Future of Fort Myers/Sanibel Resorts

[GTLINZ]

We drove up Estero island late last year and it still looked like a war zone. It is going to be a long recovery.

 

[Skyyblueplaya]

Unfortunately Still waiting for a lot of these places to bounce back, even more damage from the last 2 hurricanes, Milton and Helene.

 

[theo]

Estero Island Beach Club's latest submission for proposed reconstruction has been denied (yesterday) by the Town Council on Fort Myers Beach by a 4-1 vote, killing their newest proposal from any further advancement. This newest proposal, albeit aesthetically very pleasing, was for a 10 story building where zoning allows for only 3 stories. This new proposal never really had a snowball's chance in Hades for town approval at that height (IMnsHO).

EIBC can return to submit an entirely different proposal, but I personally just can't see how they can successfully pound a "square peg" (...replacing all 75 units lost, plus providing pool(s) and parking) into a round hole (...a much smaller available footprint now than existed for construction before Hurricane Ian) while still complying with new height restrictions; clearly a gargantuan (and maybe ultimately insurmountable) task.

I'm not a gambler. If I was, my bet would be on EIBC owners ultimately throwing in the towel on this, voting to terminate the timeshare plan and sell the property (which is currently nothing but a vacant lot of sand after post-Ian demolition). Two more hurricanes in recent weeks (Helene and Milton) might also be providing some "food for thought" to some owners of FMB Gulf-front property, on a narrow barrier island that has now been hit hard by 3 significant hurricanes in just the past 2 years.

I guess only time will tell...

 

[dioxide45]

(...a much smaller available footprint now than existed for construction before Hurricane Ian).

Why is the footprint smaller now? Was some of the land washed away?

 

[theo]

There are several reasons for the "smaller footprint":

1. New town bylaws / regulations now require that there be more distance from the water to new structures than was formerly required.

2. New town bylaws / regulations now also require a “view corridor“ from the main drag (Estero Blvd) to the Gulf, precluding any new construction from entirely obscuring “visual access“ to the water from the main road.

3. I am unclear on details of this third item, but I believe there may also be some new “setback” distance requirements from Estero Blvd for new building construction.

Collectively, these new town mandates obviously “shrink” the buildable area of Gulf-front lots on Fort Myers Beach. Combined with new height standards (3 stories max), some damaged or destroyed FMB properties now find themselves squarely “between a rock and a hard place” regarding rebuilding options; EIBC is clearly among them. Nearby Lahaina Inn, also (...formerly) a Gulf-front timeshare property on FMB, threw in the towel immediately after Hurricane Ian in 2022, with interval owners there promptly and overwhelmingly voting to terminate the timeshare and just sell the sand parcel on which it once existed; I do not know if that parcel has actually been sold since then.

 

[theo]

The Ian-destroyed and subsequently demolished Estero Island Beach Club (75 units) has now submitted its' third rebuilding proposal (4 stories) to the town of Fort Myers Beach. The FMB Town Council readily approved a 17 story structure for a huge, brand new, commercial project by an outfit called Seagate. Although I do not own at EIBC and have "no dog in that fight", I hope that EIBC will take the town of FMB straight to court if the town rejects the newest (reasonable and quite attractive, imo) EIBC proposal.

 

[dioxide45]

Unfortunately it all seems to be based on who has deep pockets and the right connections. Deep pockets can also get you the right connections.

 

[theo]

Unfortunately it all seems to be based on who has deep pockets and the right connections. Deep pockets can also get you the right connections.

Understood and agreed. The real irony in the EIBC situation is that in / around 1995, when EIBC had already existed for years, Fort Myers Beach first became incorporated, doing so in order to cease being a powerless island appendage in Lee County. The motivation behind that undertaking to incorporate and become its’ own town was specifically to establish local control over future high rise development. The newly incorporated town created a local Land Development Code and a Comprehensive Plan for their little island town, implementing new and specific density and height restrictions. However, in the post-Ian environment, the FMB Town Council is now apparently willing to just subjectively and selectively ignore their own long ago and very deliberately established town requirements regarding high rise development.

Although it should be unnecessary (in an ideal world) and would surely be costly to pursue, the EIBC owners can (and perhaps should) next choose to appeal to the courts if rejected a third time, seeking nothing less than a court order forcing the town to simply honor ITS’ OWN existing codes and bylaws and finally allow EIBC to rebuild. If EIBC chooses instead to just throw in the towel and not further pursue rebuilding, the final irony / insult will be the purchase of the EIBC land for big money by a deep pockets commercial developer — to pursue construction of another unwelcome high rise!