More importantly, you'll forgo a glimpse of a community in transition. Oktoberfest may be a cartoon of German culture, but it drew 33,000 visitors last year. As the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area matures - it grew from 208,000 residents in 1980 to 379,000 in 1995 - the Teutonic influence is becoming so pervasive that some residents of Fort Myers refer to their city as a German colony.
"These days, I'm feeling like the minority," laughs Jim Phebus, a Weirton, W.Va., native who serves as president of the Chamber of Commerce of Lehigh, a bedroom community of 34,000.
The German influence (along with a smattering of Swiss and Austrians) is undeniable. Investors are helping to redevelop downtown Fort Myers. Individuals are starting businesses, developing property and buying houses in Cape Coral, Lehigh and Bonita Springs. Even German recording star Heino owns a house on the cape.
Documenting the German influx with precision is difficult, but estimates place their numbers at between 20,000 and 80,000. The Lee County Office of Property Appraisal has sent out 11,899 statements of ownership to European addresses this year. In Naples, another magnet locale, the Tourist and Convention Bureau claims 5,000 German residents.
This growth began 15 years ago with a trickle of retirees, who perhaps remembered the advertising campaign conducted by Avatar Properties in the '70s promising sunny skies and beautiful beaches. The current wave took shape in 1992 and 1993, say observers, and its composition is younger and markedly professional: doctors, engineers, mid-level managers and small-business owners who decided to retire early or cash in their chips. Most have families.
Many are drawn here for financial reasons, daunted by high taxes, unemployment and cost of living. The German economy is still struggling to assimilate the former East Germany, even as the ongoing integration of European countries into the European Economic Union darkens the skies further, in the minds of some citizens. "A lot of Germans are afraid of what's going to happen once the currency unifies (in 1999)," says Denise Mueller, a local real estate agent who as recently as 1993 was selling bridal wear back in Germany. "They're trying to get as much money invested in a strong dollar as they can, even if the dollar goes up and they get less money for their marks."
Calling it "Germantown"
Lee County has reciprocated the Germans' interest with a concerted effort to lure even more to the area. The county's convention and visitors bureau conducts almost constant direct mail and other advertising in Germany, and in 1996 the county hosted 126,000 German-speaking tourists, more than doubling the number that visited in 1990. Lee recently was joined by neighboring Collier and Charlotte counties in promoting southwest Florida as a region.
In addition, a tourism office Lee County established in Miltenberg, Germany (45 minutes from Frankfurt), in 1985, has been bombarding residents with print campaigns, most recently in partnership with LTU International Airways. The German carrier offers two direct flights each week from Germany to Fort Myers and expects to add a third this month. Passengers are given copies of slick promotional magazines in German. Hallo Florida, Wilkommen and other similar publications are jammed with advertisements from restaurants, law firms and real estate agencies in southwest Florida.
Many visitors and new arrivals make first contact through German American clubs. Harmonie, based in Naples, focuses on charity work and its choral groups. The German American Social Club in Cape Coral sponsors numerous activities for its 1,200 members, from Friday night dances to target practice.
"We have a joke that people get off the plane on Thursday and find us on Friday," says club President William Tamedl, who is a former New York City police officer. "Word around is that they're calling us ?Germantown.'"
Florida's appeal to Germans is based on more than sunshine. Compared to property prices back home, southwest Florida real estate is a bargain. Vacant waterfront lots in Cape Coral that sell for as little as $20,000 would cost three to four times more in the fatherland - if they're available at all. Commercial real estate is feeling the impact of German investment as well. "To do $10 million worth of business a year, it used to take 10 deals. Now it would take about four," says German-born Georg Koszulinski, who's been in southwest Florida for 15 years and heads the Koszulinski Group, a commercial real estate firm in Fort Myers.
In Fort Myers, Dominik Goertz, a 30-year-old German national from Munich, has renovated most of a city block at the intersection of First and Hendry Streets. Goertz and partner Roger Patch developed the project, known as the Patio de Leon. Painted white with trim in coffee and maroon, the building incorporates 15,000 square feet of commercial space at street level and 16 apartments above.
The property cost $1.35 million; its overhaul, about $2.7 million. Goertz and Patch financed the project with a construction loan from the Hendry County Bank, backed by the resources of German investors and guided by two additional partners in Europe. All space at the Patio de Leon had been pre-leased by September. "People can live here, work here and enjoy the city," says Goertz.
Few initiatives are as ambitious as Goertz's, but the small local German business community is humming. In March, its various elements gathered at the first German American Trade Exhibition '97 in Fort Myers. Sponsored by Paul Gatsby Marketing and Paul & Partners Financial Group, the show united residents, tourists, business owners, investors and experts in taxation, real estate and immigration. The event attracted 2,400 people from as far away as Orlando and Miami.
"The infrastructure is growing," says Kirsten Paul, president of Paul & Partners, who arrived from Germany in 1994. The company, which caters exclusively to German capital, floated more than 100 loans in the past year. It manages financial transactions for absentee Germans, and in the past six months, opened accounts totaling $2.5 million. Yet Paul reckons that only 10% of the money comes from those who have U.S. residency; much of the rest is flight money from Germany. "My clients have a status in Germany and an established place in society," says Paul. "They feel treated wrongly in Germany. Everybody is scared like hell of the Eurodollar, and the deutsche mark is a little bit shaky. They're getting money out of the country, and this money is not going to go back."
Driving hard bargains
Achim Roebke and Arno Golderer's story is emblematic. As a young man, Golderer studied and worked for eight years to earn the German government-approved title of Master Baker.
In Fort Myers, Roebke sensed the demand among the city's transplants for good bread, and he lured Golderer (an Austrian by birth) from Frankfurt to Florida. With a loan from Paul & Partners, the two men and two other partners opened Breadway German Bakery of Fort Myers in January 1996. During the tourist season, Breadway produces 150 loaves a day, twice the number of a year ago.
Local business people in south Florida say Germans generally drive hard bargains. They are conservative, and the distance between their European homes and their U.S. holdings guides them toward functional, tangible investments, like real estate. Many new arrivals set up shop in food services. In downtown Lehigh alone, King Ludwig's Bistro & Deli, Cafe Europa, Gump's Steak & Seafood, and the Village Inn and Cafe are among eateries to open in the past 24 months. "Some of these things are so new, they're not even in our phone books yet," says Peggy Hilliard, who manages Denny Travel.
In some cases, the proliferation of German-owned businesses is best interpreted not as an affirmation of the work ethic, but as a legal requirement. "It is my experience that people are investing in commercial enterprises to get their visa," says Gudrun Maria Nickel, a Naples immigration attorney whose American accent belies her German birth. "Many people, particularly older people, probably would not get involved in business if they didn't need to do something (to satisfy U.S. law)."
Unless foreigners can obtain Green Cards, they generally seek one of three varieties of non-immigrant visas. A B-2 tourist visa allows foreigners to stay in the United States for six months, usually, and can be granted each year. An L-1 intra-company transfer visa is available to foreign business owners who purchase or establish an American sister company and then "transfer" themselves here to run the new operation. Employees of that company are also eligible for L-1 visas. An E-2 investment visa is available to foreigners who invest a "substantial" amount - typically $100,000 - in the American economy. The E-2 is better suited to those with disposable capital, but its terms are more subjective.
"Someone could spend $40,000 on a restaurant, and that could be enough, but they could buy a corporation with lots of debt for $1 million and they might not qualify," says Chris Jaensch, an attorney practicing in the law offices of his German-born father, Peter J. Jaensch, P.A., in Sarasota and Cape Coral.
Despite such considerations, German-speaking folks are finding ways to make southwest Florida their home, alongside well-established Italian, Jewish, Thai and Greek communities. The Cape Coral Cultural Park Committee recently announced that it will hold an international festival in the spring. The event had been planned for earlier this year, but the idea didn't receive enough support. This time around, however, it stands a much better chance of success, especially if the newcomers invite their friends and acquaintances from Oktoberfest.