Hurricane Ian, market forces speed up gentrification on Fort Myers Beach

Cheri and Jerry Warren lost their one-story home on Fort Myers Beach during Hurricane Ian last year.

Since then, the longtime beach residents have cleared their property, put the land up for sale and bought a condo in a golf course community in the Fort Myers area.

Their living room view has changed from the Gulf of Mexico to that of a golf course, but at least they have a view. Many families are living in RVs parked in a friend's driveway or struggling to meet the rising cost of rent off the island.

And climate change isn't helping as many scientists believe Ian was at least partially fueled by abnormally warm conditions. Storms in the future are only expected to become more powerful and violent, experts say.

"It’s very bitter-sweet," Cheri Warren said while the couple was volunteering on a recent morning at the First Baptist Church, which is now a set of tarp walls that functions as a community food pantry. "He doesn’t want to go, but we don’t have a choice. I don’t want to leave the island, and he’s struggling with it."

The sweet part is the Warrens won't have to ride out the next major hurricane in a neighbor's two-story home on the beach. That's where they stayed as Ian plowed ashore.

The bitter part is the Warren have lost their beach life, their community and their dream retirement home.

But they are not alone as many families are being forced off the beach due to the rising costs associated with living on a barrier island in a time of stronger storms. Inflation, high demand for Beach property and more stringent rebuilding requirements are among the factors leading to gentrification on the Beach.

"I feel like I’ve lost my community," Cheri Warren said. "We’ve been involved with so much, and now it's just gone. It’s hard sometimes to even remember what was there when you’re driving down the road."

The Warrens bought their home on Fort Myers Beach in 2014 with money they had saved for retirement.

Cheri Warren said they had built a bond with the community over the past decade, and that they plan to still attend church on the island as well as visit friends.

The Naples effect

Housing prices were already rocketing on the island, and some older style cottage homes were being replaced by Naples-like mini-mansions.

Hurricane Ian, which many scientists argue was enhanced by warmer waters due to climate change, has sped up the process of gentrification on this weather-torn island.

An entire class of people who were once able to afford living on Fort Myers are now looking for homes off-island, and many have already moved.

The storm cleared the island of many of the older, modest homes and left the more modern, upscale mini-mansions relatively unscathed.

Along with the homes, the storm washed away part of the community as many people just aren't able to afford to stay on a rapidly changing island. Financially, they're not able to meet the necessary federal disaster zone building standards, and the cost of everything from gas to building materials has risen in recent years.

"What makes it a gentrifying event is that a lot of the people lived in little downstairs apartments and accessory buildings, and those were the houses that weren’t very strong," said town councilman Bill Veach, whose beachside home was hit hard by Ian. "Those are gone, and they have a tougher time coming up with the money for rent."

So now, many current or future property owners on the island will have to rebuild a home that’s up to modern hurricane standards.

New homes built to withstand large tropical storms are more expensive than the wooden frame homes that were common on this once quaint island.

The new codes put homes out of reach for people like the Warrens, and this type of socio-economic overhaul will be more common in the future as more powerful storm slam into the Sunshine State.

"At this point, we would never have the funds to rebuild on it, so it was easier to buy something else," she said. "We’re off the island, but we’re fortunate enough we can wait to sell the lot until the flood of properties is gone."

Cheeseburgers in paradise

Fort Myers Beach has been one of the only beach islands in Lee or Collier where middle-class people can buy a home.

Ken Tribble moved here 22 years ago and is still repairing his two-story home on the bayside of the island.

"It was what it was but I don’t think it will be that again, no matter how hard we try to keep it quaint," Tribble said. "It’s going to be concrete quaint."

The face of the island was already starting to change as the “Naples effect” has spread north. It has engulfed Bonita Beach and started to claim Fort Myers Beach.

Already at the Beach people were already buying smaller homes, tearing them down and building a home two- or three-times the size of the original structure.

But still, this was the beach to go to for locals wanting a taste of the coast for a price that was feasible for folks like Tribble.

"This was the only place you could come for $15 bucks and have a burger and a beer at over the Gulf, but you can’t even do that anymore," he said. "And you can’t do that in Naples or Bonita."

Tribble said the feel of the town is already changing, that residents realize that rebuilding is not a simple or cheap process.

"It’s going to be another Bonita (Beach)," Tribble said. "Maybe not quite as bad, but with all these vacant lots, there will be three stories and concrete, like what’s built at the beach. Your average new home is going to start at $1.2 million, and that’s with a small home not close to the beach."

Tribble said he expects the housing and commercial markets on the island to soar in the next few years.

A changing market

The small cottages and homes that once dotted the island, however, are mostly gone, along with a way of life.

"It’s going to be much nicer in its own way," Tribble said. "If you like the old way, you’re probably not going to like it. But here these little motels are being bought up three or four at a time. The properties are being combined by developers. People are getting three to four million dollars for a piece of sand."

Veach is rebuilding his home and will stay on the island, but he knows many of the families he's grown to know over the years will be living elsewhere.

"The reason I moved to Fort Myers Beach was because of the diversity," he said. "We go out to sunset and the people who sit next to me are the people who cut my hair. And now it’s an issue. It's not only a stressful event for those people, it's gentrification as well."

That type of diversity is likely gone as the smaller homes and hotels are replaced by larger, more lavish structures.

"We all have to recognize that there are going to be differences on barrier islands in general moving forward and Fort Myers Beach will be the starkest reality we have locally," said Matt Simmons, a real estate analyst for Maxwell, Hendry and Simmons in Fort Myers. "It's obviously incredibly disruptive and taxing when you've got property in an area like this and if you're on a barrier island in a vulnerable storm and don't have the wherewithal to rebuild or find a home elsewhere."

Still, Simmons said structures built to modern code will be able to better tolerate storms in the future.

"The good news out of that is that our codes accomplished what they needed to accomplish," he said. "If you're directly on Fort Myers Beach and you took a monster storm like Ian with 15 feet of storm surge and hours of 100-plus mile per hour winds and your structure survived that, that's validation of the code."

Gentrification is just a part of the recovery process, Simmons said.

"To think we have control over this is naive," Simmons said. "These are issues in all coastal communities."

For families like the Warrens, life will not continue on Fort Myers Beach in the wake of Hurricane Ian. They may visit the island or attend church, but the beach will never be their home again.

"I miss home," Cheri Warren said. "I’m grateful for what I have but I miss the beach life."

Connect with this reporter: Chad Gillis on Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Middle-class families leaving Fort Myers Beach as prices soar after Ian