If you have lived here more than a couple of years, you know the drill. Chick-fil-A run means driving to Fort Myers. Weeknight sit-down dinner means Colonial or Daniels. A quick Goodwill drop-off means a detour on the way home from somewhere else. That pattern is finally breaking, and most of the change is happening on two intersections you already pass every week.
Here is what is actually going up, who is behind it, and what it means for the errands you already run.
The Corner at Lee and Leonard
The 36-acre parcel at 5600 Lee Boulevard has a name now: Stonewood Crossing, and Trinity Commercial Group has confirmed commitments from Goodwill Industries with a planned 20,000-square-foot building, along with Suncoast Credit Union, Culver's, Heartland Dental and Dunkin'. The site sits at the northwest corner of Lee Boulevard and Leonard Boulevard, right where Lehigh meets the Fort Myers line.
There are 14 developable lots, and some of those could be consolidated to account for a future grocery store, according to Ty Hensley, senior advisor with Trinity Commercial Group. That grocery detail matters. For years the reporting on Lehigh commercial development has been about small pads: a Dollar General here, a Starbucks there. Fourteen lots at one intersection, with grocery on the table, is a different order of magnitude.
Developer Guy Paparella has said the neighborhood specifically asked for something Lehigh does not have much of. "Some of the people in the area in the neighborhood here have expressed to us a desire to have a sit-down restaurant somewhere here in Lehigh, so that's what we're trying to attract," Paparella said. Hensley has hinted at what else is being courted: a national coffee chain, a sit-down restaurant and perhaps a second quick-serve restaurant, along with a national dental care chain.
The honest read on why national chains have been slow to plant flags here came from Jay Johnson of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association's Lee County Chapter: most Lehigh residents work in Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Naples, and that missing lunch business has made it hard to support full-service restaurants.
Stonewood is a bet that the population has finally outrun that math.
Chick-fil-A, Finally, on North Homestead
The other change is a mile and a half up the road. Lee County records show developers filed permits for a 5,614-square-foot building at 1110 North Homestead Road, where Bowman Consulting Group and Lemonade MM Lehigh Acres, LLC plan to build a Chick-fil-A with indoor and outdoor seating and multiple drive-through lanes. Construction started on a Monday in late March, and the restaurant should open in late August, with direct access to Ashlar Avenue and North Homestead Road.
If that opening lands on schedule, this is the first Chick-fil-A inside Lehigh's boundaries. Residents interviewed by WINK News made the practical point better than any market study could: they have been driving to Fort Myers for it.
The Culver's That Is Coming Home
The Culver's slotted into Stonewood carries a story most people running past it on Lee Boulevard will never know.
Miguel and Samantha Carmona are owner-operators of Culver's on northeast Pine Island Road in Cape Coral, and before operating the Cape Coral location, they got their start at Culver's in Lehigh Acres. The pair helped open and operate the original Culver's in Lehigh Acres from its opening in 2016 through 2021, moved into their first home a short distance from where the new restaurant is being built, brought all four of their children home from Healthpark Hospital to that house, and their two oldest attended Lehigh Elementary. The new restaurant is expected to open in October of 2026.
That is the piece the press release version tends to lose. This is not a chain planting a pin on a map. It is the general manager who trained the crew at the 2016 store, coming back after a franchisee track and a Cape Coral opening in 2024, to run the Stonewood location half a mile from where his kids grew up.
What the Fall Calendar Actually Looks Like
Set against those construction timelines, here is a rough sense of when the corners you drive past start to change:
| Milestone | Where | Approximate timing |
|---|---|---|
| First Lehigh Chick-fil-A opens | 1110 N. Homestead Rd | Late August 2026 |
| Culver's at Stonewood opens | Lee Blvd near Fort Myers line | October 2026 |
| Additional Stonewood tenants (Dunkin', Goodwill, Suncoast Credit Union, Heartland Dental) | Lee Blvd and Leonard Blvd | Rolling, following anchor tenants |
Two openings inside sixty days, plus a Dunkin' and a 20,000-square-foot Goodwill on the way, is a real shift in the day-to-day map. If you have been building your Saturday around a Fort Myers loop, you will probably stop doing that by winter.
The Places Worth Keeping in Rotation
None of the new pads change the reason many of us moved out here in the first place, which is that ten minutes from your front door there is a marsh most Fort Myers residents have never heard of.
Harns Marsh sits off Sunshine Boulevard in the eastern portion of Lee County, where LA-MSID transformed 578 acres of farmland in the early 1980s into an active stormwater facility that filters water and reduces flooding to the Orange River, and the water control structures have created habitat for snail kites, limpkin and more than 140 species of animals. The 3.9-mile loop trail is generally considered easy, takes an average of about one hour and eight minutes to complete, and is popular for birding, fishing and hiking. The marsh is open for passive recreation from dawn till dusk, and it is not a park, so there are no facilities on site.
A few things to know if you have not been in a while:
- Best birding is closer to the south end of the loop, so if you are short on time, take the counter-clockwise route from the Sunshine Boulevard gate.
- Winter is the season. Regular visitors report the highest species counts from December through much of February, with a real drop-off by March.
- Bring water and a hat. There is almost no shade, and there is one bench on the entire loop.
For weeknight rhythms that do not involve a birding scope:
- The East County Regional Library at 881 Gunnery Road N. hosts community meetings and programs regularly, including the public presentation the county hosted there in June for a proposed new quick-service restaurant concept.
- Zaxby's on Lee Boulevard runs a Tuesday Kids Night with 99-cent kids' meals when paired with an adult meal, coloring and crafts included, according to local event listings.
- Buckingham Blues Bar, just north of town in Fort Myers, still pulls national touring acts on the SweetTone circuit, worth the fifteen-minute drive for anyone who has been meaning to check it out.
Reading the Bigger Signal
Here is the part that a roundup of new store openings usually skips.
For most of the last decade, the honest description of Lehigh's retail base was the one Gulfshore Business used in reporting on Stonewood: an underserved community that just needs more retail businesses here. Not a place with poor demographics. A place where the numbers on paper never quite convinced national tenants to commit.
Two things changed that. The first is the population itself, which now runs high enough that even conservative site-selection models start returning green lights. The second is the developer picking his tenants deliberately rather than opportunistically. Hensley described the strategy as shuffling through and making sure they are carrying the right tenant mix to bring the right services and value to an underserved community, being more intentional and more patient for the right user.
That is why the Stonewood lineup reads less like a strip mall and more like an errand list: bank, credit union, coffee, quick lunch, dentist, thrift, potential grocery, potential sit-down. It is a corner built to keep people who live here from driving out of town for basic things, which is the exact frustration long-time residents have been voicing for years.
For homeowners, the interesting question is not whether this changes property values in a single quarter. It is whether the daily convenience gap between Lehigh and its neighboring markets narrows over the next two years. If a Saturday no longer requires a Fort Myers loop, that is a real change in what it feels like to live here, and the kind of thing that eventually shows up in how buyers describe the area to their friends.
When the Chicken Sandwich Finally Arrives
The short version: by the time the pumpkins go on the porches this fall, there will be a Chick-fil-A on North Homestead, a Culver's rising at Lee and Leonard, and a Dunkin' and a Goodwill not far behind. The marsh will still be there at dawn, and the library programming will keep filling the calendar. Most of your errands, though, will start looking a lot shorter.
If any of that has you thinking about what your home might be worth in a Lehigh that finally has its own retail anchor, or you are eyeing a move closer to the new corridor, we would love to talk through it. Reach out to Doreen Doyle and the team any time. Work With Us.
