A proposed water park at the Naples Grande Beach Resort faces a swelling tide of opposition.
The opposition isn’t just coming from the resort’s closest neighbors. It has spread to include more county and city residents — and the Naples City Council.
At council’s direction, city manager Gary Young recently penned a two-page letter to Collier County commissioners, objecting to the resort’s plans for a 3.3-acre water park near the end of Seagate Drive.
The park — described by the resort’s owners as an amenity — would include two pools, with a lazy river, three slides and a splash pad. It would replace the tennis courts, which back up to Crayton Road.
The new recreational venue would sit outside of city limits, but close to the city’s northern edge, within the Pelican Bay master-planned community, steps from the Gulf.
The city’s letter details a cascade of neighborhood concerns about everything from traffic and noise to drainage and the environment.
“The city’s vision plan emphasizes the importance of protecting neighborhood character, ensuring compatible development, and preserving the qualities that define Naples as a unique coastal community,” Young writes. “Based on the concerns raised by our residents and the potential impacts to surrounding neighborhoods, city council believes this proposal is incompatible with the character of the area and should not proceed as proposed.”
Newly elected city councilman Scott Schultz, a resident of Naples Cay, a high-rise luxury condo community off Seagate Drive, shared the letter with a crowd of more than 150 gathered at the Pelican Bay Community Center in North Naples on March 12 for a discussion on next steps in the march to stop the project.
Shultz told attendees the city’s legal staff is “looking at this thing closely.”
“The city of Naples has no standing in this, as of right now,” he said. “And, maybe that will change.”
At the community gathering, leaders of the opposition shared an update on the growing support for the growing neighborhood-driven campaign against the project.
Patrick Wack, president of the Seagate Property Owners’ Association and a founding member of the No Water Park Coalition, said his association, along with he and his wife personally, would contribute about $7,000 to a GoFundMe campaign.
In January, residents of Bay Villas, the Pelican Bay neighborhood closest to the water park, launched an online fundraising campaign to support their organized opposition effort. The homeowner association — representing the tight-knit owners of 71 villas — has hired its own legal, planning and engineering experts in hopes of defeating the project.
The GoFundMe page has brought in more than $22,000. The goal is to raise $150,000 to help pay for ongoing legal costs and other expenses, which could include additional engineering reports if needed.
During the community discussion, Wack urged others to “pay what you can” to increase the war chest.
“This is a battle for the soul of our neighborhoods,” he said. “It pits us against the hotel owner, which, frankly, is an arrogant private equity firm.”
Henderson Park and South Street Partners, two private equity firms that specialize in real estate investment, have been the resort’s owners since March 2022. They haven’t commented publicly on the opposition.
In his view, Wack suggested that county staff may be leaning in favor of the water park, based on “false equivalencies” between what’s proposed and what’s existing at the Naples Grande and what the county has allowed at other resorts, such as the Ritz-Carlton, Tiburón; and the Great Wolf Lodge, which both have their own water parks.
Naples Grande already has three distinct outdoor pools.
Drawing a likeness to other resort’s water parks is “absurd,” with the Naples Grande sitting close to so many neighborhoods, as well as near churches, schools and a memorial garden, Wack said.
“You can’t put 1,000 gallons of water in a fishbowl,” he said.
In a call to action, Wack encouraged the crowd to put the maximum pressure on county commissioners to stop it, and to educate the Pelican Bay Foundation on why it should be rejected.
The foundation’s board of directors would have to approve the water park.
It’s still unclear whether county commissioners will vote on the project, with the possibility that it could be approved by a hearing examiner or even administratively, if county staff considers it an accessory use to the resort and views it as an insubstantial change to the property.
At the community meeting, the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association handed over a $5,000 check in support of the GoFundMe campaign started by Bay Villas. The master association represents thousands of residents living in more than 90 distinct neighborhoods and subdivisions, including high-rise condos and single-family homes.
Ken Silverman, president of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association, emphasized the association’s leadership is opposed to the project because it “represents a significant danger to our members,” whether they live in their homes year-round, or only a few months out of the year.
“It’s not an isolated thing,” he said. “It has to be viewed in the lens of the development around us, the explosive growth in Collier County, and how it impacts us.”
He pointed out that Pelican Bay residents would soon feel the impact of the Ritz-Carlton tower residences under construction to the north, which will feature 128 luxury estate-style homes, off Vanderbilt Beach Road.
“Those residents will move in either full-time or seasonal,” Silverman said. “They will affect our traffic.”
While the water park would mostly be used by resort guests, it could be open to the public through the sale of day passes — and to members of the private CAVU Golf Club (formerly known as the Naples Grande Golf Club).
“So, the reality is, this will impact us,” Silverman said. “This will hurt us. This will affect us. Our environment, our quality of life, and it, quite frankly, cannot go forward.”
The battle to defeat the project, he said, is one that must be “fought on the ground.”
“It’s a battle that’s fought by inches,” Silverman said. “We cannot expect, though they’re good people, the Pelican Bay Foundation, to be our saviors.”
Whether the project is approved or not, he warned that the fight is likely to end up in court.
“Why do I know that? Because I’m an attorney,” Silverman quipped.
He encouraged residents who opposed the project to make their voices heard. He suggested that if the water park is approved by the county and upheld, it could open the door for other nearby hotels and resorts to add one, such as the beachfront Ritz-Carlton or the Inn at Pelican Bay.
“What’s going to stop any commercial member from changing their property, changing the dynamic? And they’re not evil people. I’m not casting them as that,” he said. “But once the precedent is out there, once the door is opened a little bit, what comes next?”
The Pelican Bay Property Owners Association, he said, is willing to commit more money to the fight.
“We are committing not only our words, but our money to this fight,” Silverman said. “And we will fight this fight to the end.”
At the meeting, residents heard from Edwin Fryer, a former chairman of the Collier County Planning Commission, who offered up avenues for fighting the water park. He suggested the battle might come down to the official interpretations of the land development code made by Mike Bosi, the county’s planning and zoning director, to determine whether the project can be considered an accessory use and allowed by right under county rules.
Should the official determination come back in favor of the resort’s owners, Fryer said he believed Bosi’s decision could be appealed to county commissioners, getting the matter before them for a vote.
Fryer shared that he knew of at least one county commissioner, Dan Kowal, who is opposed to the project.
“There’s one vote right there,” he said. “Now, we either need one more or two more.”
A highlight of the meeting included a live performance by “Cork” Grones, a Bay Villas resident, who wrote a song in opposition to the project, called Neighbors, found on YouTube. In the chorus, he sings:
Who would do this to their neighbors?
It says a lot about the way they are
They act like they are doing us a favor
This insanity will surely leave a scar
The song brought laughter and applause.
Nancy Walkenhorst, president of the Park Shore Association, was among the panelists. She told the crowd: “We are 100% committed toward opposing this. I feel like Park Shore is kind of acting like the wing man for Seagate.”
She pledged that her association’s leadership would continue to reach out to its members to let them know how they can help, from writing letters of opposition to county commissioners to donating money for the cause, in an effort to “get people galvanized to start doing more.”
Helen McGrath, president of the Gulf Shore Association of Condominiums, representing 77 condo associations, from SeaPoint to Admiralty Point in Naples, said the larger association will continue to use its newsletter, which has about 6,000 subscribers, to strengthen the opposition movement.
In the association’s next newsletter, she said, it will encourage members to sign on to a letter urging county commissioners to take up the issue of the water park, instead of leaving the decision to the “famed Mike Bosi.”
“Every one of the articles we published thus far on the water park has had the highest number of hits on our newsletter,” McGrath said.
In the next newsletter, she said, the association will also provide information about the GoFundMe page, in an effort to drum up more donations.
Toward the end of the meeting, opposition leaders encouraged concerned residents to flood the next county commission meeting on March 24 to rally against the project during public comment (for topics not on the agenda).
With limited resources, Andy Dimitriou, president of the Bay Villas Homeowners Association, said his association had already spent about $75,000 on the fight.
The association’s land planning expert, Greg Stuart, owner of Stuart and Associates in Fort Myers, submitted three zoning verification letters to the county in November, seeking to confirm whether the water park would be allowed as an accessory use, whether it would have adequate parking, and whether it would meet the requirements of the land development code.
Later, the association hired a second attorney to ask for official interpretations of the land development code over aspects of the project.
County staff have not yet replied, but answers are expected soon.
“We fully expect that there’s going to have to be an appeal process and we’re going through understanding how that works,” Dimitriou said.
In the meantime, he said, the Pelican Bay Foundation has become more engaged with the project, starting with a Design Review Committee meeting on March 11, where project representatives presented the latest design — including offering up a few concessions in an attempt to make it more palatable to neighbors.
While Dimitriou is encouraged by the verbal and financial support from neighboring communities, he stressed that a lot more money is needed to keep up the fight.
“It’s not going to be cheap,” he said. “We’re already in the hole.”
Laura Layden is a senior business and government reporter. You can reach her by emailing laura.layden@naplesnews.com.
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This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Naples Grande’s proposed water park faces growing wave of opposition
Reporting by Laura Layden, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Naples Daily News
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