For 27 years, Harborside Event Center was home to concerts, conventions, cat shows and even a tattoo festival. Then the downtown Fort Myers venue closed for extensive renovations.
Two years later, Harborside is scheduled to reopen this September. And its first event is already on the books: the annual Fort Myers Home and Garden Show.
Just don’t call the place Harborside.
The 40,000-square-foot venue has new owners and a new name: Caloosa Sound Convention Center & Amphitheater. But that name might take a while to stick.
At least one event organizer admits he still defaults to the old name — at least for now.
“It’ll take a while to get used to the new name,” said Bill Anderson, organizer of the annual home and garden show. “I always think of it as Harborside Event Center, but Caloosa Sound is a good new name. And it’s a good new brand for downtown.
“Anything that’s new and invigorating is just going to help downtown Fort Myers.”
There’s still a lot of work to be done between now and the opening of the convention center and its new home: the $92 million Luminary Hotel across from Centennial Park.
During a recent tour of the venue, The News-Press found the place bustling with noisy activity: Rumbling bulldozers on Edwards Drive and Monroe Street. Power drills whirring. Cement pouring. Employees painting.
But a lot’s already been finished at the venue and its 30,000-square-foot ballroom, said Luminary Hotel & Co. general manager Bob Megazzini.
That includes new lights and drywall, a refurbished sound system, bigger bathrooms, re-skinned floors and a new entrance on the building’s east end. Then there’s the main ballroom, which can be divided into as many as five rooms to accommodate smaller events.
“This place was needing a refreshment,” Megazzini said.
The venue’s new black-and-white color scheme are a big improvement over its previous pinks and greens, said Rhonda Decherd, the hotel’s director of catering and conventions.
“Everything’s neutral,” said Decherd, who worked at Harborside from 2005 to 2011. “So when you’re coming in here for an event or a ball, it’s going to blend, color-wise, a lot nicer.”
Work crews still need to finish the streets and sidewalks outside. And inside the building, they have to install acoustical panels, carpeting and light fixtures on the walls, among other things.
Then, of course, there’s the “amphitheater” part of the venue’s name. But that will come later — most likely early next year, Megazzini said.
Located across Edwards Drive in Centennial Park, the amphitheater will include a stage and bandshell, along with a lawn that can hold about 3,000 people. It’s still in the design phase, though, and Fort Myers City Council would need to approve it, Megazzini said.
He sees the amphitheater as a home to concerts and other downtown Fort Myers events such as the monthly Music Walk and the annual Island Hopper Songwriter Fest.
Most concerts will likely default to the amphitheater instead of the convention center’s banquet hall, he said. “That’s where we see the concert event venue being. … I think people would rather be out under the sun anyway.”
Construction could start on the amphitheater by October or November, Megazzini said. Then the project will likely take four to six months to complete. “It shouldn’t be too long,” he added.
Meanwhile, Megazzini has the convention center to open on Sept. 17, followed by the Fort Myers Home and Garden Show that weekend.
Many more events are already scheduled, including weddings, conventions and the annual Fort Myers Boat Show (Nov. 12-15). But some of those haven’t been made public yet by their organizers, Megazzini said.
“We have associations coming in,” he said. “We have corporate groups. We have local groups. We have a little bit of everything going on the first couple of months.”
Other public events will likely be announced after the place opens, Decherd said. That could potentially include Harborside mainstays like the Edison Pageant of Light, the Golden Apple banquet and the Arts for ACT auction — all displaced by the venue’s renovation.
The 12-story, 243-room Luminary Hotel and its adjoining convention center overlook the Caloosahatchee River, which why the venue was renamed Caloosa Sound.
"Caloosa Sound has a nice catch to it," Megazzini said in January when the hotel announced the new name. "We are here on the river. When you think about sound, it's more than water — sound is music."
Other entertainment options at the hotel will include a culinary theater that will host wine tastings, chef competitions and other food-related events; plus a rooftop bar and pool deck that can hold 200 people, Decherd says. Both are expected to open along with the rest of the hotel on Sept. 17 —although the bar won’t open if Florida’s COVID-19 restrictions remain in effect, Megazzini said.
The City of Fort Myers previously managed the venue, which opened in 1991. Now Caloosa Sound and the hotel are being run as part of a public-private partnership between the city of Fort Myers and Mainsail Development of Tampa. The developer has a 99-year lease on the property.
Bill Anderson of the Fort Myers Home & Garden Show looks forward to being the first public event in the renovated venue. It’s fitting, he said: His show was also the first event at Harborside when it opened in 1991.
“We were the first tenant to move into Harborside,” said Anderson, president of event organizers Expo Management. “We’ve had successful shows there for a lot of years.”
Now he’s excited about Caloosa Sound and what it means for both his event and downtown Fort Myers.
“Harborside has been a landmark for Fort Myers for a long time,” he said. “And then it went away for 2 ½ or 3 years. So we’re anxious to be back in there.
"I was there about four months ago, and I could see that the charm was going to come back."
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells (Facebook), @charlesrunnells (Twitter), @crunnells1 (Instagram)
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Goodbye, Harborside. New Caloosa Sound to open with first event, followed by amphitheater - News-Press
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