"This is about more than a renovation. It's a thoughtful investment in who we are and where we're going, ensuring our courses continue to serve as the crown jewels of the Mediterra experience for years to come."
That's Carmen Mauceri, the Club's COO and general manager, talking about the South Course reconstruction that broke ground this past June. It's a fair description of the mood inside Mediterra's gates right now, where two separate capital projects are running side by side. One of them you will barely notice. The other will change how you play golf for a while. The difference between them isn't budget or ambition. It's where each project decided to put its first shovel.
The Piazza Never Closes Because Nobody Tore Anything Down First
Walk toward the Piazza this fall and you'll see steel framing, roofing crews, and pavers going down on open land next to the existing Sports Club. That's deliberate. The Club's new Sports & Lifestyle Center, a two-phase project designed by David Corban Architects and built by BUILD, was sited on the open ground rather than on top of the building it will eventually replace. As of mid-August, the project reached vertical-complete status, with roofing underlayment finished and crews moving into plumbing, electrical, and duct work on Phase 1, a Fitness & Wellness building running roughly 27,000 to 28,000 square feet. That phase is targeting a summer 2027 opening.
Because the new structure isn't replacing the old one in place, the current Sports Club, its racquet courts, pool, and fitness floor, keeps running through construction. Members haven't had to give anything up to get something new. The full complex, once both phases are done, will run past 30,000 square feet according to the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce's coverage of the project, and will include dedicated Pilates, spin, yoga, power, and fusion studios, expanded locker rooms with plunge pools and infrared saunas, an enlarged spa, and a resort-style pool with lounge areas and cabanas. Enhanced pickleball and bocce courts are part of the plan too, built alongside rather than instead of what's already there.
The Club's board approved the project in February 2025, and by the time ground broke, the total figure being reported was $38 million, more than double what the Club spent on its last major amenities push a decade earlier. That earlier round, roughly $14 to $17 million across both golf courses and a Sports Club expansion, wrapped up with the North Course finishing in fall 2016. Mediterra has run overlapping construction before. What's different this time is the price tag, and the decision to build the replacement before touching the original.
The Other Project Can't Avoid Closing Something
Golf renovations don't get that luxury. You can't rebuild a green while someone's putting on it. Construction on the South Course officially began this June, guided by an agronomic evaluation the South Florida section of the USGA conducted in partnership with the Fazio Group, the course's original architects. The scope covers a complete renovation of every green complex, reshaping of greenside and fairway bunkers, and regrassing of fairways and rough, work being carried out by Leibold Irrigation and Construction Company.
This is the same South Course that opened in 2000 and got its first major facelift back in 2015, when Tom Fazio's team replaced bunkers, irrigation, and turf across both the North and South layouts. That earlier project introduced Platinum TE seashore paspalum, a turf variety chosen for durability and playability, and it took roughly two years to complete across the club's 36 holes. The current South Course work is narrower in scope but the same in spirit: preserve what plays well, rebuild what doesn't, and accept that holes will be unavailable while it happens. Mauceri has framed it as protecting the club's Silver Audubon designation and long-term course conditions rather than a cosmetic refresh, which tracks with how the club has talked about golf investment for years.
Two Projects, Two Very Different Fall Experiences
| Sports & Lifestyle Center | South Course Reconstruction | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | New Fitness & Wellness building, spa wing, resort pool, enhanced pickleball and bocce | Full green complex rebuild, bunker reshaping, fairway and rough regrassing |
| Built by | BUILD (contractor), David Corban Architects (design) | Leibold Irrigation and Construction Company |
| Guided by | Club leadership and Board of Governors approval, February 2025 | USGA South Florida agronomic evaluation, Fazio Group |
| Access during construction | Existing Sports Club stays fully open | Affected holes unavailable while work proceeds |
| Status as of fall 2026 | Vertical-complete on Phase 1, targeting summer 2027 | Construction underway since June 2026 |
The pattern holds across both projects the club has run in the last fifteen years. Golf work, because it happens on the same ground golfers use, always costs playing time somewhere on the course. Clubhouse and sports facility work, when the club has room to build adjacent rather than on top, hasn't.
What Still Runs at Full Capacity
None of this touches the parts of Mediterra's active life that don't depend on the construction footprint. The Sports Club's tennis complex, eight Har-Tru courts including a stadium court and a coliseum court recognized by the U.S. Court and Track Builders Association for its design, keeps operating exactly as it has. The U.S. Tennis Association has separately acknowledged the program for its facilities, and the round robins, clinics, and cardio tennis sessions that fill the weekly schedule aren't paused for anyone pouring concrete two hundred feet away. Bocce and pickleball at the current Sports Club location run on the same footing.
That continuity is the actual point of siting the new building where the club sited it. A renovation that shuts down the thing members use every day isn't really a lifestyle investment, it's a temporary loss dressed up as progress. Mediterra's leadership seems to have priced that distinction into the plan from the start, choosing the slower, more expensive path of building new before demolishing old specifically so the fall calendar wouldn't have to bend around a construction schedule.
Why the Sequencing Is the Real Story
The easy read on all this is that Mediterra is spending a lot of money, which it is. The more useful read is that the club is spending it in an order that protects daily use while the bigger investment matures. If you're playing tennis or pickleball at the Sports Club this October, nothing about your afternoon changes because a new building is rising nearby. If you had a South Course tee time booked for this fall, that's the round that gets rerouted, not because the club values golf less, but because golf construction has no version that doesn't touch the ground people are standing on.
That's worth knowing if you live inside the gates and you've been wondering why one part of the club feels untouched while another feels like a work site. It's not inconsistency. It's the two kinds of construction Mediterra can and can't build around.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a home here, whether you already own in Mediterra or you're watching the club's investment pattern from outside, Jay Westerlund and the Westerlund Team track these capital projects the way they track closing prices, because both shape what living here actually feels like. Schedule a personalized consultation to talk through what's changing at the club and what it means for your specific corner of the community.
