Drive past the Piazza this month and you'll see it: a building that wasn't there a year ago, roofline nearly finished, workers moving pavers into place around the base. It's easy to assume this is the thing to watch at Mediterra this season. It isn't. The bigger disruption to your actual week is happening on turf, not concrete, and it started months before the crane at the Piazza ever went up.
Here's what's really going on, and why the two projects matter differently to anyone who plays golf, hits the gym, or just wants to know what their club looks like by next winter.
What's Actually Rising at the Piazza
The Club at Mediterra broke ground on its new Sports & Lifestyle Center in February 2026, with excavation and foundation work marking the start of a board-approved project reported at $38 million. By August 18, 2026, the building was vertical-complete: roofing crews had finished the underlayment ahead of tile, and interior work had moved into plumbing, electrical, fire-sprinkler, and duct systems. Just under six months from groundbreaking to a fully framed structure is a fast clip for a project this size, and it puts the club on pace for its stated target.
Phase 1, a Fitness & Wellness building of roughly 27,000 to 28,000 square feet, is aimed at a summer 2027 opening. Inside will be a 5,600-square-foot fitness center along with dedicated yoga, spin, and Pilates studios, expanded locker rooms with plunge pools and infrared saunas, and an enlarged spa. Outside, members will get a bocce garden and terraces overlooking the grand lawn. The building was designed by David Corban Architects and is being built by BUILD, with interiors by HINT | Harris Interiors and landscape design by LJA Engineering.
None of that answers the question most members actually ask: does this mean the gym closes.
It doesn't, and that's by design.
Why Nobody's Workout Got Interrupted
Phase 1 was deliberately sited on open land at the Piazza rather than on top of the existing Sports Club. That placement means the current fitness center, pool, and locker rooms have stayed open and functional through the entire construction sequence so far. Only after members move into the new Fitness & Wellness building does the club plan to demolish the existing sports facility and build Phase 2, a roughly 6,000-square-foot addition bringing a casual restaurant and bar, a resort-style pool, expanded lockers, and space held for future racquet use. That second phase is what pushes the full program to a summer 2028 finish.
In plain terms: the club is building the replacement before tearing down the original. It's the kind of sequencing that residents rarely see explained, and it's the reason the Piazza can stay under construction for close to a year and a half total without anyone losing gym access.
The Project That Actually Changes Your Week
While the Piazza building climbed toward vertical-complete, a second, less publicized project got underway on the South Course. Construction on a full reconstruction began in June 2026, guided by an evaluation conducted with the United States Golf Association and the Fazio Group, the same team that designed both of Mediterra's courses. The scope goes well past the bunker, irrigation, and regrassing work Golf Digest traced back to 2015. This time, the plan calls for a complete renovation of every green complex, reshaping of greenside and fairway bunkers, and full regrassing of fairways and rough. Construction is being carried out by Leibold Irrigation and Construction Company.
General Manager and COO Carmen Mauceri described the scope of the commitment plainly, calling it "a thoughtful investment in who we are and where we're going." That's not marketing language for a spa addition. That's language for a course that's currently out of play, or close to it, for members who built their season around it.
Unlike the Piazza project, club materials don't publish a specific reopening date for the South Course. If tee times matter to your fall and winter, that's a detail worth confirming directly with the club rather than assuming from the calendar. What the reporting does make clear is that the work is more extensive than any renovation the course has had since Fazio's original design, and that it's happening now, this season, while the Piazza building sits mostly unused behind its own construction fence.
Two Projects, Two Different Wallets
One more detail explains why Mediterra is running both projects at once rather than staggering them years apart: they aren't drawing from the same pool of money. The Sports & Lifestyle Center is being funded through a combination of financing and a member capital fee. The golf course reconstruction is being paid from capital reserves the club has built up over time. Neither project competes with the other for the same dollars, which is part of why a $38 million building and a full green-complex rebuild are running at the same time without a single mega-assessment tied to both.
Here's how the two timelines actually compare:
| Project | Started | Target Completion | Funded By |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sports & Lifestyle Center, Phase 1 (Fitness & Wellness) | February 2026 | Summer 2027 | Financing plus member capital fee |
| Sports & Lifestyle Center, Phase 2 (Restaurant, Pool & Racquet Space) | After Phase 1 opens | Summer 2028 | Financing plus member capital fee |
| South Course reconstruction | June 2026 | Not yet published | Club capital reserves |
What's Untouched This Season
It's worth saying plainly what isn't part of either project, because it's most of daily life at Mediterra. The private Beach Club on Little Hickory Island, with its elevated pool and roughly 200 feet of Gulf shoreline, isn't part of this construction cycle. The main clubhouse and its dining rooms continue on their usual season schedule. The eight miles of trails connecting the community's three themed parks, Parque Celestial, Parterre Garden, and Calusa Play Park, haven't been touched. And with the reconstruction reporting confined specifically to the South Course, the North Course remains the default for member play through the rest of this work.
So the honest picture for this fall and winter looks less like a club under siege and more like a club running two very different clocks. One clock, the Piazza building, is on schedule, visible, and increasingly close to done. The other, the South Course, started quietly, has no published finish line yet, and is the one actually shaping whether members can play the course they're used to walking this January.
If you've been watching the crane and wondering when things go back to normal, you're watching the wrong project. Ask about the greens instead.
For members and neighbors weighing what any of this means for a home search, resale timing, or simply understanding how a gated club community times its capital projects, the team at Lickley Group tracks these developments closely across Bonita Springs, Bonita Bay, Estero, and Naples. Request a Confidential Market Consultation to talk through what's changing in your community and what it means for your plans.
