Cape Coral FL, is growing

There's a flurry of new business activity in downtown Cape Coral, indicating the local economy may be on the rebound. "Businesses are starting to move back following the economic downturn. It's a good thing," said John Jacobsen, executive director of Cape Coral's Community Redevelopment District, which promotes economic development. Eight new restaurants have opened or will open within a few weeks and plans for four more are in the works, Jacobsen said. A new pharmacy and an office building are being planned.Businesses in the south Cape are seeing the benefits of an improving economy.
"We had 156 people Saturday night. If you have a good restaurant with good food, people will come," said Luciano Moretti, owner of The Original Moretti's Italian Grill that opened in July.All this is good for the CRA's goal of trying to keep more business in the downtown area, instead of having people drive to south Fort Myers to do their shopping and dining, Jacobsen said. The city's population, said Jacobsen, is more than enough to support the new businesses. He said 103,000 people live within 10 minutes of downtown Cape Coral and they have the potential of spending $74 million a year there.One store that is seeing more customers is Sweetbay grocery store, which opened the last weekend in August at a new, larger location on Cape Coral Parkway."Our business is up over 50 percent" from what it was at the old, smaller location on Leonard Street, said manager Ray Brose. The store has had to hire 30 more employees, bringing the staff to just over 100 workers.Residents, Brose said, appreciate the fact that Sweetbay decided to stay downtown. "They've told us ‘thank you so much for staying here,' " he said.
This is all good news for Cape Coral. Our city is growing and we need to offer good restaurants and shopping to our residence. The Cape for many years was called "Cape Coma". Now we have great things to offer, thanks to all the business owners who kept the face in our great City.