{"id":359728,"date":"2026-08-01T05:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T05:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359728\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T05:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T05:53:08","slug":"cape-coral-sees-new-luxury-apartments-battling-for-renters-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359728\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Coral sees new luxury apartments battling for renters | Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Cove at 47th combines apartments with restaurants and retail in downtown Cape Coral as developers navigate rising apartment vacancies across Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n

Brian Tietz<\/p>\n

Cape Coral exemplifies what happens when two luxury apartment complexes get built just as demand falls and supply rises.<\/p>\n

Located about half a mile apart along Cape Coral Parkway, The Cove at 47th and Bimini Square are courting similar customers, with the latter pricing above market rate and featuring amenities including a fifth-floor rooftop infinity pool overlooking adjacent Bimini Basin and an on-site Lee Health clinic.<\/p>\n

The Cove at 47th rents start at $1,915 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 979 square feet; Bimini Square rents start at $2,640 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,146 square feet. That\u2019s $1.96 per square foot at the Cove as compared to $2.30 per square foot at Bimini Square, about 17% more.<\/p>\n

Both complexes began the year by offering two to three months\u2019 free rent, depending on the lease terms. The Cove at 47th sweetened the deal by offering free tolls over the Cape Coral Bridge.<\/p>\n

Flaherty & Collins, based in Indianapolis, developed 327 units at The Cove at 47th. It builds apartments across the upper Midwest, making The Cove its first foray not just into Cape Coral, but into Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was one where we were connected with the community,\u201d says Robert Flaherty, CEO of Flaherty & Collins. \u201cWe recognized the demand at the time. We saw this as a great opportunity, jumping on the growth of the area, record-low vacancies. We wanted to be a piece of that with a shared vision with the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flaherty recognized the irony of vacancy rates shifting from record lows to record highs concurrent with construction of The Cove.<\/p>\n

\"Bimini<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bimini Square in Cape Coral offers luxury amenities and workforce housing as developers compete for renters in a softer Southwest Florida apartment market.<\/p>\n

Brian Tietz<\/p>\n

\u201cThe true secret to affordability is delivering more units,\u201d Flaherty says. \u201cThat\u2019s applicable across the nation. Right now, Southwest Florida is a good case study of what happens when you do increase the supply, and what that does for affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cove also furthered its connectivity to Cape Coral by incorporating a restaurant row: Aqua Seafood Steaks & Raw Bar, Big Nick\u2019s BBQ, Seed & Bean Market and Oak & Stone are located in a row along SE 9th Place. They are sandwiched between Cape Coral Parkway and 47th Terrace, just beneath the apartments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unique in the market,\u201d Flaherty says. \u201cYou can go to Aqua and get a rooftop dinner. We like how that carves us a niche in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crown Development, based in North Dakota, developed its own niche at Bimini Square, just down the road. There are 218 units, with 20 reserved as workforce housing for Lee Health employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to look at the niche you\u2019re going after,\u201d says Larry Nygard, president of Crown Development. \u201cIf you go after that niche, I think there are still opportunities out there. On a macro level, there\u2019s going to be some pain in the market. But that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re not looking at doing more projects in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crown Development also built The Club on Pine Island, a 195-unit complex at 315 SW Pine Island Road. A two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,169 square feet starts at $1,499 per month with up to two months free.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finished that in mid-2024,\u201d Nygard says. \u201cThat one sits today at 94% leased. That\u2019s a market niche that we went after at the lower end of the spectrum. I think we met all the marks on that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cBimini Square, I put that on the exact other end. Bimini Square isn\u2019t a live-work kind of place. It\u2019s a lifestyle choice. Every one of the tenants could have lived in a house or a condo. They have their choice to pick from. Why would they pick Bimini Square? It\u2019s highly amenitized. It\u2019s very convenient. It\u2019s got the same things they\u2019re used to seeing in their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nygard said he has no regrets about building apartments at either end of the spectrum, from market-rate to luxury.<\/p>\n

\"Amenities<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Developers say resort-style amenities and long-term investment strategies will help luxury apartment communities compete as Southwest Florida works through an oversupply of new multifamily housing.<\/p>\n

Brian Tietz<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your objective when you build an apartment?\u201d Nygard says. \u201cIs it to fill it up and sell it? That\u2019s being a merchant builder. We were and are inundated with merchant builders. They want to build something. They want to stabilize it, which is fill it up. Once they get it built and fill it up, they try to find investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Nygard said his company doesn\u2019t tend to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose kinds of guys, they\u2019re in a tough spot right now,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are not a lot of buyers out there today at the prices they need to get out of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other owner is kind of a guy like me. I\u2019m always building with the idea I\u2019m going to hold long-term. We\u2019ve seen these ups and downs as kind of hiccups. Every \u2018up\u2019 creates a down opportunity, and every \u2018down\u2019 creates an up opportunity. That\u2019s the cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flaherty & Collins sometimes sells its assets. But not The Cove at 47th, at least not now.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs operators, we\u2019re looking to buy time,\u201d Flaherty says. \u201cIt\u2019s all about getting through this wave of oversupply. Because the underlying trend in Cape Coral and Southwest Florida of population growth, lifestyle and regional connectivity, those are all still there. Those aren\u2019t going away. This is a tight window. Real estate is cyclical. It\u2019s all about getting through it to the next cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cove at 47th combines apartments with restaurants and retail in downtown Cape Coral as developers navigate rising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[70356,209,211,210,33546,146593,146592],"class_list":["post-359728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bimini-square","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-luxury-apartments","tag-rental-incentives","tag-the-cove-at-47th"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}