Today, Paight’s favorite number is nine. As in, 90 percent of all buildings in Fort Myers’ core downtown area will have been rehabilitated by 2003 and returned to good use. And, 90 percent is a routine occupancy rate for the newly renovated buildings. And, nine current projects of new construction and historic building upgrades soon will be joined by nine more in planning stages. The leading international investor group, led by German-born Dominik Goertz, recently launched work on its ninth historic building restoration project.

“By the middle of the 1990s, we got away from speculative investors who had been just sitting on downtown properties and moved into an era of purchasers who followed through on their intent to invest in first-class renovations that build value,” explains Paight. That investment is beginning to pay off.

The flagship 37,000-square-foot Dean building on First Street is a perfect example. Following extensive interior and exterior rehab, owners quickly leased 35 apartments upstairs and two first-floor restaurants plus offices that have produced a rising income stream. The Dean’s U.K. investors, led locally by South African business developer and general partner Kim Jack, may be an early bell weather of the potential for realizing significant gain in the downtown resale market.

Good news, too, extends east, west and south of the central downtown area, which is bordered on the north by the Caloosahatchee. The greater downtown area of some 540 acres has seen phenomenal progress that promises to continue.

Late 1990s restoration of the historic Dean Park residential neighborhood to the east is 90 percent complete. Nearby, Woodford Park is undergoing residential renovations, with 40 percent of the houses converted to professional office space.

Along W. First Street to McGregor Boulevard and the Edison Ford Winter Estates, a 20-year transition, recently led by Mark and Haywood Sullivan, has converted more than 90 percent of old time residences to charming business fronts. To the south, too, changes are underway as individual landowners begin to redevelop.

With 90 percent of downtown Fort Myers properties already designated as commercial or mixed-use rehab by new owners, interest in new downtown construction is picking up. Since 1998, 320,200 square feet of office and commercial space has come online, 47 percent of it rehabilitated properties, 53 percent of it new construction. Add in 17 rehabbed hotel units and 49 new marina slips. Nearly 95 percent of the 44,800 square feet of upgraded restaurants and bars is rehabilitated space, with five percent in new construction. And 100 percent of the 38,900 square feet of retail space creatively rehabbed since 1998 adds to downtown Fort Myers’ fresh attraction.

Three quarters of the 60 downtown restaurants and retail shops opened in the past four years have stayed the course through the ongoing construction that has signaled Downtown Fort Myers’ 1990s renaissance. Waiting lists for downtown housing combined with the busy nighttime entertainment district and a daytime workforce numbering 11,000, is a strong foundation for the visitor foot traffic that achieves the critical mass so appealing to retailers.

“We’re almost there,” says Paight.

He points to three major residential developers who are discerning “obvious opportunities now that commercial space is coming together.” Luxury high-rise proposals include vacant lots on W. First Street waterfront, central downtown infill, and the Billy Creek neighborhood to the east. These new residences would complement the 1,400 residential units in and around downtown Fort Myers that remain nearly 100 percent occupied. Highest demand is for the 165 rehabilitated or adaptive reuse units over downtown storefronts.

Recent funding of a $273,500 planning project will update the Downtown Redevelopment Agency’s 15-year-old master plan, which is considered completed. The city has joined the agency in hiring Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who recently saw fruition of their vision for Naples Fifth Avenue South. By spring 2002 they will detail all the finishing pieces needed to establish Downtown Fort Myers as a compellingly unique community.

Orchestrated elements like al fresco dining, street furniture, landscaping, streetscape views, atmosphere lighting and historic markers will contribute to a vibrant atmosphere where people love to live, work and play.

Such touches, notes Paight, are “the connective tissue that brings it all together.”

Tom Woodyard is a Commercial Advisor at Grubb & Ellis|VIP-D’Alessandro, a full service commercial real estate company located in southwest Florida.