Eyesore Building Hinders Fort Myers' Resurgence

Attorney Joe Coleman represents the head of the Thai family that owns the Amtel Ambassador. “Frankly,” he says, “they just haven’t made the investment in the facility that it requires in order to maintain a high level of service and viability.” [Photo: Jeffrey Camp]

Joe Coleman, a Fort Myers attorney who represents Chai Thangsumphant, head of the family, concedes that the property has declined over the years, particularly after the family’s patriarch, Chavalit Thangsumphant, died in a car wreck in 2001. Since then, several family members have been involved in “contentious litigation” over the assets he left behind. “While the father was alive, I think they were making some level of investment into the hotel,” Coleman says. “But upon his demise, the investment has been minimal. Frankly, they just haven’t made the investment in the facility that it requires in order to maintain a high level of service and viability.”

For Fort Myers, Paight says, that means downtown’s biggest and most important hotel is no longer spiffy enough to attract convention business. In fact, the hotel isn’t attracting much business of any kind. Coleman estimates that 30% of the hotel’s 416 rooms are occupied at any given time.

Don Paight, executive director of the Fort Myers Redevelopment Agency, says the city is offering millions of dollars in incentives but doesn’t want to subsidize a buyer willing to overpay for the property. [Photo: Jeffrey Camp]

Paight and others want someone to buy the hotel, fix it up and bring back the convention business. Downtown has seen so little convention business in recent years, in fact, that a refurbished convention center near the hotel has undergone a name change from the Harborside Convention Center to the Harborside Event Center.

Coleman says the family would be happy to turn the hotel over to a new owner, but the Thangsumphants haven’t been willing to sell the hotel for less than $25 million. Renovating the building, Paight and others estimate, would require another $25 million.

Todd Gates, chairman of Gates, a development, real estate and construction company in Naples, had a contract to buy the property three years ago, but the deal fell through, mainly, he says, because of all the litigation within the Thangsumphant family. Gates says his company would have completely renovated the building and grounds. “It would have looked and felt brand new and would have been a tremendous asset for the city,” he says.

Another potential buyer, YESS Property Group, along with the Empire Hotel Group, both of New York, also had an agreement to purchase the hotel, but that deal fell through when Fort Myers didn’t offer the group enough incentives. “We were hopeful that as things were evolving there, that with the right benefits from the city, it could be a viable project,” says Ed Somehk, a YESS spokesman. “We were going to renovate it into something that would have complemented the events center nearby.”

Paight says the city offered the New York group $3 million in incentives, which he acknowledges fell millions short of what the group wanted. The city, Paight says, would have offered more if the hotel owners had lowered their price. He says the city doesn’t want to “subsidize” a buyer wanting to overpay for the property.

Coleman expects the hotel will sell within a year. He says brokers from as far away as England, India and Southeast Asia have shown interest. Offers have been made, he says, but so far none has been acceptable to the family. Noting that the $50 million required to buy and renovate the hotel is indeed a “significant sum,” Coleman says it’s still a lot less than the $100 million he thinks it would take to buy the hotel, tear it down and build a comparable one.

Meanwhile, Fort Myers waits. “If they can get the right ownership, I’m praying and hoping that it can be renovated into one of the big hotels that we need,” Shoemaker says. “We really need that convention business. That’s the lifeblood of a city.”

Fort Myers has undergone almost $1 billion in redevelopment projects this decade. [Photo: Jeffrey Camp]

Tags: Southwest, Housing/Construction