For the first time in years, the stretch of Gulf Shore Boulevard North that defines Coquina Sands is caught between two construction fences and one freshly polished front door. To the north, Lowdermilk Park is about to lose its playground for a summer. To the south, the Naples Pier is fenced off through 2027. In the middle, the property that anchored this shoreline for three quarters of a century has reopened under a new name and welcomed back the two rooms most residents actually cared about.
The result for anyone who already lives here is a quieter summer than the neighborhood has seen in a while, with the center of daily beach life pulled squarely back onto the Coquina Sands sand.
The north end: Lowdermilk's summer of the crane
The playground at the north side of Lowdermilk has been gone since September 2022. On June 15, 2026, the Naples City Council took up a $699,787 agreement with Playmore West Inc. for the purchase and installation of a new playground and covered gazebo at the park. The project replaces the park's previous playground on the north side that was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
The funding mix is worth pausing on, because it tells you how this park gets built now. Funding for the expansion would come from a combination of two previously approved park enhancement projects and a $250,000 donation from the Nommensen family. The gazebo, originally planned as part of a 2025 park improvement project, was postponed after construction bids exceeded the available budget, and the plan updates the city's 2025-26 budget to provide an additional $250,000 from the Beach Fund. A private family filled the gap that public bids blew through. That is not a national parks story. That is a Coquina Sands story.
For a resident, the practical read on summer is simple. The beach itself, the volleyball courts, the concessions, and the gazebo rentals remain live. The north playground is where the noise and fencing will sit. Sunrise walks from the Banyan Boulevard access are unaffected. The 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. gate window still runs the same way it has since the arms went up.
The middle: what actually opened at 801 Gulf Shore Boulevard North
The former Naples Beach Hotel site did not fully open in November 2025. It half opened, and the half that opened is the half residents cared about most.
Nearly seven years after the city approved the plan and four years after the original 1946 Naples Beach Hotel came down, the new Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort officially opened to the public on November 17, with the 220-room resort and 153 private residences carrying forward the legacy of the Watkins family, who stewarded the hotel over three generations. The reopening restored public access to more than 1,000 feet of Gulf shoreline and reintroduced two local landmarks, HB's beachfront restaurant and the Sunset Bar, after years of construction that reshaped both the waterfront and the neighborhood surrounding it.
The new dining piece is where the property is asking to be judged on its own terms. Just beyond the lobby, the flagship restaurant, The Merchant Room, brings culinary weight to Naples' fine dining scene, led by two-time James Beard Award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen from Minneapolis, with a menu that promises a French spin on Gulf flavors.
Here is the honest state of the 125-acre campus as of late spring 2026:
Open and running
- HB's on the Gulf, on its original footprint with expanded deck seating
- Sunset Bar
- The Merchant Room
- Guest rooms, pools, beach service, tennis
Still to come
- A new 30,000-square-foot spa, slated to open in 2026
- The Tom Fazio–designed 18-hole golf course, scheduled to debut Fall 2026
- Fin's Kids Club and Teen Center, and Naples Trading Co. grab-and-go café
- Market Square's cinema and bowling lanes
Guests may notice some construction along the drive near the golf course and private residences, but the main hotel, pools, and beach are fully complete with no visible work or noise. For a Coquina Sands neighbor, the translation is straightforward. The beach walk south from Lowdermilk now hits a Gulf-front dining and drinking scene that has not existed since 2021. The rest of the property is still a jobsite.
One structural note that matters for how this shoreline looks from now on. More than 104 acres of the site have been placed into permanent conservation easement. That is the single most consequential thing about the redevelopment for anyone who lives within walking distance. It is also the least advertised.
The south end: a pier you cannot walk to
The other bookend of the Coquina Sands walk is under demolition. In January 2026, a groundbreaking ceremony marked the official start of reconstruction on the Naples Pier, and the project is expected to take approximately 18 months to complete. The city has approved a $26.3 million project to rebuild the structure stronger and more resilient.
For residents, the operational details are more useful than the ribbon-cutting language.
Access to the Naples Pier is closed for the duration of the project, approximately 18 months. This includes the pier itself, stairs, restrooms, showers, and 12th Avenue South west of Gulf Shore Boulevard South.
The Pier parking lot at the corner of 12th Avenue South and Gulf Shore Boulevard South has limited public parking, with the western third of the lot open to the public and the eastern two-thirds closed for construction. To maintain beach access, the city has established pedestrian bypasses at the Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South beach ends, which remain open throughout the project, with restrooms available at both.
The design being built is not a like-for-like replacement. The third iteration of the design, crafted by MHK Architecture, introduces several modern amenities while streamlining land-side facilities, including an underwater marine camera. Following FEMA guidelines that prohibit permanent structures like the former Cosmos at the Pier from being built over water, the City Council opted for a portable concession cart, with electrical power installed at the pier entrance to support a mobile cart that will sell water, ice cream, and soda without competing with the local businesses on 5th Avenue South.
Read that last piece carefully. It is a small policy decision with a large lifestyle consequence. The pier is being rebuilt without a restaurant on it. Whatever the pier meant to your daily walk before Ian, it will not mean the same thing after Shoreline Foundation finishes.
What the summer actually gives Coquina Sands
Put the three ends together and a picture forms that no visitor guide is currently telling.
The northernmost public beach amenity is fenced on its playground side, still open on its beach side, and quietly rebuilding with private money. The middle of the shoreline just handed back a thousand feet of Gulf frontage and two long-missed public rooms, with the rest of the property staggered through the back half of 2026. The southernmost anchor is closed to residents until the second half of 2027, and its next incarnation will have no restaurant to draw a nightly crowd.
The center of gravity for a beach walk this summer is not the pier. It is not Lowdermilk's playground. It is the roughly one-mile stretch of sand that has always been most straightforwardly Coquina Sands, bracketed now by two construction sites and softened by a resort that has spent five years being redesigned to sit gently on it.
A few small implications for the season ahead:
- Sunrise favors the north entrances at Lowdermilk and Banyan while playground work runs.
- Golden hour has a public bar again for the first time since 2021, at Sunset Bar inside Naples Beach Club.
- Long beach walks that used to end at the pier now naturally end at HB's deck or turn back at 13th Avenue South.
- The Fazio course reopening this fall will change afternoon traffic along the Coquina Sands edge in ways that spring bookings will confirm or complicate.
Coquina Sands has always been the neighborhood that lives between the loud parts of Naples. This is the summer that geometry becomes literal. The two loudest projects on the shoreline are pushed to the edges of the neighborhood. The middle is finally, again, a beach.
If you would like a quieter, more detailed read on how this stretch is trading and what a private walkthrough of the newly available Gulf-front rooms looks like, The Knox Brothers are available for a confidential conversation. Schedule Your Private Consultation.