New construction on Fort Myers Beach giving Realtors confidence
On the beach side of the northern 700 block of Estero Boulevard on Fort Myers Beach, something is happening that is giving local Realtor Alex King and fellow Realtor Marc Taglieri the confidence that the island’s housing market is heading in the right direction.
Four builders are working on putting up six new homes where a cluster of cottages once stood for decades, before Hurricane Ian wiped them out.
Standing on prime beachfront property next to the Best Western Hotel facing the Gulf, they are looking at the kind of promise that dreams are made of.
The properties had been in the hands of the same families for years as vacation spots.
Now, new buildings are being constructed up at a higher elevation to withstand the toughest elements of another future storm.
One of the owners and builders are taking matters to a level they believe could be the future, constructing a home almost entirely out of concrete. Work recently started on the structure which will have concrete floors, concrete walls and a concrete roof. It will take a little longer and cost more than the average home construction, Royal Corinthian Homes President Jonathan Walters said. He expects it to be ready for occupancy in about a year, in early 2027.
Standing at 718 Estero Boulevard, King points to the construction of the concrete home as an example of how Fort Myers Beach is coming back with more resilient homes of the future. Taglieri, who works for the Alex King Group, was on the sale side for the property when it changed hands before the new home construction.
The owner, Taglieri said, felt that it was “really important that it be all concrete.” The only wood is being used as a form on the 16×16 columns for the cement.
“Because this is concrete, this should last hundreds of years. Wind is not going to push over, water is not going to push it over,” Royal Corinthian Homes Superintendent of Construction David Hendrix said.
Taglieri, who played on the University of Virginia baseball team in the 1990’s, said more concrete homes are going up on Fort Myers Beach.
“It’s becoming more common and desirable if it fits an owner’s budget,” he said. With the new hurricane building codes for rebuilds, all new homes have to be built at one foot above the base floor elevation. The concrete home had 30 pilings drilled underneath and will stand nearly 20 feet high with a deck and full Gulf views.
Some of the beachfront homes will also have complete Gulf views, while a couple of the other lots will have houses with partial Gulf views.
Two of the other houses will be modulars constructed by Idyll Construction.
There is still one individual vacant lot for sale, which being handled by the Alex King Group. Two of the homes will be put up for sale once constructed, he said.
“This is a really cool collection of home styles,” King said. “A lot of these were for 20-30 years within the families.” A few will remain in the same hands of the families, he said. A few will be built and resold.
The six homes under construction, include two modulars. There are also two vacant lots in the former 10-lot cottage cluster for sale. The going prices for those vacant lots on the beach side of Estero Boulevard are $1.075 million for the one at 716 Estero Boulevard, and $999,000 for the lot at 700 Estero Boulevard, King said.
King said the timing of the home construction follows extensive permitting work the owners and builders have gone through, like many others in town.
King said demand is picking up for vacant lots that can be used for new construction. The new demand is coming from the East Coast of Florida. Investors from places like Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach and Boca Raton are getting involved, as well as increasingly from the state of New Jersey and New York.
“They are excited because they like brand new,” Taglieri said. “They can build it the way they want it. They can do custom builds.”
King said there is demand for newly-constructed homes. “We don’t have enough new construction (for sale),” he said.
The buyers King and Taglieri are seeing are for those who want to use the homes for a mix of personal use and for vacation rental income.
Royal Corinthian Homes has done much of their work since Hurricane Ian on Captiva. On Fort Myers Beach, they have been involved in some remodeling and repairs. The concrete home is their first full rebuild on Fort Myers Beach.
“This is our first out-of-the ground project,” Walters said. “It’s going to take some time to make sure we get it right.” The concrete will take some time to form. “There is a lot of forming and bracing involved. It is very time-intensive and labor-intensive.”
Walters, who owns the Royal Corinthian Homes company, said the original home that was on the property has been in the family for decades. “Hurricane Ian washed it away,” Walters said. “We’re helping them rebuild it.”
Walters said a lot of engineering has been put into the house to essentially build it entirely out of concrete to keep it resilient from a hurricane. “It’s basically going to be a 100% concrete structure, from the pilings to the columns, to the walls, to the roof,” he said. “With the hurricane, we’re trying to be as solid as we can but we’re also trying to avoid having any wood because of termites.”
Taglieri is one of 16 agents working for the Alex King Group, which currently has 140 listings on Fort Myers Beach. The majority of those homes have been renovated since Hurricane Ian.
Taglieri said this is a “transitional moment” for Fort Myers Beach. A lot of homes that have been put up for sale were in the same hands of families for decades, getting passed down the generations.
Before Taglieri moved to Fort Myers Beach, he used to visit from New Jersey with his family and stay at a similar group of cottages – the Cottages of Coastal Point, just a little bit down the road. The owners of that property just broke ground on a group of new cottages. “It gives me a lot of hope for what the future looks like,” Taglieri said.
“It feels like we are at the end of the beginning,” Taglieri said, borrowing a phrase from fellow Realtor Justin O’Hara. “We are just in the middle of the recovery.”
Fort Myers Beach Observer Editor Nathan Mayberg cabn be reached at NMayberg@breezenewspapers.com