Shopping centers to get extreme makeover

Fort Myers Avenue Shops' higher rents may force out low-budget stores

South Fort Myers residents Ron and Pat Currie look for puzzles at Hobbie Warehouse in Fort Myers Avenue Shops. The couple travel during the summer and were looking for things to occupy their time. CLINT KRAUSE/news-press.com Guillerma Santana, an employee of the Family Thrift Center at Fort Myers Avenue Shops, sorts clothing recently. The store employs a lot of immigrants and other residents from the surrounding neighborhood. ANDREW WEST/news-press.com • Nurul Amin, 44, right, purchases groceries from Mohammad Haq, 47, at Eastern Food in the Dragon Plaza section of Fort Myers Avenue Shops recently. ANDREW WEST/The News-Press Rendering of Fort Myers Avenue Shops and surrounding area Special to news-press.com

The planned "extreme makeover" of two older Fort Myers shopping centers — now called Fort Myers Avenue Shops — is another example of the inevitable march of progress spurred by explosive growth.

Progress, however, comes with a price.

The former Dragon Plaza and Family Thrift Center on U.S. 41 — a hodgepodge of 17 buildings — are to be turned into an upscale outdoor shopping mall with cafe seating amid planters and fountains, pedestrian plazas and landscaping.

Now some tenants fear they're considered a poor fit once the center becomes a swan. Or that they won't be able to afford the higher rents.

For 20 years or more, Southwest Florida's affluence has been reflected in increasingly higher real estate prices and more attractive shopping centers filled with high-end brands.

As a result, older, less desirable shopping plazas such as these — once relative backwaters — are finding themselves slap bang in the path of progress.

What's happening here is a scenario that's played out regularly in high-growth areas such as Lee County, which attracts about 60 new residents a day.

Several other shopping centers have been rehabbed in recent years — including those on three corners at U.S. 41 and Daniels Parkway: Market Square, Cypress Trace and Costco centers — to attract major chains. Many more revamps have been done or are in the works around Lee County including the Old Time Pottery center on Fowler Street; the former South Pointe Plaza on College Parkway; and the center anchored by Beall's Outlet on South Tamiami Trail in San Carlos.

"Typically, shopping centers are revamped every five to 10 years," said Michael Beyard, with the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C.

It's a national trend, and it's accelerating, he said.

PLEASING CUSTOMERS

A 2004 institute survey found that 34 percent of so-called community shopping centers — those the size of this one — expanded, renovated or did both in the past five years.

They have to if they want to prosper.

"The reason is shopping is so fickle and it responds to trends, and customers abandon shopping centers rapidly if something better comes along," Beyard said.

Also, consumers "are not looking for enclosed malls and traditional shopping malls," he said.

Change is ongoing and inevitable.

"Things have changed so much since I came here, it just doesn't make too much difference to me," Mel Flegal, a 40-year resident, said of the makeover plans. She was shopping at Kinko's Copies in the complex.

Older centers such as this "are the last frontier and developers are taking more interest in them. The low-hanging fruit has gone and they need to expand," Beyard said.

ORBIS Properties, a New York-based investment company, bought the 237,000-square-foot complex for $15.8 million two years ago.

"We are trying to create an upscale environment," said Rodney Fidler, ORBIS leasing agent.

The project is still in the permitting stage for the first of three phases, Fidler said, but he expects work to start later this year.

DIVERSE MIX

The plan is appealing to many.

"The more shopping the better for me personally," said Christine Ragazzo, a local resident shopping at Ada's Natural Foods, "but I feel these businesses are important for the community because we have a diverse community."

Fort Myers Avenue Shops represents one of the most diverse and eclectic mixes of merchants in the region, everything from a Fred Astaire dance studio to a Middle Eastern deli, from a health food store to a contractors' exam school, and from an Indian restaurant to stores selling everything from mattresses to tacos to surveillance systems.

Safbar Malik, owner of Eastern Foods, said he likes the idea of a spruced-up shopping center but thinks the rent will be increased to more than his business can support.

"I went into the back (of the center) because the lease might be cheaper." He still has four years left on his lease, but he fears construction will drive some customers away.

"They are telling us they will rip up the whole parking lot and we will have access from the rear doors," Malik said. "From what I hear, the whole parking lot will be dug up and nobody will be able to cross it.

"I don't know why they can't do it piece by piece."

Often, small tenants are flushed out by changes geared to attracting national chains and high-end boutiques.

"One of the challenges communities face is they want to retain these (diverse) kinds of tenants," Beyard said. "Cities need to be part of the process and figure out where the receiver neighborhoods (for displaced tenants) are going to be," he added.

Such tenants may move "to the poorer side of town," he said. But he believes "consumers who want to find a bargain will still find them."

An average 62,000 vehicles a day drive past Fort Myers Avenue Shops one of the highest counts in Lee County, said Fidler, the leasing agent.

Tuscan-style architecture, pantile roofs and dancing fountains are all part of the gentrification — some might say homogenization — of older parts of town, that's been creeping north from Naples.

Jim Mahon, owner of Yoga College of India, fears the center will lose its diversity. He enjoys the synergy of other businesses that complement his own.

"I like the cosmopolitan, international feel to the plaza, and if they can keep that it will be a landmark for Fort Myers.

"I would prefer that to the thrift shops. Anything that enhances the look of Fort Myers is a positive step forward," he said.