Business owners sound alarm on proposal to raise parking meter rates on Fort Myers Beach
The proposal to raise the parking meter rates on Fort Myers Beach from $5 to either $6 or $7 an hour, is being denounced by local businessowners who stand to be most impacted.
Restaurant owners are sounding off about how the proposed increase in the parking meter rates could negatively affect their businesses. The parking meter rates were last raised in 2022 from $3 an
hour to $5 an hour, and those impacts are still being felt, businessowners said.
The latest plan to raise the rates was first laid out by Town of Fort Myers Beach Manager Will McKannay earlier this month at a budget hearing, part of plans to raise a plethora of fees to shore up the town’s budget shortfall. Mayor Dan Allers and Vice Mayor Scott Safford both said they endorsed raising the town’s parking meter rates, though the town council has not yet agreed on specifics.
Snug Harbor Waterfront Restaurant principal owner Peter Ennis said now would be a bad time to raise the rates.
“It is very hard to convince people to come over the bridge on Fort Myers Beach right now,” Ennis said. “There’s so much construction and lack of facilities, and beach access. The summer is a great example. It’s been a very slow summer, charging additional money for parking sure wouldn’t help the businesses.”
Dozens of Lee County parking spaces downtown have been lost at Lynn Hall Memorial Park, which will be closed off for the next year due to the Fort Myers Beach Pier reconstruction project. The parking lot, one of the most popular on Fort Myers Beach for its easy access to the sand, has been closed for months due to the restroom facility rebuild project.
In addition, additional parking spaces near Times Square have been closed off due to the Sunset Beach Resort project construction.
Tom Houghton, owner of La Ola Surfside Restaurant at Times Square, said he had to close during the daytime hours for a stretch recently due to all of the construction. He said the loss of that parking, coupled with any increase in parking meter rates, would be bad for business.
“Guests do not absorb that in silence. They pay for less time, walk less, and spend less,” Houghton said in a letter to town councilmembers.
In his letter opposing the hike, Houghton said the increase in parking meter rates would “shorten visits and cut checks.”
Houghton told the Fort Myers Beach Observer this week that the largest impact to his business from the parking meter rate would be to those who live around Lee County.
“I strongly discourage them to do that because basically locals are not going to come to the beach. They are not going to pay that much to park,” Houghton said. “They are going to end up losing more than they are gaining, because it’s going to have a very negative impact on local businesses.”
Houghton said during the offseason, his business is “predominantly locals,” meaning people who either live on Fort Myers Beach or who are from Fort Myers, Cape Coral and other surrounding communities in the county. He said his business is already down this summer with the ongoing construction around Times Square and at the Fort Myers Beach Pier.
“I just don’t know how much they are going to pay to park to go to dinner,” Houghton said.
The loss of Lynn Hall Memorial Park, the Lee County lot where parking was $2 an hour, for another year, will mean parking is not just more expensive but will be harder to find downtown for the next year.
“That was the most affordable way for people to park before and now that’s gone, and now you are taking the second-most affordable away,” Houghton said.
Houghton said he wasn’t necessarily opposed to a concept floated by McKannay and Safford to hike parking at peak times during the busy season. McKannay has also proposed a $150 a year parking pass for non-residents, while increasing the cost of a town resident parking pass from $50 to $65 annually. The town resident parking pass allows residents to park at any town-owned lot for the year.
Houghton said that changing the parking meter rates during the peak times as Safford suggested, or decreasing the rates during the summer to perhaps $2 an hour, could be an option though he said any increase would impact his local business.
“It’s definitely a huge deterrent to locals,” Houghton said. “We have a hard enough time doing business as it is through the summer months. To slap that kind of an increase on somebody, that is a big increase especially when they are just sitting on some very valuable property they could just sell to offset the budget.”
In his letter to town councilmembers, Houghton wrote “Fort Myers Beach is still rebuilding. Making it more expensive to park tells returning visitors the Town intends to take more of their trip budget at the curb.”
Most of the town’s parking meters are located downtown, along Estero Boulevard and around the Old San Carlos Boulevard neighborhood.
Nervous Nellie’s co-owner Tyler Lemmer, whose business is right at the heart of the Old San Carlos Boulevard district, said that raising the parking meter rates would hurt his business.
“I don’t think it’s a good time to rate parking meter rates,” Lemmer said. “It’s not a good thing.”
Lemmer said the biggest impact would be to local residents.
“Locals don’t like paying more parking,” Lemmer said. “I think it’s going to cause locals not to come to the beach quite as often.”
Lemmer said September has “definitely been slower than last September.” Lemmer said his business this summer was also off, though not as much as September.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted in 2021 to increase its parking meter rates from $3 an hour to $5 an hour, which was originally intended to fund projects at Bay Oaks Recreational Campus, Times Square and the Bayside Veteran’s Park overhaul. That rate hike took effect in 2022, about nine months before Hurricane Ian arrived.
Allers, who was on the town council that approved the increase, said at the budget hearing “I was the only one here on the Council when we went from $3 an hour to $5 an hour and you thought the sky was falling. You heard from the same businesses, you heard from the same people,” Allers said. “The businesses and town staff at the time were very upset about it and said ‘you can’t do this’, well the council made the decision and the sky didn’t fall.”
Allers said at the hearing he would be “supportive of increasing that hourly rate to whatever that rate is, whether it’s $6 or $7.” Allers said he didn’t back Safford and McKannay’s idea of different rates for different times.
On Monday, Allers said “I have received feedback both for and against any increases. I support having the continued discussion this Wednesday.”
At the last budget hearing, Safford compared his support for changing the parking meter rates based on peak times and seasons, to changing parking meter rates for a concert or sporting event. “When there is a surge in demand and there is priority on where you park, you pay more. It’s just like going to a football game. If it’s a great concert, parking is $20. If the (Rolling) Stones are playing, it’s $100. If you want to park next to the stadium, it’s $150, Key West does it,” Safford said at the last budget hearing.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council is set to tackle the subject again at their next meeting this Wednesday.
Houghton said “I hope they reconsider it.”
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council will hold their regular meeting at 1 p.m. and will hold their final budget hearing at 5 p.m. at the town hall on 6231 Estero Boulevard.