Dog bakery to relocate to Coconut Point

Dipidy Dawg Gourmet Dog Bakery makes treats in sizes, flavors and designs to fit any pet owner’s needs. The bakery’s signature dog treat is the Dipidy Dawg face.

The week of Thanksgiving will have dogs salivating when the Dipidy Dawg Gourmet Dog Bakery opens at Coconut Point in Estero.

The bakery, which is currently housed in south Fort Myers, will be relocating to a 1,000-square-foot space behind Blue Water Bistro.

Bakery owners Valherie Royce and Ginger Rudnick are hoping to offer customers and their pets a healthy alternative to treats from commercial pet stores.

“People are treating their dogs more like kids now and we make the kind of things that fill that niche,” Rudnick said.

The bakery has been offering its products online for two years and ships to customers across the country. The products are made from organic extracts and the finest ingredients.

“We offer a pet treat not filled with chemicals and colors and things we wouldn’t eat ourselves,” said Royce, who has been a pet owner since she was a child.

She got the idea to open a bakery after Saxxon, her cocker spaniel, got sick and she had to prepare food for him at home.

“A lot of people have animals with skin allergies and it’s 9 out of 10 because of chemicals and poisons in meals,” said Royce, who met Rudnick 12 years ago and learned that they both had pets that had special dietary needs.

“We use human-grade ingredients and the pets ... nutrition is important and will extend the life of your pet.”

The mall location will give them a whole new clientele base, Royce said.

“We will have samples of our treats and the retail location will have everything in one place,” said Rudnick of the business that will expand to include a clothing boutique and luxury items as well. “We wanted to do something we love. We love baking and pets.”

The passion the owners have for dogs is apparent in the mascot they created to sell the product.

“We had him in our mind but it took a while to put that on paper,” said Royce about the Dipidy Dawg character that dawns every product and dances on the Web site.

“We put him on the packaging and we made sure it was all biodegradable and not going to harm our (animal) customers.”

Even the packing peanuts that are shipped with the treats are harmless to pets and smaller children.

“More and more people do care about what goes in the food and a lot more things are going organic,” Rudnick said. “Coconut Point is pet-friendly and it’s a good place for the customers that we want to attract.”

College Pkwy. site selected for eye center

The land next to Jalapeno’s Restaurant on College Parkway in south Fort Myers has been cleared to make way for a new eye clinic.

The new Elmquist Eye Group building will be going up over the next 12 to 18 months.

“That corridor there has plenty of traffic going back and forth and easy access,” said Colleen Reynolds, the spokesperson for the Elmquist Eye Group.

The new 13,000 square feet of space will give the doctors a chance to serve more patients and offer a 1,000-square-foot eye glasses boutique.

“We are outgrowing our space and we’d like to grow into a small group practice,” said Kate Wagner, an eye doctor who recently joined the practice. “We have a lot of patients and we want to get more space.”

Although the doctors own 13,000 square feet, they will be offering 3,000 to anyone who needs a space.

“It’s close for their current patients to find them — it’s very centrally located and it’s a lot more office,” said Reynolds, adding that the space is being built by Mark Stevens of Stevens Construction. “They own the entire second floor of the building.”

Patients, said Wagner, will also get better services because the additional space will include special testing equipment.

“I think our goal is to provide high quality personalized care and that makes us still a family-oriented practice,” said Wagner, whose office sees about 50 patients a day. “That will set us apart from everyone else.”

Being set apart is also why the office will dedicate so much space to an optical store.

“We are doing more high-end products and that will give patients more options,” Wagner said.

The Elmquist Eye Group’s current office off New Brittany Boulevard will be closed after the new building is finished.

“They didn’t want to move too far away and this works out well for their patients,” Reynolds said.

Decision coming on government complex

Lee County Public Works has asked the Community Development Zoning Division to rezone an agricultural piece of property to allow for a Pine Ridge Government Complex.

Hearing Examiner Richard Gescheidt and his staff will decide if the area, located a half mile south of Gladiolus on the west side of Pine Ridge Road, can be rezoned to allow for the complex.

“Lee County needs it rezoned so we can build on it and it will serve the future needs of the community,” said Michael Pavese of Lee County Public Works.

If approved, the complex will include an EMS, fire and sheriff’s station, a refueling station for emergency vehicles, a tax collector’s office and a helistop to transport patients in cases of emergency.

The government offices will use as much as 67,525 square feet of the property.

“Lee County wants to do this because the growth in this area has been excessive,” said Pavese, adding that the residential development of homes and condominiums will get better response times in an emergency. “The location will also save taxpayer money and the tax collector’s office will save people time.”

The Hearing Examiner’s decision is expected in the coming weeks and south Fort Myers resident Patrick Waibel is eagerly awaiting the outcome.

Waibel's lanai overlooks the property and he is concerned that the complex will disturb his wife, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

“All I need is for a helicopter to be flying by and the trucks to be making noise,” said Waibel, a year-round resident. “It's just too close to my home.”

Waibel was just one of several residents who live near the proposed government complex and attended the meeting to voice their concerns about lighting, noise and helicopters flying overhead.

They also expressed issues with the volume of traffic that will be created by the addition of emergency vehicles and a tax collector's branch that will be on site.

“I had a lack of information and what I gather is that it’s necessity that we do need it because of the increase of people,” said Delbert Small, 78, a year-round resident who lives just north of the property.

“My only concern is that it’s just too close to the homes and with the engines and lighting, it will disturb everybody.”

Members of the agencies that will reside at the complex were present and addressed the issues residents raised. Richard O’Neal was just one agency asked to respond to residents.

“The flight path will be near the area where there are no houses, “said O’Neal referring to a lake that is on the south end of the property. He’s overseeing the county's emergency medical air ambulance operations. “We work 24 hours, 365 days a year and we can benefit from the helistop. ... It’s safer for us to land there than on the middle of the street during an emergency.”

O’Neal assured residents that the helistop will be used in a limited capacity to transport patients to the trauma center at Lee Memorial Hospital.

Gathering information about traffic and noise was important to resident Wayne Sweet but he questions the need to build a complex on a property with homes on two sides.