Fort Myers Beach Council Moves Hideaway Boutique Hotel Rebuild on South Estero Boulevard to a Second Hearing

A second Hurricane Ian rebuild on the south end of the island cleared a step at Monday's Fort Myers Beach Town Council meeting. Council voted unanimously to move the Hideaway, a planned boutique hotel at 5601 and 5607 Estero Boulevard, on to a second public hearing, according to reporting by Ed Ryan of Beach Talk Radio News published October 5, 2026.

That vote is not final approval. A request like this one comes before council twice, and the second hearing is where the decision is made. The reporting did not give a date for that hearing, so the next thing to watch for is the item appearing on a council agenda.

The same meeting also sent the DiamondHead Beach Resort expansion back to the town's planning board, which I covered separately in my report on the DiamondHead plan returning to the Local Planning Agency. Two hotel requests on one agenda is a fair picture of where Fort Myers Beach is right now: much of the island's rebuilding is coming before council one site at a time.

The site is 0.63 acres and has been empty since Hurricane Ian destroyed the hotel that stood there, a three-building complex with 23 units, 22 of them guest rooms and one a management unit, according to Beach Talk Radio News.

The new plan calls for 30 units and up to 3,500 square feet of commercial space. Open to the public would be a restaurant, a coffee shop and a small sundries shop. A rooftop pool would be for hotel guests only.

As described in the reporting, the building stacks up like this:

• Ground floor: mostly parking and back of house operations, plus the hotel lobby.
• Second floor: the restaurant, a fitness center and guest units.
• Third floor: mostly guest units.
• Fourth floor: more guest units and the pool and amenity deck.

When the plans were first filed in February, Beach Talk Radio News reported that The Neighborhood Company submitted them on behalf of the owner, SLASHA, LLC, and that the application described the project as replacing structures that did not meet current FEMA standards with a hardened, more resilient building, along with pedestrian and bicycle improvements.

Height is the part of this request that matters most to neighbors, and it is worth being precise about.

The property is zoned Commercial Resort, which allows three stories or 30 feet above base flood elevation. Beach Talk Radio News reported that the project carries eight deviations from the town's standards, the most notable being height. The deviation allows four stories and a maximum zoned height of 47 feet. Measured from the ground to the peak of the highest roof, the building would reach 63 feet.

Those two numbers describe the same building measured two ways. Zoned height on the island is measured from the flood elevation a building has to be raised to, not from the street, so the figure a neighbor actually sees from the sidewalk is the larger one. Anyone comparing this project to a building nearby should compare like with like.

Not soon. According to Beach Talk Radio News, if council approves the project, the development order and permitting process is expected to take 12 to 18 months, and construction another 12 to 18 months after that. On that estimate, a finished hotel is roughly two to three years away from a final approval, and that approval has not happened yet.

That timeline is typical of what I see across the island since Ian. Approval, permitting and construction each take their own stretch of time, and a lot that has been empty for four years can stay empty for a good while longer even after a project wins its vote.

Nobody can honestly put a number on what a single hotel does to the value of any particular home or condo nearby, and I would be cautious of anyone who claims to. What a project like this changes is more concrete: what gets built on a lot that has been vacant since the storm, how tall it is, and what it brings to the street.

For a nearby owner, the practical questions are about the block. A public restaurant and coffee shop add somewhere to walk to. A four-story building where the zoning allows three changes what you see from a neighboring lanai. Both are worth weighing, and neither is something I can decide for you.

If you are looking at beachfront condos on Fort Myers Beach, the lots around a building matter as much as the building itself, and an empty lot next door is a question to ask about before you buy, not after. If you are weighing an investment property on the island or a second home on Fort Myers Beach, the return of hotel rooms shapes how many visitors the island is built to hold and how private rentals compete with them. And if you follow new construction on Fort Myers Beach, the height deviations council grants on requests like this one are the clearest signal of what the rebuilt island is going to look like.

For more on how the town has handled other hotel rebuilds, see the final rebuild plans approved for the Wyndham and Silver Sands sites.

Three things are worth following:

• The second hearing date. Watch the Town Council agendas. That is the meeting where the request is approved, denied or approved with conditions.
• The deviations. Eight were reported. Height is the headline, but setbacks and parking are worth reading in the staff report if you own nearby.
• Any changes before the vote. As DiamondHead showed at the same meeting, a site plan can change between hearings, and a change can send a request back to the planning board.

If you own on the south end of Estero Boulevard, or you are deciding where on the island to buy, I am happy to talk through what a project like this could mean for a specific building or street. You can see how I work with buyers in my home buying process, or contact me directly.

Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, (239) 300-1427.