For a long time, the western edge of Coquina Sands was defined by two things residents took for granted: a family-run beach hotel that had been standing since 1946, and a public park with a playground that Hurricane Ian took out in 2022. Both of those anchors are gone. What has replaced them, or is about to, changes the daily texture of living here in ways that are easy to miss if you only read the tourism coverage.
The thesis we keep coming back to with clients who own on Gulf Shore Boulevard North, Banyan, or one of the interior streets: the beachfront edge of Coquina Sands has quietly become a resident-accessible amenity strip. Not a resort you drive past. Not a construction zone to endure. A set of specific rooms, restaurants, and public spaces that reward people who live within a five-minute walk. Here is what is actually open, what is coming, and what a Coquina Sands homeowner should know before the season fills up.
The Sanctuary is open to locals, and most residents haven't figured that out yet
The single most useful thing to know this year is that The Sanctuary, the 30,000-square-foot wellness destination inside Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, is open to both resort guests and the local community, and features 13 treatment rooms, three VIP suites, a 3,200-square-foot aquatherapy circuit with thermal contrast therapy, an Ammortal Chamber, a rooftop lap pool, and a fitness centre designed by Harley Pasternak. It opened on March 18, 2026, set across three serene levels.
The point worth pausing on is the thermal circuit. Guests move through an ice room, sauna, steam room, experience showers, heated and cold marble benches, cold plunge, and a large vitality pool, cycling at their own pace to awaken circulation, release tension, and settle the nervous system. That kind of contrast-therapy suite has existed in Miami and Scottsdale for years. It has not existed in Naples. For a resident within walking distance, it is a genuinely new category of on-foot amenity, not a nicer version of something you already had.
HB's and Sunset Bar are back, but not the way you remember them
The restaurants are the part most homeowners ask about first. Two of them are old friends returning under new management, and one is new.
Signature venues include the rebirth of HB's, described as the only true beachfront restaurant in Old Naples, with a fresh look, and the Sunset Bar, reclaiming its position for sunset, sips, and Latin-inspired bites. The Sunset Bar has been reimagined with neon accents, Latin-leaning small plates, and tropical cocktails, keeping its easy, open-air spirit while infusing a lighter, more playful energy. If you remember the old thatched-roof, Jimmy Buffett cover version, that isn't quite what you'll walk into.
The headline addition is The Merchant Room. The Gulf-view restaurant and terrace is led by two-time James Beard Award-winning Chef Gavin Kaysen, his first venture outside of the Midwest, and blends French technique with regional Midwestern ingredients and Gulf flavors, with in-house dry-aged steaks and house-made pasta among the signatures. A chef of that profile choosing his first non-Midwest kitchen at the foot of Coquina Sands is worth understanding as a signal about where dining density is going in this stretch of Naples.
The rest of the calendar
The resort opened in stages, and it is worth knowing which pieces are already usable and which are still ahead.
| Amenity | Status |
|---|---|
| Resort, HB's, Sunset Bar, The Merchant Room | Open since November 17, 2025 |
| The Sanctuary spa and fitness center | Open since March 18, 2026 |
| Tom Fazio 18-hole golf course (100 acres) | Debut expected in 2026 |
| The Wager gastropub and four-lane bowling alley | Coming in 2026 |
| Picture House 22-seat theater and kids' club | Coming in 2026 |
Sources: The highly amenitized golf course spans 100 acres and is set to open in 2026, and future amenities slated to debut in 2026 include the Wager gastropub, the 22-seat Picture House theater, an immersive kids' club, and the 18-hole Tom Fazio-designed golf course.
One more piece of the site plan matters for anyone whose back windows face the property. More than 104 acres have been placed into permanent conservation easement, carving out a significant buffer of green space in one of Southwest Florida's fastest-growing communities where coastal land is increasingly scarce. On a 125-acre parcel, that is a meaningful ratio, and it explains why the built massing sits where it does.
The Lowdermilk story is smaller but closer to home
Walk north from the resort and you are in Lowdermilk Park within a couple of minutes. This is the piece of the beachfront most Coquina Sands residents actually use daily, and it has been operating without its north-side playground since 2022.
That is about to change. On June 15, 2026, the Naples City Council took up a $699,787 agreement with Playmore West Inc. for the purchase and installation of a new playground and covered gazebo, replacing the previous playground on the north side that was destroyed by Hurricane Ian in 2022. The funding structure is where it gets locally interesting. 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, with the gazebo originally planned as part of a 2025 park improvement project, postponed after construction bids exceeded the available budget, and, if approved, an additional $250,000 pulled from the Beach Fund.
A private family covering roughly a third of a public park rebuild is not the norm in most Florida beach towns. It is closer to the norm here, and it says something about how the residents of this stretch of coastline treat the park as an extension of their own front yards.
Two practical items for people who use the park now:
- Lowdermilk Park is open daily from 5:00 AM to 11:00 PM
- The City of Naples has activated newly installed gate arms at the park entrance and exit; when the park is open, the gate arms remain raised and display a green status
What "proximity" is now worth, in one data point
We try to avoid pricing chatter in resident-facing posts. This one number is worth including because it quantifies something homeowners here are already feeling.
A newly built waterfront estate at 584 Banyan Blvd. in Coquina Sands sold for $17.06 million, setting a record for the community and ranking among the city's top home sales this year. The sale surpasses the previous Coquina Sands record of $13.35 million at 376 Yucca Road by more than $3.7 million.
The reason to look at that number is not the number. It is the delta. A community record moving by roughly 28% in a single transaction is a repricing event, and the sale highlights continued demand for newly constructed homes in Coquina Sands, particularly those positioned near the Naples Beach Club redevelopment, where proximity to golf, beach access and new resort amenities continues to attract buyers. What was once "near the old Beach Hotel" is now "near the Fazio course, The Sanctuary, and HB's." The address didn't change. The context did.
A resident's shoulder-season Thursday, mapped
If you already live here, the question is less "should I go?" and more "when does it make sense?" A rough Thursday itinerary that only works because everything is inside a short walk or a two-minute drive from the middle of Coquina Sands:
- 7:00 a.m. Beach walk from the north end of Gulf Shore Boulevard toward Doctors Pass and back
- 9:30 a.m. Thermal circuit at The Sanctuary, quieter mid-week than weekend
- 12:30 p.m. Lunch at HB's on the beach side
- 4:00 p.m. Kids or grandkids at the Lowdermilk playground once the Playmore West install is complete
- 6:15 p.m. Sunset Bar for the golden hour, still the correct answer to that question
- 8:00 p.m. Dinner at The Merchant Room, or a quiet walk home
The point is not the itinerary. The point is that a plan like this used to require getting in a car and driving to three different parts of town. Now it doesn't.
What this changes for people who already own here
For clients we work with in Coquina Sands, three things are worth thinking through.
First, if you have been treating the beachfront as construction noise to be endured, the construction phase is mostly behind you for the resort side. The remaining 2026 openings are interior fit-outs, not exterior work.
Second, if you have a rental unit or a seasonal condo in one of the Coquina Sands beachfront buildings, the on-site amenity story your tenants encounter this winter is not the one they encountered two winters ago. That is worth updating in your listing copy.
Third, if you are thinking about selling in the next twenty-four months, the comps are still being written. As of late May 2026, Coquina Sands showed 39 active listings, an average of 209 days on market, and a median list price of $5,500,000, which reads as a market absorbing a repricing, not resolving one. When the Fazio course opens and The Wager and the Picture House come online, the "walkable to" list gets longer, and the next set of transactions will reflect that.
For a private conversation about how any of this maps onto your specific address, block, or building, Dana Price Homes is a short walk from all of it. Get your home value or ask about early access to listings when you're ready.
