Raising Cane’s plans first Southwest Florida location

A site that was a vacant Lone Star Steakhouse for 17 years at Lee County’s busiest noninterstate intersection, has been cleared and is planned to become Southwest Florida’s first Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers restaurant. 

A development order filed with Lee County names Raising Cane’s as the forthcoming project at 13186 S. Cleveland Ave., near the northwest corner of U.S. 41 and Cypress Lake Drive, which has an average daily traffic count of about 122,000 vehicles. 

The site, owned by Benderson Development since 2010, lies adjacent to Blaze Pizza and the Cypress Trace shopping center, which is full of big-box stores, including Bealls Florida, Ross Dress for Less, pOpshelf and Burlington. Benderson paid $40.35 million for the shopping center in September 2024, purchasing it from Nuveen Real Estate. 

The building became a haven for the unhoused, with people camping underneath the 5,600-square-foot building’s overhang. The walls often were spray painted with graffiti, and Lee County had issued Benderson Development with code violations over the years. 

About a year ago, Benderson prevented the camping by installing chicken wire around the overhang, prior to the recent demolition. Benderson Development could not be reached for comment. 

The chicken tender chain, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and founded in 1996, declined to comment on developing the site other than an emailed statement. It said: “Currently, we do not have any confirmed plans to open a restaurant in Fort Myers. However, we are actively exploring opportunities in the area.” 

The key word in Raising Cane’s statement is “confirmed,” as the permits have yet to be approved by Lee County. 

“There is a fee pending payment and the application cannot be accepted for review until the applicant provides a title certification or title opinion meeting requirements of [the Lee County Land Development Codes],” Lee County’s communications department wrote in an email. 

But the 1-acre site is perfect for the chicken concept, said Jim Shiebler, a senior vice president with CBRE, which was not involved with this deal. Shiebler is familiar with Raising Cane’s and where the company likes to place its restaurants. 

“Concepts like Raising Cane’s, location is of paramount importance,” Shiebler said. “And this spot, is unprecedented. It is literally the crosshairs of Lee County.” 

The high-traffic count and proximity of multiple shopping centers make the location a prime spot for Raising Cane’s to enter the market, Shiebler said. 

“This particular corner is unprecedented, where you have four different monster shopping centers on each of the four corners,” Shiebler said. “That includes multiple big boxes Costco, SuperTarget and Fresh Market grocer. Multiple premier apparel outlet stores. You have 115 retailers with two-plus dozen restaurants. And you also have multiple entertainment and experiential venues and numerous hotels within the area. 

“The property also holds a signalized intersection and multiple access points.” 

And then there’s the concept itself. Raising Cane’s reported opening 118 new restaurants in 2024, bringing the total number of locations, as of August 2025, to 879 in 43 states. 

There are 24 Raising Cane’s in Florida, with three more officially coming soon, two in the Orlando area and one in Miami. 

“Chicken is the hot concept,” Shiebler said. “This property, ironically enough and suitably, is just six parcels north of the Chick-Fil-A, which is king. Raising Cane’s is definitely coming on strong.”