The half-mile of Gulf Shore Boulevard North between Banyan and Lowdermilk has spent four years as a construction corridor. This summer it reads differently. Cranes are gone from the beachfront. The blue-and-white awning at HB's is up again. And a mile north of it, the city is voting on the last public piece the neighborhood has been missing since 2022.
If you live here, the news is not that a resort opened. The news is that Coquina Sands is quietly getting both of its public anchors back at once.
Two anchors, half a mile apart, on parallel timelines
The private one moved first. Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, opened to the public on November 17, 2025, set on 1,000 feet of beachfront across 125 acres, four years after the original 1946 hotel came down. For anyone who has watched Gulf Shore Boulevard from a front porch or a sixth-floor balcony, that date closed a long chapter.
The public one is close behind. On June 15, 2026, the Naples City Council took up a $699,787 agreement with Playmore West Inc. to install a new playground and covered gazebo at Lowdermilk Park, replacing the north-side playground destroyed by Hurricane Ian in 2022. Funding comes from two previously approved park enhancement projects, a $250,000 donation from the Nommensen family, and $250,000 from the city's Beach Fund. The gazebo was originally part of a 2025 project that got shelved when bids came in over budget.
Read the two together and the neighborhood's summer looks less like a construction hangover and more like a coordinated reopening.
HB's, Sunset Bar, and the sand-level rituals residents actually missed
The restored beachfront restaurants are the reason most residents will feel the change first. HB's has been rebuilt on its original footprint, and Sunset Bar has come back in the same open-air spirit it kept for decades, now with Latin-leaning small plates and a lighter cocktail program. Both are walkable from most of the neighborhood; both restore public access to the shoreline that had been fenced off through the demolition years.
The new addition worth planning around is The Merchant Room, led by Gavin Kaysen, the two-time James Beard Award winner out of Minneapolis. It's his first venture outside the Midwest, and the menu leans New American brasserie with a French inflection over Gulf ingredients. Sunset Bar is the drop-in; The Merchant Room is the reservation.
A design detail residents will notice: the frangible shellcrete wall along the drive is engineered to wash through safely in a storm and reads as a deliberate echo of the wave-shaped coquina sign that fronted the old hotel for 75 years. It's the closest thing the new property has to a signature, and it sits on the exact stretch of road most of us walk or bike.
The corridor's summer isn't about a resort opening. It's about the neighborhood's two public rooms, one private and one civic, coming back within seven months of each other.
What Lowdermilk gets back, and when
Lowdermilk Park at 1301 Gulf Shore Blvd N has stayed open through the recovery years, with sand volleyball courts, ADA beach mats, gazebo rentals, and the Beach Cafe operating on its familiar hours. What it has lacked is a real north-side playground and a covered gathering structure, both of which have been part of the park's identity for a generation of Coquina Sands families.
If the June 2026 vote holds, the replacement playground and gazebo are the last major post-Ian repair to the park itself. A few practical points worth keeping on the calendar this summer:
- Park hours remain 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., with the recently activated gate arms lowering at close.
- Parking still requires a city beach permit or pay-by-space at roughly $2.50 per hour, enforced year-round.
- Amplified music, tents larger than 10x10, or events over 1,500 attendees require a Special Event Permit through the city.
The gazebo rebuild matters more than it sounds. The old one was the neighborhood's default rain plan and the closest covered space to the sand between Third Street and the Moorings pier. Getting it back changes what a July afternoon on this stretch can look like.
Still to come along the corridor this year
The 2025 opening was the first wave. The second lands across 2026 and reshapes what "walking to the beach club" means for anyone who lives within a five-minute stroll.
The 30,000-square-foot Sanctuary Spa is slated to open in 2026, along with Market Square's next tenants: The Wager, a sports-centric gastropub with a full slate of draught beer; a four-lane bowling alley, described by Four Seasons as its first regulation setup at any property; the 22-seat Picture House cinema; a curated kids' club; and a professional putting green. The 7,000-square-foot, five-bedroom Sabal Suite debuts in early 2026 on the sixth floor with a 2,100-square-foot terrace, a circular pool, and its own whirlpool.
One update the earlier press releases got wrong is worth flagging for anyone tracking golf timing. Multiple 2025 announcements listed the redesigned Tom Fazio 18-hole course as a 2026 opening. Four Seasons' own resort site now lists the course as arriving in 2027. Gulfshore Life's coverage described a reopening "next summer" from a fall-2025 vantage point, which lines up with the later date. If you were planning your season around the course, that's the timeline to work from.
The Mary C. Watkins Tennis Center and more than 104 acres of permanent conservation easement were preserved in the redevelopment, which is the part of the plan that keeps the corridor from feeling like a resort compound with a public sidewalk grafted on.
The walk that ties it together
Start at the corner of Banyan and Gulf Shore, cross to the beach side, and head north. In the first three blocks you pass HB's and Sunset Bar on your left, then the frontage of the resort residences. Another few blocks brings you to 1601 Gulf Shore Blvd N, where Rosewood Residences Naples is rising on five acres of direct beachfront, delivering 42 units around 2027. A short walk further and you're at 1121 Gulf Shore Blvd N, the Olana site, where 12 beachfront estates are scheduled for 2028 delivery. Cross Harbour Drive and you're at Lowdermilk.
That's the entire Coquina Sands beachfront story in one walk. Two active new-construction sites, one just-opened resort with restored public restaurants, and one public park about to close its Ian chapter. For a neighborhood of roughly 228 single-family homes and 661 multi-residence units squeezed between Old Naples and the Moorings, that's an unusual amount of change compressed into a single corridor.
The residents who have been here through the demolition and rebuild years know how the block reads at different times of day. What's new is that the summer routine has options again. A morning walk that ends at HB's for coffee. A sunset that finishes at the reopened bar instead of a construction fence. A rainy-afternoon plan that lands under a Lowdermilk gazebo again, once the vote is behind us and the concrete is poured.
When you're ready to talk about the block
If the corridor's next chapter has you thinking about your own place on it, whether that's a Gulf Shore condo you've held through the storm years, a Coquina Sands cottage you're weighing against new construction, or a specific position near Lowdermilk, Andrew Christopher is happy to walk the block with you and talk through what the last four years have done to values, timing, and inventory on this stretch. Get in touch.
