Downtown Fort Myers

Being Familiar with Fort Myers for about fifteen years now, I was also curious about what downtown Fort Myers contained. I have always been familiar with traveling to various parts of Fort Myers, however, I have been downtown just due to the horror stories I've heard about it growing up. With the typical it's a dangerous place that has a lot of crime and killing, I never really saw the need to go into Downtown Fort Myers. Last New Year was my first time going downtown, but I never really got the chance to explore and see the city.

(Civil War Painting)

(Vantage View of Downtown)

After visiting with my colloquium class, I began to realize a part of living in Fort Myers that I have been missing out on. From hearing rumors to visiting downtown in person during the daytime, it was completely different from what I expected; I felt completely safe. Being up on a the highest level of a parking garage and taking in the entire downtown Fort Myers with an eagle's eye view, my perspective of the city changed completely. Downtown Fort Myers was a very clean place with absolutely no trash on the side walks. The buildings did not contain any graffiti and if a building did have markings on it, it was a Civil War painting that Fort Myers didn't want to reveal to the public. Moreover, downtown Fort Myers had a very city life feeling that I personally love because I have always wanted to live in a city especially after growing up in Port Charlotte where there really isn't much activities to do.

(Downtown Fort Myers Courthouse)

A majority of Downtown Fort Myers buildings were designed with a lot of cameras, mostly for safety especially after the night of shooting at Zombiecon. Some of the buildings also had shops on the bottom floor and apartments on top for people to live. Another thing that I noticed about the buildings during my visit of downtown Fort Myers, was that a majority of them had a sculpture artwork, palm trees or vines on them to increase the air quality, attract customers to their stores, and reduce the amount of heat that are absorbed into the store.

The businesses there were mostly locally owned such as Pizza shops, boutiques, and Italian restaurants. Mostly places where people can get a quick plate of food to eat without going to a grocery store. There were also a few Franchise stores such as: Starbucks, banks, Publix, Blu Sushi, and Good Will.Since my group and I all wanted Starbucks that day, we went inside to get a feel of the atmosphere of the building. The Starbucks was far different than our college campus Starbucks as there were many places to sit, free WiFi, and large tables for friends, colleagues, and more could sit down and socialize. This Starbucks definitely had a city feeling to it.

Assuming that with a downtown city lifestyle, traffic would be packed and it would be dangerous to walk on the road, Fort Myers was different. The traffic was very normal paced and the people in cars were very respectful to pedestrians whether it be on foot or cycling. There were no bike lanes because the traffic only went a maximum of 25 mph. The main forms of transportation used were walking, buses, cars, and cycling.

(The Caloosahatchee River)

The last thing I noticed about downtown Fort Myers was the open space and green designed features. The sidewalks in downtown Fort Myers are very wide and can support many forms of exercising such as running, jogging, cycling, walking, and more. There were also a few benches so that people could sit and appreciate their view . There were many dogs that were walking on the open grass space located by the side walks and good amount of biodiversity that existed as we also saw ducks and birds near the park. Some of the green designed features that exists in downtown Fort Myers were the solar panels near the library and rechargeable car stations. I also saw a giant water basin call the Caloosahatchee River that is used for water drainage within downtown.

(Peer Pressure artwork sculpture)

What I experienced in downtown Fort Myers relates to the things I learned in class about urban environments and land usage because the town was accessible to everyone.The form of development within the area was more mixed-usage and expanded vertically instead of horizontally. This was good because it allows more animals to create habitats within the society as well. There were also a lot of street signs, historic art work, and sustainable features that benefits both the environment and
downtown Fort Myers. The main sustainable features that the area had to offer was the Caloosahatchee River basin, mangrove trees to prevent erosion, solar panels, rechargeable gas stations, and the usage of a lot of palm trees. I also noticed a lot of trash cans located throughout the town, however, there weren't as many recycling cans. This could be more harmful to the area as more people aren't going to want to walk to a recycling bin that is further than a trash can. With that being said, I overall, would consider downtown Fort Myers to be both a eco friendly area and an area that is exciting and fun especially to college students, tourists, and locals!