The old Super 8 Naples hotel will be transformed into 110 contemporary, fully furnished multifamily apartments primarily for Moorings Park retirement community employees, with 33 reserved for income-restricted affordable housing.
If there are vacancies, Moorings Park will have long-term leases with employers countywide whose eligible employees can lease units. Occupancy will be limited to two people.
“The Moorings Park Foundation is really excited about this initiative,” Dan Lavender, CEO of Moorings Park Communities, said the next day. “When it comes online in late 2025, it will provide our partners, the people who serve our seniors, an important option that could shorten their commute and improve their lives … making Naples a much more attractive place to work.”
Collier County Board of Commissioners, without discussion, on Nov. 12 unanimously approved a small-scale amendment to the county growth-management plan to allow 110 affordable housing units on 5 acres at 3880 Tollgate Blvd., instead of a commercial use. They also approved amendments to a county ordinance and master development plan for the Tollgate Commercial Center Planned-Unit Development to allow the conversion by K2 Housing Naples LLC.
The growth-management plan amendment still requires state approval by the Department of Commerce.
The old hotel built in 1990 is located on the east side of Collier Boulevard near Interstate 75, north of Beck Boulevard. It’s a similar conversion to one being done at the Golden Gate Golf Course by Styx Cos., which is transforming Golden Gate Inn into 230 affordable, contemporary studio apartments.
The approval came nearly two months after the Collier County Planning Commission unanimously recommended the amendments Sept. 20 after land-use attorney Rich Yovanovich said K2 would agree to increase affordable units from 22.7% to 30%. The county has been requiring developers seeking additional density to set aside 30% as affordable, split between 80% and 100% of Collier’s area median income, which is $104,300.
“There will be significant renovations to the rooms,” Yovanovich told the Planning Commission in September, adding that employees prefer multifamily apartments over an extended-stay hotel. “We anticipate people will be coming and staying and probably at some point moving on to something larger.”
Moorings Park is an investor with the developer, an affiliate of Denver-based K2 Developers, which creates workforce-housing communities nationwide by acquiring motels and hotels that it converts into residential units with kitchenettes. It takes only months, a quicker process than ground-up construction, which can take years.
The county’s restrictions last 30 years and Moorings Park will be required to specify in advertisements that essential-services personnel will get preference over other employees.
K2 Housing Naples LLC purchased the two Tollgate properties totaling 5.08 acres for $7 million in September 2022. The hotel is currently being used as transitional housing by NCH Health Care System and Moorings Park as part of an earlier conversion by K2. Rooms were set aside for employees on a first-come, first-served basis.
The hotel is near the Forest Glen Golf & Country Club and Bishopwood Court East condos, which worked with K2 to satisfy residents’ concerns. Parking will be reconfigured, and Bonita Springs-based Ravi Planning + Landscape Architecture will add landscaped buffers.
In this conversion, K2 will add six units to 104 existing rooms by consolidating and reusing unneeded spaces. Most are 250 square feet and will remain that size. Twelve units will be restricted to rents and incomes up to and including 80% AMI ($83,440), while 21 will be restricted to rents and incomes up to and including 100% AMI.
For 100% AMI and less, a one-bedroom apartment would rent for $1,958, while a studio rental would lease for $1,828, while at 80% AMI, a one-bedroom lease would be $1,566, or $1,462 for a studio. The remaining 85 apartments will be limited to rents only, of no more than 120% AMI ($125,160), meaning a studio would rent for $2,193 and a one-bedroom, $2,349.
