Walk out to the tram stop on a weekday evening and you'll see the same choreography that's played out here for years: a resident badge tapped, a golf cart with bench seating idling under the palms, the boardwalk disappearing into the mangroves toward the sound of the Gulf. Nothing about that ritual has changed this year. What has changed is everything just outside it, and the shape of those changes tells you something worth knowing if you live here: not every new thing in Pelican Bay's orbit is actually available to you, and not every new thing available to you is inside the gates.
That split, private on one side, public on the other, and one contested middle ground, is the real story of what's landed in and around this community in 2026.
The Two Kitchens You Reach Only by Tram
Pelican Bay's own beachfront dining hasn't expanded this year, but it's worth naming precisely because so much of what's new nearby is designed for people who don't have tram access. The Pelican Bay Foundation runs two coastal kitchens: Marker 36 on the North End and Sandbar on the South End, both reachable only by tram through the mangrove preserve or by the elevated boardwalks, and both restricted to Foundation members and their guests. Marker 36 leans into island and Caribbean-inspired plates built around daily seafood specials, with live music during season. Neither restaurant takes walk-ins from Tamiami Trail. That exclusivity isn't a policy quirk. It's the baseline against which everything else this year should be measured.
The Restaurant Wave That Doesn't Ask for a Membership Card
A different kind of dining expansion is happening two minutes away, and it doesn't check for a resident badge. Waterside Shops, the 29-acre retail and dining destination at 5415 Tamiami Trail North, has spent 2026 rebuilding its restaurant lineup almost entirely. The trigger was structural: Brio Italian Grille permanently closed in April, clearing a prominent outparcel for larger, more destination-oriented tenants.
Here's where that space is headed:
Already open: Eddie V's Prime Seafood, operated by Darden Restaurants, is now serving guests on the former US Bank outparcel along Seagate Drive. It's the brand's first location in Southwest Florida, built around a 361-seat floor plan that includes a main dining hall, a speakeasy, a stage-equipped bar, dedicated wine storage, and two private dining rooms.
Still coming: Buck & Rider, from Hi Noon Hospitality, is targeting a late 2026 opening at Waterside. It marks the seafood and steak concept's first location outside the Southwest, and Hi Noon Hospitality's CEO Adam Strecker has said the move reflects his own ties to Southwest Florida and his excitement to become part of the local community. Right behind it is an RH Restaurant, a 174-seat dining room set beneath a glass atrium at the center of Restoration Hardware's new gallery on the former Nordstrom site, projected to open near the end of the year.
None of these three rooms requires anything more than a reservation. That's the point. If Marker 36 and Sandbar represent dining built for exclusivity, this wave at Waterside is built for volume, and it's arriving on the same calendar year.
The Storefronts Turning Over Alongside Them
The restaurant additions are the headline, but the retail turnover happening in parallel says just as much about how quickly this corner of North Naples is repositioning itself. Hermès has returned to Waterside after a nine-year absence, taking a freestanding store with a tropical-inspired pavilion. Christian Dior opened a standalone boutique after relocating out of its former space inside Saks Fifth Avenue.
One change is worth flagging for anyone who's shopped at Waterside for years: Piranesi is opening a fine jewelry store this fall in the 781-square-foot unit recently vacated by Gulf Coast International Properties, directly across from Dior. Peter Millar is moving into the former White House Black Market space to sell sportswear and golf apparel, and both Vuori and a larger Anthropologie storefront are expected to open this fall as well. Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn have already relocated into a new two-story outparcel built where the Barnes & Noble used to sit.
None of this changes what Pelican Bay residents can access inside the gates. It changes what's worth the short drive.
The Courts the Foundation Paid For, and Why They Aren't Fully Yours
The most interesting story this year, though, sits in the middle tier: an amenity that residents helped fund but don't fully control.
In February, the Pelican Bay Foundation held a grand opening for a newly renovated racquets center at Pelican Bay Community Park on Vanderbilt Beach Road. The project was a public-private partnership with Collier County, and the Foundation put roughly $6 million into it, according to Gulf Shore Business. The upgrades were substantial: 20 new Novacrylic pickleball courts, two additional tennis courts, and renovations to six sub-irrigated, lighted Har-Tru clay tennis courts, plus a pro shop, a shaded waiting area, and a sound mitigation wall.
Here's the detail most residents don't expect: 10 of those 20 pickleball courts are reserved for public play by non-Pelican Bay residents. That's not an oversight. It traces back to 1994, when the community's developer, WCI, deeded the park land to Collier County in exchange for approval to build at higher density across the rest of what's now a roughly 6,500-home community. Three decades and a $6 million renovation later, that original bargain is still the reason half the new courts belong to anyone who shows up, not just the people who paid to upgrade them.
It hasn't dampened enthusiasm inside the gates. The Foundation's own Pelican Bay Post newsletter noted this spring that residents were rallying behind their own players competing in the US Open Pickleball Championship, a sign that the sport's popularity here has outgrown the question of who technically owns the courts.
Reading the Season Correctly
Put the three pieces together and the pattern is plain. What's genuinely private this year is unchanged: Marker 36 and Sandbar, reachable only by tram, open only to Foundation members and their guests. What's genuinely public is expanding fast: Eddie V's is already seating guests, and Buck & Rider and the RH Restaurant are both on track to open before the year is out, with a wave of retail turnover happening in the same footprint. And what sits in between, the racquets center at Pelican Bay Community Park, is a reminder that even the amenities closest to home can carry obligations that predate anyone currently living here.
None of that changes the daily rhythm of the tram, the boardwalk, or the sunset from Marker 36's deck. It just means that when something new shows up near Pelican Bay this year, the first useful question isn't what it is. It's who gets to walk through the door.
For residents thinking about what any of this means for their own property, or for anyone weighing a move into this stretch of North Naples, John Shirey has spent years tracking how Pelican Bay's layered ownership structure shapes both daily life and long-term value here. Let's Connect.
