Edison Tavern in Fort Myers Nears Full Reopening After Two-Year Renovation

The Edison Tavern, the restaurant and banquet space built into the historic clubhouse at the city-owned Fort Myers Country Club on McGregor Boulevard, is entering the final stretch of a renovation that has run across two years, according to reporting by WINK News published September 25, 2026 and updated September 28. One bar inside the building is already open to the public, and the banquet hall hosted its first wedding this past weekend, with General Manager Kevin King telling WINK News he is hoping to be fully open by October.

I am Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, and I sell property across nine Southwest Florida markets, including Fort Myers. A long-running renovation on one of McGregor Boulevard's older landmarks finally reaching this stage is exactly the kind of confirmed, on-the-record local change worth recording plainly, rather than guessing at what it means before it is finished.

According to WINK News, the city of Fort Myers began funding work on the historic building in 2024 to bring the structure up to current code. King said the project ran into repeated hurricanes and storms that left the building in worse shape than a typical renovation would have found, requiring structural repairs well beyond what was originally scoped. "This building took some hits and took some damage," King told WINK News. "We did have a little bit of a structural issue. The city was on it. They fixed it. It wasn't a little job. It was a big job. We wanted to ensure that this was going to be something around for the next 20 to 30 years."

City council member Lin Bochette told WINK News that the city completed its own portion of the work on schedule against the original contract, which had targeted January 2025. King said most of the two years went into securing the building itself, with interior work underway for only the 71 days before the report.

WINK News reported that the city covered most of the cost of the structural repairs, and that King has since put a substantial amount of his own money into finishing the interior, describing it as a shared investment between the city and his business. King said he pushed for a longer lease to make that commitment worthwhile: a 10-year initial term with two optional five-year extensions, according to the report. "There was an investment from both sides, and I was willing to do it if we could keep the tradition in everything that is around this whole area," King told WINK News.

Long-time customer Dexter Kelman told WINK News the wait has been worth it: "It's unbelievable what they've done to this place from what it was." Fellow patron Katherine Dodge told the outlet she expects the finished building to draw more visitors back to this stretch of Fort Myers, calling it "a great investment for taxpayers."

Those are the sources' own words, not a forecast this article is making. Nobody can say in advance exactly what one restaurant's reopening does to foot traffic on a corridor, and it is worth being skeptical of anyone who claims otherwise with certainty.

As of the report, one bar inside the Edison Tavern is open to the public, and the banquet hall held its first wedding the weekend of September 26 to 27. King told WINK News he is hoping for a full opening in October 2026, phasing in the rest of the dining room and event spaces as the remaining work finishes.

Nobody can honestly say what one restaurant's reopening does to property values along McGregor Boulevard, and it is fair to be skeptical of anyone who claims otherwise. What is verifiable is narrower: a long-renovated landmark on one of Fort Myers's most historic corridors is, after two years, actually reopening for business, under a lease structured for the next decade or more. That is one more occupied, staffed address on a corridor that runs past the Edison and Ford Winter Estates and older established neighborhoods toward the Caloosahatchee waterfront.

If you are weighing Fort Myers condos, an investment property, or an established home near this part of the city, what is actually open, staffed and drawing traffic along the corridor over time is a more useful thing to track than any single reopening, including this one. The details that decide what a specific property near McGregor Boulevard is worth to own still come from the property itself: flood zone, condition, and what a survey and inspection turn up, which the home buying process walks through in order.

Want a straight read on a specific address near this corridor, or anywhere else across the nine Southwest Florida markets I cover? Get in touch or call (239) 300-1427.