The stretch of Gulf Shore Boulevard between Doctors Pass and Harbour Drive has looked the same for most of a generation. This summer it doesn't. Construction fencing has gone up at the former Executive Club site, and a mile south, the Four Seasons work at the old Naples Beach Club is finally reading as a building instead of a rendering. If you live here, the interesting question isn't what's arriving. It's how little of the neighborhood's daily rhythm those arrivals are actually going to touch.
That's the argument of this post. The Moorings is being reshaped from its edges, on the water and along its northern boundary, while the interior, the part residents actually move through on a Tuesday afternoon, is holding almost perfectly still. The gap between those two facts is the story of summer 2026.
The bookend projects
Start with the bay side. A groundbreaking celebration was held Jan. 29 for 3300 Gulf Shore, a luxury waterfront residential community planned at 3300 Gulf Shore Blvd., 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.
Fifty-one units across eight stories, with sixteen deeded slips. That ratio matters. A slip for roughly every three residences is not a rental-yield calculation. It's a boater's building, sited on the exact stretch of bayfront the Moorings was originally platted around in the late 1950s. The character of the site is closer to what Milton Link's early buyers signed up for than what most Gulf-side towers built since have delivered.
To the north, Venetian Village anchors the retail edge. To the south, the Four Seasons project on the old Naples Beach Club property continues to move toward completion, promising the neighborhood's first true resort-grade dining and accommodations since the original hotel closed. Two bookends, both on water, both changing the top and bottom of Gulf Shore Boulevard.
The interior of the Moorings has almost no active construction of consequence this summer. Every meaningful project sits on the perimeter.
That's the inversion. Ask a resident where the neighborhood is changing and they'll point outward, toward the bay, toward the Gulf, toward the shops on Venetian Bay. They will not point at their own street.
Venetian Village is doing the work Fifth Avenue usually gets credit for
Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South are close enough to feel like neighborhood dining. In practice, most Moorings residents don't drive south for a weekday dinner in July. They walk or bike to Venetian Village, where MiraMare Ristorante and Bayside Seafood Grill & Bar sit on the water at the northern edge of the community.
The summer economics of a barrier-island restaurant scene are unforgiving. Places that survive June through September do so because the local base carries them. The Village Shops on Venetian Bay is the rare Naples dining cluster that operates on that base year round, which is why residents who have been here through a few off-seasons treat it as the default rather than a special occasion.
A short list of what's still open and worth returning to this summer, from the research and long-standing neighborhood consensus:
- USS Nemo on Tamiami Trail North for seafood that carries the whole east side of the neighborhood
- Jimmy P's Charred and Jimmy P's Butcher Shop for a steakhouse that doesn't require a Fifth Avenue reservation
- Dorona for Italian steakhouse fare closer to Park Shore's boundary
- Swan River for a seafood market and dining room that pulls quietly from all over Collier County
- Harold's Place for a poolside tavern with no pretension
- Lake Park Diner and First Watch for the two breakfasts residents actually eat on a repeat basis
Nothing on that list is new. That's the point. In a summer where the perimeter is being rebuilt, the day-to-day dining map has not moved.
The MPOA question
The single most useful piece of local knowledge in the Moorings has nothing to do with restaurants or construction. It's the Moorings Property Owners Association beach park, which offers members a gated, staffed private beach with parking, restrooms, and shade. For an owner inside the MPOA boundary, the annual dues are the cheapest luxury purchase available in a 34103 zip code.
Summer is when that membership pays for itself twice over. Public beach parking at Lowdermilk Park and the ends of the Gulf Shore Boulevard access lots fills by mid-morning through most of June and July. The MPOA lot doesn't. A resident with a valid decal can decide at 4 p.m. to spend the last two hours of light on the sand, without a plan and without circling.
If you own inside the association boundary and have never activated the membership, this summer is the argument for doing it. The construction along Gulf Shore Boulevard is going to make the public access points more congested, not less, for the next twenty-four to thirty-six months.
Where the neighborhood actually walks in July
August in Naples is a strange month. Season is gone, the humidity is real, and the calendar of things to do compresses to what's within a short drive. A few durable options for residents who are here through the summer:
Moorings Bayfront Park. A quiet strip along the bay with walking paths and shaded picnic tables. Best at seven in the morning or an hour before sunset.
Doctors Pass. For the boaters, the pass is the whole reason the neighborhood exists as a boating community. Slack tide through the pass in summer runs cleaner than in season because outgoing charter traffic is thinner.
Gordon River Greenway. Nearly two miles of trail and boardwalk along the Gordon River, ten minutes from most Moorings addresses. The canopy makes it usable through mid-morning in a way that Lowdermilk in July is not.
Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens. Forty-three acres of botanical garden with the zoo layered over it. Locals with an annual pass tend to use it more in the summer, when the crowds thin, than in season.
Naples Botanical Garden. A short drive south. The summer evening hours are the version most residents prefer.
The Moorings Golf & Country Club remains the interior social anchor for members. The course is member-owned, and summer tee sheets open up in a way they never do between Thanksgiving and April. If you have been trying and failing to get a Saturday morning slot since December, July is your month.
What to actually watch through the fall
Three questions residents should be tracking:
- How much of the 3300 Gulf Shore construction traffic routes through Harbour Drive versus Mooring Line Drive? Kolter's staging plan will determine which interior streets feel the project and which don't.
- Whether the Four Seasons opening date holds. The hospitality calendar in Naples has slipped on almost every major project of the last five years. A firm date on the Naples Beach Club replacement affects the entire southern boundary of the neighborhood.
- The MPOA capital calendar. Any material change to the beach park facility or the association's fee structure this fall will be the news that actually touches the most households.
None of those is the story the regional press is running. They are the stories residents will feel first.
The summer thesis, restated
If someone who has owned in the Moorings for twenty years took the summer off and came back at Thanksgiving, they would find the shoreline changed and the neighborhood unchanged. Two towers reshaping the perimeter. Venetian Village doing what it always does. The MPOA beach park quieter than the public lots. Jimmy P's still on the corner. That gap, between edge and interior, is what makes the Moorings different from the rest of Gulf Shore Boulevard, and it's why the residents who have been here longest are the least worried about what's going up on the bay.
For owners weighing what these perimeter changes mean for value, positioning, or timing, Joe Caveney and the CVJ Team track the Moorings block by block. Request Private Access & Home Valuation to talk through where your property sits inside the neighborhood's shifting map.
