On Monday the Fort Myers Beach Town Council unanimously approved the Estero Island Beach Club rebuild proposal. Monday’s approval was the second of two public hearings for the 75-unit time-share building which was destroyed by Hurricane Ian.
Last month the LPA voted unanimously to approve the revised project which will be rebuilt next to DiamondHead Resort.Â
It’s been a long and winding road for the 2,200 time-share owners at EIBC, which come from 40 states around the U.S. and 5 countries to stay at EIBC, vacation on Fort Myers Beach, and pump millions of dollars into the local economy. It’s estimated that about 11,000 people use the EIBC time-share facility every year and spread over $11 million throughout the local economy.
Before Hurricane Ian EIBC was 2 buildings of about 2-3 stories. They were totally destroyed by the storm and eventually demolished. After Hurricane Ian EIBC has a little less land to build on thanks to the 1978 Coastal Construction Control Line. A portion of the north building lost 6 units and a portion of the south building lost 2 units that were previously over that line.
In October of 2024 the LPA approved Estero Island Beach Club’s original 10-story new building proposal. The following month, the Town Council denied it. The reason, not enough public benefit to warrant a 10-story building. The denial was done ‘with prejudice’ which meant EIBC would have had to sit out the town’s process for a year. Then in November of 2024 the Town Council voted to allow EIBC to come back before the town with a new presentation.
The proposal LPA members saw last month and Town Council members saw this month was for the same number of units pre-Ian (75) in a flatter U shape building that takes up more of the property than the 10-story structure but is only 3 stories over parking in the middle section. The other two sides of the “U” are proposed to be 4 over parking. The Floor Area Ratio (F.A.R.) is reduced from October 2024 proposal of 1.4 to now be 1.2. Every unit in the building will be 842 square feet.
Here’s the list of public benefits EIBC presented with their new building plans…
Now that it’s been approved, the EIBC Board of Directors now needs to pitch the revised plans to all the owners, including the estimated cost to build and estimated assessments they would be faced with to pay for the project. The owners would then have 60 days to decide whether they want to move forward based on those financials.