A few years ago, the city of Fort Myers conducted a study showing that downtown could use about 1,000 new hotel rooms. Consider that call finally being heard.
HOS Management, based in Savannah, Georgia, paid $760,000 last month for four adjacent parcels with an address of 1635 Jackson Street, on the northeast corner of Jackson and Second Street.
Plans have yet to be made public on the branding of this hotel or a timetable for construction. HOS Management so far has declined to comment.
Steve Cunningham of Cunningham Realty brokered the sale last month on behalf of the previous owners, Steve Nease and Robert Zielinski of Fort Myers.
The property has an old, shack-like building on it. If only walls could talk, Cunningham said.
“It’s commonly known as the ‘sound check building,’ Cunningham said. “That little building had all of the equipment for visiting bands to come in and record. Lynyrd Skynyrd used to come in and record there. There’s a piano that’s in there now.”
Cunningham had the property under contract with a different buyer last year.
“It was on the market for a while,” Cunningham said. “I priced it for where it would be for when it would sell. The supply and demand curve didn’t dictate that price. We had several offers. We had it under contract at the same price, but then the buyer backed out.
“This buyer (HOS) has been very diligent in keeping track of the property. When the contract fell through, I called him up, and he said he’d call me in 10 days.”
Turning the piece into another downtown hotel made sense to Cunningham.
“The economy is healthy, and downtown is a vibrant place to be,” he said. “Everything’s about timing. And now the time for that property was right. The guys who owned it were local guys. They had a price in mind. Again, supply and demand curve. What else was left? Nothing.”
Whenever this hotel gets built, it will supplement what for years had been a stagnant market for hotels in downtown Fort Myers.
The 243-room Luminary Hotel opened in September 2020.
The 67-room Hotel Indigo is being remodeled and then rebranded to a Tapestry Collection by Hilton.
A Hampton Inn by Hilton with 111 rooms is finishing construction near the “five corners” area of Fort Myers, where U.S. 41 and McGregor Boulevard meet.
But these projects still allow room for rooms.
A different investment group paid $2.5 million for the southeast corner of Jackson and First streets, just a short walk from the other planned hotel site. This one has an address of 2300 First Street.
Public records show this in the planning stages to become an eight-story, 132-room AC Hotel by Marriott.
And on the southeast corner of Royal Palm Avenue and Second Street, not far from the Fort Myers Regional Library, a long-planned Staybridge Suites Hotel remains in the permitting stages. This is slated to be a six-story, 100-room hotel.
HIDEV Group LLC bought the land at 2454 Second Street for $1.4 million in November 2016.
