Drive past the guardhouse on Livingston Road this month and you will hit two work zones before you reach your own street. Fencing runs along fairways on the South Course, where excavators have replaced golf carts. Behind the Sports Club, structural steel rises where the pool deck used to end. It looks, at first glance, like a community on pause.
It is not. Walk the trail past either site and you will pass a full slate of tennis matches, a bocce court mid-round, and a dining room that has not skipped a reservation. Mediterra is running two capital projects at once this year, and the strange part is how little of daily life has actually stopped for either one.
Two Projects, One Calendar
The larger of the two started first. Construction crews began reconstructing the South Course this year in what the club has described as the first phase of a broader plan to improve both of Mediterra's 18-hole layouts. The work includes a complete rebuild of every green complex, reshaping of bunkers, and regrassing of fairways and rough, guided by an evaluation the club ran jointly with the USGA and the Fazio Group, the same firm that designed both courses when the South opened in 2000 and the North followed in 2002. Leibold Irrigation and Construction Company is handling the build.
Carmen Mauceri, a Culinary Institute of America graduate who now serves as the club's COO and GM, framed the project as more than a facelift, calling it an investment meant to keep the courses serving as what Mauceri described as the crown jewels of the Mediterra experience for years to come.
The second project is newer and bigger in square footage. In June, framing crews began the structural phase of a new Sports & Lifestyle Center, a 30,000-square-foot facility that will eventually replace and expand on the current 18,000-square-foot Sports Club. The new building is designed by David Corban Architects and built by commercial contractor BUILD, and it will add dedicated Pilates, spin, yoga, power, and fusion studios, a casual restaurant and bar, a new racquet sports pro shop, and a Social Bocce Garden with shaded viewing terraces overlooking the golf courses.
What's Actually Open Right Now
Here is the part that surprised us when we pulled the details together. Despite two active construction sites, most of what residents use every week has stayed open.
| Amenity | Status this season |
|---|---|
| South Course (18 holes) | Closed for reconstruction |
| North Course (18 holes) | Open, unaffected by South Course work |
| Existing 18,000 sq ft Sports Club | Open during Lifestyle Center construction |
| Har-Tru tennis courts (8 total) | Open, including the Tennis Colosseum |
| Pickleball courts (7 total) | Open |
| Bocce courts (4 total) | Open, with the Bocce Bar operating |
| Main clubhouse dining | Open |
| Beach Club (Little Hickory Island) | Open, unaffected by either project |
The existing racquet courts, lap pools, and main clubhouse dining rooms will stay fully operational through the Sports & Lifestyle Center build, with pedestrian detours managed by the club's own safety crews rather than left to signage and guesswork. That is a specific operational choice, not a given. Plenty of private clubs close entire wings during a project this size. Mediterra is choosing to route around itself instead.
The Math Behind the Disruption
Break down the numbers and the disruption is smaller than the fencing suggests. One of two 18-hole courses is closed, which means golf privileges are cut by half rather than eliminated. One of two clubhouse buildings is under construction, and it is the smaller one, at 18,000 square feet against a finished clubhouse of nearly 60,000 square feet that has already been through its own renovation cycle. The Beach Club, arguably the amenity that sets Mediterra apart from most inland Naples golf communities, sits on a separate 1.3-acre site at Bonita Beach and has no connection to either project.
That kind of sequencing, tackling one course and one building at a time rather than closing the whole property, is what lets a private, member-owned club run two capital projects without pausing the amenities people actually use every day. The scale of what's closed, not the scale of what's being spent, is what determines the disruption a member feels.
The Programs That Are Growing, Not Shrinking
While two buildings go up, three of the club's smaller sports programs are doing the opposite of contracting.
Roughly 600 members play regularly on Mediterra's four bocce courts, gathering most evenings at the Bocce Bar for a mix of league play and social rounds. Tennis draws close to 200 regular players across eight Har-Tru courts, including the two-court Tennis Colosseum, a facility the U.S. Tennis Court & Track Builders Association and Tennis Industry magazine once named the top new outdoor tennis facility in the country. Pickleball, the newest of the three, has grown fast enough that club leadership has talked publicly about adding courts beyond the seven already built.
None of these programs pause for construction because none of their courts sit inside either work zone. If anything, the new Social Bocce Garden planned for the Lifestyle Center suggests the club is building toward more court space, not less, once the current projects wrap.
Where to Walk This Week
Mediterra's eight miles of paved trails connect three parks, each with its own character, and none of them run through either construction zone. Parque Celestial leans into an astrology theme with sculpted stonework. Parterre Garden is the formal one, built for a slow lap or a quiet read on a bench. Calusa Play Park is the family stop, with grassy hills, a basketball half court, and a low fire pit built into a storytelling circle.
If your usual loop skirts the South Course, expect a detour sign or two near the perimeter fencing. The rest of the trail system runs exactly as it always has.
Living Through It
A few practical notes if this is your first construction season in the community:
- North Course tee times remain bookable through the normal pro shop process. Nothing about South Course closure changes North Course access.
- Clubhouse dining reservations are unaffected. Staff have simply added signage to route foot traffic around the Sports & Lifestyle Center site.
- Bocce, tennis, and pickleball sign-ups continue on their normal seasonal schedule, independent of either build.
- The Beach Club operates on its own calendar at Bonita Beach and has no overlap with either project.
Mediterra has been named the Collier Building Industry Association's Community of the Year often enough that the club now describes itself as a 17-time recipient. Whatever else that record means, it points to a pattern of continuous reinvestment rather than a one-time push, which is worth knowing if you are wondering whether this construction season is an anomaly or simply how this particular club operates.
If you are curious what two active capital projects and a growing amenity slate mean for values inside the gates, or if you just want a second opinion on your own property while the cranes are still up, Janine Monfort has spent nearly three decades reading exactly these kinds of shifts across North Naples. Get Your Instant Home Valuation and see where your Mediterra home stands today.
