Cape Coral Gets A New Hook

The opening of the final phase at Tarpon Point Marina, a waterfront destination for Cape Coral, could provide a ripple effect for the local economy and housing market.

Vacationers, area residents and Tarpon Point homeowners expect to ring in 2010 at its new MarinaVillage, which will boast shops, restaurants and a hotel, The Resort at MarinaVillage by SunStream Hotels & Resorts. The entire phase could add up to 300 jobs in the Cape.

But it also will further test the residential real estate market. Studios to three-bedroom condos on five floors in the 19-story resort are available under a fractional ownership program, which will be heavily marketed starting in January. Also, 80 of the 210 Tarpon Landings condos are for sale from the $700,000s to more than $3 million (one was under contract as of late October), in addition to resales of single-family homes in the community.

“We made a conscious decision to go ahead and develop it during slow times,” says Bob Hensley, CEO of Grosse Pointe Development Co., creator of Tarpon Point. “We knew the times were going to be difficult, but we really feel that this market will turn around.”

The waterfront location and mixed-use nature of the development, which offers more options for shopping and entertainment in Cape Coral, stand out because they are new to the area, says Mike Timmerman, senior associate at Fishkind & Associates in Naples. He points out that Southwest Florida’s few other new mixed-use developments, such as the Mercato in Naples, appear to be faring well with its residential sales, despite the difficult market.

“This provides an alternative for people within the Cape and for other people within Lee and Collier counties to check this out,” Timmerman says. Selling fractional-ownership condos, which will have up to 2,225 square feet of space, is also a relatively untested concept in Cape Coral, he adds.

Hensley hopes that he’s dealt a blow to one of the challenges of selling in this market—financing the purchase—by providing financing through its relationship with Dutch lender SNS Property Finance, an equity partner in the project. Buyers are required to put 30 percent down and be credit-worthy.

Grosse Pointe Development is able to offer the financing partly because of the fallout from the housing market bottoming out. About 28 percent of early Tarpon Landings buyers, mostly speculators who helped it sell out before the housing market collapse, defaulted on their condo contracts, losing their 20 percent deposits.

“It takes the lenders to cooperate, along with the buyers who want to buy at a price to make the equation work,” Hensley says. “That’s really the key to getting this market going again. Those two things are an advantage we have right now. [By] offering financing, we take that lender quotient out of our market.”

“Any time that you’ve got the ability to offer financing in this market, it’s a good thing,”  Timmerman says. “That just helps ease the sales process.”

The addition of the resort has been needed in the Cape, says Hensley, who points out the Cape has 400-plus hotel rooms but nothing of the caliber of those at Tarpon Point, which is near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. The condo units being offered are part of the hotel.

“We feel that because of the lack of quality hotel rooms or resort environment in the city that we will be busy,” he says. “The waterfront and the amenities that we’ve created at Tarpon Point are really second to none. [Waterfront is] a limited commodity. The good Lord is not making any more of it.”

Grosse Pointe is enticing commercial tenants with significant rent concessions, improvement allowances and other incentives, Hensley says. He estimates about 150 workers will be employed in the stores, restaurants and offices that will fill Tarpon Point’s two-story promenade. About 150 more will work at the resort, which will feature the 3,657-square-foot Esterra Spa & Salon, boat slips and other amenities.

The resort, slated to be fully staffed by its grand opening celebration on New Year’s Eve, had a staggering 2,500 applicants as of October, says Jennifer Seaborn, director of sales and marketing for SunStream Hotels & Resorts, which is managing the resort. The jobs—from part-time and entry-level positions in such departments as guest services, sales and catering to full-time management roles—will total about $3 million in annual payroll.

Hensley, whose company bought the land for Tarpon Point in June 2001 and started development a year later, believes the investment is coming when the area needs it most.

“It also is leading the future growth of the Cape,” he says. “It is upscale and something that I really think the community will love and take some pride of ownership in.” gB