On West First Street, the Boats Came Back Before Anything Else

At the Oct. 23 grand opening of Legacy Harbour Marina, the person at the microphone was Eric Ravenschlag, the marina's director. According to Gulfshore Business, he has worked at the marina for 26 years under three ownership groups. Marc Sullivan was in the crowd. His father, Haywood Sullivan, put together the original ownership group that opened the property as Centennial Harbour Marina. Ravenschlag told the outlet the rebuild was "Emotional. Challenging. A lot of hurdles. A lot of setbacks. A lot of accomplishments."

Boaters had been back on the docks at 2044 West First St. since the marina officially reopened in September, and the ceremony celebrated the end of a four-year rebuild. It also started the next phase of a plan that has been sequenced from the beginning. On the west end of downtown Fort Myers, the marina came first on purpose. The restaurant, the taproom down the street and the River District calendar are all arranging themselves around boats arriving again.

"First, the Marina Will Open"

In June 2025, Fort Myers City Council approved extra density for the larger Legacy Harbour redevelopment off West First Street. Megan Strayhorn, a land-use attorney working for the management group, laid out the order of work to Gulfshore Business:

"First, the marina will open. There are a few parcels that exist today that have the existing surface space to park on them. Once construction commences, the first phase will include that parking garage."

The same article described the marina as "the first step of the project, which still needs investors to make the two towers a reality." The developers have kept to that order. The towers exist only as renderings. The docks are full of water and taking reservations.

What Went Into the River

Legacy Harbour covers about 13 acres of Caloosahatchee riverfront. The rebuild cost about $15 million and covered the marina, the harbor master building and the on-site amenities. AIRN Management directed the work with Bellingham Marine, and Coastal Marina Management now runs daily operations, dock staff and customer service.

The rebuild was engineered with future storms in mind, and it includes these upgrades:

• A Unifloat concrete wave attenuator system on 70-foot steel piles
• Steel pilings in place of concrete, about 45 feet into the mud and 5 feet taller than before, according to Ravenschlag
• Aluminum-frame interior docks with synthetic decking, plus potable water, in-slip pump-out, fire suppression, dock boxes and shore power

The marina has 131 slips for vessels from 40 to 140 feet. According to Gulfshore Business, slips lease daily, weekly, monthly and annually. The marina's FAQ lists a fuel dock with diesel and Rec 90 gasoline. Reservations go through Dockwa or by calling the marina at 239-320-8855.

The Naples Daily News made a point about those 131 slips that matters to anyone with a boat in Lee County. The marina "adds supply back rather than creating entirely new supply," in a region where new marina capacity is increasingly hard to build and where the bottleneck is less the boats than "where to put them." Construction started in early 2025, and the first boaters were back on the docks almost four years to the day after Hurricane Ian's Sept. 28, 2022 landfall.

Downtown's City Docks Are Still Waiting

Ownership explains a lot about which downtown docks reopened first. The city-owned Fort Myers Yacht Basin is a few blocks east and is on its own timeline. A July 27, 2026 release from Rep. Greg Steube's office said the basin remained shuttered and that its redevelopment permit application, submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers in May 2024, was still under review. In April 2026, IBI News reported that City Council had given Suntex, the basin's redevelopment partner, a one-year extension to obtain the permits it needs.

So for now, Legacy Harbour is the working marina on the River District's west end. Mariners who tie up there are within walking distance of downtown's restaurants, shops and entertainment, which the Naples Daily News described as the marina adding "customers" back to the waterfront. Those customers come in by boat at 2044 West First, and the building next door is being readied to feed them.

The Restaurant Building Faces the Docks

The riverfront building at 2024 W. First St. has housed just two restaurants in more than four decades. It opened as a Chart House steakhouse in 1984 and later became Joe's Crab Shack, which closed when its lease ended in May 2025. The building and the marina have the same landlord. When the docks were still a construction site, Strayhorn told Gulfshore Business that the building would stay and the owner was looking for the right restaurant.

They chose Len and Tyler Lemmer, the family behind Nervous Nellie's on Fort Myers Beach and Cantina Laredo near Bell Tower. Their new concept is Nellie's Boatyard. The design is built around the view of the marina. The Business Observer reported plans for 82 floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Caloosahatchee and the new slips, seating for 250 diners and a 40-seat circular bar, with a menu focused on aged steaks and local seafood.

In its Oct. 17 report, the Naples Daily News said Nellie's Boatyard was targeted to debut just after New Year's. Half the menu will come from Nervous Nellie's and half will be new. Lemmer described it as somewhere between Chart House and Joe's Crab Shack. "We signed a 25-year lease so it's going to be there long after I'm gone," he told the paper. "It won't be fine dining. It'll be relaxed dining."

Tyler Lemmer's goal, as he described it earlier to Gulfshore Business, fits a marina where slips rent by the day or the year. "I want people to eat there three to five times a week, not just once or twice a year on special occasions."

Already Pouring at 2180 West First

A short walk west of the marina, Point Ybel Brewing opened its downtown taproom at 2180 W. First St. on April 11, 2026. It has 17 taps of Point Ybel beer and the brewery's regular lineup of live music, yoga, trivia and music bingo, according to the News-Press. Chocolattes opened across the hall in January 2026 and serves coffee, crepes, grilled cheeses, bagels and sandwiches.

Both opened while the docks were still under construction. That means someone coming in at Legacy Harbour this winter can already get morning coffee and an evening pint within a few doors of the slip.

A West First Street Calendar Through New Year's

The Downtown River District events calendar has a steady run of evening walks over the next six weeks. Each one gives a reason to start or end the night on the west end:

1. Nov. 20: November Music Walk, the evening after this post publishes
2. Dec. 4: December Art Walk
3. Dec. 18: December Music Walk
4. Dec. 31 to Jan. 1: Downtown NYE Celebration

Nellie's Boatyard's target opening falls just after that New Year's weekend. If the date holds, the next set of River District walks will be the first with a full-service riverfront restaurant at the marina.

The Towers Are the Last Step

The rest of the Legacy Harbour plan comes after all of this. It calls for two 25-story riverfront towers between the High Point Place condominiums and the restaurant building, a galleria of shops and restaurants between them, and six- and seven-story parking garages with retail on the south side of West First Street at Henley Place. In exchange for the added density, AIRN Management pledged about 37,000 square feet of public gathering space. That includes a park off Bayside Parkway and a riverfront walkway with public access to the marina.

None of that is close. As of the June 2025 approval, ownership still needed an investor. Strayhorn said the company has five years to apply for permits and eight years to break ground, so completion could take about a decade. Gulfshore Business's coverage of the marina reopening still describes the land in front of the marina as having renderings but not yet the capital to proceed.

What West First Street has this winter is 131 rebuilt slips, a fuel dock, a taproom with coffee across the hall, and a 25-year restaurant lease on the building with 82 windows facing the boats. Marc Sullivan, whose family started the marina, told Gulfshore Business: "Whether the economy was good or bad, boaters always came back."

If a slip in downtown Fort Myers, a walk-to-dinner riverfront or a boat-friendly home elsewhere on the Gulf Coast is part of your plans this season, Kyle R. Suhr can help you work out which waterfront fits the way you want to spend your days on the water. Discover your Gulf Coast lifestyle and contact Kyle.