Castalina, a Lennar Homes community with access to Colonial Boulevard and Winkler Avenue in Fort Myers, has had outparcels available fronting Colonial for a few years now. Next year, look for construction on at least one of the outparcels to begin.
A 124-room hotel is being planned. LSI Companies brokered a 2.56-acre parcel for $1.5 million. Fort Myers ESA Hotel LLC made the purchase in late October.
“I think it’s needed,” said Justin Thibaut, president of LSI. “There’s only a couple nearby. It’s one of the arterial roadways into Fort Myers off I-75.”
The Castalina sign at Turquoise Street, fronting Colonial, just across from McGregor Baptist Church, has been in place for a couple of years now. Activity is finally starting to happen.
“When you do a monument sign like that, it serves two purposes,” Thibaut said. “It serves the Castalina residents. But there’s also marquee signage for whoever ends up leasing or buying property there.
“The owner’s being selective about what he wants there. He wanted to be sure it made sense for the corridor and that it went for the right price.”
LSI also brokered a 1-acre parcel off Six Mile Cypress Parkway in south Fort Myers in late September for $700,000. This is slated to become a 2,500-square-foot Starbucks with some outdoor patio seating.
Just to the east of the Starbucks will be a four-story, 124-room Extended Stay America hotel, according to public records.
There aren’t many rooftops near Starbucks. But there are more than 200,000 square feet of medical-related buildings in the works for the rest of the adjacent Hope Preserve. “The traffic counts are quite high on Six Mile Cypress right there,” Thibaut said. “There are a lot of internal traffic drivers.”