Tim Aten Knows: Gulf Gate Plaza prime for mixed-use redevelopment 

Q: First, may I say that my wife and I have enjoyed your columns. A quick question is about last year’s mentioning the new additions coming to Gulf Gate Plaza. In November 2024, Gulf Gate Plaza LLC submitted a “zoning verification” letter to the county regarding doing multifamily over commercial for the property, while they are now saying that they may have a large tenant to fill the old Big Lots space. I wondered if they are no longer exploring that plan? – Jim King, Naples 

A: Isram Realty Group, doing business as Gulf Gate Plaza LLC, has had discussions with Collier County officials about the possible redevelopment of Gulf Gate Plaza, the large retail center the company owns on the southwest corner of U.S. 41 East and Bayshore Drive. While formal plans have yet to be presented, representatives from both the public and private sector have shown interest in seeing something loftier at that entrance to Bayshore Drive. 

Isram, based in Hallandale on Florida’s east coast, acquired the 206,785-square-foot Gulf Gate Plaza and its 13.4 acres more than 20 years ago for $10 million. Until closing in 2024 as an anchor of Gulf Gate Plaza, Big Lots operated for more than 15 years in a 36,277-square-foot space that formerly was home to one of the first Publix supermarkets in the area. The discount retailer’s shuttering of this location along with hundreds of others nationwide has left a gaping hole. 

The challenge provides an opportunity for Isram to replicate what it did in another shopping center it owns on the east coast of Florida after anchor tenant Winn-Dixie supermarket closed a decade ago. Isram razed the former supermarket and some restaurant spaces at Riverwalk Plaza in Boynton Beach and built the 10-story Avion Riverwalk, with 319 luxury apartments above five new retail suites and covered parking, as part of the more than $85 million resort-inspired development completed in 2023. 

Last year, Collier officials had an opportunity to see firsthand what Isram accomplished with the retail center redevelopment project along the Intracoastal Waterway. Collier County Commissioner Dan Kowal and Bayshore Gateway Triangle Community Redevelopment Area program manager Shirley Garcia are among those who were impressed with what they saw during a private tour.  

“It was a beautiful mixed-use, absolutely beautiful,” Garcia said. “We loved it and we asked them if they would do the same on this coast for Gulf Gate Plaza.” 

After touring Isram’s Avion Riverwalk, Kowal compared the development to a self-contained setting with restaurants, stores and amenities to serve the hundreds of high-end residences that were created.  

“It’s kind of like you don’t really have to leave campus if you don’t want to,” he said. “It’s a unique setting with restaurants and a mixed-type design.”

Kowal thinks Isram could do something similar in East Naples. Although redeveloping the inline commercial center at Gulf Gate Plaza into a mixed-use planned unit development wouldn’t be on a waterway, it still could have Avion Riverwalk’s wow factor. 

“I think that’s on the lines of where they probably want to go,” Kowal said. “Now, that would have to be a rezone and a PUD down the road. They would have to create their own planned unit development, what they call a mixed planned unit development, an MPUD. That would go through zoning and everything.”

In November 2024, an engineering firm representing Isram Realty & Management Inc. filed a zoning verification letter with Collier County planners asking if a multifamily project over commercial uses would be allowed on the Gulf Gate Plaza parcel, which is in a C-4 commercial zoning district and a mixed-use subdistrict of the Gateway Triangle Zoning Overlay District.

Isram wanted to know if the project would require a public hearing and what the maximum density would be for both commercial and multifamily components, county records show.

In a December 2024 reply, a county planner and zoning manager verified that a proposed project with multifamily development over commercial would be a mixed-use project permitted within this zoning designation. “The purpose and intent of the mixed-use subdistrict is to provide for pedestrian-oriented commercial and mixed-use developments and higher-density residential uses. Developments will reflect traditional neighborhood design building patterns. Individual buildings are encouraged to be multi-story with uses mixed vertically, with street-level commercial and upper-level office and residential,” according to a letter from the zoning services section of the county’s Growth Management Department.

Would this require a public hearing? “Yes, [mixed-use projects] that do not meet the thresholds for administrative approval may be approved by the BZA [Board of Zoning Appeals] through a public hearing process,” the county planners replied.

Answering the density questions, the county said a minimum or maximum requirement for commercial square footage does not exist, but the county’s land development code states that a mix of uses are required so that neither residential nor nonresidential exceeds 80% of the gross building square footage. According to the density standards section of the LDC, the maximum density permitted by the mixed-use subdistrict is 12 units an acre.

While there is not a timeline yet for redevelopment plans at Gulf Gate Plaza, an agreement is expected in 2026, but the local project most likely would be years in the making. Isram Realty President Matthew “Mati” Rikman could not be reached for comment, but leasing agent Ryan Hayoun said Isram wants to redevelop the center that includes the space vacated by Big Lots. “We’re in talks right now,” Hayoun said. “Nothing is signed yet.” 

Kowal, who is a member of the BZA as a county commissioner, sees redevelopment as a viable opportunity for Gulf Gate Plaza, which he said looks run-down. He noted that the Community Redevelopment Area that includes Bayshore stems from a desire to give the community a facelift. 

“The CRA was created just for that reason,” he said. “These people pay a few cents on their tax to have redevelopment or to have blighted properties brought up to a modern, better-looking product than what’s been there in the past.” 

Garcia agreed that a facelift is needed for the aging shopping center, which she called “the gateway into Bayshore.” Isram is willing to work with the county to revitalize that corner, she said. 

“They so badly want to be involved in the revitalization of this area, and that would be a great promotional opportunity for them to do something grandiose like that,” Garcia said. “We would just love to see that happen here on the corner. It would just be fabulous.” 

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