Bonita Beach Is Down to One Parking Lot — and It Closes This Month for a Year of Ian Repairs
Bonita Beach Park and Little Hickory Island have been closed since September 8 for Hurricane Ian restoration. Access No. 1, the last lot standing, closes in November — the sand stays open, the parking does not.
For Bonita Beachgoers, the fall has come in stages. Lee County closed Bonita Beach Park and Little Hickory Island Beach Park on September 8 to begin restoring the boardwalks, pavilions, restrooms and parking areas Hurricane Ian wrecked in 2022 — and the county says the last parking lot still serving that stretch of sand, Bonita Beach Access No. 1, closes this month for its own restoration. The county has announced the closure for November without fixing an exact date.
The three sites are being rebuilt under one $6.95 million contract with O-A-K Florida Inc., covering boardwalks, pavilions, showers, landscaping and parking lot restoration. At Little Hickory Island, the restroom buildings are being replaced outright; at Bonita Beach Park, the restroom and the county office building are being repaired. Pedestrians have been directed to Access No. 1, at 27890 Hickory Boulevard, since the September closures — the route that now goes away.
The beaches themselves never close: the county stresses the sand stays open throughout construction, with parking and pedestrian access limited instead. Most of the restoration projects are expected to take nearly a year, and the county's project tracker estimates late-summer 2027 for completion of the combined Bonita parks work, weather permitting — which means a full season of Bonita beach days planned around a much smaller map of places to leave the car.
