Lee County

Making way for apartments

A long-defunct freight train station in Fort Myers was demolished to make way for a 420-unit, six-story apartment complex at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Seaboard Street. Almost all of the materials from the 16,000-square-foot building, which was built in 1930, will be recycled.

Jerry Miller, co-owner of the property, will be developing the apartment complex with the site being prepared for construction over the next few months. Vertical construction is expected to start in June or July.

New surgery center 

Surgical Healing Arts Center and Metro Alliance Surgery Center are combining for a $14 million construction project in south Fort Myers. Stevens Construction broke ground on a 20,764-square-foot medical office building and surgery center at 6201 Alliance Lane.

For about the last decade, Dr. Moses Shieh, founder of the practice, has been planning to expand it. He specializes in bariatric surgeries such as gastric bypass and gastric sleeve surgeries, which reduce the size of a patient’s stomach and help them lose weight.

The new surgery center should be ready in the first quarter of 2024, and it will have a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, which promotes faster healing. The second floor will house Metro Alliance Surgery Center, which will have three operating rooms, a procedure room and two overnight beds.

Proposed amusement tower

Heads Up! LLC proposed an amusement tower on city-owned property at the corner of Hendry Street and Edwards Drive in downtown Fort Myers. Standing at 131 feet, the proposed tower seats 16 people for five- or 10-minute rides all the way to the top. Passengers can enjoy drinks while experiencing unique views of downtown and its waterfront.

The aerobar, along with other versions of the product, are manufactured by Paris-based company Aerophile. The tower would be built to withstand 200 mph winds. With any winds above 40 mph or lightning within 20 miles, operation of the ride stops.

An estimated 15 to 20 jobs will come with the proposed project and will cost $4 million to build, funded by the developer. Fort Myers City Council voted to table the item for now.

Affordable apartments coming to Fort Myers 

St. Peter Claver Place Apartments have been planned for seven years and celebrated the groundbreaking of the affordable housing project in April. The apartments will open in two phases, with phase one having 136 units and opening by the end of the year and phase two having 78 units, making for a total of 214 units.

The apartments will be at 3681 Michigan Ave., in Fort Myers, just north of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Residents must qualify depending on their financial status, making between 30% and 60% of the city’s average median income. For 2022, that was $83,200, with qualifying salaries based on last year’s numbers being annual incomes between $25,000 and $50,000. Rents will fall between $600 and $1,300 per month.

Collier County

New wine bar opens 

Naples entrepreneur Rebecca Maddox publicly launched Rebecca’s Wine Bar in April, the first of two eponymous ventures she recently built on Bayshore Drive across from her Celebration Park and Three60 Market. 

The new modern wine bar fronting Bayshore is open to the public with an actual bar, a charcuterie room and a Three60 Wine shop. A companion project, a private members-only social club named The Maddox, will open in October on the shared open-air campus at 2955 Bayshore Drive in East Naples. 

The innovative projects have been about five years in the making. Following a conception phase, Maddox & Partners purchased two vacant commercial lots in early 2019 totaling nearly 1.5 acres and the project broke ground in the summer of 2021 with architectural plans designed by David Corban of Naples.

New artistic and music director 

Alexander Shelley, a conductor with family ties to Naples, will be the next music director of the Naples Philharmonic and artistic director for Artis–Naples beginning in 2024. In his role, Shelley will provide artistic leadership for the Naples Philharmonic, as well as the entire organization for a four-year term. He succeeds Andrey Boreyko, whose tenure concluded in 2022.

This appointment marks the conductor’s first titled position in the U.S. In addition to his role at Artis–Naples, Shelley will remain music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, and principal associate conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he has held since 2015.

Mixed-use development

Naples Beach Club, in partnership with Hart Howerton architectural firm, presented a preliminary design concept for multiple buildings across what will be a Four Seasons resort at the site of the demolished Naples Beach Hotel. The Athens Group, which owns luxury hotels across the country, purchased the property in 2021 for more than $362 million, with Naples Beach Club still owning 10 acres on the east side of Gulf Shore Boulevard North.

There are three separate buildings up for review. The northernmost building is proposed to be a six-story multifamily mixed-use structure, the center building is planned for a three-story commercial structure with a single-story food and beverage location and the southernmost building will be a two-story clubhouse. Underneath the property will be a below-ground garage.

Compass Hotel coming to Naples

Construction will begin this summer to convert an existing hotel on U.S. 41 into a Compass Hotel by Margaritaville, which is targeted to open in December.

The location at 4805 Tamiami Trail N. in the Park Shore area of Naples will be the first all-suite hotel in the Compass portfolio. The property, intended to have a boutique hotel look and feel, will feature 120 fully equipped suites in a paradisical setting inspired by “Margaritaville,” Jimmy Buffett’s hit song about frozen concoctions and lost shakers of salt.

“The Compass Hotel Naples is replacing the Staybridge Suites Naples, said Kelly Basham, regional director at TPI Hospitality, the Minnesota-based developer and hotel management company that also is behind the Margaritaville Resort under construction on Fort Myers Beach.

“There will be no structural changes to the existing hotel, however, many cosmetic changes bringing on a new, fresh feel to the area.”