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3A | WORKERS’ HOMES
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Will cold case thaw?
Restaurants, retail also proposed for NC Square
By Harriet Howard Heithaus harriet.heithaus@naplespress.com
Q: What else is going to be built besides residential units at NC Square on Immokalee Road? I heard stores and restaurants. – Phyllis L., Golden Gate Estates A: The commercial part of NC Square proposes a retail/office strip with four restaurants and 14 more units for other businesses on more than 7 acres of undeveloped land on the southwest corner of Immokalee Road and Catawba Street, about 1.5 miles west of Wilson Boulevard. The NC Square mixed-use planned unit development includes a residential phase planned on a second wooded 17.33-acre parcel immediately to the west of the com-
See related story, Page 3A mercial tract. GL Homes’ Valencia Trails gated community abuts the property’s western and southern edges, while the Twin Eagles golf community is directly across Immokalee Road from the future NC Square. The commercial portion of the development would be built first, followed by a second phase of residential units, county documents show. The developer of NC Square, formerly known as Immokalee Square, recently proposed reducing the commercial square footage from 44,400 to 36,500 square feet by forgoing a day care center, while increasing the residential density See ATEN KNOWS, Page 6A
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Lawsuit: ACLU takes on city over Pride fest fees
Karl Lievense sits at his desk in his Naples business park office in this submitted photo. Lievense was gunned down in 2018 while working in his suite. Contributed photo
Former FBI agent re-examining unsolved 2018 homicide By Aisling Swift
Karl George Lievense was working in his suite at a quiet Naples business park in 2018 when he was gunned down. The 81-year-old’s murder hasn’t been solved. The broker — who owed money to many investors and worked with associates who owed him money — was seeking investors for associates’ alternative investments, including two Michigan mobile home parks, a movie to be filmed in Collier County, a Louisiana chemical company and some Texas energy interests. This month marked seven years since Lievense’s murder on April 9, 2018, and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office has assigned Investigator Ralph “Butch” DiFonzo, a former FBI agent, to review the cold case. It’s hoping the business community, especially those in the former Castello Professional Center, may remember something or come forward now. DiFonzo called the murder “overkill.” “Being shot multiple times could suggest a
person’s anger and it also could mean that they knew one another,” DiFonzo said of the theory an angry investor or associate shot Lievense. “… If he was in the business of making people mad, he sure as heck didn’t secure himself well.” Lievense’s new, white Mercedes was parked outside his door at The Integrated Companies at 5129 Castello Drive, Unit 4. DiFonzo said there was no buzzer and the office wasn’t locked. “The gene pool involved, based off the victim, would be kind of narrow — even though he did rip a lot of people off,” DiFonzo said. “…When somebody kills somebody, usually it affects the person killed, maybe the family members, but when somebody rips off millions of dollars, there could be all kinds of people affected by that.” He likened the shooting to the Dec. 4 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot in Manhattan by masked gunman Luigi Mangione. Mangione believed the nation’s largest insurer was withholding care to boost profits, causing patients to die. “What happened there is you had people online See COLD CASE, Page 7A
ACLU of Florida is suing the City of Naples for penalizing drag performances in Cambier Park during the annual Naples Pride Festival, claiming the city has developed a new strategy to shut the attraction down: Price it out of business. The City of Naples, with city council’s approval, doubled the festival’s security fee this year, to $30,600 from $15,520 in 2024. No other organization, including those which attract nearly 10 times its visitors, has seen such an increase, according to the suit. A request to the city for fees required of two major events here, Cars on Fifth and the New Year’s weekend art fair, had not received replies as of press time. The required fee includes restrictions: that the Pride Festival limit its drag shows to an indoor space, stage them somewhere off city property and forbid attendance by anyone younger than 18. To return the drag show to the amphitheater stage in Cambier Park, where it had been from 2017 to 2022, would increase security fees to as much as $40,000. It portends a new direction in conservative movements to shut down expressions of LGBTQ+ pride, such as festivals and parades. Conservative states, including Florida, have tried to legislate drag shows away for several years via laws prohibiting the shows, a fundamental part of the festivals. But those laws have lost in five out of six court cases around the country. A 2023 law passed in Florida has been blocked since June of that year. “This is actually the first time we’ve seen a lawsuit over fees,” said Anita Carson, field director for Equality Florida. “Naples is not the only municipality that has upped fees and amounts for permits across the state, but it is definitely the outlier in the amount it has charged. It was exorbitant and it was a significant change in a very short amount of time, to the point that it was making it hard for Naples Pride to even possibly continue.” This suit, brought on behalf of Naples Pride, the LGBTQ+ support organization in Collier County, See LAWSUIT, Page 10A
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