The former Super 8 Naples hotel is heading toward a transformation into 110 contemporary, fully furnished apartments primarily for Moorings Park employees, with 33 reserved for affordable housing.
Collier County Planning Commission on Sept. 20 unanimously recommended a small-scale amendment to the county growth-management plan to allow 110 affordable housing units on 5 acres at 3880 Tollgate Blvd. in a multifamily development instead of a commercial use. It also approved amendments to a county ordinance and master development plan for the Tollgate Commercial Center Planned-Unit Development to allow the conversion.
“Moorings Park is a significant investor in this,” land-use attorney Rich Yovanovich told planning commissioners, referring to the continuing-care retirement community. “They want to make sure that all of their employees would be eligible, if they meet the income categories to reside on these premises, because not every Moorings Park employee is a nurse.”
“Not every Moorings Park employee would meet our typical definition of essential-service personnel commitment for income-restricted units,” he added, referring to 33 apartments. “… We’re going to have long-term leases with employers, and we’ll make sure that their employees meet the income categories.”
The recommendation will go before the Board of County Commissioners for final approval and the growth-management plan amendment requires state approval by the Department of Commerce.
The hotel is located on the east side of Collier Boulevard near Interstate 75, north of Beck Boulevard. It’s a similar conversion to one being done at Golden Gate Golf Course by Styx Cos., which is converting the Golden Gate Inn into 230 affordable, contemporary studio apartments. K2’s conversion will add six units to 104 existing rooms and limit occupancy to two.
Moorings Park is an investor with developer K2 Housing Naples LLC, an affiliate of Denver-based K2 Developers, which creates workforce-housing communities nationwide by acquiring motels and hotels that it converts into residential units. It takes months, a quicker process than ground-up construction, which can take years.
In September 2022, K2 Housing Naples purchased two Tollgate properties totaling just more than 5 acres for $7 million. The hotel is currently being used as transitional housing by NCH Healthcare System and Moorings Park as part of an earlier K2 conversion. Rooms were set aside for employees on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Now K2, which is working with Bonita Springs-based Ravi Planning + Landscape Architecture, wants to increase the 104-room hotel, which was built in 1990, to 110 units by consolidating and reusing unneeded spaces and adding kitchenettes. Most are 250 square feet and will remain that way.
The hotel is near the Forest Glen Golf & Country Club and Bishopwood Court East condos, which worked with K2 to satisfy concerns. Landscaped buffers will be added and parking will be reconfigured.
County Planning & Zoning Director Mike Bosi told planning commissioners K2 would provide long-term leases and commitments to various employers so they could retain and attract employers and called the adaptive reuse a good plan. “It highlights the absolute need,” Bosi said.
Yovanovich said workers prefer an apartment over an extended-stay hotel. “There will be significant renovations to the rooms,” he said. “… We anticipate people will be coming and staying and probably at some point moving on to something larger.”
For the past few years, the county has been requiring developers seeking additional density to set aside 30% of units as affordable, split between 80% and 100% of the area median income, which is $104,300.
For Tollgate, 12 units will be restricted to rents and incomes less than 80% AMI ($83,440), while 21 will be restricted to rents and incomes less than 100% AMI. The remaining 85 apartments will be limited to rents only, of no more than 120% AMI ($125,160). The restrictions last 30 years, and Collier requires advertising that says essential-services personnel receive preference over other employees.
A one-bedroom apartment would rent for $1,958, while a studio rental would be $1,828 under 100% AMI. At 80% AMI, a one-bedroom rental would be $1,566 or $1,462 for a studio. At 120 AMI, a studio would rent for $2,193 and a bedroom for $2,349.
“Housing has to be affordable, but it’s also going to take a lot of creativity,” Planning Commission member Christopher Vernon said. “It seems to me that this hits that button. It’s a little troubling to me that a lot of our best employers are having to buy property, build buildings or rehab buildings just so they can get people to work here. But this sounds like a solution to that problem, so I think it’s great. I like the concept.”
