Stand on the Gulf Shore Boulevard North bridge at golden hour and you can see the three projects reshaping The Moorings at once. To the south, cranes and pecky cypress at the reopened Naples Beach Club. Below, the shoaled cut of Doctors Pass. To the north, the string lights of Venetian Village warming up for dinner service. For anyone who already owns here, this is not background scenery. It is the operating system of the neighborhood, and it is being rewritten in the same twelve months.
The through line for 2026 is simple: The Moorings is not changing at the property line. It is changing at the three edges residents actually use, and the sequencing of those edges matters for how you plan a weekend, a boat run, or a dinner reservation.
The Southern Edge: A Beach Club That Is Now A Four Seasons
The old Naples Beach Hotel came down four years ago. What replaced it opened its doors on November 17, 2025, when the new Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort officially opened to the public, a project the same article puts at a $1 billion-plus redevelopment with a 220-room resort and 153 private residences on 125 acres.
For Moorings residents, the meaningful part is not the room count. It is which pieces of the old property survived and which pieces are brand new. Parts of the campus, including the Market Square amenities hub, residences, tennis center, and redesigned Tom Fazio 18-hole golf course, are still to come, and the opening brings back long-awaited community icons including HB's and Sunset Bar. Sunset Bar, per Gulfshore Life, has been reimagined with neon accents, Latin-leaning small plates, and tropical cocktails, keeping its open-air spirit while tuning to a lighter, more playful energy.
The fine-dining anchor is new. Just beyond the lobby, the flagship restaurant, The Merchant Room, is led by two-time James Beard Award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen from Minneapolis, and the menu promises a French spin on Gulf flavors.
What is still to come in 2026 changes how residents will use the property across the calendar:
| Amenity | Timing |
|---|---|
| Sabal Suite, 7,000 sf top residence | Early 2026 |
| 30,000 sf Sanctuary Spa | 2026 |
| Tom Fazio 18-hole course | Fall 2026 |
| The Wager gastropub, four-lane bowling, Picture House cinema | Second wave of 2026 openings |
The practical read: if you live in The Moorings, you now have a walkable Four Seasons at the neighborhood's southern doorstep, and the amenities that matter most for locals, the spa and the golf course, arrive in the back half of the year rather than at opening.
The Western Edge: The Only Inlet That Matters
Every conversation about boating out of The Moorings ends at the same rock jetty. Doctors Pass, per the City of Naples, is the only inlet connecting Moorings Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. That is not a colorful phrase. It is a hard constraint. If the channel is shoaled, your boat does not leave.
And Doctors Pass shoals. It shoals in more readily than Gordon Pass and needs its own periodic maintenance to stay passable, because it is shallower and does not see the same dredging priority as Naples' primary harbor entrance, so sand can build up along its edges between maintenance cycles, narrowing the workable channel.
That is where 2026 comes in. Collier County opened bids in March 2026 for a major maintenance dredge of Wiggins and Doctor's Pass, critical for maintaining channel depths that were shoaled in by the late-2024 storm season. The stated target for these projects, per Florida Outdoors, is a reliable depth of at least 8 to 12 feet in key channels.
Two things residents should plan around this year:
- Beach access staging. In prior cycles, Naples beach access points such as Horizon Way have faced 60-day closures to serve as staging areas for sand-hauling equipment. If a similar staging window lands during your summer, expect equipment and pipeline near the south side of the pass.
- Where the sand goes. Historically the dredged material has been redeposited close by. In the last major cycle, the dredged sand from Doctors Pass was placed on the beach in the Lowdermilk Park area, with a pipe placed from Doctors Pass to Lowdermilk Park and buried on the beach to allow public use. Watching where the pipeline lands is a reasonable proxy for where the widest beach will be by fall.
The takeaway for a Moorings owner with a lift: verify the specifics for your address before you assume open water. Depth at your dock, seawall condition, and whether your route is bridge-free can shape what size vessel you run and how quickly you reach the Gulf.
The Northern Edge: Venetian Village In Its Summer Rhythm
If the Beach Club is the walk south and the pass is the run west, Venetian Bay is the short drive north. Summer is when the crowd thins and the specials appear.
The three anchors are running summer 2026 programs worth actually reading:
- MiraMare Ristorante. MiraMare offers a waterfront dining experience with authentic Italian dishes in Venetian Village, sitting right at 4236 Gulf Shore Boulevard North. Their spring promotion ran a Chef's Table at $29.98 with nightly music from 6 to 9 p.m.
- Fish Restaurant. Fish is located right on Venetian Bay with waterside views at the Village Shops Plaza, running seafood, sushi, and prime cuts on the same dock.
- M Waterfront Grille. The Upper Deck Bar has a specific carve-out worth knowing. Between 2 and 4:30 p.m., the Upper Deck Bar offers a lighter, late lunch menu. That is the window when the terrace is quiet and the light on the bay is at its best.
Live music on the promenade has a schedule too. Per the Village Shops, Andy Wahlberg plays every night from Thursday to Saturday, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. If you have out-of-town guests staying with you and you want a walkable evening that does not require a Fifth Avenue reservation two weeks out, this is the routine to memorize.
The Piece That Does Not Change
Everything above is new or in flux. What is not: the way The Moorings actually functions as a residential neighborhood, which still runs on the voluntary property owners association and the members-only beach park.
For anyone new to the block, the mechanics are worth stating plainly. Moorings Beach Park is managed by the Moorings Property Owners Association at 2101 Gulf Shore Boulevard North, and it is best described as association-based beach access rather than a typical public beach access point. Crucially, the association is voluntary, not mandatory, and MPOA states its purpose is to preserve the beauty, safety, and ecology of the neighborhood, beach park, and waterways.
The park has a rhythm that has not changed:
- Open during daylight hours, closed at dark
- Guards on duty from 10 a.m. until sunset
- Each member is entitled to purchase one visitor pass for a fee of $55
Golf is on the same voluntary model. The Moorings Golf & Country Club is a private, member-owned club featuring a par-64 course with year-round play, no tee times, and a vibrant member calendar. That last detail is easy to overlook and worth pausing on: no tee times is not marketing language. It is the reason many members joined in the first place.
For families, Fleischmann Park still fills in the gap the Beach Club and the country club do not, with multiple athletic facilities including lighted baseball diamonds and volleyball courts.
Planning A Weekend Around The Three Edges
A workable Moorings weekend this summer, in order:
- Friday sunset. Walk south to the reopened Sunset Bar for a drink before dinner. HB's is next door if you want to stay put; The Merchant Room is the reservation to try once.
- Saturday morning. Beach Park before 10 a.m. if you want the quiet stretch, or after the guard shift starts if you have visitors on a pass.
- Saturday afternoon. If Doctors Pass is running, boat out. If dredging equipment is staged, take the walk to the pass jetties and read the pipeline route.
- Saturday night. Drive five minutes north to Venetian Village. Andy Wahlberg from 7 to 10 p.m., Thursday through Saturday.
- Sunday. Golf at Moorings if you are a member. No tee time to book. That is the point.
The neighborhoods on either side, Park Shore and Coquina Sands, are getting some spillover from all three of these projects, but The Moorings is the only one that sits inside the triangle they form.
If you own here and want a considered view on how this year's changes affect your specific block, dock, or eventual sale, the team at The Resop Team tracks the pass, the club, and the bay as closely as the listing sheet. Book an appointment and let us walk it with you.
