Lehigh Acres growth outpaces its commercial development

Lehigh Acres has a reputation as a bedroom community that supplies workforce housing for other areas of Lee County but lacks its own commercial amenities. 

Fort Myers resident Allen Pruitt, 37, sees Lehigh from a different perspective — as a business owner in one of the county’s fastest-growing communities. 

Ten years ago in September, Pruitt opened Fade’Em Up Barber Shop in Lehigh’s central commercial district along Homestead Road in the Lehigh Town Center, which also includes the long-standing Joe’s Cafe and the East Lee County Chamber of Commerce, among other shops. 

Customers tell Pruitt they can buy larger homes in Lehigh than in places like Miami and Orlando. They’ve moved to the community from across the country and abroad, including California, New York, Alabama and Arkansas. 

“A lot of people are here to stay,” Pruitt said after picking up a to-go lunch from Joe’s. “And one of their first stops is to find a local barber.” 

For decades, Lee County officials have sought to bring commercial amenities to Lehigh. That is increasingly happening, with private investors seeking to cater to one of the state’s largest unincorporated communities. 

But planners say it won’t be nearly enough. In spite of Lehigh’s sprawling, 93-plus-square-mile geographic area, the community was pre-platted as a mostly single-family residential area by its 1950s founders. 

That’s left Lehigh perpetually behind in providing goods, services and jobs for residents, along with a related struggle to build roads, utilities and other infrastructure. 

Residents are forced to drive farther to meet their needs, worsening traffic and reducing the value offered by Lehigh’s relatively affordable homes. 

A landmark 1996 study on Lehigh by Spikowski Planning Associates outlined key planning flaws that still apply today. 

Only about 2% of Lehigh land was commercially zoned, while there is a typical 5% allocation across an entire community, the study states. 

Even if all of Lehigh’s commercially zoned land were available, it would provide enough space for about 38% of Lehigh’s expected build-out population. 

Making matters worse, most of Lehigh’s available commercial land was sold as shallow strip malls or individual parcels not suitable for the kinds of shopping centers and malls that serve other areas. 

“There is commercial (development in Lehigh), but given the scale of Lehigh Acres, there needs to be so much more commercial,” said longtime South Florida land-use planner Dan DeLisi. 

He points to a lack of grocery stores like Publix in Lehigh, for example. A search for Publix locations shows one just down the street from Fade’Em Up, but no others within Lehigh proper. A few more locations dot the edges of Lehigh. 

“There needs to be at least a dozen Publix (stores) in Lehigh Acres,” DeLisi added. “Publix looks at, I think, a 2-mile distance in urban areas. So, you can imagine how many food stores you’d need.” 

One of the solutions identified in the 1996 Spikowski study is to spark commercial development just outside Lehigh. Others include allowing more shops within neighborhoods and assembling smaller commercial parcels into larger lots. 

While it may not be enough, public and private investment is increasing in Lehigh. 

Lee County officials and planners continue to make efforts to increase commercial use in the area. That’s come with a related push to build out the community’s roads and utility infrastructure, which are similarly lacking. 

Much of Lehigh is on well water and septic systems, straining its aquifer and increasing groundwater pollutants. 

The county spent $210 million on Lehigh projects to improve transportation, parks, libraries, natural resources and more between 2021 and 2024, according to the county’s website, not including the Sheriff’s Office, courts and constitutional services. 

Lee County commissioners and the Local Planning Agency recently advanced a proposal to lift a development restriction on commercial growth in the county’s Southeast Lee Community Plan area. The proposal would still need to be approved at a future public hearing. 

Community advocates have raised concerns about how it could impact southeast Lee, an environmentally sensitive area and Florida panther habitat. 

Some also point to how it could bring private investment in commercial space along State Road 82 and Daniels Parkway at Lehigh’s southern border. 

Private businesses, from local barber shops to global companies, also are investing in Lehigh. 

A new Walmart Supercenter that anchors a shopping center on the southern edge of Lehigh, with fast-food restaurants, an auto store and other shops, is expected to break ground this month and open near the end of 2027 or early 2028. 

And in Lehigh’s unofficial central commercial district along Homestead Road, residents are looking forward to the imminent opening of a new Chick-fil-A restaurant, and not only for its chicken. 

“I’m addicted to waffle fries,” said Lehigh resident Victor Sifert, 73, a retired U.S. Navy veteran. “I have to drive all the way to Fort Myers to get waffle fries.” 

Lehigh’s soaring population growth 

Lehigh Acres grew from nearly 87,000 in 2010 to 114,287 by the 2020 U.S. Census, the federal government’s latest count. 

If Lehigh continued its 2010 to 2020 rate of growth through 2026, its current population would be more than 130,000. 

Local officials say the rate of growth has only accelerated over the last decade. 

“They just came piling in to eastern Lee County,” said Michael Welch, chairman of the East Lee County Chamber of Commerce. 

The Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization projected that Lehigh’s population will double from 113,000 in 2019 to 230,000 by 2050, while Lee County, as a whole, grows by 60%, from 752,000 to nearly 1.2 million residents. 

Only northeast and southeast Lee County areas are expected to grow at a higher rate than Lehigh, but with much lower populations. 

In 1996, Spikowski’s study found that Lehigh’s existing 120,000 lots could accommodate a population of more than 340,000 at full buildout. 

Lee County’s official Lehigh Acres Community Plan aims to create a live-work-play urban center in Lehigh’s central downtown area. It reads: 

“Residents should find not only access to employment, transportation and basic amenities, but a concentration of restaurants, galleries and unique shopping experiences.” 

It’s not that, yet. 

“No one ever saw [Lehigh] as a city or anything like that,” Pruitt said. “It was like this no man’s land between Fort Myers and Immokalee. Lehigh is its own thing now.”