South Florida developer buys Shell Factory property in Fort Myers

The Fort Myers property that was the home of the Shell Factory & Nature Park for 85 years has sold to a Boca Raton developer.

The sale price for the 19-acre property on U.S. Highway was $3.92 million.

Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Property Southwest Florida, which brokered and announced the sale, says in a statement that the buyer “plans to pursue redevelopment of the site, with multiple future-use options under consideration. Final development plans have not yet been announced.”

The firm would not disclose who the buyer is, but a copy of the deed in Lee County’s public records shows it was an LLC named Shell NFM.

The Boca Raton address for the LLC in state and county records matches that of developer Procacci and the firm’s CFO, Alex Gulick, and director of finance and acquisitions, Vincent Godin, are listed as managers in the state's Division of Corporation’s database. 

Procacci did not respond to a request for comment Friday. Among projects Procacci has built in the region is the Vineyards, a prominent country club and housing community in north Naples. 

The Shell Factory & Nature Park, a popular Fort Myers roadside attraction first opened in the 1930s, closed in 2024 and the property was put up for sale.

In a statement at the time, the attraction said “ongoing maintenance and necessary repairs are costly” and while “significant investments to sustain the Shell Factory’s continued operations (have been made), the sad reality is that the park is no longer viable in its current form.”

“This has been an incredibly hard decision for me, and one that was not made lightly, as the Shell Factory has been such a big part of the community and my life for many decades,” owner Pam Cronin said in the statement.

The Shell Factory opened in 1938 at a time when roadside attractions drove Florida’s tourism. But by 1997, when Cronin and her late husband, Tom, bought it, the Shell Factory had fallen into disrepair and was facing bankruptcy and foreclosure.

At the time it closed, the Shell Factory had amusement-style rides, arcade games, miniature golf and 50,000 square feet of gift shops. The Cronins had also opened a 4.5-acre nature park, which had more than 400 animals, birds, reptiles and fish.

Gary Tasman, CEO and principal broker for Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Property Southwest Florida, says in the Friday statement that after being listed the property attracted significant interest, resulting in a formal call for offers and multiple bids.

The sale closed in less than four months from initial listing despite having previously been listed with another brokerage for around a year, the firm says.

Tasman, Lane Boy and Shawn Stoneburner represented Shell Factory in the deal.