Real estate agent envisions offices on last of acreage

A proposal to rezone the last of the Johnson family land on Coconut Road will go before the Estero Community Planning Panel on Monday.

The 2.25-acre parcel must be rezoned from agricultural and single-family residential to get the asking price of $2 million, said Renay Montague, broker/owner of Remax Sundance Realty 2. She said she is seeking a nonretail commercial zoning for the land.

The site, located just past Spring Creek Road near El Dorado Acres, is the inheritance of six members of the Johnson family. The Johnsons were early settlers who used to own much of the land in the Coconut Road area, along with the Smith and Weeks families.

Montague hopes to market the land as a prime spot for office buildings, citing the lack of office space in Bonita Springs, Estero and South Fort Myers. The spot has a good chance of picking up traffic from the nearby Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa, Raptor Bay Golf Course and many time-share residents in the area, she said.

An old house on the property that was home to some of the Johnson family will likely be preserved, she said. The house is more than 50 years old, which would make the new owner eligible for grant money to relocate and restore it, she said.

“Maybe people would go by it and just see an old house there. To me, it would have some meaning,” she said.

The parcel is made up of two pieces: a long 50-by-200-foot sliver and a larger 2-acre part. The first step to rezone in Estero is to present to the Estero Community Planning Panel, a volunteer group that provides a venue for public input on proposed developments.

Planning panel members also will vote Monday on a new member for the Estero Design Review Committee, a spin-off of the panel.

Gerald Simons, a retired architect who designed Islands of Adventure for Universal Studios in Orlando, asked to join the design review committee, a volunteer group that reviews developments in the design stage and gives the public a chance to comment.

Simons also designed the Ocean Center at Daytona Beach and Rupp Arena, where the University of Kentucky Wildcats play. He has been a resident of the Villages at Country Creek for about a year.

“I think the (EDRC) is a valuable service to the creation of the environment of Estero,” he said.

Planning panel Chairman Neal Noethlich said Simons would make a valuable addition to the design review group.

When Simons volunteered, “well, bingo, the lights went off,” Noethlich said. “When we got the opportunity to have another architect, especially one that lives in Estero, we said OK.”

Simons would make the third EDRC member with architectural experience, including Joe McHarris and Nancy Cohen.

The planning panel also will review a proposal to develop two parcels of Plaza del Sol, a 38-acre project at the northeast corner of Corkscrew Road and Three Oaks Parkway.

Classic Car Wash on the site has been open for several months, and Estero Medical Center is under construction. A CVS Pharmacy is in the works for the project.

The Estero Community Planning Panel will meet at 6 p.m. Monday at the Marsh Landing Clubhouse on U.S. 41.