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Cape Coral | Fort Myers | Punta Gorda | Burnt Store | Naples 

Commercial boom to hit Cape
The News-Press, March 7, 2007

A building forecast for Cape Coral calls for more shopping, more eating, more fun — more reasons to live, work and play in the emerging city.

Those attractions could reinvigorate the city's slumbering housing market. Big investors wouldn't build department store, office and restaurant space if they didn't believe people would come to the Cape to live.

That message was delivered to offset a gloomy residential real estate climate Tuesday for an audience of 1,300 real estate professionals, city staff and residents. The occasion was the annual FutureScape event sponsored by the Women's Council of Realtors Cape Coral Chapter at the First Baptist Church of Cape Coral.

More than $80 million worth of retail, restaurant and office establishments are on the way to the city of about 160,000 over the next five years, developers said. And almost 1 million square feet of commercial development was announced among eight developers Tuesday.

"I got a lot of real positive information on our commercial market," said Annette Carrasquillo, an associate with Cape Coral's Portofino Homes. "I think this is going to help turn our residential market around." A regional mall remains in the picture as does $1 billion worth of development in the downtown area.

The hot-growth areas remain along the Pine Island Road Corridor, at the intersection of Veterans Parkway and Surfside Boulevard and south along Del Prado Boulevard and onto Cape Coral Parkway.'

State government discussions about eliminating property tax "will bring people here like never before," he said. "The city will explode."

The bright commercial forecast continues an unprecedented explosion for a city once viewed as a bedroom community with 92 percent of its 116 square miles belonging to residential homes.

"We are experiencing the greatest surge in commercial investment in the Cape in at least a decade. The surge is in offices and industrial space," city economic development director Mike Jackson said. "This will allow companies from across the United States to locate in the Cape and for businesses already in the Cape to expand." The city increased its commercial development during the past year by more than 700 percent, Jackson said.

That is seven to eight times what the entire county can boast, he said.

There are reasons national brand names such as Starbuck's, Maytag, Bonefish Grill and department stores Kohl's and Belk are coming to coming to the city.

"There is a great demand for goods and services from Cape residents," said Bruce Preble, a Welsh Companies Florida Inc. vice president. In response, developers have begun to give businesses the space and buildings they need. Preble's company has Shops at Cape Crossing, a 81,708-square-foot retail complex with a courtyard, under construction on the north side of Pine Island Road across from Skyline Boulevard.

McGarvey Development, represented by Charles Jans, remains upbeat about the Cape's future. "We are very optimistic about this market," he said. "With us the glass is always half full. We are long-term investors. We don't develop and sell."

The McGarvey development, Mid Cape Business Park, at Pine Island Road and Santa Barbara Boulevard recently signed a deal with Maytag to rent a building as a distribution center.

The park's location on Pine Island Road — with access to areas to the east, such as North Fort Myers and Fort Myers — helped seal the deal. McGarvey also plans to build on about 45 acres to the east of the Coral Walk project at the intersection of Pondella Road and Pine Island Road. That East Cape Commerce Park would have light industrial and distribution warehouses.

The Cape is growing in area as well as in businesses, said Carl Schwing, assistant city manager and the night's final speaker. Owners of about 3,200 acres in the northern area of the city want to be annexed into the city.

"Not only do we love it here," Schwing said, "but other people want to come into the city."