The popular Clam Pass Beach Park, adjacent to the Naples Grande resort, will undergo the next phase of post-Hurricane Ian repairs starting later this year and continuing through 2025.

Visitors to the Collier County park—known for its three-quarter-mile boardwalk that winds through a giant mangrove swamp to the beach—are greeted by a notice board near the entrance informing them about the upcoming project with a construction start of late 2024.

Tony Barone, project management supervisor with the Collier County Facilities Management Division, said the next phase of the project is out to bid and the county hopes to begin the work in the next few months, starting with the long concrete wall on the south end of the parking lot that was damaged by storm surge from Hurricane Ian.

“The boardwalk repairs and repairs to the features at the beach end are a little more disruptive and won’t be able to start until after this [coming] season wraps up at the earliest,” Barone said. “That phase is finishing up the engineering process right now and then going out to public bid to secure contractors.”

Barone said that permitting a project such as this one has its challenges and “there’s always a risk of that process running long, but we are working hard to hit a sweet spot in the schedule between the end of season and the beginning of turtle nesting season.”

Scope and cost of the project

Barone said that while many of these features were repaired in a temporary fashion shortly after the storm to provide access to the beach as quickly as possible, still to come are the permanent repairs of sections of the main boardwalk sub-structure, the main ramp and stairs to the beach, the shower platform, the tiki hut and “various other minor parts and pieces.”

As for how long the boardwalk—popular with walkers, runners and those who take the Naples Grande shuttles to and from the beach—would be closed for repairs, Barone said the county will aim to have “limited, intermittent shutdowns during the off season, rather than a long shutdown.”

He said the project will not include any beach restoration, with repairs limited to the Beach Park and features owned by Collier County.

Barone said the total project cost for all phases of the permanent restoration is estimated at $1 million, and he said the county will be seeking reimbursement through the FEMA Public Assistance Program and through the county’s insurance company, “as we do on all hurricane-related repair work.”