Midwest developer plots Florida debut with major mixed-use project
A $64 million mixed-use project marks several milestones for Cape Coral. And city boosters and officials believe the Southwest Florida locale is on the cusp of even bigger things.

By MARK GORDON
Business Observer
Published: Jul 22, 2021

Like many Midwest developers, Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins Properties, which specializes in urban infill projects with a multifamily component, has long coveted the Florida market.

Most of the reasons are relatively familiar, from chasing a compelling supply and demand dynamic to the firm’s CEO, David Flaherty, owing a condo in Naples.

But the vehicle for the company to break through in Florida, says Brian Prince, vice president of development, comes from an unlikely source: the U.S. Post office. That’s where Flaherty & Collins received a report that over the past year Cape Coral is the No. 1 destination nationwide people put down on change of address forms.

“There’s a huge influx of people, many from the Midwest but the Northeast, too,” Prince says. “The population growth has been crazy…and that piece of data was the final push for us.”

That’s also why after some other potential projects in Florida, including one in Tampa, fizzled out, F&C set its sights on Cape Coral, a Lee County city with about 183,000 people. The $64 million public-private project the firm has proposed, in a part of the city known as the South Cape, is called The Cape at 47th.

In addition to marking F&C’s Florida debut, the project, which calls for 280 apartments, 18,000 square feet of retail or office space and a 525-stall parking garage, is notable for several other reasons. For one it replaces Village Square, a $130 million mixed-use project proposed for the same site, from different developers, that stalled.

Plans for Village Square date back to 2005 but were derailed — initially by the late 2000s recession and later by other financing challenges.

F&C is under contract to buy the 3.9-acre site for The Cape at 47th, in a deal brokered by Paulette duCharme Hansen with Miloff Aubuchon Realty Group in Cape Coral. Both F&C officials and duCharme Hansen decline to disclose the purchase price for the land, owned by Long Island, N.Y.-based developer Robbie Lee.

Lee and his partners own the site through Downtown Village Square LLC. “The previous owners had various issues and their project is no longer viable,” duCharme Hansen says.

Courtesy. Flaherty & Collins Properties Vice President Brian Prince. Another first with the project? The Cape at 47th, which includes a rooftop bar and lounge component, is the first infill residential project with a parking garage in Cape Coral.

The Cape at 47th also represents a major investment from Cape Coral city officials, who put together an incentive package worth about $10.3 million to share the costs with F&C. Cape Coral Economic & Business Development Manager Ricardo Noguera says while incentives for development are usually performance-based, The Cape at 47th is a special case.

“It’s difficult for redevelopment agencies to provide upfront dollars,” Noguera says, “but the site (being empty) is holding back other projects in the South Cape. This is one of the most attractive projects in the Community Redevelopment Agency and it has sat vacant for nearly two decades.”

The incentive package, scheduled to go before the Cape Coral City Council in early August for final approval, includes some $350,000 in utility improvements, says Noguera. On the F&C side, the developer will be required to make 125 of the parking spots available to the public. The package doesn’t include another major expense the city is undertaking, in some $20 million in sewage upgrades.

F&C officials call those upgrades critical, and without that work, Prince says the firm might have balked at the project. “We need that so we can bring the project fully online,” he adds.