Walk the beach at the foot of 12th Avenue South this week and the fence is still there, wrapped around a construction zone where the pier used to start. Tomorrow marks four years since Hurricane Ian came ashore on September 28, 2022, and took the structure down with it. For most of that stretch, there was nothing to look at but pilings and permits. That changed this month. On September 18, crews finished the concrete pour for the pier's mid-Pavilion, which put the project past the halfway point for total concrete work on the rebuild, according to the City of Naples' own construction log. For the first time since the storm, there is a number attached to real progress, not just a permit filed.
That number is worth sitting with, because it also settles a question that has been floating around Old Naples for two years: when does the pier actually come back.
Fifty Percent of Concrete Isn't Fifty Percent of the Wait
Passing the halfway mark on concrete sounds like the finish line is close. It isn't, and the reason has nothing to do with the contractor falling behind. Concrete is the structural skeleton. What comes after it, the IPE wood decking, the railings, the restroom build-out, the police and beach patrol substation, the inspections that have to sign off on all of it, is its own separate phase with its own timeline.
Here is where the confusion started. Back in December 2024, the city amended its engineering contract and pushed the completion deadline to November 15, 2026. That date got picked up and repeated across enough travel and construction sites that it still shows up when you search for the pier today. But that deadline was set before a single piling had been driven. Actual construction did not begin until the groundbreaking on January 5, 2026, more than a year after that November target was written down. An 18-month build starting in January 2026 lands the project around the middle of 2027, not November of this year. The November date was a contract deadline that reflected the plan at the time it was written. Construction then started in January 2026, and the timeline that fits that start is the one that matches the work now underway.
The number worth tracking going forward isn't the one from a 2024 paperwork amendment. It's the one anchored to when the work actually started, which points to reopening sometime around mid-2027.
What Comes Back Isn't What Left
The pier reopening in 2027 will look familiar from the beach and different up close. Naples City Council approved the final landside design in March 2026, and the changes are specific: an underwater camera for watching marine life from the rail, a police and beach patrol substation with its own restroom near the entrance, ADA-accessible restrooms, and a structure raised at least three feet with wider spacing between pilings to reduce wear on the shoreline next to it.
One thing isn't coming back. FEMA determined that a permanent restaurant or concession building at the pier's midpoint didn't qualify for replacement funding, which means Cosmos at the Pier is not returning as a sit-down space. Council member Krol asked whether the city could at least carve out room for a food truck. City staff said there wasn't space for one, so the fallback is a portable cart.
"I think this is a great compromise."
That was council member Heitmann's read on the cart plan, and it's a fair summary of where the whole project sits. Nobody got everything they wanted. What's coming back is sturdier, more accessible, and slightly smaller in what it offers beyond the rail itself. This is also not the first time Naples has done this. The pier was originally built in 1888 and has been rebuilt after storms in 1910, 1926, 1944, and 1960, plus a more recent reconstruction in 2015 that Hurricane Irma damaged again in 2017. Ian did more damage than any storm before it, but the rebuild-after-hurricane pattern itself is not new to this stretch of the Gulf.
The Detour That's Already Built In
None of this requires giving up the beach in the meantime. The western third of the pier's parking lot at 12th Avenue South and Gulf Shore Boulevard South stays open to the public, while the eastern two-thirds are fenced for construction staging. To keep beach access intact through the build, the city set up pedestrian bypasses at the Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South beach ends, both with their own restrooms, and both stay open for the length of the project.
The sand at the base of the pier hasn't gone anywhere. Swimming, shelling, and the sunset that made this spot famous are unaffected. Only the structure itself, and the routines built specifically around standing on it, are on pause.
Where the Regulars Moved Their Lines
Pier fishing is the routine that changed most. With the rail gone, people who used to walk out over the water have shifted to a few specific spots instead:
- The Posts, a set of pilings left over from an earlier version of the pier, still hold snook, trout, and reds for anyone willing to cast around the ruins rather than off a rail.
- Gordon's Pass, where the jetties near the inlet produce snapper, snook, jacks, redfish, and the occasional shark, though it's close to a mile from the nearest parking.
- Charters out of the City Dock, for anyone who'd rather have a captain find the fish than walk to them.
There's a licensing wrinkle worth knowing before you head to the sand instead of the rail. Fishing from the pier itself never required an individual license, because the structure operated under a bulk license covering everyone on it. Surf-casting from the open beach doesn't carry that same blanket coverage, so anglers who've shifted to the shoreline need their own Florida fishing license, something that never came up when the pier was standing.
The old pier's pilings didn't just disappear, either. In April 2026, crews deployed 59 concrete pilings pulled from the damaged structure at Wasmer Reef, expanding an artificial reef that was first established in 2015. Concrete that used to hold up a fishing deck now holds up the reef fish that will eventually get caught from that fishing deck's replacement.
What's Actually New Two Blocks Away
The wait has coincided with real change in the blocks around the pier, not just construction noise. The Olde Naples Hotel opened at 200 Broad Ave S, close enough to the fenced pier that it's part of the same short walk, and its ground-floor Annie's Bistro, Bar & Bakery is open to non-hotel guests, running as a morning café that shifts into a full bistro and bar later in the day. A few blocks over on Third Street South, Barbatella keeps its regular following for Italian cooking on the same stretch of garden-courtyard storefronts the pier crowd used to pass on the way to the water.
The Third Street South Farmers Market has spent the summer running from its warm-weather footprint in the Neapolitan lot behind Tommy Bahama, a shift the market makes every year once the season empties out. As the calendar turns back toward fall, expect it to revert to its usual spot on Third Street proper. The market has run every Saturday since 1994 with a standing rule against national chains, and it's now in its 30th year with more than 60 vendors, chain-free the entire time.
None of this replaces standing on the pier itself. But it means the walk down there in 2026 isn't just a fenced construction site with nothing else going on around it. There's a reason to make the trip even before the rail comes back.
If you're the kind of person who wants updates like this delivered as they happen, milestones on the pier, what opens near it, what changes about the walk to the beach, Rigsby Team keeps a running local eye on Old Naples for exactly this reason. Reach out anytime you want the next update before it shows up everywhere else.
