By Appointment Only
Choosing Your Corner of the Cape
One of the fastest growing cities in SW Florida!
Cape Coral is a fascinating little city. It is just incredibly new! It was man-made, originally just a marsh, by two brothers who came in the mid fifties and decided to build a community. They flew in all kinds of celebrities - including Bob Hope, convincing people to invest in their project until they had enough committed future residents to begin construction. Although the first neighborhoods were built in the late fifties, Cape Coral itself wasn’t incorporated until 1970! Coming from a place that existed hundreds of years before our Constitution, that fact just blew my mind when I was a new resident myself.
We are a massive city actually, the largest in SW Florida with a population of more than 165,000 residents, and more waterfront than any other city in the world - even more than Venice, Italy at more than 400 miles of sheer waterfront property. (This is a fact than any Realtor will tell you, but it’s still amazing, so I can’t help myself!) What I find most endearing about the Cape though, is that in spite of it’s hefty population, it behaves like a small town. Truly! The city is broken into quadrants, and each location has its own personality.
The SE is where Cape Coral originated, so that’s where the oldest homes are located. This is also where our downtown area is. Such a special place ~ all along Cape Coral parkway is where you’ll find the small family owned businesses. Our restaurant district is located here - very few chains, it is primarily 'mom and pop' shops that thrive on our holiday and seasonal celebrations. We close down the entire parkway to traffic for the winter holidays festival, the fourth of July celebration, and various art walks, restaurant open houses, craft festivals - it’s really an incredible place to be. We also have an ever expanding farmers market in this part of town, that runs every Saturday morning from October through May.
Events like these help to lend that small town sense of community to Cape Coral, and wee are all so proud of that ongoing downtown revitalization - because even just ten years ago, the SE area of Cape Coral wasn’t nearly as vibrant as it is today - and many projects have yet to begin!
The SW quadrant is typically where your most impressive homes will be located. Properties here are newer, built in the later 1990’s and still building. They are sprawling, primarily waterfront, and impressive. You find a lot of vacation rental homes here, luxury homes, and part time residents from other parts of the country and the world. The SW features our gorgeous yacht club - Cape Harbour, as well as another marina (and luxury resort), Tarpon Point. They each contain both residential communities as well as boutique shopping, with distinctive dining options and of course the dual yacht basin with direct gulf access. Cape Harbour is the larger of the two, featuring a live music pavilion used for their own community celebrations come New Years Eve and Halloween, in addition to weekly live music schedules from restaurant to restaurant. These are of course, open to the public.
The NW is rural and quiet for the most part, with the majority of waterfront properties featuring direct access out to the gulf with no bridges. This adds tremendous value!
There’s a breathtaking preserve just along the edge of the county line leading up to Charlotte Harbour where, if you walk the trail out to the waterline, you can find wild boar, gorgeous birdlife, turtles, fish, even deer. It’s unbelievable.
Projected to be completed within the next ten years, the city of Cape Coral is currently working with developers to bring a boutique dining, shopping and waterfront living community to the NW part of Cape Coral, similar to what we have already the SW with Tarpon Point and Cape Harbour. What is now a lesser developed area will soon be a thriving waterfront destination, slated to bring more jobs and residents to our community!
Finally, the NE part of Cape Coral. This is where the majority of those big box businesses can be found. It’s also a largely residential area, but these homes are the most reasonable in terms of value. Your single family homes are going to be lovely and on the newer side, but not necessarily of the same impressive scale that we see in the SW - of course, there are exceptions to that rule. You’ll find chain stores and restaurants all alone Pine Island Rd. corridor, and the hospital and other medical offices all along the north part of Del Prado Blvd. (These, along with Cape Coral Parkway our the main thoroughfares bookending Cape Coral).
The other thing to know about Cape Coral is that we have many gated communities within the city, spread throughout all four quadrants. Some are fairly large and feature grand amenities, while others are extremely small with less than 50 homes - but well maintained and peaceful.
There are so many possibilities here. I know it sounds like a sales pitch, but I really do believe that because this city is so large, we’ve developed all of these micro neighborhoods, where if you search with intention, you can find exactly the right niche for your lifestyle!
Waterfront property, Gulf Access and Freshwater, in the City of Cape Coral, Florida.