The Lee Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday continued its commitment to strengthening the community’s public safety infrastructure with votes to design new, resilient communications towers and to design a new EMS station in Alva.
Commissioners voted to award a $1.18 million contract to Motorola Solutions, Inc. for the design of new Resilient Communication Towers, advancing a major priority under the ResilientLee Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Funded through the Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program, this project will deliver engineering, permitting and construction administration services for critical communications infrastructure across five county-owned sites. The locations are in Alva, North Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, southeast of Fort Myers and southwest of Fort Myers.
The towers will strengthen Lee County’s P25 Public Safety Radio System and create space for up to three additional providers, such as broadband or cellular carriers, expanding network reliability across the region.
The shared use of infrastructure components means that restoring capabilities for emergency communications often simultaneously restores or significantly aids in restoring broader cellular network functionality.
This initiative directly supports several ResilientLee strategies, including:
- Planning Regional Resilience
- Hardening Critical Facilities and Systems
- Rebuilding Resilient Communications Infrastructure.
Together, these priorities aim to enhance regional coordination, fortify essential systems and ensure continuity of government and emergency response communications during disasters. The new towers will include redundant systems and long-duration backup generators, addressing vulnerabilities exposed during Hurricane Ian when commercial networks failed due to power loss and damaged connectivity.
The design phase is expected to take about a year.
In other action Tuesday, county commissioners voted to award a design contract for the EMS station in Alva. It was approved as a $589,529 Supplemental Task Authorization (STA) to an existing contract with Johnson Engineering, Inc. The station will be located at 2480 Iverson St. in Alva, which is county-owned property.
It will include operational, living and support spaces for EMS personnel. The work includes site design, architectural construction documents, septic system design, and installation of a water storage tank to support the fire sprinkler system. The plan also includes a generator for backup power.
