Collier County beach renourishment project moves to second phase at Vanderbilt Beach

Crews in Collier County are wrapping up the first part of a $5 million beach renourishment project at Naples Beach and moving on to a shorter section of Vanderbilt Beach.

The first, 2-mile section stretches from Lowdermilk Park to north of the Naples Pier. Crews hauled about 86,000 tons of sand from Stewart Mining in Immokalee. Work began on Naples Beach in early November.

The second part of the project covers roughly 1.3 miles of Vanderbilt Beach beginning south of Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park and ending about a half-mile south of Vanderbilt Beach Road. While a shorter distance, the county plans to haul 118,000 tons of sand to Vanderbilt because more sand has eroded there.

A third and smaller phase will take place at the private Pelican Bay beach. While the public beaches are funded through the county’s Tourist Development Tax funds, Pelican Bay is paying for its own renourishment.

“This project is running smoothly and everyone involved is being respectful of the neighborhoods as they work efficiently toward completion,” county commissioner Penny Taylor said in a news release.

Read more: A $5M beach renourishment project: 268,500 tons of sand coming to these Collier County beaches

Related: Collier changes Naples outbound beach renourishment truck route amid noise complaints

From 2020: Collier to begin $2 million beach renourishment project near Lowdermilk Park

More: $3B plan could help Collier protect against storms, sea-level rise, but much work remains

The county expects the Vanderbilt Beach renourishment to finish by the end of the year, and Pelican Bay will wrap up by late January.

Andy Miller, the county’s Coastal Zone Management Section manager, said the design standards for the public beaches require widening to 100 feet, but the county is including advanced renourishment that will add another 20-25 feet on Naples and Vanderbilt Beaches. Pelican Bay will be widened to 85 feet with some added renourishment there as well, Miller said.

During the Vanderbilt Beach and Pelican Bay phases, trucks carrying sand will exit I-75 south on Immokalee Road and then take Livingston Road south to Vanderbilt Beach Road east to the beach access point.

The boardwalks on the south side of Vanderbilt Beach Road east of the parking garage will be closed as they lead right to the equipment and sand stockpile, Miller said.

“We’ve fenced that off so the only way to get south of Vanderbilt is to walk along the surf line,” he said. “We do have spotters so if someone wants to get from the north to south around the project area we will escort them along waterline.”

In July, a Florida Department of Environmental Protection report listed most of Collier’s beaches as critically eroded.

The report defines a critically eroded beach as “a segment of the shoreline where natural processes or human activity have caused or contributed to erosion and recession of the beach or dune system to such a degree that upland development, recreational interests, wildlife habitat or important cultural resources are threatened or lost,” the report says.

The report lists nine of 12 county beach areas as critically eroded, totaling 15.5 miles of beach. The designations allow the county to apply for state grants to partially fund the renourishment projects.

Miller said even after renourishment wraps up, the designation remains.

“We have grant applications we will submit as the pay applications come in and when the project is finished we will petition the state to pay their cost share, which is typically around 42% of eligible project costs,” Miller said. “Almost anything we do is eligible including design, surveys, construction and all that.”

Crews will not be working the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day to allow beach access during the holidays.

The current renourishment project is the third of its kind since 2019, Miller said, and the hope is that the three projects will keep the county’s beaches full for years to come.

“Obviously, mother nature is the boss; if we get big storms next year, all bets are off,” he said. “But we should be finished for at least a couple years.”

Karl Schneider is a Naples Daily News reporter. You can reach him at kschneider@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @karlstartswithk

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Vanderbilt Beach renourishment begins in December