It wasn’t easy, but Fort Myers gave the go-ahead Wednesday for the city’s first food truck park.
The city Board of Adjustments approved Bruno’s Brooklyn Bites Food Truck Park with a 5-0 vote. The park will be on McGregor Boulevard near the Edison-Ford Estate.
Cal and Genevieve Bruno, who own Bruno’s of Brooklyn on Second Street in downtown, filed the application for the park.
The restaurateurs purchased three properties on McGregor between First Street and Virginia Avenue in October 2021 for $1.175 million, according to property records.
The plan calls for the park to have seven food trucks, with two owned by the Brunos.
The park could be an opportunity for restaurant owners whose restaurants were destroyed by Hurricane Ian to start again without opening in a new building, Cal Bruno said. The trucks would remain on site and not have to leave daily.
There would be eight full time and six part-time employees, according to the plan filed with the city, with a new structure including a bar and seating for between 30 and 40 people.
The design of the new structure is planned to combine with the aesthetics of a 1920s building that was already on site. “The goal is to blend the two together,” Cal Bruno said.
While the majority of those who showed up at the Board of Adjustments meeting were in favor of the project, several spoke against it.
Bruno said he knew there would be opposition, but he was surprised by how strong it was.
The biggest concern from those speaking against it was alcohol use, landscaping, changing the historical feel of McGregor and not enough parking.
The plan calls for 22 parking spaces on the site.
Grant Phelan, owner of nearby Pinchers Crab Shack, made it clear he wasn’t objecting because of the competition, but was concerned about the parking.
He said 16 of the 22 parking spots probably will be used by employees. He said the new food truck park in Naples draws between 500 and 1,000 people daily. What happens if the McGregor park draws the same numbers?
“Where are all these people going to park?” he asked.
He said he purchased additional lots for his restaurant so he would have parking.
Attorney Sawyer Smith argued that the park’s application was incorrect and it needed another 10.5 parking spaces to meet the conditional use. Attorney Katherine English, representing the Brunos, defended the numbers, saying Smith was misinterpreting the code.
Cal Bruno and his team of planners said parking should not be an issue because most of the customers will be walking or riding their bikes to the park. The park will be surrounded by apartments and condos within walking distance. He also counted 47 public parking spaces in a quarter-mile of the park.
Attorney Beverly Grady, who lives near the site, said the plan didn’t meet several conditions, including having a bar on site. “A bar is not a permitted use,” she told the board.
When it came time to vote, board member Tony Gargano said the landscaping buffering wasn’t sufficient.
“Driving down McGregor seeing food trucks is not what I want to see,” he said.
City staff said it wouldn’t be safe to use landscaping to block the entire view from the park.
The Brunos agreed, as a condition, to resubmit the plan with the maximum enhanced landscaping that would still be safe for pedestrians and drivers.
That was good enough for the board.
Work will begin immediately, Cal Bruno said. The park should open sometime in 2024, he said.
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