For four years the block between Banyan Boulevard and the old hotel drive was a construction fence. If you walked west from Gulf Shore Boulevard toward Lowdermilk in the summer of 2022, you crossed a plywood corridor where HB's used to be, then a staging yard where the Watkins family had run a hotel since 1946. If you walk that same stretch this July, the fence is gone, HB's is back in its original footprint, and the conch shell blows at sunset again.
That is the practical story of Coquina Sands in the summer of 2026. The Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort opened to the public on November 17, 2025, and the ribbon cutting followed the next day. What matters for the neighbors is narrower than the press coverage suggests. Four of the five dining venues are already taking non-guest reservations, most of the amenities you read about in the 2023 renderings are still labeled "coming 2026," and the parts of the old property that residents actually used, the beachfront restaurant, the sunset bar, the tennis center, the Fazio golf course, are the parts still being restored to public rhythm.
What actually opened, and to whom
The clearest way to think about the resort as a resident is by what you can book from your kitchen table. The Merchant Room, chef Gavin Kaysen's first restaurant outside Minnesota, opened December 8, 2025. Kaysen is a two-time James Beard winner who trained under Daniel Boulud, and the Naples kitchen is run day to day by Chef de Cuisine Colin Henderson, previously at Jean-Georges Philadelphia, with General Manager Jordan Romine hired away from the Naples Le Colonial on 5th Avenue. The room itself is anchored by a hand-painted flamingo-and-mangrove mural from New York artist Dean Barger, framed by a scalloped oak bar and rattan seating.
HB's on the Gulf reopened on its original footprint. The restaurant carries the name of Henry B. Watkins Sr., the 1946 founder, and Chef de Cuisine Maru Cacho, a 23-year veteran who came from Daniel Boulud's team at Four Seasons Toronto, runs a Gulf-forward menu built around a raw bar and crudo. Prices sit where you would expect for a beachfront Old Naples room: raw bar $24 to $30, entrees $36 to $92, seafood towers $145 to $350. Sunset Bar is walk-in only, with Latin-leaning small plates and neon under the palms. Naples Trading Co., the grab-and-go café in Market Square, quietly opened in Q1 2026 and is the closest thing to a morning coffee counter the neighborhood has gained since the old hotel came down.
| Venue | Status | Public access | How to book |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Merchant Room | Open (Dec 8, 2025) | Yes | Reservations required, OpenTable or (239) 944-7660 |
| HB's on the Gulf | Open | Yes | Reservations strongly recommended |
| Sunset Bar | Open | Yes | First come, first served |
| Naples Trading Co. | Open (Q1 2026) | Yes | Walk in |
| The Wager (gastropub, bowling) | Q3 2026 | Yes | Not yet booking |
The practical rule for a resident is this: valet is $15 with restaurant validation at any of the three dining rooms, hotel guests pay $60 a night for the same valet, and there is no self-park. If you were hoping to walk in from the beach for a drink at Sunset Bar without moving your car, that still works. If you were hoping to circle the drive court in a golf cart, that does not.
The parts still labeled 2026
Almost everything the resort's 2023 marketing led with is still on the come. The Wager, the sports gastropub with bowling lanes, is scheduled for Q3 2026. The Picture House, a 22-seat theater, and FINS Kids Club are staged behind it. The full 30,000-square-foot spa is a 2026 opening, though the rooftop two-lane lap pool came online in mid-December 2025 and in-room massage and facial service is already running out of it. The Sabal Suite, the 7,000-square-foot five-bedroom on the sixth floor, arrived in early 2026 and is not a room a neighbor is likely to book, but it is now the largest hotel accommodation between Marco Island and Bonita Springs.
The Gardens, the Tom Fazio 18-hole golf course, is the one locals ask about most. It is a redesign of the course residents played for decades, and the current schedule points to a summer or fall 2026 reopening. Market Square, the retail and social hub that ties the resort's public spaces together, is also phasing in through the year. What that means in practice is that the resort you can visit this July is essentially five dining rooms, two pools, six Har-Tru tennis courts at the restored Mary C. Watkins Tennis Center, and a beachfront. Not five restaurants, a golf course, a spa, a cinema, a kids club, a gastropub, and a retail promenade.
Every evening at golden hour, the staff blow a ceremonial conch shell to mark the transition from day to night. It has already become the resort's signature social ritual, and from the beach at Lowdermilk you can hear it. That is the summer 2026 version of the property line.
Up the beach at Lowdermilk
The other change on the block is smaller in dollars and larger in daily impact. On June 15, 2026, Naples City Council took up a $699,787 agreement with Playmore West Inc. to purchase and install a new playground and covered gazebo at Lowdermilk Park, replacing the north-side playground that Hurricane Ian destroyed in 2022. The gazebo had been part of a 2025 park improvement plan that was shelved after bids came in over budget. Funding for the revised package pulls from two previously approved park enhancement projects, a $250,000 donation from the Nommensen family, and an additional $250,000 from the city's Beach Fund. WINK News covered the council item in detail.
For a Coquina Sands resident, the two projects should be read together. Lowdermilk Park is open 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., the gate arms are new, and the two sand volleyball courts and the concessions cabin have been running through construction season. If you have been avoiding the park north entrance because there was no shade and no playground, the plan on the table would restore both by the end of the fiscal year. The stretch of Gulf Shore Boulevard between the Del Mar at Banyan and the resort drive at 8th Avenue North is, for the first time since 2021, functioning as a continuous public beachfront again, with the resort on one end, the park on the other, and the Watkins tennis center in between.
The summer read for a neighbor
The short version is that four addresses inside a quarter mile of your front door became bookable again over the last nine months, and the amenities you might have been hoping for, the golf course, the spa, the retail arcade, the gastropub, are still moving through 2026. If you have out-of-town guests arriving in July, HB's is the beachfront reservation. If you want a Sunday morning coffee without the drive to Third Street, Naples Trading Co. is closer. If you want the fine dining reservation, Kaysen and Henderson at The Merchant Room is the one that will be hardest to get once season starts in November.
Two practical notes for the neighborhood that get missed in national coverage. The Merchant Room, HB's, and Sunset Bar are all open to the public. You do not need to be a hotel guest, and valet is $15 with validation. And the Watkins family name is still on the property in three places, the tennis center, HB's, and the 104 acres of permanent conservation easement that were preserved as part of the redevelopment. That last number is the one that most quietly protects the block.
If you own on Gulf Shore Boulevard, Banyan, or one of the interior streets in Coquina Sands and are thinking about what the resort next door means for how your home shows this season, Nina Loves Naples can walk the block with you and talk through timing, presentation, and the specific buyer conversation that has shifted since November. Get your instant home valuation to start the conversation.
