Two Lower Matecumbe projects are the focus here: the planned redevelopment of the former tennis center site and canal restoration work beneath Sandy Cove Avenue.
The tennis site is planned for recreation, and the canal project is intended to improve water circulation and water quality. Their timelines depend on fundraising and grant funding. Here is what the plans include and what remains uncertain for Lower Matecumbe.
What's Replacing the Old Tennis Center
According to Keys Weekly, the parcel at 76800 Overseas Highway closed in January 2026, purchased by the Islamorada Foundation, the same nonprofit behind several of the village's smaller park projects over the past decade. The foundation paid $1.6 million for 3.5 acres, though only 2.2 of those acres are actually usable once flood elevation and setback requirements are factored in. The build-out, once it happens, is estimated to cost between $1.8 million and $1.9 million, which is more than the land itself cost. Most of that money goes toward demolishing the old tennis center buildings and courts and raising the ground elevation before a single pickleball line gets painted.
The plan, once funded, includes tennis, pickleball, and bocce courts, a golf practice area, a half-court basketball setup, shaded structures, green space, and parking. None of it has a firm completion date. J.C. Mikula, who founded and chairs the foundation's board, was direct about why the purchase mattered more than the amenities that will eventually sit on it:
J.C. Mikula told Keys Weekly: "We saw the property as an opportunity to acquire another 3.5 acres and thwart potential commercial development. The timeframe is 100% fund driven."
That's the part worth sitting with. The purchase secures the site against potential commercial development, while delivering the planned amenities still depends on fundraising.
A Previous Foundation Project on Upper Matecumbe
This isn't the foundation's first run at this exact move. Back in 2018, it acquired a 1.39-acre parcel at 81031 Overseas Highway on Upper Matecumbe Key for $1.2 million, a lot that had housed a couple of restaurants over the decades and then sat vacant for years. Build-out happened gradually, funded in large part by a $1 million donation from Islamorada resident Louella Reese, who received naming rights in the process. The result is Gib Reese Park, named for Reese's late husband, now running pay-as-you-play pickleball courts, a children's playground, and shaded picnic space.
In 2023, the foundation added the Megan Edwards Center on that same site, a meeting and event space with kitchen facilities that also includes an affordable housing unit. The center is named for Reese's daughter, who died of ovarian cancer in 2021. As Keys Weekly reported, Kristi Mikula described the intended use as "homeowners association meetings, gardening classes, lectures and wedding rehearsals and weddings."
The pattern matters for Lower Matecumbe because it shows how these projects actually get finished: not through village budgets or bond measures, but through a founder-led nonprofit board securing large individual donations tied to naming rights, spread out over years. Keys Weekly reported that Joe Jiovenetta, an Islamorada resident who owns Alma Wealth Management, started a pickleball tournament specifically to raise maintenance money for Gib Reese Park and described the park as serving "the Upper and Lower Matecumbe communities." That's the model the tennis center site is now following, just a few years behind.
Underneath Sandy Cove Avenue
The second project is separate from the foundation's work and part of the village's canal restoration program. Islamorada started a formal canal restoration program back in 2014 to address the poor water circulation baked into canals dredged and filled for development in the 1950s and 1960s. Lower Matecumbe's canals 155 and 157, both dead-end systems, were flagged as needing hydrological connection to restore oxygen levels and meet state water quality standards.
As Keys Weekly reported, the $8.9 million project is the most expensive single canal restoration the village has ever funded, and it's paid for entirely through state grants rather than resident assessments. Construction crews from LPS Contracting, based in Key Colony Beach, began placing box culverts, four feet by four feet, side by side underneath Sandy Cove Avenue starting in November 2025, working about 500 feet down from where the road meets U.S. 1. Peter Frezza, the village's environmental resources manager, has been pushing this specific project for years:
Peter Frezza told Keys Weekly: "I've been working on this for four years between the permitting and securing grant funding."
Because the culvert pipes run through private property in places, the village needed easements from individual homeowners along the route before work could start. Frezza told Keys Weekly that improved circulation could mean "an increase in their property values" for owners along the affected canals, alongside cleaner water. Whether the pipes are fully connected as you read this depends on how construction played out over the months since that January report. What's not in question is the scope of what comes next: the village has already identified canals 150, 151, and 152 as candidates for the same treatment.
Funding and Timelines for Both Projects
The projects rely on different funding sources and have different timelines. The tennis center park depends entirely on donor fundraising with no village budget backing it. The canal work depends entirely on state grants, with four years spent on permitting and securing grant funding.
The canal cost estimates provide additional context for the Sandy Cove project. A 2021 village engineering ranking estimated that fixing all 63 of Islamorada's canals, roughly 24 miles of waterway, could eventually cost well over $300 million. Canal 150, the next one in line for Lower Matecumbe and located in Port Antigua, carries an estimated repair cost of $41 million on its own, more than four times what just got spent connecting 155 and 157. Getting funded first wasn't about being the worst canal on the list. It was about being the project that could actually clear the state's grant requirements in a reasonable window.
The two projects bring different improvements to Lower Matecumbe and rely on distinct funding sources. One project moves as fast as a private donor base allows. The other moves as fast as state grant cycles allow. If you're waiting on a ribbon-cutting date for either one, the honest answer is that nobody involved has one to give you.
If you want a closer read on how a specific canal, street, or parcel on Lower Matecumbe fits into either project, or what any of this means for a property you already own here, the team at Pine River Realty knows this stretch of the Keys well enough to walk through it property by property. Book an appointment and we'll talk through what's actually happening on your street.
