FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — On Tuesday, town officials in Fort Myers Beach denied the proposal for a 17-story condominium project on the site of the former Red Coconut RV Resort. The decision came after months of discussions, meetings, and feedback from local residents and developers.
WATCH AS FORT MYERS BEACH COMMUNITY CORRESPONDENT, ANVAR RUZIEV, FOLLOWS THE STORY CLOSELY:
Now the Local Planning Agency has denied the project from moving forward.
The proposal, managed by Seagate Development Group, included plans for two 17-story buildings with 137 condos, each averaging around 3,000 square feet.
The developers also offered three acres of public amenities, such as parks and a restaurant, but this was not enough to secure approval from the Local Planning Agency.
Fort Myers Beach realtor Alex King was one of the speakers at the meeting. He believes that the island has changed after recent hurricanes, and so have the demands of his customers.
“What we're seeing across the board is that everyone wants a 4-bedroom home,” King said.
King predicts that nearly 70% of Fort Myers Beach residents will move elsewhere following the hurricanes and said new residents are looking for something different.
“We have to think about what we're creating here on the island, who we're creating it for, and those people have different needs versus the folks that bought the homes in 1972," King said.
Pete and Donna Oiderma, long-time residents of the area, shared their concerns about the proposed development. Having lived a few houses away from the site for nearly two decades, they recalled making friends with visitors who stayed at the Red Coconut when it was an RV resort. While they aren’t against new developments, they want to see adherence to the town's land development code.
“They should stay to the original code. Everyone is putting in requests for all these deviations, and I think we should keep this a small town, you know, a family place,” Pete said. Donna added, “But if they let 15 stories go up here, the owner of Margaritaville is going to be really upset. They stuck with the code, and everybody should.”
Jimbo Diaz, a visitor to Fort Myers Beach, shared his similar opinion.
“I love it down here, great people, but to build something like that, great for the economy building up some taxes for the beach, but I don't think that big, they should not build that big,” he said.
The CEO of Seagate Development Group previously mentioned that building exactly to code isn’t something any developer would do.
Despite the inclusion of public amenities, the Local Planning Agency decided against the project.
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Plans submitted for high-rise condos at former Red Coconut RV Resort site
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