Summer On The Beach Side Of Coquina Sands: What's Open, What's Coming, And Where The Neighborhood Is Headed

Walk the interior of Coquina Sands on a July morning and almost nothing has changed. The Banyan canopy still shades the streets between Fifth Avenue South and Doctors Pass, the lots still measure in half-acres more often than tenths, and the loudest sound is usually a landscape crew. Walk two blocks west, though, and the neighborhood you thought you knew has been quietly rebuilt around its edges.

The thesis of this summer is simple. The interior of Coquina Sands is doing exactly what it has always done. The perimeter, from Gulf Shore Boulevard North down through Lowdermilk Park, is finishing a transition from private-feeling residential frontage to a public destination that everyone in Naples now has a reason to visit. If you own here, that shift changes what your daily walk looks like, where you can get a table on short notice, and how your street reads to visitors for the next twelve months.

The Beach Club opened, but it opened in phases

Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, at 801 Gulf Shore Boulevard North, officially opened to the public on November 17, 2025, nearly seven years after the city approved the plan and four years after the original 1946 Naples Beach Hotel came down, as a $1 billion-plus project with a 220-room resort and 153 private residences. The important detail for anyone living within walking distance is that the opening was staged, and the pieces most relevant to residents are landing across 2026.

Here is where each public-facing venue stands as of this summer:

Two facts inside that table matter more than the rest. First, The Merchant Room, HB's, and Sunset Bar are all open to the public without needing to be a hotel guest, and valet parking is $15 with restaurant validation. That is not how most gated luxury resorts operate, and it means the beach-facing frontage of Coquina Sands functions, for the first time in years, as a destination district for the rest of Naples. Second, the culinary program is not incidental. The Merchant Room was created by Gavin Kaysen, a two-time James Beard Award winner who trained under Daniel Boulud at Cafe Boulud NYC, and it is his first restaurant outside Minneapolis, where he runs Spoon and Stable and Demi. Reservations during season have already tightened accordingly.

The follow-on venues are the ones to watch. The upcoming Picture House movie theater, Wager sports pub and bowling alley, Naples Trading Co., and complimentary MOKE rides are being positioned as the differentiators against the rest of Florida's luxury hotels. For residents, the practical read is that on-site amenities designed for guests are increasingly the same amenities you can walk to in ten minutes.

Lowdermilk is about to be a construction zone, then a better park

The other perimeter story is Lowdermilk Park, and its timeline runs in parallel. The Naples City Council is set to vote on a $699,787 agreement with Playmore West Inc. for the purchase and installation of a new playground and covered gazebo at the park, replacing the previous playground on the north side that was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

The funding structure is worth understanding, because it explains why the project is happening now rather than in a future budget cycle:

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. If approved, the plan also would update the city's 2025-26 budget to provide an additional $250,000 from the Beach Fund to help cover project costs.

Two Ian-era deferrals resolving in one vote, backed by a private gift, is how a public park moves from a placeholder to a build. If you have been walking the park for the last three years and wondering whether the north side was permanently unfinished, this summer answers that question.

While the playground vote works its way through council, the operational changes are already in place. The park is open daily from 5:00 AM to 11:00 PM, and the City of Naples has activated newly installed gate arms at the entrance and exit. That is a small thing on paper and a real thing at 10:45 PM when the arms lower on schedule. If you have friends parking here for a beach walk after dinner at HB's, the exit window is now enforced automatically.

What actually lands on your calendar this summer

Rather than a running list of announcements, this is what a Coquina Sands homeowner should mark on the calendar between now and year end:

1. June council decision on Lowdermilk. If approved, construction staging on the north side of the park follows. Expect the playground zone to be closed periodically through the install.
2. Sanctuary Spa opening. The 30,000 sq ft two-level spa is planned to feature 16 treatment rooms, a 3,200 sq ft thermal circuit with aromatherapy steam rooms, Finnish saunas, heated vitality whirlpools, cold plunge, ice lounge, and experiential showers. It joins the small handful of full-service spas within a five-minute drive of the neighborhood.
3. The Wager, Q3 2026. The fifth food and beverage venue at the resort is a sports gastropub with bowling, opening in Q3 2026. This is the venue that will most change the after-dinner rhythm on Gulf Shore Boulevard North.
4. The Gardens golf course, fall 2026. The golf course designed by Tom Fazio, The Gardens, is scheduled to open fall 2026, which means the interior of the resort campus stops reading as construction and starts reading as landscape.
5. Picture House cinema and Naples Trading Co. rollout. The resort is introducing a gastropub, kids club, and movie theater across 2026, filling in the amenities that turn the property from a hotel into a small district.

One additional entry belongs on the list, even though it is not on a public calendar. A newly built waterfront estate at 584 Banyan Blvd sold for $17.06 million, setting a record for Coquina Sands and surpassing the previous record of $13.35 million at 376 Yucca Road by more than $3.7 million. Whether or not you are watching the market, that transaction resets the frame of reference for every conversation about a new build on the interior streets this year.

The quiet interior, unchanged

None of this touches the residential core. The area is home to about 228 single-family dwellings and 661 multi-residence units, and those counts do not move meaningfully year to year. The distances to the two anchors most residents actually use, Fifth Avenue South and the Naples Design District, are the same walk and the same short bike ride they were in 2020.

What changes is context. Your interior street stays quiet. The block between your driveway and the sand now has a James Beard chef, a spa the size of a small hotel, and a park with a new playground going in. The resort was designed to sit inside the neighborhood rather than replace it, and the exterior architect leaned into that intent. Exterior architect Hart Howerton reinterpreted the historic cottage home style of Old Naples in a contemporary form, while the interiors were designed by Champalimaud Design. The result reads as scaled-up Coquina Sands rather than a resort dropped in from elsewhere.

For anyone who has lived here through the Ian recovery, the demolition of the 1946 Naples Beach Hotel, and four summers of construction fencing, the interesting thing about summer 2026 is that the transition finally has a finish line. The pieces that are open, are open. The pieces that are coming have dates. The park is on a defined schedule. The interior did what it always does and stayed itself.

If you own in Coquina Sands and want a considered read on what these perimeter changes mean for the value of your specific street, or if you are quietly weighing a move within the neighborhood as the last construction phases wind down, the Joe Caveney team is available for a private conversation. Request Private Access & Home Valuation to start with an unhurried look at your options.