COASTE | COMMUNITY
NOT TOO MANY YEARS AGO, IT WAS THE PLACE WHERE NOBODY WAS. TODAY, DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS IS THE PLACE
That was then, and this is now, and downtown Fort Myers is once again the place to be and be seen — thanks to a remarkable renaissance led by city visionaries and gutsy leaders.
Just about any given evening in the Downtown Fort Myers River District, you can find yourself bumping elbows with a cavalcade of personalities befitting a fashionable art district that’s complete with vintage brick streets, statuesque palms, fountain-studded plazas, studios, galleries, rhythmic beats, cocktail bars, cafes, theater houses, unique boutiques — studded with glorious glimpses of the meandering Caloosahatchee River and its breathtaking sunset vistas.
Today, it’s hard to imagine that only a few years ago this place was all but desolate, save for a smattering of downtown government workers who cleared out weekdays by 5 p.m. The handful of shops and cafes that existed closed then too, and remained that way all weekend. Few merchants had reason to smile then — because the only real, bona fide downtown between the cities of Sarasota and Miami had lost its mojo and became, for all intents and purposes, a ghost town of sorts.
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