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CAPE'S
GROWTH SHIFTS INTO HIGH GEAR BY JEFF
CULL Retailers and residential developers are finding that the 12th largest city in Florida - with more than 113,000 residents - is a place they want to be. So much so that new projects are popping up all over Cape Coral, and existing developments are switching into high gear. Will Stout, developer of Meta - a $400-million mixed-use development in southwest Cape Coral's Cape Harbour - recently unveiled plans for a 168-room hotel with a restaurant, day spa, tiki bar, banquet room and shops. "We feel strongly that Cape Coral can support a medium-sized, waterfront, resort-style, all-suite hotel," he said. The concept Stout is proposing is somewhat unique to the area. It's a condominium-hotel, where buyers own the 1,500-square-foot suites and opt to have the hotel management rent the units, or parts of the units, when they are not in use. "We think we'll have a large European market," he said. But the best feature of the hotel will be its beach. Stout is planning a "football field" size beach on the marina harbor along with several swimming pools. "It will be as good as the very best hotels in Naples," he said. Stout also said his staff is working on drawings for a 44-unit, five-story luxury condominium facing the marina and a waterfront restaurant on the spreader canal. The restaurant will be the first building erected at Meta, Stout said, and is expected to open by the end of next year. Tarpon Point Marina, another upscale development in southwest Cape Coral, has sold 96 of 120 units planned in Tarpon Gardens, a village with two-story four-plex buildings overlooking the old Rose Garden. The units are selling for between $300,000 and $625,000, according to Jessica Barton of Tarpon Point Marina's public relations firm, Spiro & Waites Advertising in Fort Myers. Gross Pointe Development, the project's developer, has started installing the infrastructure, water, sewer and electric lines for many of the villages. When completed, The Tarpon Point Marina will include 976 homes. There will be five gated residential villages, an amphitheater with concert lawn, a village shopping center, a hotel, restaurants and a deep water marina with 175 slips for boats up to 75 feet long. At the other end of the city, developers are eyeing more convention retail developments. Real Estate Broker Dennis Fullencamp has a 115,000-square-foot area for a large retailer set for a site on Pine Island Road near Pondella Road. BJ's Wholesale Club is a membership discount center that sells items in bulk. The Massachusetts-based retailer has stores on the East Coast from Maine to Florida and is similar to Sam's Club. The closest store to Cape Coral is in Sarasota. The city is reviewing plans for the club that is technically too large for the village concept planned for Pine Island Road. However, the city may be able to move the village zoning about 700 feet to the west to accommodate BJ's, said Joe Mazurkiewicz, a consultant working with BJ's. When asked why BJ's considered the Pine Island Road site, Fullencamp said to look at the current market. "Jacobson's closes down and Wal-Mart's up 25 percent," he said. "What does that tell you?" Farther west on Pine Island Road, near Del Prado Boulevard, a 280,000-square-foot shopping center similar to Page Field Commons in Fort Myers is taking shape. Other projects being planned: Heatherwood Lakes is a 159-unit single-family-home subdivision on 55 acres just south of Trafalgar Middle School. The city's zoning board approved the project last week, and council will hear the case on Sept. 30. The Millennium Development Group has approval for a 207-home development, called Sailport, near the city's ecological park, but a group of homeowners near the project have sued to stop the project. Homes in Sailport will be in the $300,000 to $500,000 range, an option between tract single-family housing and the high-end homes of Tarpon Point and Cape Harbour. Entrada, another of Stout's developments, is a 670-acre residential and commercial project in the city's extreme northeast. He is expected to close on the property by mid-November and plans to build between 1,500 and 1,700 new homes on the site. Publix has a 60,000-square-foot supermarket planned for the corner of Pine Island Road and Burnt Store Road. Wal-Mart has committed to a site on the western end of Pine Island Road for a Supercenter. Real Estate Broker Greg Eagle said Sam's Club and a neighborhood grocery store were designing site plans for stores also on Pine Island Road. Sam's Club is a membership warehouse that sells items in bulk. Carrabba's Italian Grill restaurant plans to build near the Outback Steakhouse at Pine Island Road and Del Prado Boulevard. Carrabba's is a division of Outback. PHOTO CAPTION RESORT HOTEL: An artist's rendering of the 168-room hotel slated for the Meta project in Cape Harbour. The hotel will include a restaurant, day spa, tiki bar, banquet room and shops. Special to The News-Press |