You are making a dichotomy between Ft Myers Beach and "downtown" Ft Myers that is too simplle to be useful.

Ft Myers Beach is just what it says, a nice beach community with lots of condos and other rentals. It is an enormous pain to get there because of traffic over the bridge, so it is not a good location for touring, but if you want to hang out at the beach, it is fine.

Ft Myers itself is a medium sized, rather sprawling city built along a riverfront and inland from there. It does in fact have a downtown with office buildings and some medium rise condos and so forth with nearby marinas and waterfront restaurants. This is what local people would call "downtown" Ft Myers,and I'll come back to it in a minute.

Between the two is the tree-lined historic district of charming older houses near the Edison and Ford estates. There are also multiple subdivisions from the 50's through the 90's, all out in the direction of Sanibel and inland from there, and there is lots of suburban sprawl, Florida strip mall variety, surrounding them. This is not a criticism because many of them have nice houses and condos and are comfortable and convenient. Pools are everywhere.

So we now have three areas in addition to the beach: downtown, the historic district, and the suburbs. Which of these is more appealing to you? This will take some research. Do you want to be near the stadium where the Red Sox have spring training? Do you want to be able to walk to the water? What kind of restaurants do you like? Etc.

Now, between downtown and the interstate are a number of neighborhoods with lots of poverty and some crime. You probably don't want to be there. The road through this area is perfectly safe, but it is not beautiful.

Moreover, the Ft Myers area has been hit really hard by the Florida real estate collapse, and there are other neighborhoods and subdivisions which have had lots of foreclosures and abandonments. You probably don't want to be there either.

If I were going, I might start looking at neighborhoods off McGregor Boulevard, but it will be interesting to hear what others say. But I would also be interested in the real downtown Ft Myers, between the bridges to the Ford estate.

I suggest that you look at somewhere close to FMB, but not on the beach. We spend 3 months each year about 3 miles from the bridge to FMB and a couple of miles from the causeway over to Sanibel (near McGregor Blvd and Summerlin Road). We can be on a beach in FMB or Sanibel in 10 minutes and it's away from the crowds. Beaches at each place are dog friendly, as long as they are on a leash. Historic downtown Fort Myers has been beautifully restored over the past few years, but I always find it a bit too quiet. Bonita Springs is another option, but with the exception of an off-leash dog beach at Lovers' Key, it's not dog friendly.

Traffic on and off the island gets heavy in Feb & Mar so if you want to go to the beach regularly, you will want to be on the island or it will be really annoying.

Also, there really isn't anything to do that is 'nearby' and you'll just be in a bedroom community. If you want things to do, you either need to be near the actual city of Fort Myers, on Fort Myers Beach, or on Sanibel.