A Moorings Summer: What The Neighborhood Feels Like In 2026

Drive Gulf Shore Boulevard North from Doctors Pass to Banyan and you cross three versions of the same neighborhood in about six minutes. At the north edge, cranes are back on the water for the first time in decades. In the middle, the Village Shops on Venetian Bay is doing exactly what it has done for forty summers. At the south edge, the old Naples Beach Hotel is a Four Seasons now, and HB's is serving lunch on the sand again. The Moorings has never been a neighborhood defined by a single anchor, and this year that is more true than usual. Summer is the season to notice it.

The south end reopened, and it looks different

The property at 851 Gulf Shore Boulevard North sat behind construction fence for years. It reopened on November 17, 2025 as the Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, and the shape of the campus tells you what the next decade of the south Moorings is going to feel like. Nearly seven years after the city approved the plan and four years after the original 1946 Naples Beach Hotel came down, the resort opened as a project of more than one billion dollars with 220 rooms and 153 private residences on the same 125-acre footprint.

Two things residents will care about most are open. Long-loved community icons HB's and Sunset Bar are back, with HB's extending onto a deck steps from the sand as one of the few places in Naples for true beachfront dining. Sunset Bar has been reimagined with neon accents, Latin-leaning small plates, and tropical cocktails while keeping its open-air spirit. The Merchant Room, the lobby-adjacent restaurant, is the higher-formality option. It is led by two-time James Beard Award winning chef Gavin Kaysen from Minneapolis, and the menu is described as a French spin on Gulf flavors.

Plenty is still coming. The Wager, a sports-centric gastropub with Four Seasons' first regulation four-lane bowling alley and a professional putting green, debuts in 2026, along with The Picture House 22-seat theater, an 18-hole Tom Fazio golf course called The Gardens, and the FINS Kids Club. The spa, at 30,000 square feet, is slated to open in 2026 as well.

The practical read for anyone who lives north of the resort: the southbound bike trip on Gulf Shore Boulevard now ends at a working hotel again. Sunset drinks on the property are back in the calendar. Golf construction inside the 100-acre course footprint will be visible from the road through the year.

The middle of the neighborhood did not move

The Village Shops on Venetian Bay is the piece of The Moorings that stays constant. The waterfront destination has more than forty locally owned shops and six waterfront restaurants, and the roster of tables is what makes summer weekends work when the beach parking fills by ten in the morning.

The dining lineup at the center is anchored by Bayside Seafood Grill & Bar, Fish Restaurant, M Waterfront Grille, MiraMare Ristorante, T-Michaels Steak & Lobster, and The Village Pub. For the shorter stops, the property is home to Naples' only Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Black Letter Coffee + Café.

Two blocks further into the neighborhood, Jimmy P's Charred and USS Nemo continue to draw the summer regulars who want to eat before 6:30 and be home by nine. Neither is on the water. Both fill without reservations on the last Friday of any month.

What is rising on Doctor's Bay

Look north from the Village Shops and you can see the shape of the next Moorings landmark going up. A groundbreaking celebration was held January 29 for 3300 Gulf Shore, a luxury waterfront residential community planned at 3300 Gulf Shore Boulevard between the Gulf and Doctor's Bay. The eight-story development by Florida-based Kolter Urban will feature 51 condominiums, a private 16-slip marina and high-end amenities at the former Executive Club site in the Moorings.

The site sits at the neighborhood's most trafficked marine chokepoint. Anyone who runs a boat out of a Moorings dock knows the shallow curve at the mouth of Doctor's Bay before Doctors Pass. A 16-slip marina at that location will change the summer traffic pattern in a way that will matter mostly to owners who leave slips before eight in the morning to reach the Gulf on a flooding tide. Worth watching this year, not next.

The private amenity most residents stop mentioning to guests

Ask a Moorings owner what makes summer here different from summer three blocks inland and the answer is usually not the golf course or the shopping. It is the beach park. Residents of the community qualify for membership in the Moorings Property Owners Association, and membership includes an exclusive parking spot at the beach, access to community events, a discount card for local restaurants and businesses, and the opportunity to host parties at the beach park. That gated lot is the reason a weekday afternoon walk to the water still works in July when Lowdermilk fills by ten.

The rest of the neighborhood's structure is easy to under-appreciate until you compare it to a gated golf community farther east. The Moorings is not a resort-style gated community with a singular clubhouse. Its amenities are decentralized, focused on golf and water access. The Moorings Golf & Country Club runs a par-63 executive course, and membership is separate from property ownership. That last detail catches new arrivals off guard every year. Buying a house here does not buy you into the club.

A summer week without leaving the boulevard

The season has a rhythm. If you are new to the neighborhood, or hosting someone who is, here is what a real week looks like from a Gulf Shore Boulevard address in July.

• Monday morning. Coffee at Black Letter, then a walk south on the sand toward the Four Seasons dune line. Turn around at the volleyball nets before the resort loungers begin.
• Tuesday evening. Early table at The Village Pub. Six p.m. is quieter than seven-thirty, and the water is still lit.
• Wednesday. MPOA beach park before eleven, home before the afternoon storm cell builds off the Everglades.
• Thursday. A round at Moorings Golf & Country Club if you are a member, or the driving range at any of the public options east of 41 if you are not.
• Friday sunset. Sunset Bar at the Four Seasons. Reservations recommended through August. Neighbors who remember the old pool bar will spend the first drink talking about what changed and the second one deciding it works.
• Saturday. Brunch at Bayside upstairs. Boat out through Doctors Pass in the afternoon if the wind is under ten. Watch the marina work at the 3300 Gulf Shore site as you idle back in.
• Sunday. MiraMare terrace for pasta before the school year gears back up.

The point of listing it out is not the itinerary. It is the fact that none of these steps require crossing 41. That is the argument for living in The Moorings this year rather than three years ago. The southern anchor is back. The middle anchor never left. The northern anchor is under construction and worth watching.

The thing that will be different by fall

By October, the Four Seasons will have added the theater, more of the spa, and likely The Wager. Golf activity at The Gardens will be visible from the boulevard. The 3300 Gulf Shore vertical work will have begun. The Village Shops will be starting its winter reservation crush again around Thanksgiving.

Summer is the interval between those two states. It is the last stretch when a resident can eat at Bayside on a Saturday night without a two-week reservation lead time, walk the beach south of the resort without weaving through guests, and see the neighborhood's north-to-south geometry with something close to clarity. Use it.

If you already live here, you already know most of this. If you are curious about how these shifts are moving values along the beach walk of The Moorings, or you want a quiet conversation about a home before the winter season resets prices, The Norgart Team keeps a short list of neighbors who prefer to hear about the block before the block hears about them. Become a VIP and request private access.