The renovation of Naples Beach Club’s golf course and tennis center has cleared the final hurdle and can now head to construction.
The city Design Review Board on April 23 unanimously approved final design review for an upgraded 18-hole golf course and Mary C. Watkins Tennis Center and other buildings on 104 acres of the property at 801 Gulf Shore Blvd. N. after the developer satisfied 10 preliminary design review conditions.
“We’re going to go out with a whimper after 6½ years of coming before this board all the way back to November of 2018, when we originally were before you all for 125 acres of a comprehensive vision,” architect Tim McCarthy of Hart Howerton Partners Ltd. said of approvals by the DRB, Planning Advisory Board and City Council.
Redevelopment on the rest of the site is ongoing, including the beachfront Four Seasons Resort hotel, offering 215 rooms, including 47 suites, a two-level spa, ocean-front pools and many amenities. Three residential buildings along the beach and golf course will offer 150 luxury condos, while Market Square will provide public dining and entertainment at HB’s on the Gulf restaurant and Sunset Beach Bar.
The course, designed by world-renowned golf course architect Tom Fazio is expected to open next year. The course and cart paths will be rerouted, and lakes, irrigation and drainage systems, parking and buildings will be improved. Landscaping will be enhanced and a raised berm along U.S. 41 will prevent golf balls from flying onto the road, reduce noise and traffic views for golfers.
DRB Chair Steve Hruby, a renowned urban planner and architect, told McCarthy he’d addressed all their concerns.
“Landscaping on that corner is much superior to … what had been there in the past — just a few trees and a wall was not exactly all that attractive,” Hruby said, listing other improvements.
Tennis players had lobbied to keep the Old Florida-style Mary C. Watkins Tennis Center, which was built in the 1940s, so those buildings, as well as golf buildings, will be renovated in the style of the old hotel and parking will be expanded. Naples Fire-Rescue will get part of a storage building for an emergency golf cart. The six clay Har-Tru tennis courts will be refurbished; pickleball plans were abandoned. Just as before, golf and tennis will be open to the public.
Originally built in the 1880s, the 319-room Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, which features 1,000 feet of sand along the Gulf, was owned and operated by HB Watkins’ family for more than 70 years until the property was sold for $362.28 million in October 2021 to The Athens Group, a Phoenix-based luxury resort developer that was selected over 14 others. It’s developing the property with BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank based in New York and Chicago.
In November, Athens Group recorded a conservation easement with nonprofit North American Land Trust, promising the city it will preserve more than 104 acres of recreation and open space — an agreement prompted by numerous homeowner associations after The Athens Group sought deviations to allow greater density.
