Redeveloping plan to modify East Fort Myers

Southwest Florida is often called paradise, but some areas like East Fort Myers don’t live up to that.

Now, the city is looking to change that. To beautify the area, they’ve created the East Fort Myers redevelopment plan.

The plans are to reinvent it and make it better than before.

Currently, portions of the East Fort Myers development district have been neglected for some time.

We spoke to the city’s community development department director, Steve Belden, and he told us that despite the years of negligence some properties have gone through, the city sees potential in it.

One of the properties included in the plan includes the shopping plaza on Marsh and Palm Beach Boulevard.

“This is a working-class neighborhood here, we have a lot of working-class people; we have a lot of small businesses in the community. We want to see it really revitalize the full potential that it can be over the next 5-10, 15-20 years,” Belden said.

But before any exterior work can be done, the city needs a financial plan. Belden said priority #1 is investing money back into the area.

“The problem that we had is that it wasn’t generating tax revenue, so what we did is we are resetting the district and re-establishing a new CRA district for the East Fort Myers area to reinvest those funds into the properties here and hopefully spur other developers to reinvest into the area as well,” Belden said.

Belden said that building up tax revenue may take a few years. However, locals told us it will all be worth it.

“I think they can make this very valuable,” said Alan Eichorn, Fort Myers resident. “Fort Myers is a great place to do it. I’m sure the city’s got a lot of stress financially, but when they can develop areas like this, I think it’ll only help the area grow faster.”

On May 20, the city council plans to establish the adoption of the new district.

Belden told us it’s a formal action to establish the new CRA district.

Once that’s done, next year’s revenue from property taxes will go into a special fund that will be reinvested into the East Fort Myers redevelopment plan.