Ask a Park Shore neighbor what's changing in the community this year and most will mention the beach park. Fewer will bring up the tennis courts a few blocks north on Seagate Drive that are outside Park Shore. That gap is the story worth understanding, because the neighborhood is tracking two projects, only one of which is inside its boundaries.
The first is the kind of infrastructure work homeowners associations are supposed to do: engineering a taller, more resilient promenade in front of the Raymond L. Lutgert Beach Park, the 2.7-acre stretch of private beachfront that belongs exclusively to Park Shore Association members. The second is a proposal by Naples Grande Beach Resort to replace seven tennis courts with a water park roughly a quarter mile beyond the Park Shore boundary. One is a planning and engineering project. The other concerns a proposed change at a neighboring resort.
The Association's Beach Park Resilience Project
The promenade fronting the beach park currently sits at about six feet of elevation. The Association's stated goal, laid out in its own progress updates, is to more than double that height by building a substantial berm underneath it. Board representatives from Commons T/U, R and S have been meeting every two weeks with coastal engineers, land design architects, construction consultants and city stormwater planners to work out how to get there.
The reasoning isn't abstract. Properties that already sat behind higher berm sections came through Hurricanes Helene and Milton with less damage than sections still at the lower elevation, according to the Association's own account of the storms. That comparison, one stretch of coastline surviving intact while an adjacent stretch didn't, is the argument the berm project is built on.
Getting there still requires clearing the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the City of Naples permitting department, and the Commons boards have to agree on financing before anything moves from concept to construction. The Association took its first concrete step in that direction by raising the initiation fee for new members to $1,000, while holding annual dues at $300, specifically to build reserves ahead of what it called the anticipated park resiliency project. Read plainly, current members aren't the ones covering the new engineering. New buyers into Park Shore condominiums are.
The Naples Grande Water Park Proposal
A few blocks away, Naples Grande Beach Resort at 475 Seagate Drive has spent the better part of a year trying to convert seven Har-Tru tennis courts into a proposed water park. The plan, covering roughly 3.3 acres, includes a lazy river, two slides, a children's pool with close to 20 water features, and a food service area built with a closed kitchen and a grease containment system meant to cut down on cooking odors reaching neighboring properties.
The ownership group behind the proposal is South Street Partners, a North Carolina firm, in partnership with the British real estate investor Henderson Park. Neither company owns anything in Park Shore. The project sits inside Pelican Bay's planned unit development, and the loudest opposition has come from the Pelican Bay subcommunities closest to those courts: Bay Villas, Tierra Mar and Bridge-Way Villas, along with neighboring Seagate and Naples Cay.
The Park Shore Association addressed the proposal in a notice to members, noting that it is in a neighboring community and could increase vehicle traffic along bordering roads and add pressure to parking shared by Park Shore residents.
How the Proposal Has Evolved
The proposal has changed over the past year, and no final decision has been made.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| December 2025 | Neighbors in Seagate, Naples Cay and Pelican Bay's Bay Villas, Tierra Mar and Bridge-Way Villas organize opposition after learning the resort filed pre-application plans with Collier County. |
| January 2026 | Bay Villas' attorney files documents arguing the plan violates the Pelican Bay PUD and county land development code; the resort separately files a demolition plan for the existing courts. |
| March 2026 | Opponents bring their case to the Collier County Board of County Commissioners. Chairman Dan Kowal declines to open public comment, citing chamber rules. A "Stop The Waterpark" social campaign and GoFundMe follow. |
| May 2026 | County staff confirm the Site Development Plan Amendment has been withdrawn. Park Shore Association tells members the project is tabled for now. |
| July 2026 | The developers return with a revised design, moving the slides farther west so the nearest Bay Villas building sits 350 feet away, and setting the slide height at 22 feet, below the 25-foot threshold for a separate county structural review. |
More than 1,300 people had signed a petition against the original plan by the time it reached the Board of County Commissioners in March, according to a WINK News report from that period. The July meeting, covered by Naples Press, drew roughly 150 attendees. Naples Press reported that Ken Silverman, president of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association representing the community's 92 residential and mid- and high-rise neighborhoods, said the dispute would "most likely end up in the courts." As of the most recent public reporting, no county hearing date has been set and no final decision has been made.
Why the Proposal Matters to Park Shore
Although the proposal is in Pelican Bay, its potential effects also matter to Park Shore. The Association, formed in 1971, is the largest voluntary property owners association in the City of Naples, covering five plats that stretch from the single-family streets and mid-rise condominiums of Units 1, 3 and 4 to the high-rises lining the west side of Gulf Shore Boulevard in Units 2 and 5. Altogether, more than 600 single-family homes and 3,590 condominium units across 25 high-rises and several mid-rises sit inside those boundaries.
None of that changes who owns the land at Naples Grande. What it does change is who drives the roads that would carry any new traffic the resort attracts. Seagate Drive and Crayton Road don't stop being useful to Park Shore residents because the water park would sit a few hundred feet outside the plat line. Beach parking, already tight enough that the Association issues its own notices heading into peak season, doesn't ask which HOA a car belongs to before filling a space. The Association has weighed in on a project outside its boundaries. Its stated concern is the potential effect on traffic and parking across the two neighborhoods.
Two Projects at Park Shore's Edges
The berm and water park proposal raise different issues for Park Shore. The berm is an engineering project intended to address storm-surge exposure on the Gulf side, while the water park proposal has prompted concerns about traffic and commercial activity near Seagate Drive.
The Association held its annual meeting in February, where longtime advocate Jo Ann Smallwood was honored with a lifetime membership after more than four decades of work on Naples and Collier County conservation issues. Wine Wednesday returned to the beach park in March. The Easter egg hunt followed in April. These activities took place while the permitting timeline and legal filing in Pelican Bay remained unresolved.
Whichever way the Naples Grande proposal is resolved, and whenever the berm clears its permitting hurdles, both projects focus attention on Park Shore's shoreline and nearby roads.
If you're a Park Shore owner curious how either of these projects, the berm's cost-sharing structure or the water park's traffic questions, might factor into your own property's value or timing, The Lickley Group is glad to talk it through. Request a Confidential Market Consultation whenever you're ready for a conversation grounded in what's actually happening on your street, not just what's listed on a portal.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
