New property on the Imperial River

ALDABRAMAN

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~ We get many questions about our potential new location for ALDABRAMAN. For several years i have been scouting and searching for possible property on a river. My brother in law was on a routine jog near his residence located in Bonita Springs Florida (Lee County) USA, when he noticed a for sale sign poorly placed on a private overgrown dead end road. He texted me and we immediately drove over and checked things out. It was a tremendous mess, overgrown and had had tons of debris on it. After a little research, the property was very unique in many ways. Some of the things that i felt were positive was that is was about 3.5 acres and was zoned agriculture in the middle of the city limits that was on a gulf access healthy river system. After several property walks and further gathering of information, i learned that the property had a house, barn and several other small sheds, etc. that was condemn by the city and forced the previous owner to demolish several years ago. The property had two wells, city water and city sewer already on site. The mature trees were simply Phenomenal. Part of the property included a small island, boat dock and boat slip. I started researching other properties to get a market analysis, which proved to be impossible. There simply was nothing within years that was available or sold with that much land and assets. There were concerns, the most serious was all the offsets and setbacks. After much due diligence, consideration and thought, i decided to make an offer. After several days of "BS" and tough negotiations we had a deal. In November we successfully closed on the property and i started clearing a path to the rear of the property and mowing what was possible. The project had begun!

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ALDABRAMAN

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~ My next objective was to put in a gate and repair all the damaged old fencing.

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ALDABRAMAN

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~ I then started calling and figuring out how to get all the old utilities removed. The poles and lines were just in horrible shape and condition. The power was still activated on the lines and just dangling from the last pole. What a night mare this entire process was, incredibly frustrating. After three months of coordinating with the cable company, telephone company and power company all the old utilities and poles were successfully removed.

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ALDABRAMAN

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~ Basically then we just cleaned, trimmed and took down all the over grown grass, brush, vines, exotics, take all the stumps out and had it hauled away. There was an extensive amount of asphalt, concrete, trash, etc. that was either dumped or just left behind from the demolition company. After about a year the property was in good overall shape and well cleaned up.

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ALDABRAMAN

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~ Then Hurricane Irma (Cat 4) devistated SW Florida. Trees were severely damaged, water was high, and just a tremendous amount of damage. We spent weeks cleaning, cutting and hauling everything away that we could do. We hired a tree contractor to do the rest.

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ALDABRAMAN

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Ive heard nothing good comes easy..

~ So true. I had hired a crew to remove a few dead trees that were leaning from the river bank over into the river. The crew was a mess, long story short they dropped a chain saw into the river and simply left it there. It was deep at that bend, however they made no attempt to recover it at all. So the next day we decided to try and recover it. On the third dive the chain saw was located and removed from the river. I truly thought it was ruined. I took it into the dealership and asked the to check it out and see if it was repairable. A new air filter, fluid change and $34.17 it worked like new. Since this event i have went thru two new chains and it always fires up and runs strong.

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ALDABRAMAN

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~ Been working on removing the old dock, it was in terrible condition. Mostly rotten and decayed beyond repair. The hardest part is getting the support poles out of the ground, how on earth they got them so deep is beyond me. I was able to get all totally out other than a few that are in the deeper water. I might have to wait until after the rainy season and the tide is extremely low. I will eventually get them all totally out, the new dock and that entire marshy area is going to be totally and drastically different. I am not sure how old this dock is or what year it was originally built, however talking with long time neighbors it is very old. One of my big concerns with leaving it was simply safety and liability. This area seems to attract many trespassers and gawkers.

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