Part of the Old Naples Pier Now Lies on a Reef Off Gordon Pass
The Naples Pier is in two places this fall. One is the construction site at the foot of 12th Avenue South. On October 7, 2026, crews from Shoreline Foundation Inc. drove the last of the 193 reinforced-concrete pilings that will hold up the new pier. The other is about 10 miles offshore of Gordon Pass, where 59 concrete pilings from the old pier went to the bottom of the Gulf in April.
Port Royal sits between those two places, and the pier that reopens there will not be the one the neighborhood remembers. It will stand higher, rest on heavier pilings, and have no permanent concession. The old structure has become something new as well.
The City of Naples took the reef option instead of trucking the demolished pier to a landfill. As WINK News reported, the City, Shoreline Foundation and the marine engineers at Turrell, Hall & Associates set 59 pilings down at the Wasmer Reef site. That made it the eighth reef built within Wasmer. Pilings that didn't go to the reef went to a recycling facility, where they are being crushed into aggregate for road construction.
Collier County's published reef location inventory lists the deployment as "Wasmer Naples Pier Reef."
The County dates the deployment April 27, 2026. The City and WINK give April 24.
The 15 feet of relief falls within a regulatory cap. Under the regulations the County cites for its Artificial Reef Program, a reef can rise no higher than half the water column at mean low water. In 40 feet of water, that puts the ceiling at about 20 feet. The County's Coastal Zone Management Department runs the program and monitors each site every year after deployment for stability and for the number and variety of fish.
The pilings joined a site with a track record. Wasmer Reef dates to 2015, when a group of agencies started it with BP oil spill grants and private donations. WINK describes it as home to corals, aquatic vegetation, invertebrates, bivalves and tunicates that give shelter and food to young and adult fish. Divers checked conditions before and after the April drop to make sure it complied with the permit.
This is also the end of a long cycle. According to the City's rebuild project page, the pier has stood at this spot since 1888. Storms forced rebuilds in 1910, 1926, 1944 and 1960, and a 2015 renovation was damaged by Hurricane Irma two years later. Hurricane Ian in 2022 put about 140 feet of the pier on the Gulf floor, including the end shelter and more than 30 pilings. Some of the pier has ended up in the Gulf after every major storm. This time the City placed it there on purpose, at a mapped site.
The new pier is built to keep its pilings out of the Gulf. The square piles grew from 14 inches to 18 inches, which the City calls a 65 percent increase. They come in lengths of 70, 85 and 100 feet, all longer than the longest piles under the old pier. That extra capacity let engineers raise the deck three feet higher above the water. The design also uses nearly three times as much poured concrete. There are fewer piles than before, spaced farther apart, to reduce shoreline impact and erosion.
Construction began January 6, 2026, the day after a public groundbreaking. These are the steps since then that explain what you see from the beach today:
The City credits a calm summer for keeping the work on pace. Electrical work, bathroom and storage renovations, and foundation improvements are underway now. Shoreline Foundation expects to finish structural work in early 2027. Then crews will install the deck in ipe, a tropical hardwood chosen because it lasts and resists rot. The pier is on schedule to reopen in July 2027. That means the whole 2026–27 season will pass with the pier closed, and the walk out to the end will return after the winter crowds have left.
The City awarded Shoreline Foundation a $23.5 million construction contract in October 2024. Gulfshore Business reported the figure as $23.45 million plus a $1.17 million contingency, and put the full project at $26.3 million. Turrell, Hall & Associates designed the pier with MHK Architecture, and the same team is now handling construction engineering and inspection.
The raised deck and longer piles answer Ian. They also explain the biggest change visitors will notice. The old mid-pier concession, Cosmos at the Pier, is not coming back. As Gulfshore Business reported, permanent concessions were dropped from the plan, partly because FEMA said a permanent stand could not be rebuilt over the water. Ian had gutted the concession area, the midpoint shelter and the storage buildings.
City Council looked at options and chose portable food and beverage carts at the mid-pavilion. The City says the plan serves visitors while respecting neighboring residents and businesses. Council also approved a small Naples Police and Beach Patrol substation on the pier. The landside design came to Council on March 4, 2026. In March, the Naples Daily News reported the carts might be placed landside. The City's current plan puts them at the mid-pavilion.
The 1,000-foot length and 12-foot width will stay the same. The plan adds bench bump-outs along the rails and covered structures at the midpoint and the end. So the outline will look familiar from Gulf Shore Boulevard, and the experience out on the deck will be different.
The closure covers more than the pier. The stairs, restrooms and showers are closed, along with 12th Avenue South west of Gulf Shore Boulevard South. The western third of the pier lot is still open for public parking. The eastern two-thirds is a staging area.
The City set up pedestrian bypasses at the Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South beach ends. Both have restrooms and both will stay open for the whole project. The City's beach access status page lists those two and other south-end access points as open.
City beach parking rules require payment or a permit at every space, and overnight parking is not allowed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Meters cost $5 an hour with a $2.50 minimum. According to the City's Beach Parking Permits page, City residents can pick up a free annual beach parking permit at City Hall, 735 8th Street South, by showing a driver's license and the original vehicle registration with the same name and an in-city address. With a permit, the 13th Avenue South beach end makes an easy stand-in for the old stroll to the pier while crews finish the concrete next door.
For now, the best way to follow the pier's progress is the City's dated project timeline, which has been updated with each milestone since the groundbreaking.
The pier's storm history is part of how I read the south end of Naples when I price homes here. If you would like to know how this season's changes along the south end factor into your own property's value, Holly Fagan would be glad to put the numbers together for you. Request Your Personalized Home Valuation.
Let Holly guide you through your home buying journey, contact me today!
