City of Fort Myers seeks to join San Diego, Oklahoma City, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and other cities with culinary districts.

Economic Development Director Steve Weathers presented the idea of creating a district at a City Council workshop April 1.

“Put it on a fast track and figure out how to make it happen,” Councilman Liston Bochette said after the presentation. “Let’s not let other people catch up. We are out in front. It’s our game to lose.”

Weathers said he would move ahead with three public meetings with residents and restaurant owners.

He broke down his presentation into five phases, the first being research. It would determine the target audience, what the concept would look like and the stakeholders.

The second phase would be how to brand and determine district boundaries.

The third phase is finding tenants, in terms of what kind of restaurants would be in the district, which restaurants would be the anchors, how to sustain the district and whether there would be an app for the district.

Weathers called phase four the most important because it would deal with branding.

Finally, would the district need a budget and staff?

“I definitely think it’s something to keep pursuing,” Mayor Kevin Anderson said.

Councilman Fred Burson was in favor of the idea but emphasized the restaurants need to be unique and not chains.

“It has to be something people are going to want to come downtown for,” he said. “We have to make it unique and the only one in the area.”

Weathers said there are site consultants who can find unique restaurants and food brands.

Bochette said it doesn’t only have to be restaurants but stores that sell kitchen goods and offer cooking lessons.

Harrisonburg is one example Weathers named. Its culinary district, started in 2014, was the first in Virginia. Harrisonburg has a population of about 56,000 people, is home to James Madison University and is about two hours from Washington, D.C., and Richmond.

The district was created to develop a food-related brand to promote downtown and to identify that there was a strong cluster of food-related businesses, according to the original notes, said Andrea Dono, executive director of the Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, the group that oversees the district.

The district began with about 34 establishments, and today, it has 55 cafes, bakeries, ice cream shops, coffee shops and breweries in the 40-block designation. The area is surrounded by agriculture, and the district has a year-round farmers market. There’s also a cooperative-owned grocery store and a store that makes handmade cast-iron pots and pans.

The district doesn’t have national chain restaurants with most of the restaurants being locally owned.

“Most entrepreneurs, this is where they want to open,” Dono said.

The Renaissance does promotion with the help of the city’s tourism department. Most of what it does is marketing, branding and backing events, such as Restaurant Month in March.

“We’re reinforcing it’s a great place to go out to dinner,” Dono said.