For four summers, the southern edge of Coquina Sands has functioned as a subtraction. The old Naples Beach Hotel closed in 2021, the buildings came down, and the stretch of Gulf Shore Boulevard South of Banyan turned into fencing, cranes, and the kind of low hum residents learned to plan their walks around. Lowdermilk lost its north-side playground to Ian in 2022 and never replaced it. The neighborhood kept most of its rhythm, but the southern anchor was missing.
Summer 2026 is the first one in which that edge is producing daily-life outputs again. The important thing is that the outputs are not arriving all at once. They are staggered across roughly twelve months, and the staggering is what actually changes how residents use their own streets between now and next winter.
What's already back, and what it feels like in July
The 125-acre site south of Coquina reopened on November 17, 2025 as Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort. The numbers around the redevelopment have been widely reported: Gulfshore Business put the project at more than $1 billion, on a site the Watkins family first opened in 1946 and sold in 2021 for $362,289,599. Two-hundred-twenty rooms, 57 suites, 125 acres, 1,000 feet of white sand. Those are the press-release figures.
For someone who already lives three blocks north, the more useful details are smaller.
HB's on the Gulf is open again. Gulfshore Life's first look noted that the deck is one of the few genuine beachfront dining rooms left in the city, and that the resort invested in a series of oversized engineered umbrellas worth roughly $100,000 each so lunch works in July light. A resident who used to bike down for a Watkins-era HB's breakfast will find the address the same and the room reworked.
Sunset Bar is open again, reimagined with what Gulfshore Life described as neon accents, Latin-leaning small plates, and tropical cocktails. The sunset ritual most Coquina Sands residents grew up with is back on the same patch of sand, tuned lighter.
The Merchant Room is new. Gavin Kaysen, a two-time James Beard Award winner from Minneapolis, is running it as his first project outside the Midwest. This is the fine-dining piece, not the walk-in-from-the-beach piece. For a neighborhood whose closest comparable rooms sit on Fifth Avenue South, having one at the south property line changes the weekly dinner map.
The lobby-facing bar and The Library round out what is already operating, along with in-room spa treatments while the full spa finishes.
The rest is on a schedule.
What is still coming, in the order it arrives
The distinction that matters for residents right now is between what you can walk to this week and what you cannot walk to until later. Coverage from Travel Market Report, Hospitality Design, and the Four Seasons press office lines up on a rolling 2026 sequence:
- The Sabal Suite, a 7,000-square-foot five-bedroom on the sixth floor with a 2,100-square-foot terrace and a circular pool. Debuted early 2026. Not something most residents will use, but it sets the ceiling for what the property is charging.
- The 30,000-square-foot Sanctuary Spa, two levels, thermal circuit, rooftop lap pool, fitness curated by Harley Pasternak. Phased through 2026.
- Market Square build-out, the retail-and-social spine at the middle of the property. The four-lane bowling alley, The Picture House 22-seat cinema, Fin's Club and Teen Centre for kids and teenagers, and the Naples Trading Co. grab-and-go were all still opening across Q1 and beyond, per Ourisman Travel's on-site review.
- The Wager gastropub, a sports-forward room adjacent to the bowling lanes, opening later in 2026.
- The Tom Fazio 18-hole redesign, 100 acres, in partnership with Discovery Land Company. Scheduled to open Fall 2026 with new hitting bays, comfort stations, and a clubhouse.
- The 153 private residences, 58 beachfront and 95 along the golf course, delivering in phases with the golf course.
The practical read on the sequence: dinner and drinks are already yours. The neighborhood-scale amenity draw, meaning the Fazio course and the Market Square amenities aimed at families, lands during the fall shoulder rather than mid-season. If you are planning grandchildren for Thanksgiving week, the bowling lanes and cinema are the amenities to check on the calendar, not the beach.
The other quiet reopening: Lowdermilk
Lowdermilk Park sits at the north end of Coquina's beachfront and takes a disproportionate share of the neighborhood's daily walking traffic. It also lost its north-side playground to Hurricane Ian in 2022 and has been operating with a gap in the middle of its footprint ever since.
That gap is finally closing. On June 15, 2026, WINK News reported that the Naples City Council was set to vote on a $699,787 agreement with Playmore West Inc. for the new playground and a covered gazebo. The funding stack is worth reading closely: two previously approved park enhancement projects, a $250,000 donation from the Nommensen family, and a proposed $250,000 pull from the Beach Fund written into an amended 2025-26 city budget. The gazebo had been part of a 2025 project that was shelved after construction bids came in over budget. This vote folded the two projects back together.
For a resident, three things follow from that.
First, the replacement is being paid for partly by a named local family rather than only through general park funds, which is one reason it's moving now rather than another cycle out.
Second, the park's operating rules changed while the playground was gone. The City of Naples activated gate arms at the entrance and exit, and parking is pay-by-space or by beach permit year-round. Gates lift green when the park is open, drop red at 11 p.m., and vehicles must be out by then. Residents with a city beach permit still walk in freely. Guests coming from out of town do not, and they should know that before they show up with quarters.
Third, the concessions and rentals are still run out of The Beach Cafe pavilion, which handles chairs, umbrellas, paddleboards, and kayaks daily from 9 a.m. to sunset, weather permitting. Gazebo rentals go through a separate city line. That split has caught more than one first-time host off guard when planning a family gathering.
The summer rhythm, quickly reorganized
Put the two ends of Coquina Sands together and the shape of a resident's summer week now looks different than it did in 2024.
The morning walk still runs the beach, but now it ends at HB's rather than at a construction fence. Evenings that used to require a drive to Third Street South for a proper dinner can be handled on foot at The Merchant Room or over cocktails at Sunset Bar, both within the walk radius of most homes east of Gulf Shore. Weekends that involved grandchildren used to route to Fleischmann Park or the Norris Community Center; by winter, the Market Square rooms and the reopened Lowdermilk playground will absorb a share of that.
None of this is a sales pitch. It is a scheduling change. Coquina Sands has always been the quiet interior neighborhood pressed between two more famous ones. What summer 2026 has done is give it back its southern anchor, one component at a time, and add a working playground to its northern one.
The friction is real: the Fazio course, the full spa, and the last of the Market Square rooms are not yet open, and the residences and beach construction are still visible from parts of Gulf Shore. Residents who walk the beach at sunrise will still see cranes on the horizon into fall. Anyone waiting for the neighborhood to feel finished should probably wait until the golf course opens. Anyone who wants to use what is already back should stop waiting.
If you're weighing what all of this means for the value of a specific address in Coquina Sands, or thinking about how the reopening cycle might shape a future move, Abby Fraga is happy to talk it through. Let's connect.
