Some Fort Myers downtown business owners want free employee parking

With Fort Myers’s growth comes limited and paid parking downtown. Some downtown owners and employees feel that parking should be free when working.

WINK News Reporter Olivia Jean spoke with Peter Martin, the owner of Profiles Salon in downtown Fort Myers.

Martin said he has been trying to get the city to do something in four months. In a perfect world, he wants the city to give downtown owners parking passes for their employees.

“The bartenders, the servers, the dishwashers, the nail techs, the business owners, they all keep downtown running,” Martin said.

Martin has an idea of how it could look.

“I believe the city could issue parking passes to the business owners. The business owners can give it to their employees. It’s very easy to monitor. We’re asking for pennies in comparison to what they are collecting,” Martin said.

Martin called it “government greed” that the city is demanding employees to pay.

“They don’t keep downtown running,” Martin said about city and county workers. They pay less or nothing but Anderson says that due to the city and county paying for and buying parking lots.

“We deserve to park for free. We’re asking very little from the city. This should not even be a fight. They absolutely should be behind us. They’re not. We don’t need them. They need us,”

WINK News spoke with Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson, who says it is not that simple.

“There’s more to run in this city than parking. There’s infrastructure issues, there’s development, there’s safety, there’s all kinds of things we deal with. This is on our radar, it’s on our plate. It’s being addressed,” Anderson said.

There was a change in leadership with the parking vendor that the city uses, which has caused a delay in addressing business owners concerns.

“I’m tired of waiting. I’m turning this into a street fight if I have to. I am not willing to just say, Oh, well, because the city’s wants to ignore us. I want action out of him.” Martin said.

While Anderson said he hoped it would’ve been addressed by now, he is listening and working to meet in the middle.

“What we’re hoping to do is have some type of pass, we haven’t quite, you know, fine tuned it yet,” Anderson said.

Here are the numbers. Martin says he pays $550 dollars a month for his employees’ parking passes.
For a year, that is over $6,000.

“What the parking is, it’s not going to be in the core of downtown. And it’s not going to be free. Not unless at least four members of the council decide that it should be free,” Anderson said.

Here are some more numbers. Fort Myers is approaching 100,000 residents. In March, over 11,000 people used the parking systems downtown.

Anderson argues it is just not feasible for it to be free. However, a discounted rate is another thing.

“We have two parking garages that have high maintenance costs as they age. This is where those dollars go toward, you know, we’re not lining our pockets with money from parking or even citations. This these dollars are pumped right back into parking and downtown,” Anderson said.

A petition is going around to accelerate the city taking action.

“I feel very strongly that we should not even have to fight. This should be a no-brainer. He is not supporting the businesses downtown,” Martin said.

This has been an ongoing debate since December 2023.

The mayor couldn’t give WINK News an exact date of when employee parking permits will be figured out so business owners are still unclear of what the city’s plan is.

One thing is clear: it most likely won’t be free.