3 options remaining for new Fort Myers Police Department headquarters

Reporter: Gail Levy Writer: Paul Dolan
Published:

The City of Fort Myers has narrowed down its list of possible locations for a new police department headquarters.

No location has been finalized as of Friday, but the city has narrowed the field down to three locations. And the spots being considered aren’t too far from the current police headquarters.

One is on Central Avenue just south of the News Press building, which is owned by the city. This location is over seven acres and selling for approximately $2,600,000.

Central Avenue location. CREDIT: CITY OF FORT MYERS

Another option getting considered is on Market Street, which is just slightly south of the Central Avenue site and is about an acre and a half bigger. The price tag for this location is $3,600,000.

Market Street location. CREDIT: CITY OF FORT MYERS

The final location the city is considering is on Fowler Street and Central Ave. At nearly nine acres, it is the largest of all of the options the city is considering. All that land comes for the price of nearly $4,500,000.

Fowler Street and Central Avenue location. CREDIT: CITY OF FORT MYERS

But there’s still a lot more work to do until the police department can build its new headquarters.

Kevin Anderson, the mayor of Fort Myers, spoke with WINK News about the plans for the headquarters.

“We got to start looking at, okay, how can we obtain? Which property can we obtain? How lengthy will that process be? Because we are under somewhat of a time frame, we have to do this in conjunction with the Choice Neighborhood Initiative. So it’s not like we can just take our time we got to move. So we’ll start negotiating, reaching out to those property owners, and negotiating,” Mayor Anderson said.

The News Press building was originally going to be the new Fort Myers Police Department until renovations became too expensive. The city is still trying to sell the property and make a profit since they bought the building for $9,000,000 more than three years ago.

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