Your Walk. Your Ideas. Here’s What Happened.

On the evening of August 27, something remarkable happened in downtown Fort Myers.  Community members gathered at the Collaboratory for the first public meeting of the Innovation Walk master plan and the room was full of exactly the kind of energy this project was built for: curiosity, ambition, and a deep love for this city.

It was an invitation. The Innovation Walk is a redevelopment initiative along the Caloosahatchee riverfront, stretching from Centennial Park toward the Edison & Ford Winter Estates along West First Street. And on August 27, the community got its first look at what this stretch of Fort Myers could become and started imagining it themselves.

What We Shared

The evening opened with a moderated panel featuring Commissioner Darla Bonk of the CRA Board of Commissioners, CRA Executive Director Michele Hylton-Terry, Lee County Economic Development Office Director John Talmage, and Perkins&Will’s Sarah McColley and James Phillips; the design team leading the master plan. Together, they walked the room through the work completed so far: site analysis, mapping, history research, a market scan, stakeholder conversations, and the preliminary concept plan that pulls it all together.

The concept plan envisions: a 4.43-mile network of loop trails, streetscapes, and boardwalks connecting Downtown Fort Myers to the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. Two trailheads. Thirty-five Points of Interest. A reimagined West First Street designed as a “chicane” a gently curving streetscape that slows traffic and creates wider pockets for public space, shade, seating, and discovery. A new boardwalk swinging through the Caloosahatchee with floating wetlands, oyster reefs, piers, and pocket parks. Enhancements to Centennial Park including expanded green space, rain gardens, discovery play, shade trees, and a loop trail giving The Blue Light, the Walk’s first permanent installation by Adrian Burrell, even greater prominence.

The plan is designed to be built in phases, with each loop delivering a complete experience on its own. That means the Walk doesn’t have to wait for everything to be finished to start changing how this corridor feels.

Three Design Concepts

The team presented three distinct design approaches, each offering a different way of thinking about how the Walk connects to the river, the streets, and the neighborhoods:

• Innovation & Intensity of Experience emphasizes consistent design elements along McGregor Boulevard, with street connections reaching toward the river and experiences that become more concentrated as you move from the neighborhood edge toward the water.
• City Meets Nature treats the street grid and the river as two systems that meet and merge: streets become part of the Walk itself, pocket parks flare out to frame views, and floating wetlands bring resilient, living design into the water.
• Building on History traces the changing shoreline through material choices and markers on streets, foregrounds botanical research and native plantings, and highlights historic buildings along the route.

They’re lenses. The final plan will weave elements from all three into a design that’s uniquely Fort Myers.

What We Heard

The conversation didn’t stop at the presentation. Community input stations, facilitated discussion, and the public survey (which had already drawn hundreds of responses before the meeting even began) all pointed to clear themes.

Fort Myers wants shade and trees: 98% of survey respondents prioritized them. Waterfront connection, stormwater infrastructure, and resilient design along the river all ranked at the top. The community is drawn to innovation stories rooted in history and culture, in music and sound, in the biology and plant life that make this place singular. And people want the Walk to tell stories that deepen and expand what Fort Myers already is honoring the people who built this city and the ones still building it.

At the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center (SBDAC) inaugural Education Open House Party on August 21,  the team first shared the framework and gathered feedback on major design moves, the response was warm: broad support for the boardwalk routes, waterfront connections, native plantings, and the resilient design approach.

“Innovation is not a singular moment. It’s a relay of dreamers, where ideas of the past inspire the ideas of the future.”

What Comes Next

The StoryCircle Working Group and Steering Committee also convened on August 27, reviewing the design concept against the project’s guiding principles and gathering feedback from community representatives. That input, along with everything heard at the public meeting and through the survey, will directly inform the next round of design work.

The conceptual planning phase runs through November 2026, followed by schematic design beginning that same month. A second public meeting focused on priorities is planned for October. Between now and then, the design team will be refining the concept plan, and your ideas will be in the room for every decision.

Something to Consider

The Innovation Walk isn’t being designed for Fort Myers as it was, or even as it is right now. It’s being designed for the Fort Myers that’s still becoming, a place where the next idea hasn’t arrived yet, but the conditions for it are already being built. A boardwalk over the water? A bench under a shade tree? A story embedded in the ground beneath your feet? What would you want to find on a walk like that?

The concepts presented are preliminary proposals. The CRA Board of Commissioners will review and approve the final plan as the design develops.

→ Stay Informed: TheInnovationWalk.com

→ Follow along: @fortmyerscra on Instagram