The longtime iconic Beacon Bowl bowling alley in North Naples will close this August and be redeveloped into a luxury hotel with top-tier dining options.  

The proposed 70-suite boutique hotel will be developed and independently owned and operated by local entrepreneur Phil McCabe and his family’s Naples-based Gulf Coast Commercial Corp.  

“This was not an easy decision, trust me,” Beacon Bowl owner Pat Ciniello said via a news release this week. “There are so many memories created at Beacon Bowl over the years. But with my original partners both now in their 90s, the offer to sell was simply too compelling to pass up.”   

The 2.6-acre Beacon Bowl property at 5400 Trail Blvd. sold last fall for $8 million, while the adjacent half-acre property with St. Francis Animal Clinic, 5380 Trail Blvd., sold for $4.3 million to companies owned by McCabe, according to public records from the Collier County Property Appraiser’s office. Both properties and the future hotel site are off the east side of U.S. 41 just north of Pine Ridge Road and across the street from Waterside Shops. The redevelopment project is targeted to begin shortly after the bowling alley’s lease ends Aug. 31.  

“Pat made the decision to sell the property, not the business. We’re not buying the business,” said Phil McCabe. “We do not own the bowling alley. They are the ones that have decided to sell. They want to go build another one and they want a bigger one somewhere else.”  

If unable to find existing space to relocate the bowling business, Ciniello plans to purchase property in North Naples to build a new Bowland center with additional amenities. 

“We’re actively looking for new property to build another bowling-based entertainment center in the North Naples area,” he said. “We love this business and are far from finished. We want to see it thrive for another four decades or more. So, keep your eyes open for a potential announcement in the future.”  

When Ciniello purchased the North Naples bowling alley in 1980—more than 40 years ago—it was the first of what would become a seven-center organization for the local entrepreneur, Bowling Management Associates reports. The Ciniello family—Pat, wife Lisa and son Marc—sold two other bowling alleys in Cape Coral last spring but they continue to own and operate bowling centers at HeadPinz in south Fort Myers and East Naples.  

The family is creating a significant entertainment destination next door to HeadPinz in Fort Myers. Later this year, the Ciniellos plan to launch FastTrax, a 62,000-square-foot go-kart facility with more than 50 arcade games and a restaurant, Nemo’s Trackside Bar. They also plan to expand their BowlMarc amusement games and service robot businesses.  

Like many Naples residents, McCabe’s sons, Joseph and Philip, have fond memories of growing up with the iconic Beacon Bowl and Nemo’s chicken wings.  

“Both Philip and I are born and raised here. We grew up with countless birthday parties there. It’s an institution,” said Joseph McCabe, vice president of development for Gulf Coast Commercial Corp. “People get this idea of developers pushing people out. It wasn’t the case at all. It was more so initiated by him [Ciniello].”   

Phil McCabe said the property was privately brought to them a year and a half ago and they studied the opportunity.  

“I’m not foreign to that location,” he said. “I built the Inn at Pelican Bay over 30 years ago and, on the other side of it, I built the Inn of Naples—which was 37 years ago—and a whole variety of projects in the area. So, I understood the location quite well.”   

St. Francis Animal Clinic, founded in 1966, permanently closed by the end of 2023 next door to the bowling alley at 5380 Trail Blvd. Dr. Daryl Lovingood, the veterinarian who owned and operated St. Francis with his wife, Elizabeth, since 2018, is relocating out of state and their local clients are being serviced by the nearby Animalife Veterinary Center.  

In studying the redevelopment opportunity, McCabe learned that the property is in a designated commercial activity center in the county’s growth management plan.  

“It has very good zoning for what we’re doing,” he said. “We are building within the code. We’re not asking for anything from the county.”  

McCabe favors redevelopment of this real estate in the unincorporated area of the county rather than building on property he owns in downtown Naples.  

“We look at the property we own downtown, which we think is in an A-plus location, and then we look at this location for a similar type use that we could do downtown, and we think it’s an A-plus-plus location for many, many respects,” he said. “It’s so central to our demographic, you know, and we’re equidistant from The Ritz-Carlton on the beach on the north of us and the Four Seasons on the beach on the south of us. That really is the market that we’ll be building into, and Waterside directly across the street and the Philharmonic directly across the street.”  

“Fifth Avenue is the main street of Naples; this is the heart of Naples,” Joseph McCabe said.  

Hotel plans  

The McCabes anticipate a two-year trajectory for their hotel project, which they expect will start construction at the end of the summer or later this year, said Phil’s son, Philip McCabe, vice president of operations for Gulf Coast Commercial Corp., a boutique real estate holding, development and management company headquartered in new offices at Naples Airport.  

While not ready to reveal all the details yet, Philip McCabe said their hotel project vision has three components. First and foremost, it is a 70-key, all-suite boutique hotel in the center of Naples’ coastal development.  

“So, it’s a very small hotel, very intimate, and it will be independently owned, independently operated,” he said. “There will be no flag. There’ll be no brand. There’ll be no franchise. We ourselves will want to preserve the charm and the character of a true independent hotel on a five-star level.”  

Expect a new dining destination—two or three restaurants on the hotel’s first floor—similar to Fifth Avenue South without the drive, traffic and parking issues, McCabe said.  

“We feel that this is a great place to create a restaurant destination with some of the best restaurants in Naples,” he said. “The demand by restaurateurs is actually really incredible.”  

It will be similar to how Ocean Prime and Truluck’s restaurant are on the first floor of Inn on Fifth, which McCabe created and operated for years before selling it in 2022. Phil McCabe said they have had national restaurant demand for this proposed location.  

“On the first floor, we will be having two restaurants, maybe three restaurants. And they will be top-top-tier fine dining equal to the level of a Capital Grille or higher,” he said.  

“We have our own network within that industry, and we are talking to two folks that I think that will surprise Naples what we may be bringing to the first floor. This first floor will be a destination, and we’re building it for that.”  

While he wouldn’t necessarily describe all of the restaurants planned as fine dining, Philip McCabe said the restaurants will complement each other and provide a great mix.  

“I think that the community overall will be impressed, and excited to have the type of restaurants that are interested in this location. And it will be much more convenient for the majority of vehicles, much more accessible than driving down to Fifth Avenue or downtown,” he said.  

“So that’s the second component. And then the third component—which I don’t want to divulge too much about—but that is a club component. It’s a member’s club and it is an all-encompassing lifestyle club that will set the bar very high for the state of Florida and for the country, for that matter.”  

Membership will include access to amenities on the rooftop—”which will be a rooftop like no other and, I might add, that it will have views of the Gulf of Mexico and the sunsets every night,” said McCabe, adding that the Gulf also will be visible from the hotel’s sixth floor. “This is really going to set the stage and the bar very high for a member’s club.”  

The McCabes are studying clubs around the world as they plan their new venue and are working with world-renowned interior designer AvroKO.   

“They’re doing our interiors for the club and for the hotel, and unbelievable as far as hospitality design goes,” Philip McCabe said.  

The architect for the project is Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates Inc., out of Atlanta and Singapore, which also designed the McCabes’ downtown Fifth and Fifth building.  

“They’re incredible imagineers,” Phil McCabe said. “So, we’ve assembled quite a team of professional consultants. The architecture is reflective of it.”  

The McCabes believe the hotel will become an iconic property in Naples.  

“That’s the goal,” Phil McCabe said. “We are going to build it architecturally to be iconic.”  

The McCabes also want to improve and revitalize the southernmost commercial section of Trail Boulevard and enhance their property by installing brick pavers from Ridge Drive to the 7-Eleven store on the corner of Pine Ridge Road and U.S. 41. Subject to the county’s approval, they want to reimagine and transform this strip with landscaping islands with trees, new sidewalks and streetlamps to make it more pedestrian-friendly and cohesive.  

The opposite of adding more impervious development, the McCabes consider their project as an improvement to the area with the addition of first-rate architecture and more green space. “We’re bringing charm and character. That’s what we’re doing,” Phil McCabe said. “This is my legacy. We were blessed to have it brought to us.”