Fort Myers City Council discussed Jan. 16 the potential purchase of the Hodges University property to be the site of a new City Hall.
Hodges University, a private, nonprofit institution of higher learning, will permanently close by the end of August 2024. Located on 34 acres at the intersection of Colonial Boulevard and Winkler Avenue, the property comprises two buildings totaling nearly 110,000 square feet.
The item for consideration was brought forward by council member Darla Bonk, who said she wanted to gauge where Council was in terms of exploring the opportunity further.
“It’s obviously a little bit different to even think about moving City Hall from where it has traditionally and historically always been (in downtown Fort Myers). But with anything, for me, in decisions that we make, I always look at how can something work, why can’t it work or why shouldn’t it work,” Bonk said.
Bonk said with so many refurbishments that are needed at the existing City Hall, she thinks it’s worthwhile to look at the cost-benefit analysis to see if moving to the Hodges property would make financial sense.
At this point, city leadership and some council members have only toured the buildings at Hodges.
While council member Terolyn Watson agreed a new City Hall was needed, she opposed moving out of downtown Fort Myers. Council member Johnny Streets also leaned more toward constructing a new City Hall building downtown.
However, council member Fred Burson said it would be a great move financially. “That building is 110,000 square feet,” he said. “If you had the chance to tour it, that building is going to cost us today, $400 or $500 per square foot to build, and we couldn’t start to replace it for what they’re asking.”
Burson’s comment aligns with Bonk citing the cost of retrofitting versus new construction as a possible benefit to considering Hodges as City Hall’s new home.
Burson also acknowledged the location of Hodges, calling it the center of what Fort Myers is going to be. He said moving City Hall to a location that’s more accessible to all residents would be beneficial.
“We’re right here on the north end of the city boundaries up against the river, whereas this would be more in the center of town,” Burson said.
Burson even suggested using the existing City Hall as affordable or workforce housing. “As far as this site goes, we have the entire block. We could make a decision to sell it to a business and put it on the tax roll,” he said. “We increase the tax roll, make good use of downtown property for more workforce housing.”
Additionally, Burson said the move to Hodges would eliminate the hundreds of thousands of dollars the city currently pays out in rent all over town.
“This building is not nearly big enough to house all the city departments,” he said. “If we were to consolidate all the departments into one building, we would eliminate all those rents we currently pay. We would put this site back on the tax roll, which is extremely valuable, and we would get into a building that we could not start to duplicate for probably better than twice the price that we can actually acquire this for.”
Now, having obtained the green light from Council, City Manager Marty Lawing said staff will begin to do some space needs assessments, evaluate the space needs of all departments and determine the modifications and renovations that would be necessary, as well as assess the associated costs.
