The Bonita Estero Rail Trail Is Down to a Closing Date: the $60 Million Corridor Sale Is Expected to Close by January 14
An environmental review was the last due-diligence step standing between Southwest Florida and its 11.4-mile rail trail. Estero's council voted unanimously to proceed - now the Seminole Gulf corridor purchase heads to a January closing.
Estero - The $60 million purchase of the Seminole Gulf Railway corridor for the Bonita Estero Rail Trail is expected to close by Jan. 14, 2027, after a lengthy due-diligence process, including an environmental study, concluded successfully, Gulfshore Business reported. The family-owned rail operator reached a revised agreement in February to sell the corridor, an 11.4-mile stretch that Bonita Springs, Estero and Collier County plan to convert into a multiuse trail.
The environmental study represented the last step in the due-diligence process, which also included a title examination and a land survey. The Estero Village Council reviewed the results of the two-phase study on Oct. 28 and voted unanimously to authorize staff to proceed with the closing, following earlier approval from Bonita Springs and Collier County officials.
The study, conducted by S&S Environmental Consultants, tested 180 soil samples at 60 locations along the corridor. It found elevated levels of arsenic at two locations in Estero, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons at several locations across the corridor in Estero, Bonita Springs and Collier County - findings the councils weighed before voting to proceed.
In the coming years, officials plan to convert the corridor into the Bonita Estero Rail Trail, known as BERT, and connect it to larger regional trail systems - a north-south walking and cycling spine through some of the fastest-growing ground in Southwest Florida, bought, in the end, for the price of the railroad that ran there first.
