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FERTILE FLORIDA

Gulf Coast Town Center brings big-box retail to Fort Myers-Naples region

By Jill Maunder

In a swath of southwest Florida that was home to wild boar and panthers not long ago, university administrator Susan Evans has been watching a new breed of neighbor to her school rise on 200 acres across the road: Belk, Best Buy, Costco, JCPenney, Jo-Ann — all of them co-anchors of the 1.7 million-square-foot Gulf Coast Town Center.

“I’m most excited about the Bass Pro Shop because I’m a fisherperson, and a Bass Pro Shop is like a Disney World to me,” said Evans. As spokeswoman for the 7,200-student Florida Gulf Coast University, she has had a front-row seat as the once-unpopulated sector of Lee County — “there literally was nothing” — has been transformed around the fledgling campus of the state’s newest university. The shopping center will be the largest in the growing Fort Myers-Naples region.

Though Phase one anchors such as the 185,000-square-foot Super Target began opening last November, the major thrust of development is taking place this year. Phase two of the 15-anchor center, developed by joint-venture partners CBL & Associates Properties and The Richard E. Jacobs Group, measures more than 1 million square feet. Openings will begin in the fall for this stage’s eight anchors, including Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, two Marriott-branded hotels and many of the 120 planned specialty shops and restaurants. A third phase, with the balance of specialty retailers and restaurants, is next on the construction list.

“Our projections exceed $442 million a year in sales upon completion of Phase three,” said Geoff Smith, CBL’s development manager, speaking of the open-air center, which will boast 7,000 parking spaces and provide 2,000 jobs. Its foremost attribute is its setting in the busy Interstate 75 corridor a few miles south of Fort Myers. The location is within a 30 minute drive of 672,000 permanent residents, a figure projected to grow to 832,000 by 2010, Smith says. The primary trade area has nearly 400,000 people and an average household income of more than $75,849 — 12 percent higher than the Lee/Collier County average, and 33 percent higher than the state average, he adds.

“Our powerful array of industry-leading anchors is truly amazing,” said Smith, director of community center development at CBL. It is rare in the metropolitan market to have such a dominant site, he says. Not only will the center play host to major national tenants, it will also offer “the best parts of lifestyle retailing, including a mix of restaurants, entertainment, department stores and specialty shops in an intimate and comfortable setting,” he added.

This assembly of power center and lifestyle tenants has prompted CBL executives to coin the term “power village” to describe the project — the largest the firm has developed. All of the structures besides the hotels will be on one level, though heights will vary to provide some architectural variety, Smith says. Among the largest anchors will be Belk and JCPenney, each with 100,000 square feet, and membership warehouse Costco, which will encompass 145,000 square feet.

Gulf Coast Town Center will not only be a big project but a visibly Florida-oriented one in terms of its appearances and offerings, the developers say. “We make an effort in all of our Florida developments to make a statement about the community,” Smith said of CBL, the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based REIT, which owns six other Florida properties. Its 132-center portfolio, including properties it owns, holds interests in and/or manages, totals 74 million square feet, making CBL the largest owner of malls and shopping centers in the Southeast.

The firm, which has another 10 projects under construction, joined Jacobs last April to build Gulf Coast Town Center. “They had the wisdom to recognize the potential of the site six years ago,” Smith said of the Jacobs Group, crediting its founder, vice president of development Jim Eppele and its vice president of construction, Tom Schmidt, for leadership roles in the project. Dougherty Schroeder & Associates of Atlanta oversaw the center’s design, and EMJ Corporation of Chattanooga is the general contractor.

The developers are giving the village-style center a tropical Florida theme with much use of lush landscaping and eye-catching architectural elements such as a decorative fountain with cascading water steps. To offset the prevalent Gulf Coast sun, the project will also offer many shaded areas with seating, all of them to be completed in the current phase.

Market Plaza, an area near book retailer Borders set aside for shoppers to relax, will contain a timber pavilion with a slate roof, ceiling fans and tables topped with game patterns for chess and checkers. A concierge desk will provide such customer services as sales of gift cards and tickets to the 16-screen Regal cinema’s films.

“We wanted to make sure we included comfortable seating and shade, so we included gazebos adjacent to the children’s play area,” said Smith. He foresees parents enjoying breaks under the whirling fans while their offspring climb on beach-motif play equipment patterned on the Coast’s dolphins and manatees.

A bronze statue of a Florida panther will be featured in Market Plaza, as will a stage for outdoor concerts. This plaza also will function as a restaurant district. Smith envisions restaurant guests relaxing outdoors before dining or catching a film at Regal, which will be across the parking lot from Market Plaza. It will also feature a mosaic glass-inlaid path — dubbed a “river of grass” — encircling the pavilion and leading to the 130,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World.

It’s the first store on the Florida Gulf Coast for Bass Pro, a Springfield, Mo.-based retailer with 33 stores nationwide. The popular outdoors store promotes itself as “part museum, part art gallery, part education, conservation and entertainment center.” Fish and wildlife exhibits, photographs and artifacts will be displayed alongside fishing rods, bait buckets and casual apparel.

Bass Pro will be built adjacent to a 24-acre retention lake where brands in its boat showroom — Tracker, Nitro, Mako and SeaCraft — may be tested. The store also will include the 8,000-square-foot signature restaurant, Islamorada Fish Company — only the third in Florida — as well as a 19,000 gallon freshwater aquarium stocked with colorful native fish.

In another bow to the Gulf Coast, the 134-room Courtyard by Marriott will feature a lobby aquarium rather than a fireplace, hotelier John McKibbon says. His company, Tampa, Fla.-based McKibbon Hotel Management, which owns more than 40 hotels in the Southeast, will back up the Courtyard’s completion with a 116-room Residence Inn by Marriott. “We like to go in areas where there’s a lot of retail,” said McKibbon. He calls the market “a great place to live — the lifestyle, the golf, the weather.”

To court the college clientele, the project’s University Plaza area will be wired for Wi-Fi and will include two pavilions with built-in benches as well as an expansive lawn where blankets and laptops will be welcomed. This plaza, where the university’s logo will be inlaid in decorative concrete near a dancing-water feature, also will have retail merchandising units and refreshment centers, Smith says.

Evans says Gulf Coast Town Center “will be very positive for our students for jobs as well as for entertainment.” An enrollment increase to 8,200 students is anticipated by fall, with growth projected to 20,000 students by 2015.

About 1,800 students are housed in nearby dorms, Evans notes. “That’s another captive audience for the mall.”