The Innovation Walk Starts in Centennial Park, Not on First Street

On October 4, a camera in a fabrication shop filmed a CNC router cutting curves into a large white sheet. Each sheet is numbered and goes in a set order. One of them is labeled 39A. The shapes are full-size templates for The Blue Light, a piece by Adrian L. Burrell, and the templates are headed for one place: the sidewalk at Centennial Park.

Downtown Fort Myers has spent the summer hearing about the Innovation Walk as a mile-long attraction along West First Street. As of this fall, the first part being built is a single artwork in a riverfront park, and the corridor around it is still being drawn.

What the Summer Announcement Promised

On June 22, 2026, the City of Fort Myers announced the Innovation Walk as "this mile-long experience" in the River District, combining art, technology and imagination "through interactive exhibits, augmented reality, and immersive installations." A few weeks later, the News-Press reported on July 15 that Fort Myers "is building a new sidewalk," running along First Street from Centennial Park to the Edison & Ford Winter Estates and lined with interactive art installations.

The official project page, updated October 12, gives the status in one line: "A concept plan for the Fort Myers Innovation Walk is underway." The posted schedule puts design research and early engagement in spring 2026, design concepts and public input in summer, and revisions plus an action plan in fall. Conceptual planning wraps up this month, and schematic design starts in November.

Schematic design is the stage where a concept starts to look like plans a contractor could price. That's where the corridor stands right now.

How a Mile Became 4.43 Miles on Paper

Over two years the idea has grown well beyond a sidewalk.

The August version came out of the first public meeting, held at the Collaboratory. A panel walked the room through the work done so far. It included Commissioner Darla Bonk of the CRA Board of Commissioners, CRA Executive Director Michele Hylton-Terry, Lee County Economic Development Office Director John Talmage, and Sarah McColley and James Phillips of Perkins&Will. The project site says the plan is meant to be built in phases, "with each loop delivering a complete experience on its own."

A phased plan means the walk will show up one loop at a time, and the first piece is already picked.

The Piece That Is Actually Being Made

The Blue Light is the Innovation Walk's Phase I-A installation at Centennial Park. A demo version appeared at the 2025 Edison Awards. The project team describes it as an exploration of light as both illumination and metaphor, inspired by blues music and the writings of Clyde Woods, and as a tribute to the partnership between Thomas Edison and Lewis Latimer. The finished work is arched, so visitors will walk beneath and around it, and it uses glow stone, the material that gives it its look after dark.

This is the build sequence the project team has posted:

1. Cut the templates. Burrell's pattern was first laid out across 192 sheets of plywood. The planned sheet size wasn't available because of supply problems, so the shop switched to 312 sheets of 4-by-8-foot material to cover the same area. As of September 21, about a quarter of the cutting was done, with two to three weeks of template work left.
2. Dry fit at Centennial Park. The templates get laid out at full scale on the park sidewalk to confirm every curve and joint lines up. As of the October 13 update, this was the next step.
3. Order the glow stone. The cutouts in each template mark exactly where the luminous stone will go.
4. Permanent installation. The real build begins after the stone order.

The schedule has slipped before. When the CRA approved the original artworks in 2024, Phase I was expected to be finished by April 2025. The 2024 approval listed three works with these budgets: Take Off! by Marisa Jahn and Rafi Segal at $117,000, Burrell's light installation at $105,000, and Put Yourself in the Picture Fort Myers by Roberto Lugo at $107,000. Take Off! is designed so visitors climb an interior ramp to high views of the Caloosahatchee and then slide back down. In the team's April 2025 update, the artists were still finalizing the site and reworking the design.

What the Plan Would Change Along the River

The master plan behind those artworks matters most for anyone who walks, bikes or drives through the River District. The August concept proposes rebuilding West First Street as a "chicane," a gently curving street that slows traffic and opens wider spots for shade, seating and public space. It adds a boardwalk out along the Caloosahatchee with floating wetlands, oyster reefs, piers and pocket parks. Centennial Park would get more green space, rain gardens, discovery play areas, shade trees and a loop trail that puts The Blue Light front and center.

The design team presented three approaches, which it called "lenses," with the final plan meant to borrow from all three:

• Innovation & Intensity of Experience: a consistent design along McGregor Boulevard, with street connections reaching toward the river and more going on as you get closer to the water.
• City Meets Nature: streets become part of the walk, pocket parks frame river views, and floating wetlands bring living design into the water.
• Building on History: materials and markers trace the old shoreline, native plantings and botanical research take a bigger role, and historic buildings along the route get attention.

Public feedback leaned practical. In the project survey, 98% of respondents ranked shade and trees as a priority. Waterfront connection, stormwater infrastructure and resilient design along the river were also near the top.

Who Is Paying, and for What

The Fort Myers Community Redevelopment Agency is the lead funder. The CRA picked Perkins&Will to lead the master plan after seven firms presented, and set aside $500,000 from the Downtown Trust Fund in its fiscal 2025-26 budget for the plan. A February 2, 2026 agenda item capped the Perkins&Will agreement at $500,000, plus up to $100,000 in reimbursable costs, over nine to twelve months. The city's August 21 budget workshop document lists another $500,000 for the Innovation Walk among its fiscal 2026-27 CRA and city partnership projects.

Those amounts cover planning and the first artworks. The full design team is a sign of how much more is involved than a sidewalk:

• Storyland Studios on immersive design and storytelling
• Kimley-Horn on infrastructure, stormwater and transportation
• Local historian and archaeologist Theresa Schober on coastal Fort Myers and Indigenous history
• Miasto on market analysis
• LaShaun Middlebrooks Collier as project manager and creative strategist

Where the Process Goes After November

The project scheduled an open house at The Commons for November 5 at 6 p.m., following an August 21 music walk pop-up at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center and the August 27 meeting at the Collaboratory. With conceptual planning set to finish this month, the next round of decisions moves into schematic design. The project page posts the presentation from the August meeting, has a sign-up for updates, and lists community engagement consultant Carolyn Usher as the contact for event questions.

For now, the clearest sign of progress is a set of numbered plywood templates waiting to be laid out on the Centennial Park sidewalk.

If you own near the River District or are thinking about it, changes to West First Street, Centennial Park and the riverfront are the kind of thing that shapes how a downtown block lives day to day. The Shane Wilson team watches the Caloosahatchee shoreline from the water and from the street, and we're glad to talk through what these plans could mean for a home you're weighing. Get in touch.