Jolley Bridge) was completed in 1969, providing easy access to the island by car for the first time. The fabulous $17 million, 400-room Marco Beach Hotel opened on Frank Mackle, Jr.’s wife’s birthday in 1971 and was touted as the finest hotel on the Gulf Coast. A-list celebrities were flocking to Marco to play in the annual Tony Lema Memorial golf tournament at the brand-new Marco Island Country Club - another Deltona showcase.  

Condominiums were springing up along Marco’s magnificent 3.5-mile crescent beach, selling out before they were even completed. Planeloads of northern prospects were flying in every week, being wined and dined in spectacular fashion and shown a lineup of 22 model homes constructed just to tantalize them. Eager buyers were delightfully signing on the dotted line for their slice of paradise, even though many were buying lots that were still mangrove wetlands.  

Yes, Deltona Corporation’s development plan was hitting on all cylinders as the 1970s roared in. What could possibly go wrong for Deltona’s amiable and capable president Frank Mackle, Jr. and his brothers, Robert and Elliott? 

Well, while Deltona was hitting a home run with their development plan, times were changing environmentally in Washington, D.C. It was actually the country’s burgeoning environmental movement that was able to bring Frank Mackle, Jr. - and the entire Deltona Corporation - to their knees. 

“In 1970, President Nixon approved the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Marv Needles, a prominent Marco realtor who started with Deltona in 1969. “The EPA said we ought to look at this because there’s a lot of environmentally sensitive areas in that general location of Southwest Florida.” 

The Environmental Protection Act of 1970 is a law that requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions. 

Deltona thought they had all of their ducks in a row environmentally at Marco. They promotedthemselves as an environmentally sensitive company. They were even lauded for their environmental efforts by the very agency that eventually brought them down. 

Deltona divided the island into five permit areas and had a plan laid out to systematically obtain dredge and fill permits. Permits would be obtained for each section as it was ready to be developed. Deltona was quickly turning Marco Island into the dream waterfront community with miles of canals that it is today. Using dredge and fill techniques, canals were created. The muck being dug out was used to form the lots. 

Deltona had completed the first permit area and was ready to start work on the second area when they learned that the tide had changed. Suddenly, Deltona’s dredge and fill plans, already approved at local, state, and national levels, were being brought into question. 

“It was pretty typical,” Needles said of the approval process. “A rubber stamp approval because the whole project had been approved as a complete development both by the state and Collier County as well as the Army Corps of Engineers. But because there were so few dredges available, they couldn't do it all at once. The permits were good for three years. So, each dredge would have to finish one area and then move on to another. They had to do it in segments. There were four dredges working at one time on the island. 

"But when it was time to do a request for dredge and fill permit in the Robert’s Bay,” Needles said, "the Army Corps of Engineers said we ought to look at this application because there's a lot of environmentally sensitive areas in that general location of Southwest Florida.” 

The Marco project became a lightning rod as 19 separate environmental organizations across the country, including the National Conservancy, the Sierra Club, and the Florida Audubon Society joined with the Collier County Conservancy and scientist Bernie Yokel to pull out all stops to stop Deltona from developing on environmentally sensitive land on Marco Island and nearby Rookery Bay, known then as the Collier-Read Tract. 

The original focus was to stop the development of the Collier-Read Tract. It was thought that Marco Island would be allowed to continue with their development plan.Needles said the real estate community was solidly behind the Mackles' and Deltona Corporation’s development plans. Needles, Marco’s Realtor of the Year in 1982 and 1986, had opened his Flagship Real Estate office on Marco in 1973. He ran Flagship Realty for over 40 years. 

"I was very supportive,” Needles said. “Everybody was supportive in our industry. They were given permission to go in and sell these properties. There were people who were intending to have a home in Florida, and they were going to build on their lot. It was like their retirement. Everybody just felt that the only fair thing to do was to let them finish Marco. It wasn’t felt that Marco was a problem, it was Rookery Bay they were trying to protect. We didn't know these people well, but we got to know them well enough to know that their intent was not to stop development of Marco Island. Their intent was to stop the development of Marco Shores, which specifically was Unit 24, which was north of Isles of Capri and south of Rookery Bay. That area of Unit 24 was contracted for sale, vacant lots, condos  or condo sites, as well as commercial sites. I believe at one time it was probably 70 percent sold and under contract for land contracts. The scuttlebutt from the environmentalists was they really didn't care about the development of Marco, because they knew they weren't going to win that battle. But they had a good chance of killing the Unit 24 project, which was adjacent or on Rookery Bay. Some of it was right on Rookery Bay and bordered Johnson Bay, which is north of Capri and on up to Rookery Bay.” 

The stage was set when two meetings were scheduled at the new Lely High School auditorium in 1975. Both sides, pro-development and pro-environment, were well prepared. 

“The Corps of Engineers decided to have a public hearing at Lely High School,” Needles said. "It was the only place big enough to accommodate the anticipated crowd. I think the Lely High School auditorium held 1,000. I remember seeing an estimate that about 1,400 people were in there, including those standing around and sitting in the aisles. If the fire department would have been part of it, they probably would have shut it down. It drew a lot of construction workers also because there were a lot of people involved who were going to lose their jobs if permits were denied.”