Condo set to be demolished after sitting untouched post-Hurricane Ian

We’ve seen a complete transformation on Fort Myers Beach over the last two years.

In the beginning of September of 2022, It was a quaint beach community. A few weeks later, Hurricane Ian changed everything.

Now, the community is rebuilding and, in some cases, starting fresh. The Strandview condos will soon be demolished to make space for new possibilities.

Untouched since Hurricane Ian: belongings still on the shelves, furniture smashed, and the remnants of someone’s entire life left behind.

“She weathered out that storm in that unit down there, and that means water is coming up inside this building to do this, to strip this out,” said Dave Lockwood with Remove It Pros.

Backing right up to the Gulf and standing seven stories tall with 24 units inside, Remove It Pros have to start at the top to take this building down.

“They make high reach machines, about 72 feet is the one we got, and it’s got a giant crusher on the top that kind of just crushes the concrete,” said Taylon Gordon, Operations Manager, “so we’ll start at the top, and we’ll literally work our way down, crushing the concrete until it gets down to about 30 or 40 feet. And then we’ll use our other machines to start to tear it down from there.”

WINK News went up five of the seven floors. One unit looked like it had only just gone through the storm.

Another floor up, the room is the bare bones of what’s left of the Strandview condominium before demo day. What can be salvaged was removed.

Everything else is ready to be smashed to make way for something new.

The property is selling for $11 million, and the lot must be cleared before it’s sold.

It’s set for demolition in the next few weeks.