Tim Aten Knows: Oakes expands plans for Davis Blvd. store

Q: Do you have any new info about Oakes Farms’ plans to rebuild on the Davis Boulevard site? – Kathy N., Naples 

A: Oakes Farms intends to do a lot more than rebuild its grocery store on Davis Boulevard in East Naples. Early plans show a major redevelopment with a two-story grocery store, a 12-story hotel, a 12-story residential tower, restaurants, a luxury wellness center, retail spaces and parking garages. 

“We’re just excited to be moving forward,” said Oakes Farms founder Alfie Oakes, who plans to incorporate some of the successful elements of his Seed to Table destination in North Naples with his longtime Oakes Farms Market, which has been shuttered since the East Naples store was flooded three years ago by Hurricane Ian’s storm surge.  

The expanded local market at 2205 Davis Blvd. is just part of a rezoning proposal to create a planned unit development on 5.76 acres with proposed pedestrian bridges on the second, third and fourth stories to connect buildings on both sides of Brookside Drive at Davis Boulevard.  

The project’s first phase would include the grocery store, a 239-room hotel with banquet space, an anti-aging cellular health clinic and restaurant and retail spaces on two parcels on the eastern side of Brookside that formerly were home to Oakes Farm Market and Salvation Army thrift stores.  

The second phase proposes a 186-unit tower of condominiums or apartments, a restaurant adjacent to a waterfront park and more than 60,000 square feet of retail on a former Oakes parking lot on the western side of Brookside. Both phases also include public rooftop bars and two five-level parking garages with 450 spaces each, conceptual plans show.  

While the two-story grocery store planned on Davis is not expected to be quite as large as Seed to Table, it most likely will be about three times as large as the original Oakes Farm Market.  

“I think the idea is that we would be a little smaller of a footprint than Seed to Table. I think we’re like 73,000 or 74,000 [square feet] floor space over there, like 80,000 total with all the back of the house at Seed,” Oakes said. 

“The retail portion of the store is probably going to be around 60,000 square feet. That could be with integrated food, concession areas similar to Seed to Table, but not necessarily. There are just a lot of ifs still. We’re in that early phase. We always kind of feel these things out. You know, Seed to Table took a long time to feel it out and get it to the right way it was going to flow. We have a lot of the same people working on this project, and it will come together.” 

One difference between the stores may be a greater separation of the shopping from the sit-down dining and bar areas. 

“We’re wanting to create an environment that’s not quite as loud as Seed to Table. We’re trying to make more of a peaceful shopping experience, I guess,” Oakes said. “The store will be two stories with more of the eating and things up on that second story. The third story would be the wellness clinic.” 

At this point, it’s too early to say whether the new store will be named Oakes Farms Market, Seed to Table, a combination of the two or even something else. 

“We haven’t really come up with the name. It may not be either,” Oakes said. “It may include Oakes or not. We’re throwing around a lot of names.” 

Instead of an initial idea to redirect Brookside Drive around the development — temporarily called Oakes Farm Rezone PUD — the latest proposal plans a pedestrian bridge to connect the project’s parcels on either side of Brookside, which bisects the PUD. “We looked at it both ways. We gave it a lot of thought. We’re going to be listening to what the traffic engineers have to say,” Oakes said. “But I think from what we’re gathering now, it’s determined that it would be best to do that bridge crossover, which would be in our phase two. In the meantime, things could always change. That being phase two, we’re leaving options open to what could happen to that other parcel of property and the other piece of that property west of Brookside.” 

At this point, the residential units could end up being either condominiums or apartments. 

“Not really thinking more of either one way or another. It could be a combination of the two,” Oakes said. “We have some people we’ve been talking to that we might partner with in that industry. There are just a lot of different ways it could go.” 

Oakes Farms would directly oversee multiple aspects of the project. “We’ll be personally operating the store, restaurant and wellness clinic,” Oakes said. 

Oakes is not alone in planning this proposed PUD: Christopher Bower, a Naples resident who owns the former Oakes Farms Market and Salvation Army properties on Davis, also is an integral partner in the redevelopment project.  

“Chris and I are working hand in hand. I’m certainly not the lead more than he is,” Oakes said. “I’m the guy with the experience with the stores and the restaurants. I think I’ve been a positive influence on Chris with healthy eating and some of these new modalities of health kind of on the cutting edge, so we’re working together. He’s a good friend and we’re certainly collaborating together.” 

Oakes, who is a pilot, doesn’t anticipate that the proposed mid-rise project will have trouble getting approval from the Naples Airport Authority because of its proximity to the municipal airport, which is about 2,000 feet to the north. “It’s nowhere in any of the flight path areas, so I don’t think that’s a problem,” he said. “I can’t imagine that being an issue.”  

Oakes anticipates his latest project to build on the local success with Oakes Farms retail and restaurant projects such as Food & Thought and Seed to Table. 

“I feel like Seed to Table was something that was kind of unique and maybe a little bit on the cutting edge of grocery stores, and I feel like we really want this health clinic and this whole model to be something that’s on the cutting edge for where the future of health and food could be going,” he said. 

The Tim Aten Knows weekly column answers local questions from readers. Email Tim at Tim.Aten@NaplesPress.com.