Lots of lots across Southwest Florida are being cleared and planned for development. One of them has key visibility from Interstate 75, at the southwest quadrant of the intersection with State Road 82 in Fort Myers.
What long had been planned to become a Buc-ee’s convenience store and gas station instead will become about 500,000 square feet of warehouse space. The tenants have yet to be announced.
Alessio Holdings Inc., an Illinois-based real estate investment company, bought the 159 acres from Buc-ee’s for $10 million.
On the same day it closed on the land, Alessio flipped 23 of the acres – the portion fronting Ortiz Road, just north of the Hanson Street roundabout – to Kittle Property Group for $7 million, designating it as the future site of an apartment complex.
Alessio also just paid $9 million for Royal Palm Square in Fort Myers for a long-term apartment project likely to not break ground for at least a couple of years.
In Punta Gorda, FedEx is building a 250,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center off Piper Road, just east of I-75 and near the Punta Gorda airport. It is scheduled to be finished later this year.
“The new facility will employ a mix of full- and part-time team members,” FedEx officials said in an email. “The company also will contract for package pickup and delivery services with service provider businesses that hire locally for driver, helper, manager and other positions.
“We continue to experience significant package volume due to e-commerce growth and are optimizing the capacity of our network to meet growing demand for our services. The site was chosen because of its ease of access to major highways, proximity to customers’ distribution centers and a strong local community workforce for recruiting employees.”
Off Three Oaks Parkway in south Fort Myers, Portofino Vinyards cleared the land for Phase Two of its project, which includes 106 single-family units, 96 low-rise units and 264 mid-rise units. Phase One already has 312 completed units.
Also in south Fort Myers but adjacent to HealthPark Medical Center, land has been cleared off Summerlin Road to build the Oaks at Cypress Cove, 72 independent living units for senior citizens, spread across 24 buildings. It will have an amenity center and a private restaurant. There also will be three five-story commercial buildings.
Land at the northwest quadrant of Colonial Boulevard and Ortiz Avenue in the city of Fort Myers has been cleared around a man-made lake to be part of Eastwood Village, a massive, planned development of up to 2,600 single-family homes.
