{"id":8773,"date":"2025-10-17T20:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/8773\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:03:09","slug":"groundbreaking-for-legacy-point-fort-myers-redevelopment-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/8773\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundbreaking for Legacy Point: Fort Myers Redevelopment | Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bessie Thomas sat on a lawn chair across Edison Avenue as her long-ago and now-gone neighborhood from more than a half century ago began its comeback.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ceremonial shovels went into the dirt Oct. 16 to mark the groundbreaking of Legacy Point, a new development replacing the demolished Southward Village in Fort Myers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thomas, 92, was among the first residents of the original 199-unit Southward Village housing projects in the early 1960s. Those were destroyed in May, with the final remaining residents given vouchers for other places. This paved the way for a 37-acre site that will be redeveloped into a 373-unit neighborhood featuring a grocery store next to the STARS Complex.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Legacy<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Community leaders and project partners break ground Oct. 16 on Legacy Point in Fort Myers. The $100 million redevelopment will replace the former Southward Village housing complex with 373 new homes and community amenities.<\/p>\n

David Dorsey<\/p>\n

Suffolk Construction and Tobler Construction will cooperate as the lead contractors. They were helped behind the scenes by Honc Destruction, Bessolo Design Group, engineering firm Morris-Depew Associates and national affordable housing developer McCormack Baron Salazar, which is coordinating the entirety of the project on behalf of the housing authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this community,\u201d said Sandra Seals, senior vice president of project management for McCormack Baron Salazar, which is also developing affordable housing communities in Atlanta; Winston Salem, North Carolina; and Huntsville, Alabama. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m a part of it now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Getting the grants wasn\u2019t easy, and the funding mechanisms are complex, said Marcia Davis, executive director of the Fort Myers Housing Authority. Additional state, county and city funding will be used for a project that\u2019s estimated to cost about $100 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Southward<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A street-level rendering of Legacy Point in Fort Myers, which will include modern apartments and improved pedestrian access.<\/p>\n

Housing Authority of the city of Fort Myers<\/p>\n

The revitalization plans began in 2019, when Fort Myers City Council member Terolyn Watson met with Davis. Not only did they need new units for new residents, but they recognized the original units from the early 1960s were in a state of disrepair. They needed to be demolished and rebuilt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty million dollars does not even cut it,\u201d Davis said of the original grant approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. \u201cBut it was the seed money to get all of our resources in place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the time Legacy Point opens in spring 2028, it will result from a bipartisan effort and a fusion of two federal government grants issued by former President Joe Biden\u2019s administration \u2014 the original $30 million HUD grant and an $18 million Community Development Block Grant,<\/a> approved by the federal government in coordination through Lee County as a result of Hurricane Ian.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Southward<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Aerial rendering of residential buildings within the planned Legacy Point community in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n

Housing Authority of the city of Fort Myers<\/p>\n

\u201cThis redevelopment is representative of the pride we have in our community,\u201d Watson said. \u201cI am proud to see a project that strengthens our neighborhood while addressing the needs of the people who live there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ceremonial groundbreaking included a performance by the Dunbar High School marching band and shoutouts to some of the families who lived in Southward Village. Although former All-Pro Tennessee Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse did not attend, he grew up in the neighborhood, as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor them to be here to witness this transformation means the world to me,\u201d Watson said of those who were present.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Southward<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A rendering shows Legacy Point, a 373-unit mixed-income housing community that will replace the former Southward Village in Fort Myers. The project is part of The Greater Dunbar Initiative, a large-scale redevelopment effort aimed at revitalizing the Dunbar neighborhood with affordable and workforce housing, market-rate amenities and community facilities.<\/p>\n

The Housing Authority of the city of Fort Myers<\/p>\n

Only five cities per year are awarded a Choice Neighborhoods Initiative grant. Of the five that applied in 2020, Fort Myers\u2019 application ranked No. 1, Seals said. The grant money also included funding for the nearby $60 million Franklin Park Elementary School, which opened last school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you dare to dream, look at what is happening,\u201d said Donovan Duncan, executive vice president of Urban Strategies Inc., a nonprofit organization also involved with the project. \u201cThat\u2019s the power of hope. We\u2019ll build a future of courage we all deserve.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bessie Thomas sat on a lawn chair across Edison Avenue as her long-ago and now-gone neighborhood from more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1571,209,211,210,897,1903,8915,8916],"class_list":["post-8773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-affordable-housing","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-fort-myers","tag-housing-development","tag-legacy-point","tag-southward-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773","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=8773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}