Florida City Grapples With Slackening Condo Demand

"As the stepchild to its more beautiful sisters in southwest Florida, Naples and Sarasota, this city [Fort Myers] has struggled for decades to revitalize its picturesque downtown and attract snowbirds and tourists.

With low-rise buildings dating back to the 1800's, the city has the potential to be a New Urbanist paradise. But as in many other cities that began sprawling outward in the 1970's, the downtown was long neglected until high hopes for condo development along the riverfront spurred city planners to undertake a major redevelopment effort.

Now, the historical buildings are no longer deteriorating; many have been rehabilitated using preservation tax credits and other tax abatement measures. And yet much of downtown is still vacant, leaving some people in Fort Myers to wonder, What if you rebuild it and they still don't come?

"The city leaders have put all their eggs in the condo basket," said Warren J. Wright, the councilman for downtown Fort Myers. "They said, if we build enough condo units, then downtown will come back to life. But the way the economy is going, I'm not sure they'll ever get built."