The assumption is easy to make. A club announces a $110 million construction project on its main campus, and residents brace for the version of construction most of us have lived through somewhere else: a favorite room roped off for a year, a golf course rerouted around equipment, a dining reservation that used to take five minutes now taking three weeks. That is the pattern construction usually follows.
It is not the pattern Bonita Bay Club has followed for the last sixteen years, and the club has already run the experiment once this year in miniature.
What Members Actually Approved
In May 2026, Bonita Bay Club's membership approved a 140,000-square-foot clubhouse for the club's 2,400-acre main campus in Bonita Springs, built in two phases at a cost of $110 million. The design, done in a Florida coastal style, adds an expanded version of the 55th Hole restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating and an integrated sushi bar, a new Sunset Lounge for casual drinks, a rooftop bar looking out over the golf courses toward the Gulf of Mexico, a 360-person ballroom that doubles as a daily card room, several private function rooms, three full-service kitchens, and a lower-level parking garage. CEO and General Manager Fred Fung framed it plainly in the club's own announcement: "This project is far more than a new clubhouse. It reflects our identity as a member-owned club and the commitment to continuous reinvestment in our amenities."
That word, reinvestment, is doing real work. Members bought the club from its original developer in 2010 and have put roughly $250 million into capital improvements since. Add the new clubhouse and the total climbs past $360 million over sixteen years, funded by the people who use the facilities rather than by a developer working toward an exit.
The club has stated directly that dining and amenity access continues through both construction phases. That is a claim worth testing against the record rather than taking on faith, and the record happens to be recent.
The Rehearsal Already Happened This Spring
Before the $110 million project was even approved, Bonita Bay ran a smaller version of the same question. Clive Daniel Home and Lutgert Construction spent the winter renovating the Esperia-Seaglass clubhouse, the shared amenity space for the Esperia South and Seaglass neighborhoods. The reveal in April 2026 was modest by comparison: a fireplace feature wall in the Social Room, a custom bar, and refreshed Card and Billiards Rooms.
At the same time, on the same campus, Bonita Bay Club's courts hosted the FineMark Women's Pro Tennis Championship, an ITF W100 tournament that ran from April 27 through May 3. A sanctioned professional tournament and a clubhouse renovation happened in the same season, on the same property, without one interrupting the other.
That is not a coincidence of scheduling. It is a function of where the construction physically sits.
Why the Sports Center Was Never in Question
Bonita Bay Club's Sports Center, home to 16 Har-Tru tennis courts, 15 pickleball courts, a championship croquet lawn, and a geothermal zero-entry saltwater pool, sits apart from the clubhouse footprint entirely. It is not a wing of the building coming down. It is a separate facility with its own schedule, which is exactly why an ITF tournament could run through a renovation season without a conflict.
The same separation applied on the Naples side of the club in 2024, when a full clubhouse project, a new short-game practice area, a Golf Academy, and a Club Fitting Lab were completed alongside improvements to multiple pro shops, seven dining venues, and the racquet and recreation facilities there, including tennis, bocce, and croquet. None of it closed a golf course or emptied a dining room for a season. An employee housing complex opened on the property in November 2025, another piece of infrastructure added without a member noticing a service gap. The club has carried a Platinum Club of America designation and Distinguished Club recognition through all of it.
Here is a quick way to see what's actually changing versus what isn't:
| Staying exactly as it is | New with the two-phase build |
|---|---|
| Sports Center: 16 Har-Tru courts, 15 pickleball courts, croquet lawn | Expanded 55th Hole restaurant with sushi bar |
| Geothermal zero-entry saltwater pool | New Sunset Lounge |
| Five championship golf courses (two Fazio, three Hills) across both campuses | Rooftop bar overlooking the golf courses and Gulf |
| 60,000-square-foot Lifestyle Center (fitness, spa, salon) | 360-person ballroom and card room |
| Esperia-Seaglass Social, Card, and Billiards Rooms (just renovated) | Three full-service kitchens, private function rooms, lower-level parking garage |
One Distinction the Coverage Keeps Skipping
Almost none of the trade press on this project mentioned a detail that matters more to a Bonita Bay resident than the dollar figure: Bonita Bay Club and the Bonita Bay Community Association are two different organizations, and membership in one does not require membership in the other.
Every homeowner in Bonita Bay belongs automatically to the Community Association, which manages the roads, the common areas, the three community parks, and the private beach park on Little Hickory Island. Joining Bonita Bay Club, with its golf courses, Sports Center, and the clubhouse now being rebuilt, is a separate and optional decision. If you live in Bonita Bay and have never joined the club, this $110 million project changes nothing about your daily routine beyond the sight of equipment on the main campus. Your walk to the marina, your afternoon on one of the 12 miles of paths, your evening at Backwater Jacks on the Imperial River, none of it touches this construction footprint at all.
For members, the practical question narrows to the clubhouse itself, and the club's own sixteen years of doing exactly this kind of work suggests the answer is closer to inconvenience than disruption.
What This Looks Like Heading Into Season
Southwest Florida's club calendars run heaviest from November through April, and Bonita Bay's residents who split time between here and somewhere colder are already thinking about what October and November look like on the ground. Based on how the club has handled every comparable project since 2010, the reasonable expectation is that tee times, pickleball reservations, and dining bookings continue on their normal rhythm while the two-phase build proceeds in the background. The Sports Center's fall pickleball leagues, the winter tennis calendar, and the club's regular dining rotation sit outside the construction zone the same way they did during the Esperia-Seaglass work and the FineMark tournament this spring.
The clearest evidence for that isn't a promise in a press release. It's a tournament that ran on schedule while a renovation crew worked two buildings away.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a home search in Bonita Bay, or you just want a resident's read on how the community actually runs day to day, Jay Westerlund has spent years inside Southwest Florida's golf and waterfront communities and is glad to walk through it with you. Schedule a personalized consultation whenever you're ready.
