Q: There are a lot of people asking what is going in on the corner of Randall and Immokalee across from the Publix. I thought maybe you could answer that for us. — Nancy Peck, Golden Gate Estates
Q: Any timetable on when McDonald’s in the Estates (across from Orangetree) is scheduled to open? — Ron Bracey, Golden Gate Estates
A: Two adjoining planned unit developments in Golden Gate Estates will bring multifamily housing, medical offices, automotive needs, additional restaurants and many more retail businesses to that nearly 70-acre Randall Curve section of Immokalee Road across the street from the Publix-anchored Neighborhood Shoppes at Orangetree and the Orangetree neighborhoods of Valencia Lakes and Citrus Greens.
Winchester Center, a retail strip on the northern end of the property will be anchored by Sunshine Ace Hardware and feature numerous restaurants and smaller retailers. The rest of the 21-acre Winchester planned unit development will be immediately south of the traffic light at Orange Tree Boulevard. Those four freestanding businesses will include McDonald’s and a Healthcare Network health center fronting Immokalee Road with NCH medical offices and a self-storage facility directly behind them.
“We think the area is kind of starved for retailers, restaurants and services to feed the area,” said Eric Mallory, executive vice president of Metro Commercial, which is co-developing Winchester with Barron Collier Companies.
An interior road, Winchester Trail, will connect Winchester Center to The Randall at Orangetree mixed-use development directly to its south along the Immokalee Road section between Orange Tree Boulevard and 4th Street NW. A 400-unit apartment community will comprise the majority of The Randall at Orangetree’s nearly 50 acres. Proposed to be built by Atlanta-based Davis Development—the same company that built The Pearl Founders Square apartments—the residential units will be built along the rear of the acreage, to the west of Winchester Trail, while a string of commercial lots will front Immokalee Road.
The McDonald’s drive-thru will be the first business to open, temporarily taking some strain off the nearest location in the Shoppes of Pebblebrooke that has been the No. 1 franchise for years. The new fast-food restaurant at 13811 Immokalee Road is targeted to open around the end of this year. Work began May 31 on the 4,480-square-foot restaurant with 61 seats, development plans show.
Expect to see construction begin this spring on the Winchester Center inline retail strip, anchored on its northern end by a 20,470-square-foot Sunshine Ace Hardware. The new store will be nearly identical to the Sunshine Ace that opened in April to anchor The Plaza at Founders Square, said Sunshine Ace President Michael Wynn. “It will be very similar,” he said. “It essentially will be a similar footprint.”
The target opening for the new hardware store is June 2025 or about 60 to 90 days after the center is built, Wynn said. The center’s site development plan is in for county permitting now and is expected to break ground next spring, Mallory said.
“We think we are going to start construction in March and then open in March of ‘25,” he said.
The center will have as many as six other inline units ranging in space from 1,450 to 3,613 square feet. A more than 5,500-square-foot corner outparcel in the center also can be divided to suit tenant needs.
“It could be one unit; it could be three or four,” Mallory said. “That building would be perfect for furniture.”
The first four inline spaces next to the hardware store are designated for eateries. “We are interested in food. We’ve got a great outdoor dining area for the food tenants. We are interested in coffee shops, sandwich shops,” Mallory said.
Specific tenants for the center have not been signed yet. “We just started the leasing, so we don’t have any done deals yet,” Mallory said. “Services like beauty salons would be perfect. Real estate offices would be perfect, really good tenants for us.”
In June, county commissioners approved 130,000 square feet of indoor self-storage as part of the Winchester property. The three-story building is planned on a 2.8-acre lot. “At this point, we have approvals, but we don’t have an operator,” Mallory said.
Two medical buildings will round out the vacant commercial space in Winchester development. Naples-based NCH purchased 2.23 acres in April, and Immokalee-based Collier Health Services Inc.—which operates as Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida—bought a 1.6-acre lot in May.
“NCH is building a two-story medical office complex at Winchester Plaza but we have no confirmed plans at this time for what may eventually be at that site,” said Shawn McConnell, NCH director of marketing and communications.
Healthcare Network, a nonprofit organization that provides medical and dental care to underserved children and adults, received $1.75 million in appropriation funds from the state this year to build a health center in the underserved Orangetree area. A capital campaign will raise additional funds for the new medical center, which is estimated by Healthcare Network to cost $15 million. Construction is expected to begin in winter 2024 for the 18,780-square-foot comprehensive health center that will offer pediatrics, adult and senior care, obstetrics and gynecology, dental care, X-ray and lab and behavioral health counseling as well as a drive-thru pharmacy, the organization reports.
Immediately south of the new medical center will be a 19,432-square-foot Aldi discount grocery store on a more than 2-acre lot in The Randall at Orangetree, which will be developed by the Davis Group, a land acquisition, development and real estate investment firm based in Alpharetta, Georgia.
“We’ve been really trying to focus on services based on market studies that are needed out there,” said Chris Davis, president-partner of the Davis Group. “We are in negotiations with several new users.”
Although early renderings showed a retail strip across multiple lots, instead The Randall will have at least 10 separate commercial lots along Immokalee Road. Tony Mangione of Trinity Commercial Group still has outparcels available for sale or a ground lease.
“We are doing individual lots,” Davis said. “We are looking at a QSR [quick service restaurant] that’s new to your area that we are in negotiations with. We have offers from a national bank and a national coffee group and an automotive use that we’re talking to. That really leaves us with two or three more parcels.”
Other businesses coming to the vacant lots include 7-Eleven, which has begun vertical construction on its 4,825-square-foot convenience store and is planning to open in the spring with 14 fueling positions and a 980-square-foot freestanding car wash. Brickyard Car Wash also is supposed to break ground around the first of the year on a lot next door to a 7,574-square-foot AutoZone parts store, Davis said.
Underground infrastructure work has been completed on the four-building apartment community, which will begin vertical construction soon. “We are looking to get moving on the apartments early next year,” Davis said. “All the utilities are ready. Everything is done, ready for the apartments.”
Collier County government also owns a small parcel in the development. “They can only use it for administrative-type use,” Davis said.
In addition to the traffic light at Orange Tree Boulevard, The Randall at Orangetree development has two right-in-right-out access roads, Elaine Drive and Isabel Lane, on the western edge of Immokalee Road. The development will not have an entrance off 4th Street NE, which lines up with Randall Boulevard at its intersection with Immokalee Road. A 1.7-acre lake will be on the hard corner at Immokalee and 4th Street NE and a 6.6-acre native vegetation preserve will separate the future apartment community from 4th Street.
The “Tim Aten Knows” weekly column answers local questions from readers. Email Tim at tim.aten@naplespress.com.
