Once known only as “that little fishing and farming village between Fort Myers
and Naples,” Bonita Springs is now the focus of some of the most intense
development in Southwest Florida. Over the past few years new banks,
restaurants, retailers, offices and a movie multiplex have popped up along
several miles of U.S. 41 in Bonita. All of this is surrounded by luxury housing
and gated golf-course communities, fueled in good part by the efforts of two
Bonita Springs-based developers—The Bonita Bay Group and WCI Communities.
Bonita’s original developers arrived about 1890 and settled along Survey Creek,
now known as the Imperial River. The settlement was known as Survey. In 1912,
one of those original settlers sold 6,000 acres to an investment group from
Tennessee. They platted the property and renamed it Bonita Springs, derived from
the Spanish word for pretty. Today, Bonita Springs is Southwest Florida’s newest
city, incorporated in 1999 to ensure that the community could manage its own
destiny in the face of the unprecedented growth. Bonita’s proximity to Southwest
Florida International Airport and Florida Gulf Coast University, and its
position midway between Fort Myers and Naples, have made it a preferred location
for many businesses.Photo by Ronald Dubick