Leading the downtown building boom

COURTESY ILLUSTRATION An artist's rendering of the Mediterranee Resort & Spa next to the Edison Bridge in the River District. In 1996, Robert M. Kohn co-founded Homes For America Holdings, Inc. with Robert A. MacFarlane, with whom he built the company to nearly $190 million in gross assets. The pair got a start renovating affordable housing in the Northeast and gradually moved south and to bigger projects.

In Fort Myers, they found the right place to jump in, among a downtown under extensive revitalization, and the high end condominium market moving north from Naples and south from Tampa/St. Petersburg.

So they worked with city leaders and brought Dean Park residents - who live across Palm Beach Boulevard from the project - into the planning.

"We incorporated 70 to 80 percent of what the city council and Dean Park residents suggested," Kohn told Florida Weekly in May. "We've had our differences but we've always worked them out."

That was nearly seven years ago.

"We wanted to be involved in urban revitalization and on the water," he said.

Years later, the Beau Rivage, the first condominium tower built in the Fort Myers area in more than 20 years, began to take shape. Located at 2797 First Street, this 22-story, 124-unit luxury residence takes its place in the downtown Fort Myers skyline, which seemed to appear almost overnight during a period of rapid high rise development.

"Our goal is to make customers comfortable and remind them of the pleasures of living in Fort Myers," said Will Cohill, project manager for The Beau Rivage. "Our heritage is rich, and our lifestyle is unique. It's our job to help people realize the unique benefits of downtown living."

Subsequently, Kohn arranged financing for St. Tropez, Riviera and Monaco, three more condominium towers in Fort Myers. Now the developers have their sights on another project.

Kohn and McFarland are gearing up to market a hotel/condominium on a spit of land between the Caloosahatchee and Edison bridges. It will contain 300 rooms and 70 condominium residents, and be called The Mediterranee Resort & Spa.

COURTESY PHOTO The Beau Rivage, left, St. Tropez and Rivera high-rise condos were the first in the River District in nearly two decades. completion. Because of the utility work on Palm Beach Boulevard - the streets are barely navigable in some spots - marketing has been low-key, Kohn said.

"Our emphasis is to finish Rivera and St. Tropez and get back to marketing Mediterranee once the roads get fixed," he said.

Residents in the resort - units are priced from the low $300,000 to $700,000 - will have an ala carte menu of hotel services to choose from including maid service and room service.

He said they are still negotiating with the hotel operator and couldn't reveal its name but it will be "a wellknow operator," he said.

Yet, with all of the success the developers have had in Fort Myers, Kohn can still recall the naysayers.

"Everyone told us how crazy we were; they said we were on the wrong side of town," he said. "We felt they were wrong."

Now, nearly seven years later, with newly renovated streets appearing in downtown like freshly minted dollar bills, and workers finishing large swathes of Palm Beach, "it looks like we were right," Kohn said.

Currently, Kohn manages land acquisition, construction, and sales and marketing for 1,773 total units in his condominiums.

His business success has spanned a 30-year career continuously licensed as a real estate broker in multiple jurisdictions, resulting in an excess of a billion dollars in sales of condos, co-ops, town houses and individual homes. Prior to founding Homes For America Holdings, Inc., Kohn was the president of Kohn Belson Associates, managing more than 22,000 apartments. He converted more than $100 million of rental properties and warehouses into residential lofts, and orchestrated the financing and acquisition of thousands of multi-family housing units. He is a graduate of Ohio University with a B.S. in Economics.