College Parkway

By many accounts, College Parkway has been the business core of Fort Myers for years. Until the 1998 opening of the Midpoint Memorial Bridge on Colonial Boulevard, the street was the only direct route from Cape Coral to Fort Myers. Savvy developer upon savvy developer took advantage of the high visibility along the thoroughfare and built --- and built and built.

Today Colonial Boulevard, located only about two miles north of College Parkway, has taken away some of the traffic that used to crowd the busy street and intersections. It would be easy to assume that the bustling part of town might fall by the wayside.

That assumption would be wrong, says Frank D'Alessandro, president and CEO of Grub & Ellis VIP|D'Alessandro commercial real estate in Fort Myers. "The Midpoint (Bridge) has actually helped," D'Alessandro says. "Before it opened up, College was very congested, and now a lot of traffic has been taken off of it, which makes it easier to do business there because everything is more accessible."

In fact, he says the area has continued to grow to the extent that only a few pieces of land remain available to develop. "There are only a few tracts left, maybe four or five, that sit directly in front on the parkway," he says.

Commercial space on those tracts therefore continues to become a more valuable commodity. "For new construction, the price has increased in the last couple of years. These days the price ranges from $7.50 to $12 per square foot. That's not cheap by anyone's standards, but people are paying it," D'Alessandro says.

People are also paying more for existing commercial space. "The lease rates are generally in the low to mid to low teens if you're right on the main thoroughfare," D'Alessandro says. "If you get off on one of the side streets, the rates go down to $9 to $12, but those rates have been going up as well."

The reason for the rising prices is a simple matter of supply and demand -- it's the culmination of the area's prime location and shrinking availability. "College Parkway is an excellent east-west corridor," D'Alessandro says, "and there are some excellent demographics that surround it. There are a lot great addresses there."

Many of the current tenants are part of Southwest Florida's growing banking and finance industry. "Over the years, College Parkway has become a financial district for Lee County, and I think we'll see that being expanded with the addition of a new SunTrust building and with Northern Trust," D'Alessandro predicts.

But bank buildings are far from being the only prospects in the parkway's future. "College has been so successful that even property right on the edge of the street is starting to develop," D'Alessandro says. "Mel-Re Development is putting up five office buildings with approximately 500,000 square feet each on the edge and just north of College Parkway."

Retail Also Booming

Office space is not the only large-scale development in the works on College Parkway, according to Randall Mercer of CB Richard Ellis commercial real estate. He says there are have several new developments currently in the works, starting at McGregor Boulevard and working our way east. "There will be a Publix-anchored retail shopping center on the north side of the parkway, and that is going up right now," he adds.

Mercer believes the majority, if not all, of the space within that shopping center has already been accounted for. "It's going to be a real mixture of tenants," he says. "There's going to be a dry cleaner, a restaurant -- just a variety of businesses."

The proposed construction of a large apartment complex directly behind the center is likely fueling the rush to build and occupy the retail space in the shopping center. In the near future, other developments are also planned. "On one of the outparcels that front[s] College Parkway will be a five-story Hawthorne Suites Hotel," Mercer says, "and that, too, is already under construction."

In the parcel adjacent to the Mel-Re office building site, a Wendy's fast food restaurant is in the permitting stage, and a Racetrac Petroleum convenience store is going up just to the east of that. "And on the other side of the main entrance (to the office buildings) there's going to be an Eckerd, and that's already under construction," Mercer adds.

Farther east on College Parkway, a new 25,000 square-foot medical facility is anticipated as an addition to the Riverwalk Medical Complex.

Although the few remaining vacant pieces of land are rapidly disappearing, Mercer doesn't think the corridor will fall out of favor with developers. On the contrary, he says, even before build out is complete, developers will likely begin to take advantage of the next wave of opportunity on College Parkway. "All of the older buildings in what we commonly refer to Executive Court and Presidential Court and going to be just right for renovation," he says. "Many of those buildings are 20 to 25 years old. A very creative person will come in and tear down those buildings and redevelop where they once stood. Within a couple of years, I think somebody will start to totally redo some of the older areas of the parkway."

Whatever happens in the area, Mercer says, College Parkway remains a prominent feature on the Fort Myers business landscape. "It will always be the central business corridor for Fort Myers," he concludes. "Just from a traffic and transportation standpoint, all of the positive factors are in place.

"It's the main corridor from McGregor to 41 and I-75," he says. "As far as business in concerned, it's the center of Fort Myers."

Clinton Burton is a freelance business journalist.