The community center at Riverside Park is located on the shore of the Caloosahatchee River in East Fort Myers. The 10,000 square foot building contains a ceramics studio, woodworking shop, meeting room, full kitchen and an auditorium with a working stage.
The councilman representing the ward where the facility is located was concerned for his citizens that the building be architecturally appropriate. While outwardly, the community has a mix of light industrial, mobile homes and dated strip commercial, the core of the riverfront residential neighborhood has many fine historic homes originally owned by some of Fort Myers’ earliest residents. GMA Architects did an exhaustive survey of the best examples the neighborhoods had to offer. This led to the design of the building which featured deep wrap around porches, trunkated columns, and materials and detail reminiscent of the fine original homes. In his comments after reviewing the design, councilman Robert Anderson simply said “it fits.”