For the last six years Riley Derrick has maintained a rotating series of art displays in his locker near the restrooms of Eugene’s Costco.
* Collier County commissioners unanimously approved plans for a second Costco after a nearly five-hour hearing.
* The project in East Naples faced strong opposition from dozens of residents who raised concerns about traffic, safety and the environment.
* Commissioners approved a waiver for the gas station’s proximity to another and minor changes to the development’s architectural standards.
After a nearly five-hour hearing, Collier commissioners approved plans for a second Costco in the county.
On Oct. 14, commissioners voted on two related petitions for the project, which faced strong opposition from neighbors.
About 60 people signed up to speak, although many ceded their time to others. Most spoke against the project, raising traffic, public safety and environmental concerns.
The chosen site in East Naples sits at the southeast corner of Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Snake Hammock Road, within the Hacienda Lakes Planned Unit Development (PUD).
Costco asked for an insubstantial change to the PUD, and a waiver to get around the county’s separation requirements for gas stations. Separate votes were required by county commissioners on the petitions.
In both cases, the decisions were unanimous – with the motions for approval coming from Commissioner Chris Hall, which were swiftly seconded.
The requested changes to the PUD were needed to allow for alternative architectural standards, differing from those required by the community and the land development code. Costco asked for a handful of deviations, including relief from the usual requirements for signage and lighting.
The changes to the PUD were considered insubstantial because they didn’t require alterations to allowed density or land uses at the site.
There is a 7-Eleven gas station roughly 130 feet from where Costco wants to put one. The county’s land development code requires a 500-foot separation between service stations, which is why a waiver was necessary.
The latest site plan submitted to the county shows a nearly 162,700-square-foot store, with about 820 parking spaces, and a free-standing fueling station, with 12 pumps (which could serve two vehicles — or 24 — at a time).
The plan is still under review by county staff.
With so many speakers at the commission hearing, public comment ran for almost four hours.
Frank Cipolla, one of the more vocal opponents of the project who lives in the Esplanade community within Hacienda Lakes, argued passionately against the project, saying: “Why do we have to try to jam this round peg into a square hole? It doesn’t make sense.”
He argued there were plenty of more suitable places Costco could go because East Naples is “currently rather undeveloped,” instead of putting it up against a residential community, and next to a major hospital – Physicians Regional.
“This a destination,” Cipolla said. “You go there for a specific reason. You don’t stumble upon a Costco. So, it’s a mile east, west, north or south, it really doesn’t matter.”
He described the chosen location as “idiotic,” with its planned accesses off Rattlesnake Hammock Road, a busy arterial road that dead ends into the Hacienda Lakes community, and a shared access with the hospital off a loop road.
The added traffic from Costco, he said, would surely lead to an “increase in accidents, injuries, and death.”
If county commissioners approved the project, he threatened to sue the county and to take the matter to a “good judge” to rule on the opposition’s complaint – in an effort to stop the project.
He warned commissioners there could be political fallout if they voted for the project, especially for LoCastro, since the site is in his district. He criticized LoCastro for his lengthy emails and newsletters, with a “lot of underlining” to describe the approval and review process for Costco to concerned residents along the way, as if he were a colonel and they were his “inferior officers.”
To that, LoCastro said “unsubscribe.”
From LoCastro, Cipolla said he’d heard there were many supporters of the project, yet few have shown up at the public hearings for the project, including two before the county’s planning commission.
“Where are these people?” he asked. “Where are they?”
When Cipolla got personal, Commissioner Hall said if other speakers did the same, he would tune out what they had to say “just like that,” describing such attacks as shallow.
“We have no intention of entertaining anything personal against any of us,” he said. “We’re here to do a job. We are here to listen as well … as we can.”
Other commissioners agreed.
Another vocal opponent Milton Spokojny, who lives in the Esplanade, argued the request for an insubstantial change was “invalid,” saying it should have been considered a substantial one, deserving of more scrutiny, due to the size of the project, and its impacts, especially on traffic.
“There can be no question that this land use is incompatible with the residential and hospital use,” he said. “No question. Nobody on earth is going to challenge that.”
Other opponents claimed the traffic study for the project, which shows adequate road capacity for a Costco, was flawed, and criticized the market study for the gas station as being false.
The market study by an independent consultant concluded the new members-only gas station would not “oversaturate the market or negatively impact surrounding businesses.”
Several speakers raised concerns about the potential for increased flooding and other environmental risks, including the possibility of a fire or explosion at the gas station, situated so close to a hospital.
Not everyone opposed the project.
Diego Zaragoza, 26, from Golden Gate, said he’d welcome a new Costco closer to his home. He said he moved to the area when was just 5 months old in 1999, and he criticized newer residents of Hacienda Lakes for opposing the store. He said for those residents to complain about a new Costco being built in their neighborhood was “hypocritical and laughable.”
He said he’s excited to see all the new development in East Naples and Golden Gate.
“Build that Costco,” he told commissioners. “For the entire long-term resident of Naples. Please and thank you.”
County staff and the county’s Planning Commission both recommended approval, finding the site suitable for a Costco.
Costco representative argued the project should be allowed by right
The hearing opened with comments from Costco’s representative Brad Wester, who stressed a retail store and a gas station were both permissible commercial uses allowed by right in the PUD. He provided an overview of the project, pointing out the benefits of it, and the extra steps the wholesale club had taken in its efforts to be a good neighbor, including the extra green space and screening it would provide, beyond what’s required by code.
Wester pointed out the long list of intense uses that are allowed at the site, including a hotel and a school. The site is in a designated “activity center,” where more intense land uses are encouraged.
As for the gas station, Wester pointed out it would only be open to Costco members, and its hours would be limited – the same as the store, not operating 24/7.
Later in the hearing, in a rebuttal to the arguments against the project – and the personal attacks made against him and Costco – by opponents, he defended the development plans and the chosen site.
He reiterated that the allowable uses in the PUD, most recently revised in 2022, included gas stations and department stores. He argued Costco was not trying to shoehorn its warehouse into the site.
“We are under 50% of the adopted and approved commercial square footages,” he said.
He assured that Costco’s gas operations comply with the latest environmental standards, and he described questions and comments about their safety as “speculative.”
Additionally, he said, he wasn’t a “liar” and there had been no sidestepping of the rules, or “no rush to judgment,” on the site or the plans, as alleged by opponents.
“We’ve been at this with these two matters for almost a year,” Wester said. “If you include the preapplications and early meeting and initial vetting with county staff it’s over a year.”
He said he stood by Costco’s market analysis, and its operational plans, saying to compare it to a conventional convenience store would be inaccurate.
The traffic, he said, would not be excessive as a members-only club.
“This is a master-planned mixed-use PUD,” Wester said. “We are not in the backyards of the residences.”
He read a letter from a representative for Physicians Regional in support of the shared access road, and the project.
Earlier this year, county commissioners voted to hear the petitions, rather than allowing the decisions to be made by the county’s hearing examiner, in what could have been a much simpler and shorter process.
Commissioner LoCastro suggested the idea of requiring board approval, saying it would allow for a “deeper dive” into the issues by the planning commission, and would be the smarter way to go, allowing for more transparency and public input and discussion, since the project faced so much opposition.
Before the board’s final decisions, LoCastro asked a series of questions meant to clear up the record and any confusion about what commissioners were voting on. One of the questions he asked was whether any of the gas stations in the area had opposed the project, and Wester assured him that they hadn’t.
LoCastro also asked why the hospital was so supportive of the project. To that Wester said he believed it was because Costco “runs a first-rate,” clean operation, and the project would provide more hospital access through its development.
Costco has agreed to pay for a traffic light on Rattlesnake Hammock Road, east of Collier Boulevard.
“Clearly, interconnectivity and access from various other routes benefits the hospital, in my opinion, and also their employees can utilize Costco as needed,” Wester said.
During the hearing, LoCastro pointed out that county commission approvals don’t mean shovels will go in the ground tomorrow, as the site plan for the project is still under review by county staff and Costco still needs a permit from the South Florida Water Management District.
With other approvals needed, construction is not likely to start until later this year, or the beginning of next year.
While the site plan for the project shows the potential to add more fuel pumps at the site, up to a total of 20, county commissioners made it clear that any expansion beyond 12 would require board approval before they greenlighted the petitions.
LoCastro said Costco would be leaning a “little too far forward in thinking” that any expansion of pumps at the proposed store would depend just on a market study, or market demand.
“It’s not the market that drives the size,” he said. “It’s the county.”
In a statement after the hearing, LoCastro said the fact that both petitions were approved unanimously “speaks for itself.”
“The building of Costco on that site was already allowed,” he said. “Our two items today were smaller issues concerning gas pump distance and allowing variances for minimal architectural items.”
He said he ensured the project went through the “most thorough vetting process possible.”
“The property was already zoned for something twice the size,” LoCastro said.
The county’s only Costco, off Naples Boulevard, north of Pine Ridge Road and west of Airport-Pulling Road, opened in 1999.
