The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Fort Myers has approved two rebates for major developments. One is a home ownership project in Dunbar; the other a downtown hotel.
The city council met Wednesday as the Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, approved a $5.6 million rebate for Towles Garden. A developer wants to build and sell about 140 homes.
Half would be designated affordable. Right now that means the owner's household income would be less than about $58,000 a year.
The money would be paid after the project is complete, and payments would be spread over an 18-year period.
Fort Myers, and most other cities, use increment revenue rebate agreements to pay back for projects that generate lots of business and income for the city. In the past such agreements often were called Tax Increment Financing.
Council Member Diana Giraldo said home ownership is vital, especially in Dunbar.
"One of the things we're really struggling with, is to create generational wealth," she said during the CRA meeting. "We are loaded with rentals. We are known as the City of Palms, but also the city of rentals, at this rate."
Giraldo and her colleagues approved the rebate for Towles Garden, contingent on one thing. The project also must get $19 million from Lee County in Hurricane Ian recovery money. The Towles developer told the CRA he hopes the Lee Board of County Commissioners will approve those millions by the end of this year.
Later the CRA board approved a $14.3 million rebate for the hotel, planned for a vacant lot across First Street from the Davis Art Center downtown.
The 11-story hotel would have about 170 rooms, and CRA members said those are desperately needed to book more, and bigger, conventions for the city.
The hotel rebate is not a hand-out. It would be paid over an 18-year period, after the hotel is open and generating business for the city.
Mike Walcher is a reporter with WGCU News. He also teaches Journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University.
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