It's very eerie when you walk the streets of downtown Fort Myers. (I think I saw tumbleweed rolling through). It's like someone dropped a bomb because of all the vacant buildings, and zombies (homeless) who roam the street. No wonder they filmed a zombie movie here years ago. It's very sad, and is a reminder of the greed from high government officials who foolishly thought that the boom would go on forever. Nothing lasts forever.
Don't think about opening a business here in downtown because the rents are astronomical! Something like 25 businesses have failed within 18 months of opening because:
1) There is absolutely no "give" with the city. They offer very little if any help to small business. They are all about big box; Starbucks (they opened 2 locations and had to close 1 already because they were only a few blocks apart), Quiznos, Publix (that's a whole seperate blog- tax breaks- free rent, etc), and any other big name (because they can afford the rent) who is foolish enough to come in and do business where there are hardly any residents)
2) There is a new street being closed every other week and many streets are one ways. People completely avoid downtown altogether.
3) Code enforcement is sooooo hardcore that people go broke (and these are the honest folks who want to comply) trying to fix/ renovate/ build. It's stiffling.
4) Property tax rose astronomically in the boom and since has slowly and disproportionately fallen since. Many people feel that the Tax Appraiser has been dishonest in his assesments. It's funny how, with all the foreclosures, the taxes have been slow to fall. (Foreclosures, by the way, don't figure into one's property tax assesment). So, for example, if you own a $1,000,000 property, and the foreclosed property right next to you sells for $100,000, you will still pay what YOU were always paying on your Million dollar property (with next door not even entering the equation to lower your assesment for that given year and possibly for years to come). Because of poor planning, the city is broke (and Cape Coral is near bankrupt, which is another blog, including the dismissal of firefighters in Leehigh Acres).
Our city bigwig, Don Paight (head of the Downtown Redevelopment) hasn't helped the situation either. When interviewed by the news, he blamed the businesses that went under on the owners (99 percent of whom were small businesses!) Where's the love? Don't come to Fort Myers!
The crown jewel of downtown is Centennial Park. There you will find tons of homeless, drunk people who (many who are probably victims of the foreclosure crisis, and many just mentally challenged). God bless them though; they have done nothing wrong. And that's another blog... The city just loves to do nothing about the homeless problem. There isn't any place for them to go in the vacinity. They sleep on the benches, and wander hoplessly and helplessly (and you know what the old adage is: Idle hands are the devil's workshop- need I say more).
Downtown Fort Myers (within 1 mile) has a slew of sexual preditors, offenders, and criminals hanging around. I'm not talking just a couple; I'm talking maybe 60 or 100 and that's only what's listed on the FDLE website (I will post that link soon so that you may think twice of moving to Fort Myers, and raising your children in this dreadful hell that the Chamber of Commerce loves to call "paradise" to bait the unsuspecting newcommer). Down here in Fort Myers, it seems like once a week the TV news is reporting on another sexual molestation case in a pre-school or what not. A lot of sexual offenders end up in Lee County (and in all fairness, Florida in general) because of the beautiful warm weather. Warm weather and children. Fort Myers crime per capita is the same as Miami's; out of control.
When the "boom" was going on a couple years ago, all we heard about was how we need to build more schools, and provide more of this and more of that to fulfill demand. We had and influx of illegals here and they were filling up the already overcrowded schools, health department (for free health care), and just plain exhausting the system.
That's all for now, down here in beautiful Fort Myers, Florida!
(Much, much more later-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment