"We are building something that reflects who our members are today and where this community is headed, all while honoring the character and legacy that make Mediterra the special place it is," said Carmen Mauceri, the club's general manager and chief operating officer, when the new structure's shell finally came up this summer.
If you have walked or driven past the Piazza this year, you have seen the steel. Roofing crews finished the underlayment ahead of tile in mid-August. New pavers are going down. Plumbing, electrical, and duct work are underway inside. The club marked the milestone officially on August 18, 2026.
Here is the assumption most residents make when they see a crane go up next to their clubhouse: something old is closing so something new can open. That is not what is happening at Mediterra. The new building is going up on open land at the Piazza, not on top of the existing Sports Club. The sequencing is the story, and it changes what this year and next actually look like for anyone who plays tennis, takes a spin class, or grabs a smoothie there on a Tuesday.
What's Actually Rising, and Why It Isn't Touching Your Locker Room
The project is a two-phase Sports & Lifestyle Center designed by David Corban Architects and built by the commercial contractor BUILD, with landscape design from LJA Engineering. Phase 1, the piece now vertical, is a dedicated Fitness & Wellness building running roughly 27,000 to 28,000 square feet, a figure the club's general manager put at approximately 28,000 square feet in an August conversation with the trade publication Club + Resort Business.
The reason it sits on open ground instead of replacing the current 18,000-square-foot Sports Club is deliberate. Construction needed a footprint that let the existing facility keep running through the build. Nobody loses court time or gym access while Phase 1 goes up. That single site-planning decision is the difference between a year of disrupted routines and a year where the only real change is a longer walk around a construction fence.
Here is what the February 2025 project announcement described room by room:
| Space | Approximate Size |
|---|---|
| Fitness room | 5,600 sq ft |
| Locker rooms (with plunge pools, infrared saunas) | 2,400 sq ft |
| Yoga, fusion, and functional studio | 1,600 sq ft |
| Spin room | 600 sq ft |
| Pilates room | 900 sq ft |
| Spa | 5 treatment rooms |
Add a café, a set of lifestyle and meeting rooms including a dedicated ladies' card room, a bocce garden and terraces, and an entrance sequence with a porte cochere, grand staircase, and cupola, and the picture is closer to a standalone wellness building than a gym addition. The second floor is where most of the social and quiet-hour programming lands: gathering terrace, card and meeting rooms, and the spa suite.
The Money, and Who's Actually Paying
Board and community reporting puts the project at $38 million, a figure that surfaced in Naples Coastal Connection's coverage in early August 2026. The board approved the sports project in February 2025. Mauceri has described the financing as a combination of a loan and a member capital fee, which is a different funding mechanism than the one paying for the concurrent golf course work. The two Tom Fazio-designed courses are being restored using capital reserves the club built up over time, not the sports center's construction financing. If you are a member trying to understand what a special assessment notice or a capital fee line item is actually funding, that distinction matters. They are two separate ledgers moving on two separate timelines.
This is also not Mediterra's first capital project in recent memory. The 60,000-square-foot main clubhouse and the private Beach Club on Little Hickory Island both went through renovations before this one broke ground, part of what the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce described as a pattern of ongoing investment tied to the club's standing among the country's top-tier private clubs.
What Happens to the Building You Use Right Now
The existing Sports Club does not disappear when Phase 1 opens. It stays in service until members have moved into the new Fitness & Wellness building, currently targeted for summer 2027. Only after that transition does the club plan to demolish the current 18,000-square-foot facility and begin Phase 2, a smaller structure of roughly 6,000 square feet that will house:
- A casual restaurant and bar
- A resort-style pool
- Expanded locker space
- Room held for future racquet sports use
- Updated bocce courts and a pro shop
The full program, both phases combined, is targeted for completion around summer 2028. Combined, published accounts describe the two buildings together as more than 30,000 square feet, though no source has published one single surveyed total for the finished complex.
What This Means for Your Next Two Years at the Piazza
If you are playing tennis or pickleball at Mediterra this fall, nothing about your access changes yet. The fence line around the Piazza will move as construction progresses, and parking near that side of the community will shift periodically, but the Sports Club itself keeps its doors open through 2027. The bigger adjustment comes after Phase 1 opens, when the demolition crews arrive for the old building. That is the window to expect real disruption, not now.
For anyone weighing a golf or social membership timeline against this construction schedule, the practical read is straightforward. Summer 2027 is when the new fitness, spa, and studio spaces come online. Summer 2028 is when the full vision, including the rebuilt casual dining and pool, is expected to be finished. Two full seasons separate those milestones, which is worth knowing if a membership decision is riding on when a specific amenity becomes usable rather than when the ribbon gets cut on phase one.
The architecture firm behind the design, David Corban Architects, and the builder, BUILD, are both commercial specialists rather than residential contractors, which tracks with a project this scale. The cupola, grand staircase, and porte cochere in the plans signal a building meant to anchor the Piazza the way the clubhouse and Beach Club already do, not a gym bolted onto the side of the golf operation.
None of this changes what you can do at Mediterra today. It does change what "the club" will mean here in two years, and it is worth understanding the sequence now rather than being surprised by a demolition notice in 2027 when you expected one in 2026.
If you are weighing what a project like this means for property values, membership timing, or resale inside Mediterra, the Taranto Team tracks these capital projects across every gated community we work in, not just the headlines. Schedule a private consultation with us to talk through what the finished Sports & Lifestyle Center could mean for your specific home or your next move in Mediterra.
