Officials broke ground Thursday morning on a huge, new housing\u00a0 development in the Dunbar community in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
Legacy Point will have 373 units.\u00a0 It will be built on what used to be Southward Village in Dunbar.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Officials call Legacy Point:\u00a0 \u00a0mixed-income, meaning some units will be market rate, some will be work-force housing, and some will be for lower-income people.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
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Amanda Inscore Whittamore<\/p>\n
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WGCU<\/p>\n
Officials from the City of Fort Myers, Lee County and the school district participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in the Dunbar community of Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
MORE<\/p>\n
The community on Edison Avenue will have a food market and other amenities for residents.<\/p>\n
About 75 people, including the Dunbar High School band, turned out for the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Terolyn\u00a0Watson said she grew up in the old Southward Village.\u00a0 Now she serves on the Fort Myers City Council.<\/p>\n
“It was a lovely day here for me,” Watson said. “Very personal.\u00a0 I take this to heart.\u00a0 And I make a dedication to Fort Myers, to the citizens, that this thing is done right. It takes somebody from here to make sure it is right, and I am from the neighborhood.”<\/p>\n
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Amanda Inscore Whittamore<\/p>\n
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WGCU<\/p>\n
City of Fort Myers Councilwoman Terolyn Watson speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in the Dunbar community of Fort Myers. <\/p>\n
Sabrina Shelton said she used to live in Southward Village, and had to move to other public housing when Southward was town down after Hurricane Ian. She attended the ground-breaking, and said she is anxious to move into Legacy Point.<\/p>\n
“It is great to build a bigger and better place,” Shelton said. “It means a lot to walk into a brand new place. Thank God.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Funding for Legacy Point is coming from a number of sources, including tens of millions of dollars\u00a0from the federal government.\u00a0 \u00a0Those funds were committed to help Dunbar rebuild after Ian, with more modern and resilient housing.<\/p>\n
“This is monumental,” Marcia Davis, Fort Myers Housing Authority Director, said.<\/p>\n
She went on to describe the hundreds of hours of work it took to put together financing for the $80-million project. “You have to have some guts and grit to get to this point,” she said. <\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0Southward Village Rendering – BLOCK A.png\n <\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0Southward Village Rendering – Aerial of proposed lake and park.jpg\n <\/p>\n
Aerial of proposed lake and park at Legacy Point on former Southward Village site in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
Housing Authority, City of Fort Myers<\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0Southward Village Rendering – Aerial2.png\n <\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0Southward Village Rendering – STREET VIEW.png\n <\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0Southward Village Rendering – Aerial.png\n <\/p>\n
The first phase of construction will bring 150 units to Legacy Point.\u00a0 \u00a0The new residents will include about 200 people who had to move to other public housing when Southward Village was torn down.\u00a0 \u00a0The first residents\u00a0are expected to move in by spring of 2027.<\/p>\n
The entire project is expected to be completed in spring of 2028.<\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0101625aiwLegacyPoint002.jpg\n <\/p>\n
The Dunbar band performs at the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
Amanda Inscore Whittamore \/ WGCU<\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0101625aiwLegacyPoint005.jpg\n <\/p>\n
City of Fort Myers Councilwoman Terolyn Watson speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in the Dunbar community of Fort Myers. She called on four former residents of Southward Village who are looking forward to the new community. <\/p>\n
Amanda Inscore Whittamore \/ WGCU<\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0101625aiwLegacyPoint003.jpg\n <\/p>\n
Marcia Davis, the Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the City of Fort Myers, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in the Dunbar community of Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
Amanda Inscore Whittamore \/ WGCU<\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0101625aiwLegacyPoint007.jpg\n <\/p>\n
City of Fort Myers Councilwoman Terolyn Watson speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in the Dunbar community of Fort Myers. <\/p>\n
Amanda Inscore Whittamore \/ WGCU<\/p>\n
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\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0101625 aiwLegacyPoint001.JPG\n <\/p>\n
Officials from the City of Fort Myers, Lee County and the school district participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income community that will replace the former Southward Village in the Dunbar community of Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
Amanda Inscore Whittamore \/ WGCU<\/p>\n
Mike Walcher is a reporter at WGCU News. He also teaches Journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Amanda Inscore Whittamore is a multi-media journalist at WGCU News. WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and\u00a0donate\u00a0<\/a>now. Thank you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials broke ground Thursday morning on a huge, new housing\u00a0 development in the Dunbar community in Fort Myers.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-7156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156","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=7156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}