FORT MYERS, Florida. September 29, 2020 (News-Press) — The completion of the 12-story, 243-room Luminary hotel marks not the end but the beginning of a downtown Fort Myers makeover. Last week, the part of Centennial Park north of Edwards Drive between Heitman and Dean streets was fenced off for WCG Wright construction crews. They are transforming that part of the park into a new amphitheater to be used for outdoor concerts. It should be ready summer 2021.
Meanwhile, what had been the city pier building and most recently the Art of the Olympians museum, is being renovated and converted into the Oxbow, a riverfront restaurant at 1300 Hendry St. The Columbia restaurant chain of Tampa had expressed interest in the location but backed out as negotiations with the city broke down. The Oxbow, owned by Mainsail, which developed the Luminary, projects to open March 2021.
Total price tag for the hotel, restaurant, amphitheater and convention center upgrades: $92 million. “We finally have some momentum,” said Joe Collier, CEO of the Tampa-based Mainsail, which signed a 99-year lease with the city for the land on which the Luminary was built. “This is going to be tremendous for the development of downtown,” said Tom Albrecht, director of sales for the Luminary.
“I see this as a big business generator for all of the downtown restaurants and all of the downtown real estate.” The Oxbow will be the next phase of the project to be completed. Crews are creating a casual dining area that will be right on the water. The second story will have room for more dining tables and banquet and event space. “Downstairs, there’s going to be a little bit of retail in there,” Collier said.
“There’s going to be kayaks and paddleboards and those kinds of things. It’s going to be a great bar and restaurant. We’re adding some outdoor patio space around the bottom and the top. The ground floor and the top floor, there will be outdoor seating. That’s the part that takes a while to get done.” “The inside is really built out and framed out, kind of ready to go. They should be handing the keys to us by early January. Then we’ll go in there and put in all the liquor and the food and get it all cleaned up.”
About $1 million in city funds were allocated to construction of the Oxbow. Mainsail is paying about $3 million, according to city of Fort Myers spokesperson Stephanie Schaffer. From the Beacon, the 12th-story bar on top of the Luminary, bar patrons will be able to watch the construction of the amphitheater unfold from a bird’s eye view. “It’s a big footprint,” Collier said.
“The amphitheater to me is one of the least-talked about things. But it’s going to be very exciting for the locals. The music programs we’re going to be offering there will be outstanding.” The city, Mainsail and a corporate sponsor are each contributing $350,000 to tear out a parking area, remove trees and install new landscaping and sidewalks, plus the elevated grass that will rise, gradually by about four feet, a slight angle from the stage. About 165 feet will separate the front of the stage to the back of the amphitheater.
The statue of the Black Union soldier, east of the Uncommon Friends statue, will be moved to a more prominent location along the sidewalk fronting the river to create more room for the amphitheater, said architect Kevin Williams of BSSW Architects, the Fort Myers firm that’s designing the amphitheater. “Those monuments will be rededicated along the Riverwalk,” Williams said.
“A pedestrian walkway. It will be kind of a statuary walk. It’s going to draw people downtown. It’s going to help activate the riverfront quite a bit. You can sit on the risers in front of the event center and be able to see the stage as well.” The Fort Myers river basin expansion project, completed in 2012, created a stormwater retention and filtering system for runoff to discharge into the river.
It paved the way for the Luminary, which overlooks the basin, and the surrounding projects to exist, Schaffer said. The basin project cost $5.7 million and did not require any new debt for the city, she said. The city received $500,000 from the state and a $423,000 grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The Caloosa Sound Convention Center has finished renovations at a cost of $12.2 million for the city, Shaffer said.
The new hotel and the convention center, although they are next door to one another, do not directly connect to each other. Homeless people have been sleeping under the covered pavilion at Centennial Park in recent weeks. One of them set up a mattress on top of a picnic table on which to sleep. Shaffer said the city is working with the Lee County Health and Human Services and the Lee County Homeless Coalition on finding alternative sheltering options.
Government groups will connect the homeless with needs-based services as Centennial Park continues to undergo renovations. The Fort Myers Police Department and Lee County Sheriff Office, along with other community leaders, are participating in homeless outreach team training to replicate similar successful homeless outreach efforts in Tampa and Sarasota.
The Hall of 50 States, which was built in 1927 and moved to the current location on Edwards Drive in 1943, last week received a fresh coat of white paint, which covered graffiti and years of neglect by the city, which owns the building. The future of the building remains up in the air. The land immediately to the east, west and south of it is owned by Bradford Arcade Parking LLC, which is owned by the Florida Repertory Theater.
