The Coquina Sands Corner That Just Got Its Anchor Back

For four years, the north edge of Coquina Sands was a construction fence. The 1946 Naples Beach Hotel came down in 2021, and the block between Golf Drive and Banyan Boulevard sat quiet while everything south of it kept humming. Residents adapted. Morning walks angled toward Third Street South. Sunset routines drifted to the pier. The neighborhood's social gravity moved a half mile inland.

That has quietly reversed. As of late 2025 and the first half of 2026, two projects at the northern edge of Coquina Sands have both come online, and the daily map most residents were using no longer quite fits.

What actually opened at 801 Gulf Shore Boulevard North

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, 2025. A $1 billion-plus project with a 220-room resort and 153 private residences, the first Four Seasons in Southwest Florida carries forward the legacy of the Watkins family, who stewarded the hotel over three generations.

The addresses matter here. The resort footprint runs across 125 acres with 1,000 feet of Gulf shoreline at 801 Gulf Shore Boulevard North. That is the same 1,000 feet residents have been driving past for a generation, now with public-facing venues attached to it rather than plywood.

Three of those venues opened to walk-in traffic, not just hotel guests. The Merchant Room, HB's, and Sunset Bar are all open to the public. Valet parking is $15 with restaurant validation. The kitchens are not resort filler:

• The Merchant Room. Created by Gavin Kaysen, a two-time James Beard Award winner who trained under Daniel Boulud at Cafe Boulud NYC. This is Kaysen's first restaurant outside Minneapolis, where he runs acclaimed restaurants Spoon and Stable and Demi. The concept is a New American brasserie: French technique meets Gulf Coast seasonal ingredients, anchored by an in-house dry-aging program using Creekstone Farms beef aged 24 to 45 days.
• HB's on the Gulf. One of the few places for true beachfront dining in Naples, HB's extends onto a deck steps from the sand. The resort invested in a series of oversized, engineered umbrellas, each worth about $100,000, to create a remarkably cool, UV-buffered dining experience that lets the Gulf take center stage.
• Sunset Bar. A revived version of the long-loved gathering spot for live music and golden hour drinks, now reimagined with neon accents, Latin-leaning small plates, tropical cocktails.

The rest of the campus is arriving on a staggered clock through 2026, which is the part most residents underestimate. A fifth venue, The Wager sports gastropub with bowling, opens in Q3 2026. The Tom Fazio–designed 18-hole golf course is scheduled to debut Fall 2026, and the new 30,000-square-foot spa is slated to open in 2026. Which means summer 2026 is the last quiet season this corner will have for a while. By winter, the last of the construction fencing comes down and Market Square starts operating as designed: a social hub that blends dining, retail, and entertainment and is designed to welcome both guests and locals.

The piece nobody is talking about, one block north

Lowdermilk Park is doing its own quieter reset at the same time. Lowdermilk Park is looking at a nearly $700,000 expansion that would bring new life to one of Naples' most popular beachfront destinations. 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. The project would replace the park's previous playground on the north side that was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

The funding structure is worth looking at, because it explains why this is happening now rather than in 2027. 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.

Translation for residents: the gazebo you were expecting a year ago finally penciled out because a private family put half the shortfall on the table. That is the kind of civic detail that never makes it into a lifestyle roundup, and it is the reason the north end of Coquina Sands will feel materially different by the time the snowbirds return.

The park's operating baseline has not changed. Beach parking is available for a fee, typically around $2.50 per hour, or visitors can obtain a beach parking permit from the City of Naples. The park is also equipped with ADA-compliant beach access mats to ensure accessibility for everyone. The City of Naples has activated newly installed gate arms at the entrance and exit, which is the small change most residents already noticed and correctly filed under "manageable."

The old center of the neighborhood was Third Street South. The new one, for the first time in five years, is again 801 Gulf Shore Boulevard North.

Two corners, read together

Taken alone, each project is a headline. Read together they are a thesis about Coquina Sands.

The northern half of the neighborhood, from Banyan Boulevard up through the Lowdermilk block, has been operating below its potential since 2021. Condominium buildings along Gulf Shore Boulevard North kept their character but lost their anchor. Marketing language for beachfront condos in the area was still leaning on the promise of the resort's return: "The all new FOUR SEASONS with restaurants plus a marketplace has opened and is a great addition to this gulf shore neighborhood." That sentence is now a present-tense fact rather than a pending one, and the low-density character of the beachfront is still intact around it. As one local overview accurately puts it, the beachfront here offers low-rise condo construction offering the lowest density beachside condo living available in all of Naples.

The southern half of Coquina Sands, meanwhile, has been quietly rebuilding at the lot level. New single-family construction along Pectin Road and the cross streets came online in 2026 with finish elevations and construction that read as post-Ian standards, with new estates listing at over 5,300 square feet of sophisticated living on oversized homesites, and features like a finished floor elevation of 14' (per elevation certificate). That is a very different neighborhood than the one that existed in 2019, both above the seawall and below.

So the honest read on summer 2026 is not "a resort opened nearby." It is that Coquina Sands finally has both of its edges finished at the same time. The beachfront anchor is running. The interior lots are largely rebuilt. Lowdermilk gets its missing playground back before season. For the first time in half a decade, no part of the neighborhood is holding its breath.

A week that faces north

If the last few summers had residents pointing their routines south, this one rewards the opposite. A few concrete ways it plays out:

1. Weekday coffee. Naples Trading Co., the grab-and-go café, was scheduled for Q1 2026, alongside Sanctuary Spa. For residents on Banyan or Crayton, that is a walkable morning that did not exist last July.
2. Beach mornings at Lowdermilk. Open daily from 5:00 AM to 11:00 PM, with the ADA mats out and the parking meters running before most guests arrive. Bring quarters or a card. If the council-approved gazebo work is underway during your visit, the north-side pavilion is the alternate meeting point.
3. Sunset, on a rotation. HB's deck for the reservation nights, Sunset Bar for the walk-ins. Reservations recommended for HB's; Sunset Bar is first-come, first-served.
4. A dinner that used to require driving. The Merchant Room is a shorter walk from most Gulf Shore Boulevard buildings than the Third Street restaurants are, and it is not a chain concept borrowed from elsewhere in Florida. It is a chef building his second city.
5. What to skip, for now. Golf, the full spa, the cinema, and The Wager are still not open, and the Fazio course carries a Fall 2026 target. If those are the amenities that would change your view of the resort, wait a season before forming one.

The one honest caveat is traffic and parking. Valet pricing at the resort is modest, but the surface streets between Banyan Boulevard and Golf Drive were not designed for a resort operating at capacity plus a repaired park drawing weekend families. Residents accustomed to left turns onto Gulf Shore Boulevard North in the 5 p.m. window will feel it first. The trade for having the corner alive again is a slower drive on the block that used to be the fastest one in the neighborhood.

By the time the tile is back on the last balcony and the Fazio course opens, the version of Coquina Sands most residents chose in the first place, walkable, low-density, quietly anchored, will have all its pieces back in place. Summer is when to notice.

If you would like a closer read on how these changes are reshaping property values and inventory north of Central Avenue, The Norgart Team offers private neighborhood briefings for residents and owners. Become a VIP — Request Private Access.