The Investment Tracker
Money is voting for Fort Myers Beach
in documented investment we can trace to a source. Verified August 14, 2026.
People say the island is coming back. Dollars are a harder kind of proof. This total adds up three streams of money: big public projects, private business developments, and the rebuilding done by individual homeowners— the last of which we tally straight from the Town's own building permits. We only count what we can cite, so the true figure is higher, not lower.
Public & government
$256.5 millionEstero Boulevard reconstruction (Lee County)
$80M2015–2022
Lee County's share of the full rebuild of the island's main road — new drainage, sidewalks, bike lanes, turn lanes and trolley stops across six one-mile segments.
Source: Beach Observer — Officials celebrate completion of Estero Boulevard project
Estero Boulevard water, sewer & stormwater (Town)
$52M2015–2022
The Town of Fort Myers Beach's share — new water mains, sewer lines and stormwater systems rebuilt beneath the boulevard and side streets, done in coordination with the county road work.
Source: Beach Observer — Officials celebrate completion of Estero Boulevard project
Big Carlos Pass Bridge
$90.8M2023–2026
A new fixed-span bridge with 60 feet of navigational clearance replacing the old bascule bridge at the island's south end; ribbon-cut June 30, 2026.
Source: Lee County begins $90.8M Big Carlos Pass Bridge replacement
Beach renourishment (Estero Island)
$22M2024–2025
About 950,000 cubic yards of sand dredged and placed to rebuild the shoreline, funded by Lee County, the state, FEMA and the Town.
Source: Beach Observer — Nourishment complete on Fort Myers Beach
Fort Myers Beach Pier rebuild
$11.7M2026–2027
The rebuilt pier — 1,000 ft long, funded by Tourist Development Tax and the state. Contract awarded April 2026.
Source: Beach Observer — Lee County awards construction contract for FMB Pier
Corporate & commercial
$213.0 millionMargaritaville Beach Resort
$200Mopened Dec 2023
A 254-room, 7.25-acre resort developed by TPI Hospitality — the single largest private investment of the recovery era and the island's first major post-Ian hospitality anchor.
Source: Commercial Observer — TPI nabs $104M loan for the $200M Margaritaville Resort
New beachfront resort project
$13M2026
A $13 million resort project reported to begin construction on the island in July 2026 — one of several private hospitality projects returning capital to the beach.
Source: Business Observer — $13M Fort Myers Beach resort project to start construction
Homeowners & private construction
$562.7 millionThis is the part no headline ever captures: the thousands of individual owners and businesses rebuilding the island one permit at a time — a new roof, an elevation, a pool, a whole house. We obtained the Town's complete building-permit record and added up the declared construction cost on every approved permit from 2022–2026.
14,190 approved permits in all. Source: Town of Fort Myers Beach building permit records (public-records request Req 26-240). And it keeps growing — our daily permit tracker adds new permits as the Town issues them.
How we count
The public and business project figures are the sum of the cited line items above — nothing more. The homeowner and private-construction figure comes from the Town of Fort Myers Beach's own building-permit records, which we obtained by public-records request. We deliberately keep it conservative and defensible:
- We count only permits that were actually approved — issued, finaled, or granted a temporary certificate of occupancy.
- We exclude voided, abandoned, and still-pending applications — those aren't real, committed construction.
- We exclude one obvious data-entry error (a single-family home keyed at $83 million).
- Values are the construction cost as declared by the applicant on each permit.
Even so, this is a floor, not a ceiling— it counts only permitted work we can cite, so the true figure is higher. We would rather undercount with receipts than impress you with a number we can't back up.
See these projects in context on Happening Now, or track construction island-wide on the permit tracker. Know of a reported project we're missing? Send us the source and we'll add it.