McCollum Hall is a two-story building on the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd and Cranford Avenue on the eastern side of downtown Fort Myers, just past the railroad tracks on the western edge of the Dunbar Community.
Built in 1938, McCollum Hall was a crown jewel for commerce and entertainment and served as a cultural landmark. Over the decades, the ground floor housed businesses including a men’s clothing store, a barber shop, a coffee shop, and a grocery store. The top floor featured a dance hall that, in its time, featured the likes of Louis Armstrong, B. B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington among many others. McCollum Hall was a stop on what was called the Chitlin’ Circuit during the segregation era. The performance space closed its doors in the early 1970s and for the building has for the most part has sat empty ever since.
The City of Fort Myers designated McCollum Hall as a local historic landmark in 1998 and it was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. Over the years there have been a number of stops and starts in efforts and plans to bring it back to life in some form. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency took over the property in 2008 and repaired the roof and shored up the structure. The building’s facade got a facelift in 2016 with the help of a state historic preservation grant.
Now, the CRA has approved a new conceptual design proposal from Fort Myers architects Parker Mudgett Smith for the restoration and adaptive reuse of McCollum Hall which includes a restaurant, performing space, retail space and a business center…and the CRA has purchased the adjoining property so it will have a larger footprint.