Ask three different neighbors when the Port Royal Club reopens and you'll likely get three different seasons. One says summer 2026. Another says late 2026. A third, newer voice insists the date has slipped again, to fall 2026. None of them are lying. Each is reading from a different stage of the same two-year approval process, and only one of those stages actually describes the building that's rising at 2900 Gordon Drive right now.
For a neighborhood that measures time in decades rather than news cycles, that's a strange thing to sit with. The clubhouse has been gone since Hurricane Ian tore through on September 28, 2022, and its return is the single biggest change to hit daily life on Gordon Drive since the storm. Getting the timeline right matters more here than in almost any other Naples rebuild, because for Port Royal members, this isn't a restaurant reopening. It's the social center of the neighborhood coming back online.
The Three Dates on the Table
Here's where each figure actually comes from and what it was describing at the time.
| Source | Date Given | What It Reflects |
|---|---|---|
| Port Royal Club's own 2023 planning brochure | Grand Opening Summer 2026 | Internal member timeline drafted before final city design approval |
| Naples Press and Gulfshore Business, reporting on the Aug. 21, 2024 City Council vote | Grand opening late 2026 | Reporting made after the conditional-use petition and construction timeline were formally approved |
| A more recent aggregator update (early 2026) | Fall 2026 | A later restatement citing the earlier reports, without a new primary source behind it |
The pattern isn't drift for the sake of drift. The club's brochure was written while the design was still moving through schematic review. The two local outlets were writing after the entitlements were actually granted, which is a more grounded moment to estimate from. The fall 2026 figure showing up in some blog roundups this year doesn't appear to trace back to a new statement from the club or the city. It reads more like a restatement of the same uncertainty, dressed up as an update.
What Actually Had to Happen Before Anyone Could Pour Concrete
The club's own planning materials lay out a timeline that started with an administrative site plan petition submitted in October 2023, moved through schematic design that concluded that November, and ran design development from mid-November 2023 through March 2024. Construction documents weren't finished until July 2024. The Planning Advisory Board held its hearing in February 2024, and the Naples City Council held its own hearing that March, well before the vote most people actually remember.
The vote everyone in Port Royal does remember came later. On August 21, 2024, Naples City Council spent roughly ten hours in hearings before unanimously approving the conditional-use petition that let the club build a larger, three-level clubhouse at 48.6 feet, with indoor and outdoor dining, a new pool and deck, and a two-story garage. Final design approval from the city's Design Review Board didn't land until September 25, 2024, nearly a full year after the initial petition was filed.
That gap matters. The "summer 2026" figure printed in the club's earlier brochure predates the version of the building that actually got approved. Whatever residents were told in 2023 was a projection made before the design itself was finished being negotiated.
The Wall and the Tent
Two smaller fights from that same August 2024 hearing explain a lot about why the process ran as long as it did, and they're worth knowing if you've wondered what the holdup was.
The first involved a wall. Council voted 5-2, with Mayor Teresa Heitmann and council member Linda Penniman opposed, to approve an 11-foot wall between the club property and the home to its south, owned by neighbor Terry Mullen. City code caps residential walls at six feet. The waiver needed a specific vote because it was nearly double what the code otherwise allows.
The second involved a tent. A week before that same hearing, council had already denied the club's request to run a temporary 5,000-square-foot, 130-seat dining tent with 1,632 square feet of modular trailers for kitchen and staff space while construction continued. City code defines "temporary" as six months. The club was asking for something closer to two and a half to three years. That denial is part of why members haven't had an on-site interim dining option during the rebuild.
Neither of these details changes what the finished clubhouse will look like. Both explain why a project with a fairly clear design vision still took the better part of a year to clear its final approvals.
What's Actually Rising Now
Strip away the review-board back and forth and here's what's actually under construction. The clubhouse is a three-level, roughly 62,000-square-foot building designed around West Indies architectural details, with Hart Howerton handling the architecture and Champalimaud Design responsible for interiors. Estero-based Suffolk Construction is building it. Naples-based Outside Productions designed the landscaping, work the city's Design Review Board specifically praised during the approval process.
The approved plans call for a gulf-front infinity pool, indoor and outdoor dining spaces, a new pool deck, additional outdoor seating areas, and a two-story parking garage. Earlier club materials describe an arrival sequence built around a brick paver drive off Gordon Drive, a roundabout leading to the main entry, a porte cochere, and an open-air breezeway that draws members straight toward the Gulf. Behind the clubhouse, the plans include a beach garden and lawn space alongside the pool and dining areas.
None of this is a repair job. It's a from-the-ground-up building on the same footprint, built to current elevation standards, replacing the one-story clubhouse that had stood since 1959.
So Which Date Should You Actually Watch For
If you need a single season to plan around, late 2026 is the better bet, simply because it's the figure tied to the moment the actual entitlements were granted rather than an estimate written before the design was finalized. The fall 2026 figure circulating more recently isn't necessarily wrong, it's just thinner. It doesn't point back to a new statement from the club, the city, or Suffolk Construction, and without that, treating it as more precise than "late 2026" is guesswork dressed as an update.
The more useful habit for anyone living in Port Royal right now is to treat the club's own communications and the city's public hearing record as the two sources worth checking directly, rather than any single aggregated summary, including this one. Naples City Council meeting minutes and the Design Review Board's hearing records are public. So is the club's own timeline documentation. Those are the two places an actual change in the schedule would show up first.
Whichever season it lands in, the reopening of 2900 Gordon Drive will be the most visible change to daily life in Port Royal since the storm that took the old clubhouse down. Worth watching closely, and worth getting the timeline right while you do.
If you're weighing what a rebuild like this means for a specific address, or you're simply trying to keep a clear read on what's actually changing along Gordon Drive, The Beachfront Team has been tracking Port Royal's building-level details for years. Experience the Beachfront Difference — Schedule a Confidential Consultation.
