Estero Village Council ended a three-year squabble with the developers who want to build apartments at the site of a former Winn-Dixie grocery store.
Council voted unanimously Wednesday to settle the lawsuit with Long Bay Partners LLC, Top-CR Associates LLC and PAC Estero Apartments. The settlement means the developer will be able to build the Residences at the Brooks, a four-story apartment complex with 154 units at the northwest corner of Three Oaks Parkway and Coconut Road.
The final approval for the project will be reviewed at the next Planning Zoning and Design Board meeting July 11. The developer will then provide a final site plan for the design board’s approval sometime in the fall and hold an informational meeting with the public before it comes back to Council for its final OK.
The developer sued the village in June 2020 over the appropriate process to get final plan approval.
The village has no control of what can be built on the site. Lee County approved the zoning in 1997 before Estero became a village. Apartments were one of the uses allowed.
“It’s better than it was three years ago,” said Mary Gibbs, the village’s community development director.
The applicant can’t stray from what the rendering looks like, Gibbs said. The long-vacant grocery store will be demolished and the apartments will take up a portion of the parking lot.
Additional changes include concrete block construction, enhanced landscaping, a decorative wall along Three Oaks and Coconut, repainting the rest of the shopping center to look like one integrated project and new lighting in the parking lot and updated signage.
The apartments will have lots of amenities, Gibbs said.
“I think that leads to the high quality of the project,” she said. The rent prices are not going to be cheap at all, they are going to be expensive from speaking to the applicant.”
The developers are asking for an additional deviation, to lower the number of parking spaces from 437 to 416.
A representative for the developers attended the meeting but did not speak.
Mayor Jon McLain recommended the developers resurface the entire parking lot. He said the surface is outdated and wanted to see new landscaping on the medians within the parking lot.
Council members were happy with the project considering they had no control over what can be zoned at the site.
“The enhancements were very significant compared to two or three years ago what was presented to us,” said Councilman Jim Ward.
The Brooks Council of Presidents didn’t “firmly endorse it,” he said, because their residents wanted something different, but they understood the village couldn’t control the process.
Mary O’Connor, who lives in Shadow Wood in the Brooks, said she was confused because she thought the land originally was set aside by the developer for the benefit of the Brooks and to limit outside traffic so it would be more internal traffic.
“I don’t think this proposal does either one,” she said.
