Drive down Gulf Shore Boulevard North this month and you will pass three different work zones inside of half a mile. One is landscaped and nearly done. One still has heavy equipment parked behind a chain-link fence. One, a few blocks south at the foot of 12th Avenue South, is barely past the demolition stage. Most people driving past assume it is all the same project, one long finish line that will cross whenever the Four Seasons people decide it does.
It isn't. And if you live in Coquina Sands, that distinction actually matters, because the two things you are most likely waiting on, a finished street and a working pier, are not on the same schedule, are not run by the same people, and are not gated by the same problem.
What's Already Done
The part everyone already knows: Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort opened to guests on November 17, 2025, on the footprint of the old Naples Beach Hotel. HB's came back first, rebuilt in its original spot on the sand, with an expanded wraparound terrace and a set of oversized engineered umbrellas, reportedly around $100,000 apiece, built to keep the deck usable through Naples summers. Sunset Bar reopened the same day, reworked with neon accents and Latin-leaning small plates but keeping the same golden-hour crowd it always drew. The Merchant Room, led by two-time James Beard Award winner Gavin Kaysen in his first restaurant outside the Midwest, anchors its dining room under an original mural by artist Dean Barger.
That part of the project is finished. If your test for "is the Beach Club back" is whether you can get a seat at HB's or a sunset drink on the sand, the answer has been yes for close to a year.
The Part That Isn't Finished, and Why
Here is where the confusion starts. The rest of the property, the golf course, the additional Market Square amenities, and the boulevard itself, is still being built out on two separate timelines that happen to be converging this fall.
The Gardens, the Tom Fazio-designed 18-hole course that will eventually wrap the golf-side residences, is targeted to open this fall. According to the Gulf Shore Association of Condominiums, the completion date is tied specifically to the construction access road the developer uses to route work traffic away from Coquina Sands streets. In plain terms, the course cannot open until the developer is done using that access road for construction, because opening it early would mean routing golf-course traffic back through the neighborhood the road was built to protect.
Separately, and this is the part that gets missed, Gulf Shore Boulevard North's new landscaped medians, paver sidewalks, upgraded crosswalks with pedestrian warning lights, and bike lanes on both sides depend on a different project entirely: a City of Naples water line and a new outfall pump station on 8th Avenue North. That's a city utility job, not a resort amenity. The boulevard doesn't fully reopen with its new features until the city finishes its own work, regardless of what happens with the golf course next door.
So the honest answer to "when will my street be done" is: probably this fall, but because two unrelated projects, one private and golf-related, one municipal and underground, are both wrapping up around the same season. It's a coincidence of timing, not a single finish line.
Here's how the pieces actually break down as of this August:
| What | Status right now | What's actually gating it |
|---|---|---|
| HB's, Sunset Bar, The Merchant Room, guest rooms | Open since November 17, 2025 | Nothing left to finish |
| The Gardens golf course and remaining Market Square venues (The Wager, The Picture House, Naples Trading Co., FINS Kids Club) | Targeted for this fall | The developer's own construction access road, kept clear of Coquina Sands traffic |
| Gulf Shore Boulevard North medians, sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes | Not yet fully open | A separate City of Naples water line and pump station project on 8th Avenue North |
| The Naples Pier | Under active construction, targeting mid-2027 | An entirely different city project, different contractor, different funding, no connection to the Beach Club at all |
The Pier Is Not the Same Story
This is the mix-up that costs people the most confusion, because the pier sits so close to all of this that it's easy to assume it's part of the same redevelopment. It isn't. Hurricane Ian tore out roughly 460 feet of the historic structure in September 2022, including the end shelter and about 140 feet of decking that went straight into the Gulf. The city has been rebuilding it ever since, entirely separately from anything happening at the Beach Club.
The rebuild broke ground on January 5, 2026, with Mayor Teresa Heitmann and City Manager Gary Young on hand for the ceremony. The contractor is Shoreline Foundation Inc., with engineering led by Turrell, Hall & Associates in partnership with MHK Architecture. The project has been moving in visible stages through this year: a month-long diving operation in May to clear old pilings from the 1990s, trestle installation starting June 17 to keep work going even when offshore barges have to take shelter from weather, and the first concrete pour for the pier's support bents on June 26, followed by a second pour on July 9. The city has been recycling a large share of the old concrete into highway material and deploying pilings offshore at Wasmer Reef to expand an existing artificial reef.
The project runs on roughly an 18-month build once construction started, which points to a reopening somewhere around the middle of 2027, more than a year after the golf course and the boulevard are expected to wrap. It's funded through a mix of FEMA money, about $11.4 million, plus state grants and public donations, not developer capital. Even the small human details are separate: benches salvaged from the old pier after Ian are being stored by the city rather than reused right away, and residents who owned a memorial plaque on one are being asked to contact the city's Community Services department directly if they want it back.
Until the pier reopens, beach access at that end of the neighborhood runs through pedestrian bypasses at the Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South beach ends, both with restrooms, and the western third of the old pier parking lot at 12th Avenue South and Gulf Shore Boulevard South stays open while the rest is fenced for construction.
What This Actually Changes If You Live Here
None of this changes anything about what to do this fall. HB's and Sunset Bar are open now and have been for the better part of a year. The Merchant Room is worth the reservation. If you want a quieter beach walk while the pier sits mid-rebuild, Lowdermilk Park a few blocks north still has its playground, volleyball courts, and resident parking with a beach sticker, same as it always has.
What changes is what you should expect to see finish, and when. If your read on "the neighborhood is done with construction" hinges on the golf course opening and the boulevard's new medians and bike lanes showing up, that is realistically a fall 2026 event, tied to two separate projects landing in the same season. If your read on "back to normal" means walking out to the end of the pier again, that's a 2027 conversation, run by the city, on its own funding and its own clock, and it has nothing to do with how the resort next door is progressing.
Knowing which clock you're actually watching is the difference between being pleasantly surprised this fall and being frustrated next spring when the golf course is open, the medians are landscaped, and the pier still has a fence around it.
A Neighborhood Worth Watching Closely
Coquina Sands has spent the better part of four years living next to one of the largest redevelopment stories Naples has seen in decades, and it's easy to lose track of which piece of it is actually finished. If you're weighing what any of this means for your own plans here, whether that's timing a project around the construction calendar or just understanding how the neighborhood is likely to look a year from now, Aline Smolanoff has been tracking this redevelopment block by block since before the first shovel went in. Schedule your free consultation when you're ready to talk through what it means for you.
