Jacob Ogles
As real estate experts point to a glut of Fort Myers apartments, a new poll shows the public concerned about plans for more units.
St. Pete Polls found 76% of voters in the city do not believe Fort Myers needs more apartment complexes. Moreover, more than 89% of those surveyed oppose public subsidizing of such projects or any guarantee of profits to developers.
The numbers came out as Fort Myers city officials consider the future of a 11.4-acre site that once served as home for the News-Press and which could become apartment towers or be part of an effort to create a regional park amenity near downtown.
The pollster surveyed 274 registered votes in the city on Jan. 18 and 19. The survey was conducted for Florida Politics. Results have a 5.9% margin of error.
The questions reached voters less than a week before the Fort Myers City Council takes a significant step toward considering a deal to develop the former News-Press site on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
That site has been owned by the city since 2019, but Catalyst Community Development wants to purchase 9.8-acres of it for $11.5 million. City Council members on Tuesday will vote on advertising a March 3 hearing on a potential purchase agreement for the property. As proposed, the developer would build at least 600 new residential units on site, along with up to 50,000 square feet of retail space, as much as 150,000 square feet of office space, a hotel with 140 to 160 rooms and a 24,000-square-foot grocery store.
But the St. Pete Polls findings suggest little public appetite for an apartment-heavy development on the land. It also suggests a desire among voters for the city to shift its focus from residential construction to economic development.
Pollsters asked voters about the city’s current plan to add 6,800 new apartment units in the city. Nearly 90% of voters would prefer the city fund economic development, which receives no funding at all right now, while just 10% want a focus on increasing apartment inventory.
Asked specifically about the News-Press site, about 89% of those polled would like the site to be part of a larger Midtown-Downtown redevelopment project while only 11% want the land handed to a single outside developer.
Pollsters asked if voters would prefer if part of a $100-million park and recreation bond go toward redeveloping the News-Press site as part of a Central Park-like project. More than 67% endorsed that idea, with 33% opposed.
The poll findings also follow a market report by CoStar saying the Fort Myers multi-family housing market is “facing significant supply headwinds that will impact fundamentals over the next few years.” It suggested renter demand is still up in the city but not growing at the same rate new apartments are being constructed.
