Neighbors band in opposition to Naples Grande water park proposal

The Naples Grande Beach Resort representatives call its plans for a pool with water slides and other structures an “amenity.” Its neighbors call it a “water park.” And opponents are beginning to draw battle lines.  

Over two days of meetings this week, residents of Pelican Bay heard from the company that is promoting water park-style additions to the Naples Grande Beach Resort; the design review board assessing them; and from officials who are fighting it.  

The issues for Pelican Bay, distilled to essentials, are two that came out during its Design Review Board informational meeting Wednesday.  

• First, residents are wary of Naples Grande promises to control noise, traffic and parking, saying both past and current owners have flouted other regulations.  

• The second — basic to their opposition — is that the concept is incongruous with the residential character of their neighborhoods. 

The issue for leaders in surrounding communities like Seagate, Park Shore and the Gulf Shore Association of Condominiums, as one of precedent-setting, from the tone of comments at a Thursday meeting for area property owners. If South Street Partners and Henderson Park, the British equity firm in a joint venture that bought the Naples Grande in 2024, can pass off plans for the addition of 21-foot slides, music speakers and a bistro as “insignificant” improvements to county planners, what can other commercial neighbors do?

Bay Villas, the neighborhood directly across Crayton Road from the Naples Grande resort, has created a page on GoFundMe for contributions.  At the meeting, it received $7,000 from the Seagate Property Owners Association and its president, Patrick Wack and his wife, and another $5,000 from the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association.  

“It's not an isolated incident. It has to be viewed through the lens of development around us the explosive growth in Collier County and how it impacts us,” said Ken Silverman, president of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association, the advocate for property rights in Pelican Bay, with its 92 residential and mid- or high-rise neighborhoods.  

“If this happens, what’s going to stop the Ritz-Carlton? What’s going to stop the Inn on Pelican Bay?”  

None of these commercial neighbors, he and several other neighborhood association presidents emphasized, are bad people.  

The company’s design firm has made concessions. It is proposing a grease containment system that would reduce cooking odors from the kitchen for a planned cafe next to the pool, and use of Acoustiblok sound-reducing material to make its 6-foot wall a noise barrier. A planned service entrance on Crayton Road was eliminated and the drives behind the kitchen building that were originally service drives maintained for fire department use only.  As one speaker at the Thursday meeting pointed out, however, the county may require an entrance on Crayton Road, making all the company’s agreements moot.  

 Silverman warned attendees on Thursday that this is an issue that will “most likely end up in the courts.” 

South Street Partners have different priorities, he said.  

“The reality is, it’s money that motivates stuff. It’s their return on investment from this,” Silverman told some 150 people at the Thursday meeting.   

“That’s their prime motivator, regardless of words. Our motivator is: This is our home. We live here.” 

At this point, both sides may be stalled because Bay Villa has asked the Collier County Growth Management-Community Development Department for official interpretations on several key aspects of the Naples Grande proposal. Those have been sent to qualified land-use experts for analysis. The next step is approval by the Collier County Planning Commission, after which it could return to the Pelican Bay Design Review Board, then, ultimately, The Pelican Bay Foundation board. 

An in-depth version of this story can be found in The Naples Press.