On January 8th, the Fort Myers Beach Town Council gave owners of The Pink Shell Beach Resort & Marina the first of 2 Yes votes needed to build a new 6-story 40-room boutique hotel across from the big resort. On Monday, they received the second yes vote needed to move forward.
During the first public hearing in January, Pink Shell owner Bob Boykin would not commit to a time-frame to start building the new resort. He did not commit to putting shovels in the ground this week either. Boykin wants to wait to see how the 2025 season turns out before approaching a lender for the project so there is no time-frame on when the resort will break ground.
Boykin told Beach Talk Radio he was pleased with the vote. “We are excited to write the next chapter in the Pink Shell story, there is much to do but our team is ready to go. We need some more recovery in the market and we hope that part of that is the clean up of the demolished inventory on the island, the more we look like paradise the quicker the island recovers.”
The final vote to approve the project was 4-0 with Mayor Allers recusing himself because he does business with the resort. On January 8th Councilwoman Karen Woodson voted no because she wanted the Pink Shell team to commit to starting the project. On Monday Woodson said after doing additional research and talking to lenders she understood why the Pink Shell couldn’t commit and she was more comfortable changing her vote to a yes.
In January the Local Planning Agency voted to deny the project by a vote of 4-2.
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