What should the future of the Cleveland Avenue corridor look like? The City of Fort Myers wants to hear your thoughts.
The Fort Myers Community Redevelopment Agency will hold a listening session Thursday from 5:30-7:30 p,m. at the Holiday Inn, 2431 Cleveland Avenue.
This is the second listening session for the city’s main artery, the 3½-mile stretch that runs from Page Field to downtown.
“They were just listening,” Mellonie Long, assistant director at the redevelopment agency, said of the first session. “We went there to listen to them, but they kind of listened to us. … So, we’re hoping this time we get more feedback from them.”
The agency last updated the Cleveland Avenue Plan in 2016, before Lee Health announced that it would close the Cleveland Avenue campus by 2029.
The city has made several improvements called for in the 2016 plan, including a water retention area site on Fort Myers Country Club Golf Course. The retention area is used as a storm water bank, so businesses don’t have to use as much of their property for storm water.
The agency gave several incremental rebates to help businesses remodel. The Holiday Inn will use rebates to remodel next year, Long said.
The agency expects to have at least a $7 million budget next year to make improvements.
The agency is focusing on three issues. It is working closely with Lee Health to decide on how to redevelop the downtown hospital grounds after it closes.
“We’re thinking it should be a mixed-use site, maybe with lots of green space,” Long said.
The CRA will work to change the land use plan from commercial to mixed use and to talk to the owners of the Edison Mall about their plans after given air rights by the city to build above the mall, Long said.
Liz Smith, the manager of Fig Leaf Boutique, on Cleveland Avenue near the hospital, said she wasn’t aware of Thursday’s meeting.
She would like to see more affordable housing in that area and some kind of shelter because there are a lot of homeless in that area.
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