Both Ends of the Naples Beach Are Closed This Winter. Both Projects Will Leave Less on the Sand.

From the Broad Avenue South beach end, look south toward 12th Avenue and you see a row of new concrete piles standing in the Gulf. Some already carry poured caps, and none has a deck yet. On October 7, Shoreline Foundation Inc. drove the last of the 193 reinforced-concrete piles for the new Naples Pier. The City still forecasts a July 2027 reopening, so this is the last full winter season the downtown beach will spend without its landmark.

A second project is working four blocks north of Broad Avenue. Six beach ends between 8th Avenue North and Central Avenue are closed for the City's Stormwater Beach Outfall Project. Both projects are designed so that less of the finished work sits on the sand or in the water than before.

The pier coming back has fewer legs and no kitchen

According to the City of Naples rebuild page, the design team reduced the number of piles and spaced them farther apart to limit shoreline impacts and erosion. Each pile is now 18 inches square instead of 14 inches, and the steel-reinforced piles run 70, 85 and 100 feet long. All three lengths are longer than the longest piles under the old pier. That extra capacity lets the new deck sit three feet higher above the water. The structure also uses nearly three times as much poured concrete as the old one.

The extra height matters because of what happened last time. Hurricane Ian sent about 140 feet of the old pier to the Gulf floor in September 2022, including the end shelter and more than 30 pilings. Waves gutted the concession area and the midpoint shelter. That was the latest of several rebuilds since 1888, following storms in 1910, 1926, 1944 and 1960, plus a 2015 renovation that Hurricane Irma damaged two years later.

The concession stand will not return. State and federal rules prohibited rebuilding the mid-pier concession area. City Council chose portable food and beverage carts at the mid-pavilion instead, along with a small Naples Police/Beach Patrol substation. When the pier reopens, the midpoint will be an open pavilion served by carts, not a permanent building.

Four blocks north, the same idea goes underground

The outfall project is the City's largest capital project, at $86.2 million. Its job is to remove the stormwater pipes that have long run across the sand and emptied onto the beach. The project covers the Gulf Shore Boulevard corridor from Oleander Drive to just south of 2nd Avenue South. It removes all eight municipal pipes that discharge into the Gulf and raises stormwater service from a 5-year storm standard to a 25-year storm standard. In place of the beach pipes, the plans include 3,200 linear feet of 36-inch HDPE outfall pipe running offshore.

The Naples Press report on City Council's August 19 bond vote explains how the project took its shape. It came 14 years after the Florida Department of Environmental Protection ordered Naples to remove its beach outfall pipes. Residents had raised concerns that pump stations and generators at the beach ends would spoil Gulf views, and much of the project was moved underground in response. The two pump stations are at the 3rd Avenue North and 8th Avenue North beach ends. That explains why those two accesses have been closed the longest.

Work runs weekdays from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with occasional nights or weekends. Pedestrians and cyclists are kept out of the construction zone, and local residential and service traffic is allowed through. The contractor, Kiewit Infrastructure South Co., expects the final roadway, drainage and water main phase between 1st Avenue North and 2nd Avenue South to be substantially complete by the end of this year. The contract completion date is June 4, 2027, and Kiewit has said it expects to finish in May, possibly earlier. The old pipes come off the beach once the new system is fully running. Gulf Coast News reported in May that the project was running ahead of schedule.

The project website had estimated that 8th Avenue North and 3rd Avenue North would stay closed "until summer 2026." Both are still listed as closed. The City has not published reopening dates for individual beach ends, so the status list is the thing to check.

The open stretch between the two closures

The two projects close the north and south ends of the in-town beach, but most beach ends between them are open. As of mid-October 2026, the City's beach access status page lists them like this, from north to south:

The longest open run is the eleven beach ends from 1st Avenue South to 11th Avenue South. Most of them are marked construction complete under the City's Public Beach Access Restoration Project, the post-Ian rebuild of the beach ends themselves. New memorial benches are going in at each beach end as it is rebuilt, and the City is trying to replace plaques damaged by Ian.

The pier closure covers the structure itself, its stairs, restrooms and showers, and 12th Avenue South west of Gulf Shore Boulevard South. Only the western third of the Pier parking lot at 12th Avenue South and Gulf Shore Boulevard South is open to the public. The City has committed to keeping the Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South bypasses and their restrooms open for the whole project.

The next nine months, in order

Based on the City's pier timeline and Kiewit's outfall schedule, the work should unfold in roughly this sequence:

1. Now through year-end. Kiewit works to finish the last roadway, drainage and water main phase between 1st Avenue North and 2nd Avenue South. At the pier, crews keep pouring concrete. The project needs about 602 cubic yards in total, and the pour that finished the mid-pavilion on September 18 passed the halfway mark. Electrical work and renovations to the bathrooms and storage areas are also underway.
2. Early 2027. Shoreline Foundation expects to finish all structural work on the pier.
3. After the structure is done. Crews install the Ipe decking, a tropical hardwood chosen for durability and rot resistance. About two-thirds of it had already arrived by late July.
4. May 2027, or earlier. Kiewit's target for finishing the outfall project. The old pipes come off the beach once the new system is running.
5. July 2027. The forecast reopening of the Naples Pier.

If both schedules hold, the north closures clear before the pier reopens. A temporary trestle along the south side of the pier lets work continue when weather sends the offshore barges to shelter, which is part of why the schedule has held through the summer. One more piece of the project is already finished, though not on the beach. In April, 59 concrete pilings were placed at Wasmer Reef to expand an artificial reef first built in 2015.

Parking, fishing and afternoons off the sand until then

All City beach parking spaces require payment or a beach permit. Meters cost $5 an hour with a $2.50 minimum, and the metered list includes the Pier/12th Avenue, Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South accesses. Full-time Collier County residents and Collier County property taxpayers are eligible for a free annual permit that works at all City and County beaches. City residents can get one at City Hall, 735 8th Street South. The City asks for a driver's license and the original vehicle registration showing the same name and an address inside city limits, and it does not accept copies. The full rules for non-city owners and company-owned properties are on the City's beach parking permit page.

Two public spots are an option for anglers until the pier reopens. Florida State Parks lists the north-end pass and the boat launch dock at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park as fishing locations. Maintenance dredging there took effect September 25, with equipment near the beach and periodic closures of parking lot four, so check the park's notice before you go. Farther south, Collier County's Goodland Boating Park at 740 Palm Point Drive has a public fishing pier and a fish-cleaning station, open sunrise to sunset.

For days off the sand, the Baker Museum opened two exhibitions on October 17. Florida Contemporary 2026–27 fills the Hayes Hall and Blair Foundation galleries through June 27, 2027, so it will still be up a few weeks before the pier reopens. The Surrealist International: Fifty Years of Dreams is on the third floor through February 14, 2027. Closer to the beach, Brooks Burgers has to leave 330 Ninth St. S. by November 30. Gulfshore Business reports that it plans to reopen as Brooks Burgers & Bar at 1200 Central Ave., targeting late November or the first week of December.

The beach-end table above reflects the City's list as of mid-October. The City says it updates the page as schedules change and that the order of work can shift with site conditions, weather and contractor coordination.

The Pelican Vista team follows projects like the pier rebuild and the outfall work because they shape what owning near the Gulf feels like day to day. If you'd like to talk about what next summer's finished shoreline means for a home near the downtown beach, Dean Miskic and the team are glad to walk the beach ends with you.