Courtesy of Gulfshore Business

 

For six generations, the Freeland family has been thriving in Southwest Florida. Ben Freeland wants to continue that tradition by redeveloping Moss Marina and rebranding it as Arches Bayfront on the bayside of Fort Myers Beach. 

The idea to transform the 4.5-acre site from boat storage sheds into boutique hotels, restaurants and retail began percolating even before Hurricane Ian slammed into the area Sept. 28. After the hurricane wiped out about 6,000 waterfront area hotel rooms, the idea accelerated over the past six months.

“We were looking at what we wanted to do pre-hurricane,” Freeland said. “The hurricane changed everything in a day. We’ve been here a long time, and we have a great piece of property that’s made for this. We’re in the perfect spot for redevelopment.” 

He would have to get the land rezoned by Town of Fort Myers Beach to be allowed to build up to 400 hotel rooms. Freeland envisions having two to three concepts with boutique-style hotels. Freeland held a public workshop Friday at Pink Shell Beach Resort & Marina that drew the attention of Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers. 

“It’s encouraging [that] people want to invest on Fort Myers Beach,” Allers said just before a PowerPoint presentation of Arches Bayside. “Right after Ian, everything was an unknown, but now we’re on a pretty clear trajectory. Now, we get to see what it’s going to look like.” 

Final drafts were revealed of the concept during the Friday public forum, with renderings showing arches integrated into the architecture and a public-access pedestrian path along the bayfront. 

“We want to integrate the local history as much as we can,” Tachieva said, referring to the name of the project itself, as a pair of stone and coquina arches once welcomed visitors to Fort Myers Beach from 1924 until they were removed in 1979 to build the Matanzas Pass bridge.

“We are trying to create a continuous linear park,” she said. 

The goal is to create a walkable, bikeable development that integrates the bayside hotel development with Times Square and the rest of the beach.” 

Freeland also enlisted traffic expert Rick Hall of Hall Planning & Engineering. Narrow streets, street trees, sidewalks, on-street parking, lower traffic speeds, small block size and buildings fronting the street all would help to create the walkable concept, said Hall, who was on hand to assist Tachieva’s team during its charrette. 

“We put together a world-class team to do this,” Freeland said. “We want to do it right. We want to do it in an appropriate way that’s walkable and friendly.”