Collier County $5M beach renourishment project set to begin in November

Collier County is getting ready to add 4,000 truckloads of sand on beaches for a $5 million renourishment project. It’s expected to begin in November as the busy season ramps up.

It’s smooth sailing for beachgoers such as Terrie Rowe, but she knows it’s not for long.

“So we have a lot of questions, and a lot of the neighbors have a lot of questions,” Rowe said.

She’s been going to Naples Beach for more than 30 years, and it’s about to get a facelift from Lowdermilk Park to Naples Pier.

“Obviously, we need to invest in the resources that we have here,” Rowe said.

Collier County agrees. Its beach renourishment plan also includes Vanderbilt and Pelican Bay beaches.

While beachgoers understand the why, they question the timing of the project.

“Several thousand trucks in and out here, that doesn’t sound good for November,” beachgoer David Gross said.

“I’m here year-round, and in the summer, the beaches are empty,” Rowe said. “The spots are empty, but you can even see, in the past two weeks, people have started to return to Naples.”

We asked Commissioner Andy Solis about the timing. He said no work can be done until after turtle season ends, which is Nov. 1. So that’s when as many as 160 trucks will drive through a beach access each day to bring sand.

Solis also told us the plan is for the trucks to deliver the sand from sun up to sun down to get the work done as quickly as possible.

“Our snowbirds are coming back, and so it’s going to be difficult,” Rowe said. “The roads are congested as they are this time of year.”

“We’ll see if we can work around, maybe work around November and maybe work around the trucks,” Gross said.

According to city leaders in Collier County, two other areas of Collier County Beach are being renourished as part of the same contract: a section of Vanderbilt Beach and a relatively small portion of Pelican Bay Beach. In total, the project will add 268,500 tons of sand to the beaches; 105,000 tons will go on the Naples Beach section. The sand is proposed to be trucked in from the Stewart Mine located north of the town of Immokalee.

The 105,000 tons will require 4,773 trucks to enter Naples Beach from the 3rd Avenue North beach access point, which is the only vehicle access point to the beach between Naples Pier and Lowdermilk Park.

The route trucks will take have since been updated for this project: Trucks heading to the beach location in City of Naples will travel from Stewart Mine in Immokalee to I-75, exit at Golden Gate Parkway, head west to US 41, go south to Banyan Boulevard and then head west to Gulf Shore Boulevard. They’ll then travel south to 3rd Avenue North and unload the beach-quality sand at that beach site. The outbound route is north on Gulf Shore Boulevard to east on Mooring Line Drive to south on US 41 and then east on Golden Gate Parkway and back to I-75.

The project is anticipated to begin on Naples Beach on November 1, 2021, and the County is estimating that the Naples Beach portion will be concluded at the end of November. This is timed with the end of the annual turtle nesting season on November 1st. The remainder of the project on the county beaches is expected to last through January 2022.

This project will be funded using Tourist Development Tax funds.

The Pelican Bay area is going to be funded through the Pelican Bay Services Division.