Design Review Panel hosts Town Center meeting

Lee County officials, LaRue Planning & Management and the North Fort Myers Design Review Panel teamed up last week to give local property owners and interested residents a view of the latest plans for a proposed Town Center.
The North Fort Myers Community Plan, adopted in 2008, calls for the creation of a Town Center, now planned within the Pondella Road area.
The goal is to reverse the traditional zoning approach which separates buildings and uses from one another by big parking areas, said Benjamin Smith of LaRue Planning. “Instead, new regulations will be prepared that encourage mixing shopping, offices, housing, entertainment and public spaces together in a form that is inviting and pedestrian friendly.”
These new regulations will offer greater flexibility to owners and developers of properties in the Town Center, encouraging investment and the creation of a people-friendly atmosphere where people will “live, work and play.”
The live, work, play concept was addressed by Wayne Daltry, president of the Design Review Panel, an offshoot of the Community Planning Panel, a group that has long been working on future direction for our area.
“This meeting is to educate,” said Daltry. “This can be a place North Fort Myers can come to as its own downtown. It could also be a focus of Lee County for the future.”
Architect James Leese has worked with LaRue on the project, and talked about the elements of a successful town center. It includes small blocks, the mixing of use, on-street parking and ample publicly-accessible open space, among other key elements,” he said. Placement of buildings and architectural expression of the use of buildings are also important.
The next meeting to be hosted by the Design Review Panel will be a workshop scheduled for Thursday, April 5, at 6 p.m. at Community of Christ Church, located at 368 Herron Rd.
For information, call Daltry at 997-0673.
To find out more about the Town Center project, visit larueplanning.com and click on the link to the North Fort Myers LDC.