FORT MYERS, Fla. — The future of the Fort Myers Country Club, Edison Restaurant is down to two proposals —leaving city council members scrambling to decide which one after the front runner backed out.
"I would say some council members aren’t happy about the fact that that happened," said Liz Bello-Matthews, the city's Director of Public Affairs.
This comes the day when the city was expected to finalize the rankings of the proposals.
One of the developers associated with 23 Restaurant Service told Fox 4's Briana Brownlee despite being the front-runner, the group withdrew its proposal, mainly because of how the process was going.
Here is the email 23 Restaurant Service sent to the city that was obtained by a public records request:
In part, the email reads,
“We have received a lot of direct feedback from local citizens, and it is clear to see the city council is not united in what they would like to see happen at the property," wrote Marc Brown, the President of 23 Restaurant Service.
"This process became a little complicated for them, entities of their size do not want to be involved in an environment, where they are receiving negative messaging, or they feel they aren’t being welcomed in a community," said Bello-Matthews
The email continues, “We also assumed the City would like to find a path that would alleviate the liabilities related to the current condition of the building and turn this property into the financially profitable real estate it is capable of being,” Brown wrote.
Fox 4 asked the city about those liabilities and conditions. "It [Edison Restaurant] does have an interesting look and feel but it does have substantial issues associated with it in terms of structural items," Bello-Matthews said.
Monday night, the city council was expected to finalize the rankings for the proposals.
With 23 Restaurant Service pulling out of the process, Mayor Kevin Anderson announced at the meeting the discussion regarding the future is on hold.
