Sunset Beach Resort breaks ground at Times Square
Groundbreaking for the planned Sunset Beach Resort took place Monday at Times Square with Town of Fort Myers Beach officials lifting shovels with property owner Tony Persaud celebrate the project’s official start. It was a far cry from the situation between the town and Persaud just a few years ago, when he was facing a threat of town foreclosure over fines issued for alleged town code violations at his former Sunset Beach Tropical Grill and The Playmore Tiki Bar.
After a federal court case in which Persaud earned a partial victory to challenge the amount of the fines, and an eventual settlement with the town, those days appear to be in the past.
“We are ready for this,” Persaud said on Monday after the groundbreaking ceremony with cheering town officials.
Persaud has a development order from the town for his $13 million, three-story, 41,285-square-foot mixed-use beachfront resort and entertainment center.
He does not yet have a building permit from the town, though, as he awaits the completion of a fire district review and stormwater review. Fort Myers Beach Public Information Officer Abigail Eberhart said that Persaud’s project recently passed its environmental review. The project’s environmental review had been rejected twice, as late as last month.
Fort Myers Beach Manager Will McKannay said a construction permit could be issued within the next 30 days.
“This is a good day,” Town Manager Will McKannay said. “We are glad that Terry is breaking ground at Times Square and starting the construction of a new facility, and continuing the good momentum that we have right now.”
Persaud said the stormwater plan review is nearly complete. Persaud said he thinks he can be given a site work permit, before the building permit, so that he can pour the foundation and do site work around the property.
“We need this area back.” Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce President Jacki Liszak said. “This is a great day for Fort Myers Beach. I challenge everybody else, ‘Let’s go.'”
Liszak is excited about the prospect of the resort opening potentially as early as next year around this time, along with the Fort Myers Beach Pier.
Persaud said the stormwater plan review is nearly complete.
McKannay said he believes a construction permit could be issued within 30 days.
Persaud also was joined by representatives of Benchmark General Contractors, who said they could have all the work done within about a year once they start work. Brad Nickel, president of Benchmark General Contractors, said he hopes to get an early release permit in the next few months, and to break ground in about a month. Nickel said the firm expects to take down a few of the palm trees on the property to make way for the construction and will then replant them. “We will put them somewhere safe and keep them watered,” he said. Nickel said the contractors will be setting up around Times Square with a trailer.
Bittersweet moment
For Persaud, the ceremony on Monday was “bittersweet,” he said.
Four years ago, the property was in ruins after Hurricane Ian.
At the time, he and other owners at Times Square whose buildings were destroyed, joined together to discuss a joint venture to build back.
Then, a couple of the owners died and properties were sold. Persaud himself bought the property that housed the old Dairy Queen, The Pier Peddler, and the PierSide Grill and Famous Blowfish Bar for $6.4 million on the northern edge of Times Square at the border with Lynn Hall Memorial Park. He has since placed a bar, a food truck, a vaping outlet and other vendors on that lot.
Just three years ago, Persaud’s properties at Times Square were facing foreclosure from the Town of Fort Myers Beach over thousand of dollars in fines, related to the alleged use of beach chairs and other alleged code issues at his properties, where the former Sunset Beach Tropical Grill and The Playmore Tiki Bar stood before being knocked down by Hurricane Ian.
Persaud also had a code enforcement case before Hurricane Ian which involved a spill that required the town to clean out grease from a storm basin drain, and another case in which the town alleged that the restaurant was renting out beach chairs from the parking lot without a permit.
Two years ago, Persaud settled litigation with the town over the Sunset Beach Tropical Grill property
after he agreed to pay a $250,000 fine to the town over code violations at that property and a property on Estero Bouelevard.
At one point, the Sunset Beach Tropical Grill property where he plans to build his new resort, was the subject of more than $200,000 in liens as well as more than $670,000 in fines issued by the town’s former magistrate in 2022. Persaud sued the town over what he believed were excessive fines. He won a partial decision that overturned part of the fines.
Those cases are now behind him.
“It’s a bittersweet moment. We stuck through it. We prevailed in court,” Persaud said. “It was unfair. We have our rights back.”
A year ago, he brought forth his first proposal — a larger and taller hotel with setbacks farther from Times Square. The plan was rejected by the Local Planning Agency, and, after getting some negative feedback at a hearing in front of the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council, he pulled those plans back from the Town Council.
Persaud then redrew his plans, in a scaled down version to meet the letter of the town code to fit in his entertainment center, restaurant and resort, with a pool, meaning the project did not require a review of the Town Council or LPA.
“We are giving back something to Times Square,” he said.
He is very close to succeeding.
“We have new energy and we have to go by right,” Persaud said. “The people wanted it and the community wanted it and here we are.”
The new plans call for a 30-foot-high building, the maximum allowed by town code, and lower than the previous hotel plans. The original concerns had drawn worry about the view from Matanzas Pass Bridge.
Persaud said he still would have preferred more room to step back the building further off from Times Square, to give pedestrians and vendors more room to move around on Times Square.
“Our plans are already drawn. There is no way to change it now. Plans, they don’t happen overnight, they take weeks and weeks, and months,” Persaud said.
The Development Order Persaud received includes conditions for a lighting plan and a stormwater permit approval for stormwater management, which Persaud said is still being worked through.
The roughly half-acre beachfront parcel sits on the southern edge of Time Square facing Estero Boulevard and Crescent Beach Family Park.
The town’s Development Order says that landscaping and buffering details may still need to be worked on, and states that “applicants may be required to obtain an Environmental Resource Permit (ERP, Rule 62-330, F.A.C.) from the Southwest Florida Water management District or Department of Environmental Protection South District Office and/or a DEP Construction Generic Permit (CGP, Rule 62-621.300(4), F.A.C.) and must submit a copy of the applicable stormwater permit approval(s) to the Community Development Department prior to development.
According to Fort Myers Beach spokesperson Abigail Eberhart, the environmental review and right-of-way permit for the project has been approved. In June, Fort Myers Beach Environmental Project Manager had sent Persaud and his representatives a second rejection letter for the plans.
Eberhart said the town staff’s outstanding issue with the current plans is regarding plans for a first-floor bar.
“The applicant has been instructed to revise the plans to relocate the bar so that it is no longer at ground level,” Eberhart said.
McKannay said staff also wants to iron out details regarding parking.
Persaud would like to have a poolside bar on the first floor and a rooftop bar, in addition to a restaurant, office space and entertainment center.
Persaud has also been approved for six hotel units in the development order and Persaud said he may potentially ask for more units. He will have 34 parking spaces as part of a parking garage, and said he may need valet parking.
The Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District has been reviewing the building permit, which was put on hold along with a request for a foundation-only permit, Fort Myers Beach Fire Marshal Jennifer Campbell said.
This would be Persaud’s first hotel project.
He notes that the Sunset Beach Tropical Grill was his first restaurant operation.
Persaud is planning to be able to sell beach chairs again on the beach side of his property.
Persaud also owns commercial and multi-family properties on Fort Myers Beach, in Fort Myers and in Minnesota that he manages. He has been operating a food truck at his other Times Square property, along with a bar and some other vendors.
Fort Myers Beach Observer Editor Nathan Mayberg can be reached at NMayberg@breezenewspapers.com