Lely Resort

By Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar, McGreevy and Comisar of Domain Realty · Updated July 2026

McGreevy and Comisar lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 real estate team in Southwest Florida, selling and buying homes in Lely Resort. Top 1% Nationally since 2008. Over $900 million in personal sales and $2.5 billion+ sold as a team. The team Lely Resort homeowners call first.

If you are getting ready to sell your Lely Resort home, or you are trying to figure out which of the 43 neighborhoods inside this 2,892.50-acre master-planned community is the right one to buy in, you are on the right page. We do not write about Lely Resort from a distance. Jesse closed on his first Southwest Florida home in Stoneybrook in Estero in January 2004 and still lives there twenty-two years later, and this team has spent two decades working the corridor from Estero down through South Naples. What follows is the deepest published breakdown of Lely Resort anywhere: every neighborhood and its door count, the Players Club obligation split reconciled to the exact address level, the district assessment and why it looks nothing like the ones your friends complain about in other Collier communities, the flood map read honestly, and current Southwest Florida MLS numbers that were pulled the day this page was written rather than copied from an aggregator.

When you are ready, call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072, text or call, same-day response.

Why McGreevy and Comisar Are the Best Lely Resort Realtors

If you are searching for the best realtor in Lely Resort, Florida, whether you are ready to sell your Lely Resort home or buy your next one, McGreevy and Comisar is the team that delivers. We lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 real estate team in Southwest Florida since 2012, Top 1% Nationally since 2008, with over $2.5 billion sold as a team and $900 million in personal sales between Jesse and Marc.

The Lely Resort market, last 12 months, pulled live from the Southwest Florida MLS Matrix on 31 July 2026: 232 homes closed inside the Lely Resort development · $201,009,077 in closed dollar volume · median sale price $722,500 · median 78 days on market · median sale-to-list ratio 94.54% · highest sale $3,500,000 · 105 active listings against 5.43 months of supply.

(Those are community-wide MLS figures for the Lely Resort development, not a claim about our own production. Our production figures are the accolades below, and we keep the two clearly separate on purpose. If an agent shows you a community's sales volume as though it were their own résumé, ask them which is which.)

Honors and recognition:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

Selling your Lely Resort home? Get a free home valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation OR call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072 (text or call, same-day response).

Buying a home in Lely Resort? Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 for a personalized buyer consultation.

Key Takeaways

The short version, for anyone who does not have time to read 25,000 words about a golf community. Every one of these is sourced further down the page.

• Lely Resort is 2,892.50 acres and 43 neighborhoods totaling 5,278 doors, reconciled against the Master Property Owners Association's own community roster and the county's PUD Master List of 11 June 2026.
• The Lely Community Development District carries no bond debt. It was paid in full in prior years per the district's FY2024 audited financial report. The FY2026 assessment of $997 per unit is operations and maintenance only. In a county where district debt service routinely rides on top of an O&M line for decades, that is a real and checkable advantage on your total monthly number.
• Players Club and Spa membership costs a $10,000 refundable deposit, plus $6,400 in annual dues, plus 6% Florida sales tax. The obligation runs with the land on covenant properties, but the deposit itself is expressly not transferable, so a buyer posts their own $10,000. There is no lazy river, despite what you may have read.
• Membership is not community-wide. 17 neighborhoods carry a mandatory obligation across 1,584 doors, 17 are optional across 1,907, 6 are mixed on a per-address basis across 838, and 949 doors carry no obligation at all. Confirm your specific address before you write an offer.
• Three golf courses, two of them public. Flamingo Island by Robert Trent Jones Sr., The Mustang by Lee Trevino, and The Classics by Gary Player, which is private.
• The market read for the last 12 months is volume up, per-square-foot value flat to slightly soft. Closed sales rose 26.1% and dollar volume rose 33.8%, the median sale price rose 12.9%, but median price per square foot fell 2.7% while the median home sold grew 7.6% larger. Anyone quoting you the 12.9% on its own is selling, not analyzing.
• Flood position, stated correctly: six of seventeen tested points inside Lely Resort sit in FEMA Zone AE, so nobody should tell you Lely Resort is outside a flood zone. What is true, and better, is that there is no VE zone anywhere in Lely Resort, and Collier County holds CRS Class 5, worth a 25% flood insurance discount.
• Schools are Lely Elementary (A), Manatee Middle (A), and Lely High (B) per the Collier County Schools grade release, uniform across every point we sampled inside the community, and Lely Resort is not affected by the 2026-27 boundary process.
• Costco was approved on 14 October 2025 at Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock, roughly a mile north. It is the largest single change coming to the corridor.
• The Master POA is managed by RealManage. If you are selling, that is where your estoppel request goes. Sending it to the prior manager is the most common way a Lely Resort closing loses three days.

Table of Contents

Start here: Why McGreevy and Comisar Are the Best Lely Resort Realtors · Key Takeaways · Living in Lely Resort · Lely Resort Market Snapshot · How Lely Resort's Neighborhoods Compare

The neighborhoods: Every Neighborhood in Lely Resort · The Classics Plantation Estates · Lakoya · Olé at Lely Resort · Is Players Club Membership Mandatory · HOA Fees and the Master Assessment · Which Neighborhoods Are Gated · Community Pages Coming Next

Golf and the club: Golf at Lely Resort · Flamingo Island · The Mustang · The Classics · The Players Club and Spa · Who Governs Lely Resort · Shopping and Dining

Money, maps and government: The Lely Resort PUD · The Community Development District · Property Taxes and Carrying Cost · Flood Zones and FEMA · What Is Being Built Next · Roads and Access · Lely Resort Is Not Lely Golf Estates

Living here: Schools · Healthcare · Hurricanes · Beaches and Parks · Dining and Errands · Arts and Culture · Volunteer Organizations · Drive Times

Working with us: Selling Your Lely Resort Home · Buying in Lely Resort · Rentals and Property Management · Your Local Real Estate Experts

Questions and documents: Buyer FAQs · Seller FAQs · Rental FAQs · Downloadable Documents · Sources

Living in Lely Resort

Lely Resort is a 2,892.50-acre master-planned community in unincorporated Collier County, roughly six miles southeast of downtown Naples along Collier Boulevard. It holds 43 neighborhoods and 5,278 doors, three golf courses, a private members club, and its own community development district. It is a census-designated place, not a subdivision, and it is not age-restricted.

That last point is worth its own sentence, because a large national aggregator publishes a Lely Resort page titled "55+ Community" whose own data field, on the same page, reads "No Age Restrictions." Lely Resort has no age restriction. Buy here at 34 or 74.

The scale is what most people underestimate. Lely Resort is roughly four and a half square miles. You can live in a $295,000 attached villa or a $3.5 million custom estate inside the same gates, and both owners pay the same $29.85 quarterly master assessment. The community is effectively built out on the ground even though the paper entitlement is not exhausted, which is a distinction we take apart in detail in the PUD section below, because it is the single most misrepresented fact about this community.

Census figures returned for the Lely Resort census-designated place put the population at 8,296 across 3,807 households, with a median age of 58.4 and average individual income of $64,702. Those are the numbers, and we will let them sit as numbers rather than turning them into a personality profile of your future neighbors.

What actually distinguishes daily life here from the other big South Naples communities is the amenity structure. Most bundled-golf communities give you one course and one clubhouse. Lely Resort separated the two: golf is its own thing across three courses, two of which anyone can play, and the social and fitness amenity is the Players Club and Spa, which is a separate membership with a separate cost that only some addresses are obligated to carry. That decoupling is why Lely Resort has an unusually wide price range for a single master plan, and it is why the single most important question to answer before you write an offer here is not "what are the HOA fees" but "what does this specific address owe the Players Club."

Lely Resort Market Snapshot: What the MLS Actually Shows

Lely Resort recorded 232 closed sales totaling $201,009,077 in the twelve months ending 31 July 2026, at a median sale price of $722,500 and a median 78 days on market. Volume is up sharply year over year, but median price per square foot is down 2.7%. Those two facts together, and not the headline median alone, are the honest read on this market.

Source and method, stated so you can check us. Every figure in this section came from a live Southwest Florida MLS Matrix search run on 31 July 2026, Residential form, Development Name bound to LELY RESORT (Matrix development key 10042), status Closed, close date within 365 days. Every statistic was then recomputed independently in a separate environment and matched. We are naming the method because six other Matrix development values start with the word "Lely," including LELY GOLF ESTATES, which is a different and older community. Pull the wrong one and every number on the page is wrong.

The 12-month closed market

Four of those 232 closings are recorded as Sold Data Entry, meaning they were legitimately closed and reported but not marketed through the MLS. They are included in the price statistics and excluded from the days-on-market calculation, because carrying them at a marketing time of zero would drag the median down and misrepresent how long a real listing takes here.

Active inventory as of 31 July 2026

A trap worth naming, because we watched other people fall into it. The active median of $550,000 sits 23.9% below the closed median of $722,500, and it would be easy to write "Lely Resort asking prices are 24% below sale prices" and sound alarming. That figure is a mirage. The median active home is also 14.1% smaller than the median sold home, 1,771 square feet against 2,062. Normalize for size and the gap almost disappears: $330.00 per square foot asking against $341.06 per square foot achieved, a difference of 3.2%. The headline gap is a mix effect, not a price collapse.

Year over year, and the number everyone else will misquote

Here is the whole story in one line: the median sale price rose 12.9% while the median price per square foot fell 2.7%.

Those move in opposite directions because the median home that sold this year is 7.6% larger than the median home that sold last year. The median went up because the mix shifted toward bigger and higher-end product, not because a given square foot of Lely Resort got more valuable. Three separate indicators confirm the softening underneath the rising median: price per square foot down 2.7%, days on market up from 75.5 to 78, and sale-to-list down from 95.48% to 94.54%, meaning sellers conceded slightly more off asking than they did a year ago.

We are not going to publish a percentage attribution between size and per-foot value, because medians are order statistics and do not decompose multiplicatively. What we will say is verified on both sides: size up 7.6%, per-square-foot value down 2.7%, volume up 26.1%.

What this means if you are selling. Buyers are transacting in real numbers, 26% more of them than last year, so this is not a stalled market. But they are paying slightly less relative to ask and taking slightly longer to get there. Pricing off last year's comp plus 12.9% is how a Lely Resort listing sits for 134 days. Pricing off current price per square foot for your actual product type is how it sells in 78. Call Jesse at (239) 898-6072 and we will run your address against the real per-foot number for your specific neighborhood, not the community median.

What this means if you are buying. 5.43 months of supply is a balanced-to-buyer-favorable market by Southwest Florida standards, and a 94.54% median sale-to-list ratio means there is genuine room to negotiate here in a way there was not three years ago. Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

How Lely Resort's Neighborhoods Compare: A Benchmark From Live MLS Data

Forty-two distinct subdivisions inside Lely Resort recorded at least one closed sale in the twelve months ending 31 July 2026, and the counts sum exactly to the 232 community total. That transaction distribution is the most reliable liquidity map of Lely Resort that exists, because it measures what actually traded rather than what a marketing page claims is popular.

This matters more than it sounds. Liquidity is not evenly distributed across a 43-neighborhood master plan. If you buy into a neighborhood that turns over three units a year and you need to sell in eighteen months, you are competing in a very thin market. If you buy into one that turns over thirty-one, you are not.

What the benchmark tells you.

Olé is the liquidity leader by a wide margin at 31 closings, more than double the third-place neighborhood. It is also the neighborhood where the Players Club obligation is optional rather than mandatory, which widens the buyer pool by removing a $6,784 annual line item from the qualifying math. Those two facts are probably related.

Lakoya at 21 is the top performer in the higher price tier, which is notable because mandatory-membership neighborhoods usually trade thinner than optional ones. Lakoya trading second overall is evidence that the product itself is carrying the obligation rather than being handicapped by it.

The Classics Plantation Estates at 13 closings against 248 doors is a 5.2% annual turnover rate, which for a custom-home estate section is normal and healthy rather than slow. Estate product always turns over less frequently than attached product; that is a function of holding period, not desirability.

Twenty-three of the forty-two subdivisions recorded four or fewer sales. If your address is in one of them, your comp set is genuinely thin, and pricing off community-wide medians will be wrong in both directions depending on the year. This is exactly the situation where an agent who has actually transacted in Lely Resort earns their fee, and it is why we pull the subdivision-level data before we price anything. Call Jesse at (239) 898-6072 and we will do that for your address before you list.

One correction while we are here: the Sunstone gem phases, Peridot, Ruby, and Aquamarine, all transacted separately in the MLS, and several long-published neighborhood counts for Lely Resort miss them entirely. The MLS-subdivision definition and the association definition do not line up perfectly, which is why the roster section further down reconciles to associations and doors rather than to MLS subdivision strings.

Every Neighborhood in Lely Resort: The Complete 5,278-Door Roster

Lely Resort contains 5,278 residential doors spread across 43 community names on the Master Property Owners Association roster, running from Sussex Place at 20 homes to Olé at 623 condominiums. The roster below lists every one, with door counts, home type, association records, and Players Club obligation. Nothing here is estimated.

How the count was reconciled

The Master POA publishes 5,278 doors for itself, and its "Lely Resort Communities" roster carries 43 community names summing to exactly that. Four record sets were compared: the Master POA roster (47 Florida corporations across 43 names, the source of every door count here); the MLS (42 subdivisions, 232 closed sales in the twelve months ending July 31, 2026); the Collier County 2017 PUD monitoring schedule (47 projects, each with a build state); and the Collier County subdivision code register.

The county's 47 projects reduce to 43 names once four naming relationships resolve. Martinique (28), Covington (38) and Avonlea (34) are builder product series inside The Classics Phase III, with no MLS value, no association and no plat code. Hawthorne II (56) is now Tasori.

4,329 + 39 + 612 + 298 = 5,278. Sliced the other way, by Players Club obligation: 1,584 mandatory + 1,907 optional + 838 mixed + 949 with no obligation = 5,278.

Two honest notes before the table

The table carries 44 rows, not 43. The doors reconcile to 5,278 three ways; the name count does not quite close. Flamingo Fairways One and Two appear as two rows because they hold two Florida corporations and two Collier codes, and the Master POA may carry them as one name. Until that is confirmed both rows stay, because a title officer needs both corporate names. Separately, the Master POA site states it "coordinates with all 48 HOAS and condo Associations" while its roster names 47. The 48th is not identified in the record.

On the "years built" column: the record establishes almost no construction dates here, only Florida corporation charter dates, which bracket the era but are not first-closing years. Where the 2017 county schedule records a build state, that is a real construction datum and it appears in the notes. Construction start and completion years remain unestablished for 40 of the 43 neighborhoods.

PC below is the Players Club obligation: M mandatory, O optional, X mixed per address, N none. Gate status for every neighborhood is listed in full further down this page.

The complete roster

The door column sums as 1,584 + 1,907 + 838 + 949 = 5,278. The three Sunstone phase rows (36 + 48 + 36) are components of the 120-door parent row and are not added again, and the Verandas at Tiger Island row carries no separate door figure because its units sit inside the 108-door Hidden Sanctuary line.

Names that do not belong on this list

Trevi. No Trevi subdivision code exists anywhere in the Collier County register. It is a Lee County name.

Palmetto Dunes. Collier carries LELY C C PALMETTO DUNES SEC, code 459400, in the Lely Country Club family. Which raises the most common mistake in this market: Lely Resort is not Lely Golf Estates, Lely Country Club, Lely Pines, Lely Pine Hurst Estates or Lely Tropical Estates. Collier's register carries all six as separate plat families.

Adonia is under construction, 184 units, completion scheduled for summer 2027. It has no county monitoring line, no roster row and no subdivision code yet, and its Players Club obligation is not established, so it is not part of the 5,278. Adonia and Celeste North are the same project under two names. It was renamed. Count it once.

The census picture

Lely Resort is a genuine census-designated place, unusual for a private master-planned community. Census data for the Lely Resort CDP records a population of 8,296 across 3,807 households, with a median age of 58.4 and an average individual income of $64,702.

One clarification, because a large national aggregator publishes a page titled "55+ Community" for Lely Resort whose own data field on that page reads "No Age Restrictions." Stated plainly: Lely Resort is not an age-restricted community. No recorded age restriction applies to the 43 communities on the master roster. The Arlington is a licensed continuing-care retirement community with its own admission criteria and is not a for-sale neighborhood on the roster.

The Classics Plantation Estates

The Classics Plantation Estates is the top price tier in Lely Resort: 248 estate homes behind one of only four guard houses in the resort, sold through a five-builder custom and semi-custom program. Its Players Club obligation is mixed, so status must be confirmed address by address before an offer.

The record

Legal entity: Classics Plantation Estates Homeowners Association, Inc., document number N01000008220, EIN 59-3756814, active. Filed November 20, 2001 as "Classics Plantation Estates Phase I Homeowners Association, Inc.," with continuous annual reports since 2002. A phased build across roughly two decades. The first-closing year is not established, so we do not publish one.

Collier carries five project lines for the Classics: 99 + 49 + 28 + 38 + 34 = 248, matching the roster exactly. Three are named Martinique, Covington and Avonlea, Phase III builder product series rather than neighborhoods. Which builder ran which series is not established anywhere.

Who built it, and why there is no model list

Master developer: Stock Development, LLC, Declarant of record for Lely Resort. Homes sold through a five-builder semi-custom and custom program: A.R.B.C. Arthur Rutenberg Homes, Breakwater Custom Homes, Divco Construction Corp., Empire Builders, and Lundstrom Development. That has a consequence: there is no repeating elevation vocabulary and no publishable model list, because buyers could work with the builder's architect. No square-footage range, model names or architectural-style designations for the Classics exist in an acceptable source. Stock's own contemporaneous marketing read "House and lot pricing from $1 million," the highest price point Stock published for any Lely Resort neighborhood.

Physical structure

From the roster: privacy type Guard House, Vehicle and Pedestrian Gate; Comprehensive Service Agreement Y; capital contribution Yes; fire protection Collier County, 47 hydrants, the highest hydrant-to-unit ratio in the resort and a reasonable proxy for very large lots. Access runs through an entry roundabout on Classics Boulevard to the gatehouse. Whether the Classics has its own neighborhood pool or clubhouse separate from the country club is not established, and we do not assume either way.

The recorded 2005 Comprehensive Service Agreement notes that the term Classics "shall specifically exclude any and all golf course property," so the golf course is separate ownership, and the Classics lies entirely outside the Lely Community Development District boundaries, which is why it is served by contract rather than as a district property.

The golf club is a separate membership

The Classics Country Club golf membership is not bundled with a Classics home purchase, and it is not the Players Club. Two programs, two websites, two phone numbers.

The Classics Course is a Gary Player design, par 72, 6,714 yards, centerpiece of the private Classics Country Club at 8004 Lely Resort Blvd. It opened in 1990 and hosted The ACE Classic, a Senior PGA Tour event, six years later. Members also play the two daily-fee layouts, The Flamingo Island and The Mustang, for 54 holes. Four tiers are published: Full Golf, Executive, Social Sport and Social. Initiation fees and annual dues are not published. The club routes inquiries to (239) 732-1200.

Players Club status: mixed, per address

The official Players Club site lists "Classics*" in both the Required and Optional columns, footnoted "These neighborhoods have both required and non-required covenant agreements requirements." The Master POA roster independently records "Yes/No." Two primary sources agreeing that status is split.

No primary source identifies which addresses carry the covenant. Do not accept a year cutoff, a street list or a count from anyone. The obligation runs with the individual property and must be confirmed per address, with the Players Club membership office, before an offer.

Management and the fee stack

The principal address, mailing address and registered agent changed October 1, 2025 to Home Encounter HECM LLC, 12906 Tampa Oaks Blvd Ste 100, Temple Terrace, FL 33637, with Ward Whelchel as president. The prior manager was Dorrill Management Group. Practical consequence: your estoppel goes to Temple Terrace, not Naples.

The neighborhood HOA assessment for the Classics is not published anywhere reliable. No public association website, no public budget. Verified components: the Master POA assessment at $29.85 per quarter, bundled; master contributed capital of $500 per purchase; the district Annual O&M Fee at parity with district member rates since January 1, 2017; the Players Club where the covenant applies, at $10,000 refundable deposit plus $6,784 per year; and Classics Country Club dues if elected. The neighborhood line is the missing one, and we pull it per address.

Lakoya

Lakoya is the largest single-family neighborhood in Lely Resort at 365 homes, built by Stock Signature Homes, guard-gated, and it carries the cleanest Players Club answer in the resort: membership is mandatory at every one of those 365 addresses, with no exemption and no per-address question.

The record

Legal entity: Lakoya At Lely Resort Neighborhood Association, Inc., document number N11000000267, EIN 45-1541224, active, filed January 11, 2011.

At 365 doors it is the largest House-type neighborhood here, ahead of the Classics at 248, Lely Island Estates at 191, Mustang Island at 185 and The Majors at 142. Collier's 2017 schedule recorded 365 proposed, 360 built, 5 remaining, under codes 451400 and 451410. Sub-neighborhoods I through III were chartered in 2011, IV through VII in 2014, and model homes were completing in January 2016. The first-closing year is not established. The 365 figure is a built-and-platted roster count, not an entitlement figure.

Builder and product

Stock Signature Homes, the developer's own luxury homebuilding arm. Only two Lakoya models are documented in an acceptable source, both from a December 14, 2015 press release covering Robb & Stucky designer interiors in a transitional style:

Two claims Lakoya buyers hear constantly that the record does not support: the claim that Lakoya is a natural-gas community appears only in listing remarks, not in any association or utility source, and whether Lakoya has its own pool, clubhouse or amenity center is not established either way.

Physical structure

Roster: privacy type Guard House, Vehicle and Pedestrian Gate; capital contribution Yes; fire protection Collier County, 64 hydrants. A 2011 charter means construction under a post-2007 Florida Building Code cycle, but there is no Lakoya-specific construction specification from a primary source and we will not convert that into a wind-rating claim.

The seven-into-one merger, and your title search

Seven sub-neighborhood associations once governed Lakoya: Lakoya I (N11000000712), II (N11000000714) and III (N11000000715), chartered 2011, and IV (N14000000334), V (N14000000333), VI (N14000000338) and VII (N14000000343), chartered 2014. All seven are now inactive, and the last event on each is a corporate merger filed May 12, 2021.

There is now one association at Lakoya. A title or estoppel search may still surface a dissolved sub-association name from that era, and an unfamiliar closing agent can lose days chasing an entity that no longer exists. Order from the parent.

Management

Registered agent: Mark E. Adamczyk, Esq., Naples, since April 15, 2022. Principal and mailing address changed April 22, 2026 to c/o Harbeck Hospitality, 200 Emerald Bay Drive, Suite 300, Oldsmar, FL 34677, with Charles Szafir as president. Two of the three flagship neighborhoods here are now managed from outside Collier County.

Players Club status: mandatory, no exemption

The club site lists Lakoya in the Required column only, with no asterisk. The roster records "yes." Two sources, no ambiguity. The structural reason is clean: the neighborhood was chartered in 2011, well after the February 10, 2003 covenant date, so there is no pre-covenant subset.

For a seller that is a $6,784 per year disclosure a listing's HOA field will never show. For a buyer it is a hard carrying-cost floor on all 365 addresses.

Lakoya also does not appear anywhere on Stock's archived marketing site, whose neighborhood navigation lists only Estates at The Classics, Hawthorne, Legacy, Majors, Mustang Island, Olé and Players Cove. With a January 2011 charter the launch postdates that site, which is why old developer material turns up nothing.

The neighborhood HOA assessment is not sourced. No public site, no published budget. Verified stack: Master POA $29.85 per quarter, bundled; $500 capital contribution at purchase; the district fee at parity, amount unpublished; and mandatory Players Club at $10,000 refundable plus $6,784 per year.

Olé at Lely Resort

Olé at Lely Resort is the largest neighborhood in Lely Resort at 623 condominium doors, roughly 11.8 percent of the entire master association. It is ungated, Players Club membership is optional, there is no capital contribution, and its own 20,000 square foot Village Center sits inside the condo fee.

The record

Legal entity: Ole at Lely Resort Condominium Association, Inc., document number N06000012455, EIN 20-8076322, filed December 5, 2006, active. Next largest after Olé are Lakoya 365, Aster 308, Inspira 304, The Arlington 298 and the Classics 248. Olé produced 31 of the 232 closed MLS sales in the trailing twelve months. Collier carries two codes, 490550 and 790550, consistent with a phased declaration and with an archived headline reading "Stock Construction has completed a new phase of casitas at Olé." The first-closing year is not established. Builder: Stock Development and Stock Construction.

Home styles and square footage

Overall range under air: 1,200 to roughly 2,080 square feet. One inconsistency inside the association's own material: the Flats description specifies Corian countertops while the Features Overview on the same page specifies granite. Do not treat either as standard without checking the specific unit.

Olé is the only flagship here with a published construction specification: concrete block with steel reinforcement, concrete roof tile, engineered roof trusses, and lawn maintenance by the condominium association. The line that matters most for insurance reads "Windows impact glass (per plan)." That is the association's own wording, and it means impact glass is not universal across Olé. Get it in writing on the specific unit before your insurance binder.

Price tier, gate status and amenities

Entry to mid, the affordable end of Lely Resort. Every structural marker agrees: attached condominium product from 1,200 square feet, optional Players Club, no capital contribution, ungated, inside the district. Stock published no price range for Olé at all, against "from $1 million" for the Estates at The Classics.

The roster records Olé's privacy type as "-", meaning no gate of any kind, while the association's marketing describes "a secure community." The reconciliation: the amenities are access-controlled, not the streets, through "RFID membership cards so only residents are able to access them." Calling it gated on a listing is a factual error.

The 20,000 square foot Village Center is the association's own figure. It contains the Olé Pub, the Olé Bistro, an Ice Cream Shop, the Veranda, a Fitness Center, a Movie Theater and a Resort and Kiddie Pool. No other Lely Resort neighborhood has anything comparable at the neighborhood level. Several secondary sources add tennis courts, pickleball courts, a coffee shop and an internet cafe, and name models "San Pablo" and "Santa Ana." None of that appears on the association's own pages. Unverified.

Olé's Movie Theater at 9075 Celeste Dr. is where the Lely Resort Master POA board holds its monthly meetings, on the fourth Monday of each month at 1:00 PM, which makes it effectively the civic hall of the resort. Stock's own language describes "charming Mediterranean architecture, lots of green space and inviting pedestrian thoroughfares." Fire service splits here: Olé is on the Greater Naples Fire Department with 51 hydrants, while the Classics and Lakoya sit on Collier County hydrants.

Players Club status: optional

The club site lists Olé in the Non-Amenities Covenant (Optional) column only, with no asterisk. The roster records "No." Two primary sources, no ambiguity. Olé is the largest optional-membership neighborhood in Lely Resort, which works because it has a substantial amenity package of its own inside the condo fee. Decline and pay nothing toward the club; elect and pay the $10,000 refundable deposit plus $6,784 per year. The association's own site references "The Players Club and Spa" in its value proposition, but that is marketing: club access is not included with an Olé purchase, and neither is golf.

Management and the fee stack

Management: Castle Group, and the association runs a public community site, which makes Olé the only one of the three flagships with a usable public association source. The condo fee amount is not published; the budget sits behind an owner login. Verified components: Master POA $29.85 per quarter, bundled; no capital contribution, a real closing-cost advantage over the Classics and Lakoya; the district assessment as a direct district property; optional Players Club; and lawn maintenance plus Village Center access inside the condo fee.

One open item: Olé's Florida milestone inspection and structural integrity reserve study status is not established. For a 2006-chartered association with 623 units that is material. Ask for the documentation during your inspection period.

Is Players Club Membership Mandatory in Lely Resort?

Players Club membership is mandatory in 17 Lely Resort neighborhoods covering 1,584 doors, optional in 17 covering 1,907, mixed on a per-address basis in 6 covering 838, and carries no obligation for 949 doors. Those four groups sum to all 5,278 doors in Lely Resort.

From the official Players Club and Spa site: "All new residences and home sites in the community sold after February 10, 2003, and home sites sold before and after that date (collectively, the 'amenities covenant properties') are subject to a Restrictive Covenant requiring membership at The Players Club & Spa."

1,584 + 1,907 + 838 + 949 = 5,278.

Mandatory: 17 neighborhoods, 1,584 doors

Verified against the club site's Required column with no asterisk and the roster's "Yes." Alden Woods 116, Ascot 84, Ashton Place 78, Caldecott 63, Canwick Cove 38, Cordoba 48, Cottesmore 57, Hawthorne 76, Lakoya 365, Legacy at Lely Resort 88, The Majors 142, Moorgate Point 84, Players Cove 96, Prestwick Place 97, Signature Club 76, Sussex Place 20, Tasori 56.

116 + 84 + 78 + 63 + 38 + 48 + 57 + 76 + 365 + 88 + 142 + 84 + 96 + 97 + 76 + 20 + 56 = 1,584.

In any of these, club dues are a carrying cost, not a lifestyle choice: $6,784 per year plus a $10,000 refundable deposit at entry.

Optional: 17 neighborhoods, 1,907 doors

Verified against the club site's Non-Amenities Covenant column and the roster's "No." Calumet Reserve 84, Champions 60, Coral Falls Resort 64, Falcons Glen 87, Flamingo Fairways 32, Flamingo Fairways II 32, Greenlinks 200, Hidden Sanctuary Village at the Verandas at Tiger Island 108, Indian Wells Golf Villas 44, Lely Island Estates 191, Mustang Villas 60, Mystic Greens 96, Olé 623, Palomino Village 57, Pinnacle Cove 21, Saratoga 96, Twelve Oaks 52.

84 + 60 + 64 + 87 + 32 + 32 + 200 + 108 + 44 + 191 + 60 + 96 + 623 + 57 + 21 + 96 + 52 = 1,907.

The Verandas at Tiger Island is also optional; its doors sit inside the 108-unit Hidden Sanctuary row and are not counted twice.

Mixed, per address: 6 neighborhoods, 838 doors

Both the official club site (which asterisks these names, lists them in both columns, and footnotes "These neighborhoods have both required and non-required covenant agreements requirements") and the Master POA roster mark exactly the same six.

248 + 185 + 135 + 120 + 106 + 44 = 838.

No obligation: 949 doors

Chatham Pointe 39, Aster 308, Inspira 304, The Arlington 298. 39 + 308 + 304 + 298 = 949.

The per-address warning

The mechanism behind mixed status is not established in any primary source. No published list identifies which addresses inside those six neighborhoods carry the covenant. We will not publish a year cutoff, a street list, a plat range or a count, because none exists in the record and inventing one would cost a buyer real money.

The Players Club obligation runs with the individual property. In those six neighborhoods, two houses on the same street can carry different answers. Status must be confirmed per address before an offer is written, and the only authority is the Players Club and Spa membership office, which is also the office that issues the Players Club estoppel.

Three estoppels, not one

A Lely Resort closing can require three separate estoppels: the neighborhood HOA or condominium association, the Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association, and the Players Club and Spa. A closing agent who orders one and assumes it covers the others finds the gap late.

Two related traps. Three neighborhoods carry two live associations at once: Chase Preserve, Prestwick Place and Mustang Island. Four were built as multiple sub-associations and later merged: Lakoya, Greenlinks, Mystic Greens and the Verandas group, so a title search may surface a dissolved entity. And Chatham Pointe has no active association at all.

The 2026 Players Club numbers

Immediate family is spouse and unmarried children under age 25. The 12 rental transfers per calendar year allowance is the second question every Olé and Greenlinks buyer asks after the membership question. The club itself is described in 2026 material as "a 15-acre tropical retreat," against Stock's archived "nine-acre, non-golf amenities complex," and carries a 6,000 square foot fitness center, a full spa, three pools, 13 Har-Tru courts, 4 pickleball courts and 4 bocce courts.

No neighborhood in Lely Resort bundles golf. The Classics is a separate private membership, Flamingo Island and The Mustang are daily-fee, and the Players Club is a non-golf complex. While correcting the record: The Majors' own association site states residents enjoy "three Robert Trent Jones-designed golf courses." That is wrong. The Classics is a Gary Player design, The Mustang is a Lee Trevino design, and only Flamingo Island is Robert Trent Jones Sr.

HOA Fees, the Master Assessment, and What Nobody Else Will Tell You

Every door in Lely Resort pays a master assessment of $29.85 per quarter for 2026, bundled inside the neighborhood HOA or condo fee. Neighborhood-level fees are a different matter entirely: only one of the 43 Lely Resort communities publishes its budget, and pretending otherwise is how buyers get surprised.

The master assessment: $29.85 per quarter, verified two ways

The Master POA's 2026 approved operating budget carries 5,278 total units, $714,061 in total income and expenses, and a per unit quarterly assessment of $29.85. Major lines: storm drain system $240,000, legal $150,000, engineering report $120,000, preserve maintenance $50,000.

That figure is confirmed independently, from outside the Master POA's own paperwork. Lely Island Estates' 2026 adopted budget carries a "Lely Resort Master Fee" line of $22,806 noted "Per Master HOA Budget." $22,806 ÷ 191 units ÷ 4 quarters = $29.85. It matches to the cent.

Nobody in Lely Resort is billed $29.85 as their total fee. The Master POA states it directly: "Every home in the Master Association pays a Master HOA fee. This is included in your current HOA or condo fee you pay quarterly."

The assessment rose $5 per quarter for 2026 and the association closed 2025 with a loss of roughly $305,000. The reason is on the record: Stock Development turned the Master POA over to the community on March 15, 2021, and the association is now working a Florida Chapter 558 construction-defect notice process. Master assessments here are on an upward trajectory, and a buyer should understand why rather than be surprised next year.

The manager. Get this one right

The Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association's management company is RealManage.

We are emphatic because there is a specific and expensive error in circulation. The association's mailing address sits on a street named Cardinal Way (4670 Cardinal Way, Suite 302, Naples FL 34112, phone (239) 774-0723 x203), and more than one source has read that street name as a management company name and published a different company. An estoppel sent to the wrong management company does not bounce back the same day. It costs a closing days. Send master estoppel requests to RealManage.

The one neighborhood fee that is actually published

Lely Island Estates, 2026 adopted budget: $599 per quarter for homes and $269 per quarter for vacant lots, down from $702 the prior year, a decrease of 15 percent. It is the only neighborhood-level assessment figure in the Lely Resort record from a source worth standing behind, taken from the association's own adopted budget.

What that fee actually buys: grounds maintenance is $339,780 of $451,216, or 75.3 percent of the budget. Add mulch at $44,880 and the landscaping share reaches 85.3 percent. That generalizes even where the dollar figure does not: irrigated turf and mature landscape beds are what drive a Lely Resort neighborhood fee.

One more line from that budget, the only neighborhood-level storm fact in the record: "Hurricane Storm Damage: We do not budget for a storm. We add it to the budget the next year." No hurricane damage records were located for any individual Lely Resort neighborhood for Ian in 2022, Helene in 2024 or Milton in 2024, and we will not conclude damage was minimal because the community sits inland.

The honest gap: 42 neighborhoods with no published fee

Neighborhood HOA and condominium assessment amounts are not published anywhere reliable for 42 of the 43 Lely Resort communities. Not on the Master POA site. Not on association sites, because only four neighborhoods have one: Lely Island Estates, The Majors, Saratoga (behind a sign-in) and Olé. Not in the county record, and not in the corporate filings.

Every fee number circulating for any other neighborhood here traces to a brokerage or content site that flagged its own figure as unverified or did not flag it at all, or to a stale listing field reflecting one seller's fee at one moment. We are not going to estimate, average, or republish a 2019 figure as today's fee. A buyer who underwrites on an invented number finds out at the estoppel, and by then they are committed.

So here is what we do instead

McGreevy and Comisar pull the actual assessment figure per address, on request, before you write an offer. We request the current assessment from the association or its manager, confirm the master and district lines, and confirm Players Club status with the club if the address sits in one of the six mixed neighborhoods.

One item we will not fill with a guess: milestone inspection and structural integrity reserve study status is not established for any condominium association in Lely Resort, including Olé's 623 units. Call us with the address. That is the fastest path to a real number and the only path to a correct one.

Which Lely Resort Neighborhoods Are Gated

Gate status varies neighborhood by neighborhood in Lely Resort and there is no single answer for the community as a whole. Four Lely Resort neighborhoods have a staffed guard house, a larger group has vehicle-only or vehicle-and-pedestrian gates, and a substantial share, including the largest neighborhood in the resort, is entirely ungated.

The correction first: Lely Resort as a whole is not a gated community. There is no single perimeter gate, and the collector roads are open. Gating happens at the neighborhood level.

Guard house: only four

All four carry a guard house plus vehicle and pedestrian gates on the roster, and Hawthorne is the only condominium neighborhood among them. Hawthorne and Tasori sit on adjacent tracts and share a roster footnote marker and a hydrant line, so they may share a single guarded entry, though that is a reading of the geography rather than a confirmed fact.

One correction that circulates constantly: The Majors is not guard-gated. The roster records a vehicle gate. Its own website describes a "double-gated entrance," which is not the same thing.

Vehicle and pedestrian gates

Alden Woods (116), Caldecott (63), Canwick Cove (38), Cordoba (48), Signature Club (76), Twelve Oaks (52).

Vehicle gate

Ashton Place (78), Calumet Reserve (84), Champions (60), Cottesmore (57), Indian Wells Golf Villas (44), Legacy at Lely Resort (88), The Majors (142), Masters Reserve (135), Moorgate Point (84), Mustang Island (185), Mystic Greens (96), Players Cove (96), Prestwick Place (97), Saratoga (96), Sussex Place (20), and the Inspira apartments (304).

Ungated

Ascot (84), Chase Preserve (44), Coral Falls Resort (64), Falcons Glen (87), Flamingo Fairways (32), Flamingo Fairways II (32), Greenlinks (200), Lely Island Estates (191), Mustang Villas (60), Olé (623), Palomino Village (57), Pinnacle Cove (21), Sunstone on the Fairways (120), Tiger Island Estates (106), the Aster apartments (308) and The Arlington (298).

Three deserve a note. Ascot is ungated with mandatory Players Club membership, the only ungated neighborhood in the mandatory group. Tiger Island Estates is an ungated public pass-through, and the Master POA says so in writing: the county maintains the sidewalks "for ungated pass-thru communities like Tiger Island." That is genuine high-price custom estate product on publicly accessible streets. Olé is ungated with RFID-controlled amenities, covered above.

Where the record is incomplete

Gate status is not recorded for two entries. Chatham Pointe carries a blank corporation cell, an inactive HOA and no subdivision code in the county register. The Hidden Sanctuary and Verandas at Tiger Island group, spanning multiple associations and six codes with an 84-unit reconciliation gap, likewise carries no clean gate record. And gate type does not tell you gate condition, staffing hours or access procedure; guard house hours are not published for any of the four. For any specific address the association is the authority, and we confirm before you rely on it.

Community Pages Coming Next for Lely Resort

Lely Resort is large enough that a single page cannot do justice to 43 separate communities, so McGreevy and Comisar are building dedicated neighborhood pages. Each will carry developer history, master plan detail, governance and per-village deep dives for one Lely Resort community. Here is what is queued next.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/mustang-island page on Mustang Island is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/tiger-island-estates page on Tiger Island Estates is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/sunstone-on-the-fairways page on Sunstone on the Fairways is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/greenlinks page on Greenlinks is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/lely-island-estates page on Lely Island Estates is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/tasori-at-lely-resort page on Tasori at Lely Resort is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

A dedicated /neighborhoods/the-majors page on The Majors is coming with developer history, master plan, governance, and per-village deep dives. We'll link it here when it goes live.

Why those seven first

Mustang Island and Tiger Island Estates are the genuine high-price alternatives to the Classics and Lakoya, and both carry per-address club questions. Sunstone on the Fairways carries four separate plat names for one 120-unit community, and buyers search the gem names. Greenlinks is the resort's short-term-rental profile, proven by the county's transient-lodging line. Lely Island Estates publishes the only sourced neighborhood budget here. Tasori answers the question that saves somebody a week: why does my title work say Cipriani? And The Majors carries the golf-architect error corrected above.

Behind those, Prestwick Place, Moorgate Point, Hawthorne and Chase Preserve are queued. Each page will state the Players Club obligation, gate status, associations by legal name and document number, and Collier subdivision codes, and will publish the fee where a sourced figure exists and say plainly that it does not where it does not. In Lely Resort the difference between a good purchase and a bad surprise is usually three phone calls nobody made. McGreevy and Comisar make them. Call us with the address.

Golf at Lely Resort: Three Courses, Two Public and One Private

Lely Resort has three championship golf courses inside its boundaries: Flamingo Island by Robert Trent Jones Sr., The Mustang by Lee Trevino, and The Classics by Gary Player. Flamingo Island and The Mustang are public daily fee courses open to anyone. The Classics is private, reserved for members of The Classics Country Club at Lely Resort.

That structure is unusual in Naples. Most gated golf communities this size run one club and one gate, and access is all or nothing. Lely Resort runs a public golf operation and a private country club on the same property under the same operator, so a buyer can have a full private membership or pay only when actually playing. After twenty years selling in this corner of Collier County, I can tell you that combination is the most misunderstood thing about Lely Resort.

All three courses are operated by American Golf Corporation. The public golf clubhouse is at 8004 Lely Resort Blvd., Naples, FL 34113, at (239) 793-2600. The private Classics clubhouse is a separate building at 7989 Grand Lely Drive, pro shop (239) 732-1220. Membership and tournament inquiries route to (239) 732-1200.

The three courses side by side

Those ratings are the Florida State Golf Association official figures, not the numbers printed on the scorecards. The distinction matters, and I explain it below. Note the slope column: The Classics is the shortest of the three and carries the highest back tee slope at 139.

The naming problem

Names drift badly across the sources covering this property. The club runs two primary websites: lelyresortgolfandcountryclub.com covers all three courses, and lelyresortgolf.com covers only the two daily fee courses. Members log in at theclassicsclub.com. The Florida State Golf Association files the public courses as "FLAMINGO ISLAND AT LELY RESORT" and "MUSTANG AT LELY RESORT," on a club record that still carries an obsolete website field. No single one of these is the official name.

There is also a separate Naples community called Lely Golf Estates, and an older Lely Country Club whose historic layouts carry "Classics" naming in some sources. Neither is this property. Lely Resort is the Stock Development planned unit development of roughly 2,900 to 3,000 acres bounded by Tamiami Trail East, Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock Road, ZIP 34113, unincorporated Collier County.

What golf costs, and what it does not

Neither official site publishes a rate card. No seasonal grid, no twilight table, no printed resident rate. Public rates appear only inside the tee time booking engine on the TeeItUp platform. On one verified off season observation for Saturday, August 1, 2026, the engine showed 91 tee times across both courses, eighteen holes riding, at $99.00 for morning slots and $79.00 after roughly noon. Do not treat those as the rate. That was deep August pricing, high season Naples green fees run multiples of it, and the booking window opens only three to four days ahead.

One more point, and it is the one buyers most want to be untrue: no resident, homeowner or Lely Resort property owner discount on public green fees is published anywhere on either official site. Living in Lely Resort does not, on any published evidence, get you a discount at Flamingo Island or The Mustang. Classics members are a different matter, and that is a membership privilege rather than a homeowner benefit.

Flamingo Island: The Robert Trent Jones Sr. Course

Flamingo Island is the Robert Trent Jones Sr. course at Lely Resort, opened to the public in 1989. It plays to par 72 and measures 7,095 yards from the Black tees. Flamingo Island is open to the public with tee times available daily and no membership required. Its signature hole is the par 3 fifth.

That fifth hole is why people remember the round. It is a 200 yard par 3 to an island green whose only connection to the mainland is two small bridges. There is no bailout that leaves a simple up and down. You either hit the surface or you reload, and at 200 yards from the back that is a long iron or a hybrid for most players. Robert Trent Jones Sr. built his reputation on hard par, easy bogey, and the course reads that way: generous enough off the tee that a player who accepts a bogey moves around comfortably, with the pressure in the approach and around the greens.

Ratings: the FSGA number and the scorecard number do not match

The Florida State Golf Association is the state rating authority. Its official male ratings for Flamingo Island: Black 75.0 / 136, Green 71.6 / 133, Green/White 70.1 / 130, White 69.3 / 127, White/Aqua 67.1 / 118, Aqua 66.1 / 114, Yellow 62.6 / 106. FSGA official female ratings: White 75.3 / 135, White/Aqua 72.3 / 127, Aqua 71.2 / 124, Yellow 66.2 / 119.

The 2026 printed scorecard shows different numbers, starting with Black 7,095 at 75.3 / 140. The two sets disagree on every single tee, by two to nine slope points. I quote the FSGA figures throughout this page because FSGA is the rating authority of record for Florida. Never let anyone call a scorecard figure "the USGA rating." The card runs seven sets from 7,095 yards down to an unrated 4,477 yard Family Yellow.

What is not on the record

No renovation record for Flamingo Island turned up anywhere. That is not a claim the course has never been touched. It means nothing documenting a regrassing, a bunker program or a green rebuild is publicly available. The one documented reconstruction inside Lely Resort belongs to The Mustang, and no tournament history is on record here.

Two errors from the club's own outing pages circulate into third party listings. One page attributes both public courses to Robert Trent Jones, which is wrong: The Mustang is a Lee Trevino design. The Flamingo Island and Mustang pages also advertise "Platinum Club" and "National Golf Club" memberships, tiers absent from the current membership page. Confirm before you count on either.

The Mustang: The Lee Trevino Course

The Mustang is the Lee Trevino course at Lely Resort, opened in 1996 and the longest of the community's three layouts at 7,230 yards from the Black tees, par 72. It is a public daily fee course. Twelve lakes, rolling fairways and large greens define the design, and The Mustang is the only Lely Resort course with a documented reconstruction.

Trevino built a player's course rather than a punisher. The greens are large, which rewards a confident approach and forgives a slightly wide one. Water is the organizing feature: twelve lakes across eighteen holes means you see water most of the round, and the wind decides how much of it is in play. At 7,230 yards it is 135 yards longer than Flamingo Island from the back, yet its back tee slope is the lowest of the three at 135. The extra length is real, but the trouble is more visible and more avoidable than on the other two layouts. Big hitters like The Mustang.

The 2017 reconstruction

The Mustang closed in May 2017 and reopened by late December 2017, roughly seven months of work. The scope covered regrassing the fairways, the rough and the tee boxes, plus additional irrigation, tree trimming and par 3 tee box expansions. Naples Daily News carried the account on December 30, 2017, under a byline reading "Submitted by Lely Resort Golf & Country Club," so it is a club statement carried by the paper rather than independent reporting.

It matters to buyers for a plain reason. It is the only documented course reconstruction anywhere in Lely Resort, and turf age is the quiet variable in Southwest Florida golf.

Ratings, practice and outings

FSGA official male ratings for The Mustang: Black 74.7 / 135, Green 71.9 / 130, Green/White 70.3 / 125, White 69.6 / 119, White/Aqua 67.1 / 116, Aqua 65.6 / 112, Yellow 62.2 / 107. FSGA official female ratings: White 74.8 / 130, White/Aqua 72.3 / 124, Aqua 70.6 / 120, Yellow 66.2 / 113. The 2026 printed card instead shows Black 7,230 at 75.1 / 134 and Back Green 6,627 at 72.4 / 128, disagreeing with FSGA on every tee just as Flamingo Island's card does. I publish the FSGA figures.

The Mustang shares the public operation's practice facilities with Flamingo Island: a full range, putting green, chipping area and practice bunkers. Outings run seven days a week, carts carry GPS with a live leaderboard, and the club describes its public clubhouse as spanning 8,000 square feet with a restaurant called Club Fore. Before planning a scramble, note that the club's outing page gives capacity as both "144+" and 160 players. Get your number in writing.

The Classics: The Gary Player Private Course

The Classics is the Gary Player designed private course at Lely Resort, opened in 1990 and playing to par 72 at 6,714 yards. It is the centerpiece of The Classics Country Club at Lely Resort, and there is no public booking path to it. Members play 54 holes: The Classics plus preferred tee times on Flamingo Island and The Mustang.

That 54 hole arrangement is the real membership proposition here. In a market where private clubs run a single course and a tee sheet that fills at dawn, priority on two more full length courses changes how often you actually get out.

The Classics is also the shortest of the three courses and, from the back tees, the highest slope: 6,714 yards at 139, against Flamingo Island's 7,095 at 136 and The Mustang's 7,230 at 135. The private course gives up 381 yards to Flamingo Island and 516 to The Mustang and still rates hardest relative to its length. Player built courses asking for precision and shot shape rather than raw distance, and the FSGA numbers confirm the intent held.

Ratings and conditions

FSGA official male ratings: Black 72.7 / 139, Green 70.3 / 129, Green/White 69.0 / 126, White 68.2 / 120, Royal Blue 66.5 / 115, Royal Blue/Aqua 64.7 / 113, Aqua 62.9 / 106. FSGA official female ratings: Green 76.2 / 142, Green/White 74.9 / 139, White 73.6 / 135, Royal Blue 71.2 / 130, Royal Blue/Aqua 69.7 / 123, Aqua 67.3 / 114.

The scorecard prints no ratings or slopes at all, only yardages: Black 6,714, Green 6,239, Green/White 6,006, White 5,750, Red 5,345, Red/Aqua 4,843, Aqua 4,623. Its copyright block reads 7/2016, so the card dates to 2016. Its tee colors and the FSGA's do not fully match, and I publish no mapping between them, because no source establishes one.

Environmentally sensitive areas are marked with red stakes carrying a green cap, no search and no play. Drop areas sit on holes 4 and 12, and the course is irrigated with reclaimed water. No renovation record exists; the 1996 tournament setup measured 6,805 yards against today's 6,714, far more likely a re-measure than a redesign.

Tournament history, corrected

Here is where nearly every page written about Lely Resort gets it wrong, including the club's own. The club states that six years after it opened in 1990, The Classics hosted "The ACE Classic," a Senior PGA Tour event. The PGA TOUR Champions 2015 media guide says otherwise. Its 1996 row records the Greater Naples IntelliNet Challenge, won by Al Geiberger, at a venue printed as "THE CLASSICS@LELY RESORT | Naples, FL | 72/6,805." ACE Group Classic branding attached to that lineage only from 1999 forward, and at other courses. The club also omits two more recent events: The Classics hosted the Chubb Classic in 2019 and 2020, per the tournament's own venue history.

So the accurate statement is this: The Classics at Lely Resort has hosted a senior tour event three times, in 1996, 2019 and 2020. No tournament history is on record for Flamingo Island or The Mustang.

Membership at The Classics Country Club

Four tiers are published:

• Full Golf. Full Classics access plus preferred tee times on Flamingo Island and The Mustang, covering member, spouse and children to age 23, with two Har-Tru clay tennis courts and two pickleball courts.
• Executive. The same golf privileges, for members up to age 45. Pickleball is not in the published privilege list for this tier.
• Social Sport. All three courses, May through October only.
• Social. No golf.

Privileges include two clubhouses each with a range and short game area, bag storage with inter-club transportation of bags, GPS carts, PGA instructors, a USTPA certified tennis professional, and Palmer Advantage. The club publishes a Member Advantage Plan promising "No Assessments," a "Leave a Legacy" provision, and the ability to transfer a membership to clubs in the operator's nationwide network if you move. Read that transfer clause carefully: it is network portability on relocation, not transfer of a membership to the buyer of your home, and confusing the two can cost a seller real money.

Initiation fees and annual dues for The Classics are not published. Pricing routes through (239) 732-1200. Whether the club maintains a cap or a waiting list is also not published, and I will not guess.

The Players Club and Spa: What It Costs and What You Get

The Players Club and Spa at Lely Resort costs a $10,000 refundable membership deposit plus annual dues of $6,400 plus 6 percent Florida sales tax, a 2026 carrying cost of $6,784.00. The deposit is expressly not transferable. A buyer of a covenant property posts a new $10,000 deposit even though the membership obligation itself runs with the land.

That is the single most important paragraph on this page for anyone buying or selling here. In twenty years I have watched this cost get miscommunicated in more transactions than any other number in this community.

The 2026 fee schedule, exactly as published

Source: the club's own 2026 Fees and Overview of Amenities PDF at playersclubandspa.com, on club letterhead, verified July 31, 2026.

The family definition is published verbatim: "A member, his or her spouse, and their unmarried children under the age of 25 who are living at home, attending school on a full-time basis, or serving in the military are entitled to membership privileges."

Why the annual number surprises people

The $6,784.00 does not appear in a listing's HOA fee field. It sits on top of it. In a mandatory neighborhood the stack is your neighborhood HOA or condominium fee, plus the Master POA assessment of $29.85 per quarter in 2026, plus Players Club dues, plus any district or service area assessment on your parcel. A buyer budgeting only from the HOA field is off by roughly $565 a month, which is the difference between qualifying and not qualifying on some purchases.

The deposit trap, spelled out

The club's published membership language reads: "All new residences and home sites in the community sold after February 10, 2003, and home sites sold before and after that date (collectively, the 'amenities covenant properties') are subject to a Restrictive Covenant requiring membership at The Players Club & Spa. ... Membership Deposits are not transferable and are only refundable in accordance with the Membership Plan, Rules and Regulations of The Club and the Membership Agreement."

Two things live in that language and they must never be blurred.

One: the membership obligation runs with the land. Buy a covenant property and you are subject to the Restrictive Covenant requiring membership. You do not get to opt out because you do not swim, play tennis or eat at the club.

Two: the membership deposit does not run with the land. It is expressly not transferable. The buyer of a covenant property joins and posts their own $10,000 deposit, while the seller's $10,000 is refunded under the Membership Plan rather than credited to the buyer. The obligation transfers. The money does not.

I have seen sellers assume their deposit conveys as an asset and price accordingly, and buyers assume the seller's deposit covers them. Both are wrong, and both surface late in a transaction when they are expensive to fix. Put the $10,000 on the buyer's closing worksheet from day one. Refund timing lives in the Membership Plan, which is not published, so I will not tell a seller when their $10,000 comes back.

There is no lazy river

The Players Club and Spa does not have a lazy river. The claim gets repeated across the market often enough that it deserves a flat correction rather than a polite silence.

The 2026 amenities document lists three pools plus a whirlpool spa, a sand area and an expansive pool deck. No lazy river appears in that document, or on the club's Lifestyle, Dining, Fitness and Spa, or Court Sports pages. This is a verified absence, not a gap in the research. If a lazy river is on your must-have list, tour the pool deck before you write an offer. That is no knock on the aquatics program: three distinct pools with genuinely different purposes beats what most communities offer.

Complete amenity inventory

The club describes itself as a 15 acre tropical retreat at 8060 Grand Lely Drive, Naples, Florida 34113, phone 239-774-6354. The full published inventory:

Pools and water: Expansive Pool Deck; Family Pool with swim-under waterfall, toddler features and tiki huts; Lagoon Pool with waterfall; Lap and Fitness Pool; Whirlpool Spa; Sand Area with tiki huts; pool bathrooms with showers and day lockers.

Dining: Elegant Club Dining Room; Casual Social Grill Room; Courtside Marketplace at Tennis; Tiki Bar and Grill poolside; Pergola and Verandah dining; outdoor fireplace and lounge; private dining and meeting room.

Fitness: 6,000 square foot Fitness Center; 3,000 square feet of fitness classrooms; group classes; personal training; on-site physical therapist; day lockers with steam room.

Spa: beauty treatments; facials and skin care; manicures and pedicures; massage; retail products.

Court sports: 13 Har-Tru courts including a stadium court with seating pavilion; 4 pickleball courts; 4 bocce courts; clinics, league and match play; Court Sports Pro Shop.

Additional: Billiards Room; Computer Center; Players Room for gaming and theater; dog park with small and large fenced areas off Wildflower Way; off season reciprocal club privileges; programming including concerts, day trips, seminars, theme parties and social clubs.

The racquet spec is what I put in front of a tennis family first: 13 Har-Tru courts with a stadium court, plus 4 pickleball and 4 bocce. Against The Classics Country Club's separate 2 Har-Tru and 2 pickleball courts, that is two independent racquet programs at two clubs in one community.

Several things are absent because they are not published: no restaurant brand names for the Players Club dining rooms (Club Fore belongs to the golf clubhouse), no spa treatment room count, no operating hours, and no cap or waiting list either way. The club also calls itself 15 acres today while Stock Development's archived marketing called it a nine acre non-golf amenities complex, so the campus expanded at some point, and no source documents when.

Which neighborhoods are mandatory and which are optional

The club publishes 23 neighborhoods carrying the amenities covenant, where membership is required, and 23 without it, where membership is optional. The hinge is the February 10, 2003 date. Neighborhoods that sold homesites on both sides of that date can contain some addresses inside the covenant and some outside it. Neighborhoods chartered entirely after 2003, such as Lakoya, have no exempt subset.

Six neighborhoods appear in both columns: Chase Preserve, Classics, Masters Reserve, Mustang Island, Sunstone and Tiger Island Estates. The Master POA's own roster independently marks exactly those six as mixed. There the answer depends on the specific address, and no public source identifies which lots or phases fall on which side. The club's list is also internally inconsistent around Hidden Sanctuary at Tiger Island, asterisked in the optional column only.

Golf frontage does not imply obligation. Flamingo Fairways, Indian Wells Golf Villas, Mustang Villas and Greenlinks all sit in the optional column. A fairway view tells you nothing about whether you owe Players Club dues.

Verify by address, in writing, before you go under contract. The Players Club membership office is the authority and also the estoppel office. When McGreevy and Comisar write an offer in one of the six mixed neighborhoods, we confirm covenant status with the club in writing during the inspection period, every time.

Who Governs Lely Resort: The Master POA, the District, and Who to Send an Estoppel To

Lely Resort is governed in layers. The Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association, Inc. sits over the whole community and is managed by RealManage, not Cardinal Management. Each neighborhood runs its own association on top of that, and The Players Club and Spa issues its own separate estoppel. A covenant property closing therefore involves three separate estoppel requests.

The Master POA and its manager of record

The association is Florida corporation document N36991. Its state filings, retrieved July 31, 2026, list the principal address as c/o RealManage, 24311 Walden, Bonita Springs, FL 34134, changed May 4, 2025, and the mailing address as c/o RealManage, PO Box 803555, Dallas, TX 75380, changed April 24, 2025. A Collier County Clerk Property Information Report dated May 20, 2026 independently lists the association at the same RealManage Dallas address.

Older records, including association board minutes, show Cardinal Management Group of Florida in Naples as the manager. Both records are genuine. The most defensible reading is that management moved from Cardinal to RealManage in or around April and May 2025, and that anything still pointing to Cardinal is out of date. Sending a master association estoppel request to a Naples office when the actual manager sits in Bonita Springs and Dallas loses days on a closing calendar. Confirm the current manager at contract time.

The 2026 Master POA assessment is $29.85 per quarter, a master level line only, separate from your neighborhood association and from the Players Club.

Three estoppels on a covenant property

1. Your neighborhood association, through its own management company.
2. The Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association, currently through RealManage.
3. The Players Club and Spa, whose published instruction to closing offices is to send estoppel requests to the club's membership email address.

Item three is the one that gets missed, because a title company new to this market has no reason to expect an amenities club to issue its own estoppel. It does. Order all three on the day the contract goes effective.

The service area question I am not going to answer

A 2005 Comprehensive Service Agreement is recorded against property in Lely Resort. I am not publishing what it covers, which parcels it binds or what it assesses, because the recorded instrument has not been read in full. If a service area assessment appears on a property you are considering, pull the recorded document from Collier County official records and read it with your closing attorney.

Other entities of record

• Golf Enterprises of Kansas, Inc., also known as Golf Enterprises, Inc., Florida document F95000002168, filed May 3, 1995, home state Kansas, status active, at 700 Canal Street, 3rd Floor, Stamford, CT 06902.
• Golf Entertainment Group Inc., ticker GLFE, at the same Stamford address, named Drive Shack Inc. until a December 8, 2025 rebrand, so any source naming Drive Shack is superseded.
• Lely Resort Golf & Country Club, Inc., Sunbiz document K94942, status inactive. A historic entity, not the live operation.
• Greenlinks Condominium Association, Inc., managed through Cambridge Management at 2335 Tamiami Trail, Suite 402.

One recorded fact matters if you are looking at Greenlinks. A Collier County Clerk report shows Golf Enterprises Inc., c/o General Manager, 7989 Grand Lely Dr, holding a recorded lien at OR Book 6481, Page 1853 against an individual Greenlinks condominium unit, alongside the association's own lien at Book 6546, Page 1951. That obligation is separate from association assessments and from the Players Club, which Greenlinks does not require. Its nature and amount are not established in any public record I can cite. Have your attorney pull the lien instrument before you go hard on a deposit. Fee title to the golf course land is likewise not established anywhere obtainable, so I publish no owner of the golf land and no start date for American Golf's involvement.

Shopping, Dining and the Commercial Core of Lely Resort

Lely Resort was entitled for 820,000 square feet of retail and office space on 84 acres, plus a 46.5 acre cultural center site and a 44.0 acre community college site. As of the most recent public monitoring record, roughly 396,377 square feet had been developed, leaving approximately 423,623 square feet entitled but unbuilt. The built portion anchors daily life here.

That is an unusual profile for a Naples golf community. Most are residential islands where every errand is a drive. Lely Resort has a grocery anchored center, a restaurant row, two more retail plazas, a hotel, a state college campus, a county library and an elementary school inside the PUD.

Entitlement versus what is actually built

The spine document is the 2017 DRI and PUD monitoring form, submitted by Stock Development, LLC.

Within the cultural center site, 157,294 square feet was constructed. Within the community college site, 193,000 square feet. Resort Center commercial constructed to date reads "N/A."

The unbuilt commercial figure is approximately 423,623 square feet: 820,000 entitled less 396,377 developed. One point other write-ups get wrong. C-1 shows 119,623 square feet of unused headroom against its maximum, but C-1 is built out against what was proposed. That headroom sits against a cap, is not unbuilt entitled square footage, and adding it double counts. The number is approximately 423,623 square feet.

Two caveats. The 2017 form is the newest monitoring report obtainable and is demonstrably incomplete, since Hobby Lobby and Outback Steakhouse appear nowhere in it. And one entitlement has since been extinguished: Tract 12's 60,000 square feet of C-3 was rezoned to residential. Gulfshore Business reported on September 12, 2025 that a 184 unit multifamily community totaling 243,292 square feet is going up on the 9.14 acre parcel at 7665 Collier Blvd., formerly Tract 12 and Celeste North, sold by Stock to Davis Development for $6.95 million in 2022, targeted for July 1, 2027. That reads unbuilt C-3 down toward 41,000 square feet, though confirm against a current county report first.

The Resort Center: entitled, and unbuilt

The 315,000 square foot Resort Center on Tract 10, along with 150 remaining transient lodging rooms, is entitled but, as of the most recent public record obtainable, unbuilt. Between 2018 and July 2026 there is no news item, county filing or developer statement moving it in either direction. That phrasing is deliberate. It is not abandoned, and it is not planned or coming, because nothing says either. A records request to Collier County Zoning Services at 2800 Horseshoe Drive North gets a current answer rather than a rumor.

Freedom Square

Freedom Square at 12663 Tamiami Trail East is the largest retail center inside the PUD, in the C-1 tract, owned by Brixmor Property Group, which lists it at 193,242 square feet. The county's 2017 record puts C-1 retail at a different figure, and the two have never been reconciled publicly.

The anchor is Publix at 56,077 square feet, with Burlington at 35,000, HomeGoods at 29,446 and Planet Fitness at 20,000, plus Bora Mediterranean Cuisine, Eyeglass World, The Vitamin Shoppe, Publix Liquor, Pizza Hut and a run of smaller service tenants. Non-owned outparcels include McDonald's, Regions Bank, Carrabba's and Burger King. Vendor figures put the center at roughly 2.8 million estimated annual visits, third most visited neighborhood center in the market per Placer.ai 2025 data.

Restaurant Row, Triangle Plaza and Stock Plaza

Restaurant Row Naples is a seven acre development on Collier Boulevard near US 41 East by Barron Real Estate with Amera Corp. Identified operators include Texas Roadhouse at 6815 Collier Blvd., Chipotle at 6821, Starbucks at 6839, Miller's Ale House, Jersey Mike's Subs and TD Bank. Pollo Tropical has closed; its drive-thru building of more than 3,700 square feet, the Row's first restaurant in October 2016, becomes a Shake Shack at 6833 Collier Blvd., targeted for late 2026. Pei Wei is also closed.

Triangle Plaza, on nine acres, holds Hobby Lobby at 9955 Triangle Blvd., Outback Steakhouse at 9975 Triangle Boulevard and a Chase Bank branch.

Stock Plaza at 7735 Collier Boulevard, at the Grand Lely Drive entrance, is the newest significant retail inside Lely Resort. SRS Real Estate Partners announced its $26.5 million sale on September 25, 2019: 65,297 square feet across five buildings on 8.8 acres, built in 2017 and 2018, 98 percent occupied by 13 tenants. That roster is 2019 vintage, a snapshot rather than a directory. It named Sherwin Williams, Five Guys, AT&T and Tropical Smoothie Cafe among others, plus a medical tenant listed under the old NCH Healthcare brand. Two cautions: the roster is seven years old, and the health system has since rebranded to Naples Comprehensive Health, so any "NCH Healthcare System" phrasing is stale. Verify the tenancy and the current name before relying on a medical office at that address.

Hotels and institutions

Big box retail inside the PUD is limited to Hobby Lobby and Pet Supermarket. ALDI, The Fresh Market, Walmart, Lowe's, CVS and Walgreens are outside the boundary, a short drive rather than a walk.

Staybridge Suites Naples (Marco Island), an IHG property at 9401 Triangle Blvd. managed by Naples Hotel Group, describes itself as located at the entrance to Lely Resort Golf. Naples Daily News reported on October 15, 2018 that the project would bring more than 100 rooms and a parking garage on a 13,540 square foot footprint on 2.36 acres, developed by Stacey Development. The exact room count is not established.

GreenLinks Golf Villas at Lely Resort at 7995 Mahogany Run Ln is the other lodging. VISIT FLORIDA describes it as the hotel at Lely Resort, with nightly and weekly rentals of 200 two and three bedroom villas, tennis courts, a heated pool, a pro shop, Sam Snead's Oak Grill & Tavern on site and spa access at the Players Club. The 200 unit figure matches the county report exactly. Brand affiliation is unresolved and the rental operation is fragmented across managers, so verify the rental program before you underwrite anything.

Florida SouthWestern State College, Collier Campus at 7505 Grand Lely Dr opened in 1992 and serves around 1,800 students, on what the college calls 80 scenic acres in Lely Resort. The 46.5 acre cultural center site holds the South Regional Library at 8065 Lely Cultural Parkway and Lely Elementary School at 8125 Lely Cultural Parkway. Lely High School and Parkside Elementary sit west of US 41, outside the PUD, whatever their names suggest. Physicians Regional Medical Center on Collier Boulevard is just across Collier Boulevard from Lely Resort, not inside it: 212,400 square feet, 130 beds, plus a 94,000 square foot medical office building, at 8300 Collier Blvd., Naples, FL 34114, completed in 2007.

The Lely Resort PUD: What Is Actually Entitled, and What Is Actually Left

Lely Resort is a 2,892.50-acre planned unit development in unincorporated Collier County, first approved in 1985 and re-adopted by Ordinance 92-15 in March 1992. Collier County's PUD Master List of 11 June 2026 shows Lely Resort entitled to 8,946 total residential units. A 2017 developer monitoring filing shows 9,150. Both figures are published here.

Two published caps, and why they differ

This is the single most misquoted number about the community, so here is the whole picture rather than a convenient half of it.

Two of the three sources say 8,946, including the ordinance text on the very document that elsewhere says 9,150. There is a 204-unit gap between them and nothing in the open public record explains it. The instrument that cut the original 10,150 down to 9,150 has never been identified, and the text of Ordinance 15-39 of 7 July 2015, the current operative PUD ordinance, has not been located.

One check settles it as far as it can be settled. The county's master list states a GROSS DENSITY of 3.10 against TOTAL SIZE ACRES of 2,892.50, and other rows on that page prove Collier calculates density as units divided by acres. Run it both ways: 8,946 divided by 2,892.50 gives 3.0928, which is 0.007 off the stated 3.10. The 9,150 reading gives 3.1634, which is 0.063 off, roughly nine times worse. Neither reproduces 3.10 exactly, but as between the two candidates it points hard at 8,946.

Our position: when a single number is required, use 8,946, because it is the county's live figure, it appears in two county editions, it is the number in the ordinance text, and the density check favors it. Otherwise publish both and say why they differ.

The entitlement chain

One open item deserves a flag rather than a quiet omission. Collier County commissioners took up petition PL20210001795, LELY RESORT PUD, on 13 September 2022 as Item 9A with a 43-page backup packet. That packet is an image-only scan with no text layer, so what it changed is unknown. Two things suggest it did not change the governing ordinance: the June 2026 master list still shows 15-39 as current, and a search for a Lely Resort ordinance numbered 2022 returned nothing.

The land budget

The county's June 2026 master list row breaks the acreage down, and this is the structural reason the community reads as green rather than dense.

Roughly 31 percent of Lely Resort is conservation land or golf course, and that comes from the county, not a brochure. The South Florida Water Management District corroborates the golf figure independently, listing "Lely Resort Golf and Country Club (54 holes)" in its 2017 Lower West Coast Water Supply Plan appendices.

What is actually left: read this part carefully

There are three different "remaining" numbers in circulation, and mixing any two of them produces a wrong answer. Here they are separated.

The 5,628 figure is worth trusting because it reconciles two ways across nine years and two independent documents. Roll the 2017 schedule forward: 5,073 built plus the 373 still unbuilt inside named projects equals 5,446 planned, plus Adonia's 184 units equals 5,630. The county's June 2026 row totals 5,628. Two routes, two documents, a 2-unit difference.

Now the part that matters to a buyer, stated plainly: approximately 3,318 units of unassigned entitlement is not land for 3,318 more homes in Lely Resort. It is unused paper capacity in a 1992 zoning document. Of the 2,892.50 acres, 400.50 are conservation, 495.00 are golf and 133.00 are commercial, and the residential tracts are essentially built out. Inside its named neighborhoods, Lely Resort is finished. Olé, Lakoya, the Classics, Mustang Island, Masters Reserve, Prestwick Place, Tiger Island Estates, Alden Woods and the rest are complete. No county document assigns that residual to any tract. The only residential construction inside the PUD today is Adonia, 184 rental units on 9.14 acres.

Two caveats. Whether Adonia's 184 units drew down the 8,946 or were added on top of it is unresolved: the total held at 8,946 across both master list editions while the planned columns rose by 186, consistent with a drawdown, but no confirming ordinance has been located. And the county attaches its own health warning to these columns: "Some of the information placed in the above columns are entered from Annual Monitoring Reports and may or may not be completely accurate and subject to change."

Commercial entitlement, and the block nobody has built

Collier County's June 2026 master list shows 820,000 square feet of commercial entitled in Lely Resort and 396,377 square feet developed. That leaves approximately 423,623 square feet of commercial entitlement that has never been built. The 820,000 figure matches the PUD's own language: "820,000 square feet of retail/office space on 84 acres. A 46.5 acre cultural center site. A 44.0 acre Community College site."

A bottom-up check from the 2017 tract table brackets the same answer between roughly 406,500 and 447,500 square feet, so 423,623 sits comfortably inside it. We deliberately do not add C-1's 119,623 square feet of unused cap headroom, because that is cap never proposed for use, and folding it in would inflate the number by nearly thirty percent.

The Resort Center is the one to watch. The PUD language reads: "The Resort Center tract is intended to provide a mix of uses including 350 transient lodging rooms and 315,000 square feet of related commercial spaces." The 2017 monitoring form's answer box on Resort Center square footage constructed to date reads "N/A." A sweep of Gulfshore Business, Naples Press, naplesnews.com, collier.gov and the county's civic portal from 2018 through July 2026 found nothing in either direction. The county's current list shows 109 of the 350 lodging rooms recorded as developed. None of the 315,000 square feet has been built.

Those unbuilt C-2 parcels also carry a live developer commitment that answers who pays if that corner is ever developed: before site development plan approval on the C-2 parcel fronting US-41, the owner must post a $50,000 bond or letter of credit toward its fair share of Triangle Boulevard improvements including turn lanes, median modifications and a possible traffic circle.

On views, the practical ranking runs: golf frontage needs a PUD amendment to convert; conservation land needs a Growth Management Plan amendment plus a PUD amendment, both decided in public hearings; Master Association preserves are real and in writing, though no acreage or map is published; and lake frontage, common here, is not a no-build guarantee, because the lakes are engineered stormwater infrastructure. Nothing supports calling any specific view permanent without the lot's plat, the tract's PUD master plan sheet and any recorded easement. We pull those before you write an offer.

The Lely Community Development District, and Why No Bond Debt Matters to Your Monthly Number

The Lely Community Development District carries no bond debt. Its FY2024 audited financial statements say it directly: "There was no debt as of September 30, 2024 since bonds have been paid in full in prior years." The FY2026 assessment of $997 per unit in Lely Resort is operations and maintenance only, up 13.4 percent from $879.

That is the most important financial sentence on this page, so let us unpack what it actually buys you.

What a CDD assessment normally looks like, and why this one is different

Most Collier County master-planned communities of this vintage funded their roads, drainage, water management and entry infrastructure with tax-exempt bonds issued by a community development district. The homeowner then pays two things on the tax bill: a debt service assessment retiring those bonds over twenty or thirty years, and an operations and maintenance assessment that keeps the place running. The debt portion is the one that stings. It can run into four figures per door per year, it is not optional, and it continues until the bonds mature or the owner pays off the remaining principal in a lump sum.

Lely Resort's district is past that. Every dollar of the $997 goes to running the community, not to retiring a thirty-year-old construction loan. Against a comparable Collier community whose district still carries debt, that is a line-item difference in annual carrying cost and it is not small. Fiddler's Creek, one nearby comparison, carries two separate districts of approximately 1,389.77 and 998.79 acres. We are not publishing a Fiddler's Creek debt figure, because we have not pulled their budgets and we do not guess at numbers here. Ask any agent to show you the debt service line on every community you compare.

The district itself

The district delivers water management including contracted vegetation control in the water management system and wetland areas, street lighting, landscaping and tree trimming, and irrigation, which in its own words means "The District supplies irrigation water to the community through a well field, holding pond and pump station system which distributes the water through a network of delivery lines."

One caution on acreage. The district is not the whole PUD. Dorrill Management Group publishes 1,750 acres for the Lely CDD, the district's own homepage publishes 1,500, and neither figure is reconciled anywhere. The PUD is 2,892.50 acres per the county. The district covers roughly half to three-fifths of Lely Resort, consistent with the Classics and Lakoya sitting outside it and being served by contract.

The FY2026 budget, and where the 13.4 percent went

We checked the $997 four ways before publishing it. In-district assessments of $3,130,181 divided by 3,140 units gives $996.87. Service agreement revenue of $1,341,530 divided by 1,347 units gives $996.01. Combined, $4,471,711 divided by 4,487 units gives $996.59. The prior year, $2,760,345 divided by 3,140, gives $879.09, matching the stated $879. All four land on the published figure.

The increase of $118 per unit came from identifiable places, all in the adopted budget:

Two lines carry new retirement costs, $168,522 in field management and $33,530 in access control, totaling $202,052 of new recurring annual expense. A third-party district board packet records "Lely Community Development District, FRS, 14%, 3% Started in 2025," which read alongside the budget suggests the district entered the Florida Retirement System in 2025. We flag that as a reasonable reading rather than a confirmed fact.

What this means for your total carrying cost

A Lely Resort buyer pays the $997 whether the home sits inside the district boundary or is served under the Comprehensive Service Agreement, because the two rates were made identical effective 1 January 2017. Which side of the line an address falls on changes the billing mechanism, not the amount.

Separately, the Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association charges $29.85 per quarter, which is $119.40 per year, and coordinates across 48 sub-associations covering 5,278 doors. That master fee is roughly one eighth of the district assessment, so any page quoting the $119.40 without the $997 is telling you an eighth of the story. Your own neighborhood or condominium association fee sits on top of both and varies enormously, from modest single-family dues to condominium budgets that bundle exterior insurance, roofs and cable.

One distinction people get wrong constantly: fire protection and law enforcement in Lely Resort are paid through property tax millage, not through the district assessment. What the assessment buys on the security side is gate and access control, budgeted at $344,718 for FY2026, plus community privacy patrol and off-duty law enforcement patrol under the service agreement. Those are additional to the Greater Naples Fire Rescue District and the Sheriff's Office, not instead of them.

Property Taxes and the Real Carrying Cost of a Lely Resort Home

A Lely Resort tax bill is assembled from several separate taxing authorities plus the district assessment, and no single published millage rate covers the community. Lely Resort sits in unincorporated Collier County, so it pays the Unincorporated Area General Fund levy of 0.6844 mills on top of the county general fund, and it pays Greater Naples Fire Rescue District millage.

What we can publish, and what we will not

Here is the discipline we apply. We publish rates read from the adopting body's own document. We do not assemble them into a single "Lely Resort millage rate," because a full Lely-Resort-specific TRIM stack including the school board and water management lines was not obtained, and adding up a partial list would produce a number that looks authoritative and is incomplete. If you want your exact stack, we pull the TRIM notice for the specific address.

To make the fire district line concrete: 2.0 mills applied to a $700,000 taxable value is $1,400 per year. That is arithmetic on a published rate, not a prediction of any particular bill, and taxable value is not purchase price once homestead exemption and Save Our Homes caps are in play. For context, the Collier County Clerk records that "The Board then reduced the General Fund millage rates in FY 2024 and FY 2025 to the rolled-back rates to provide tax relief to the public."

Putting the pieces together

That irrigation line is underappreciated. In many communities irrigation water is metered potable water on the utility bill. In Lely Resort the district produces and distributes it, and the cost sits inside the $997. It is also the largest single driver of the FY2026 increase, with effluent water charges alone rising from $350,000 to $500,000.

One transparency note. The Collier County Property Appraiser runs its parcel search behind a session-based interface that did not yield a bulk listing, so we have published no assessed-value ranges or homestead-exemption rates by neighborhood, and we have not estimated them. That is a query we run by hand, one subdivision at a time. Ask and we will run it.

Flood Zones, FEMA Maps and Insurance in Lely Resort

Lely Resort spans more than one FEMA flood designation. Of seventeen points tested across the community, six fall in FEMA Zone AE, the balance in lower-risk zones, and there is no VE zone anywhere in Lely Resort. Collier County holds a Community Rating System Class 5 rating, which the county states equates to a 25 percent flood insurance discount.

The honest version

Anyone claiming this community sits outside the flood zones entirely is either careless or selling. Lely Resort covers 2,892.50 acres in coastal Southwest Florida and flood designation varies parcel by parcel. Six of the seventeen points we tested returned Zone AE, a Special Flood Hazard Area carrying a mandatory purchase requirement for federally backed mortgages.

What is true, and genuinely useful, is the absence at the top of the scale. There is no VE zone anywhere in Lely Resort. VE is the coastal high hazard velocity zone subject to wave action, and it drives the most punishing construction requirements and the highest premiums in Collier County. Lely Resort sits inland of it. That is a structural fact about the community you can rely on.

The Community Rating System discount

Collier County's Floodplain Management FAQ states it directly: "Unincorporated Collier County voluntarily participates in the CRS program and has achieved a Class 5 rating, which equates to a 25% discount on regular flood" insurance premiums. The county's Floodplain Management page separately records FEMA presenting the Board of County Commissioners a plaque recognizing unincorporated Collier County as a CRS Class 5 community. Lely Resort is in unincorporated Collier County, inside the jurisdiction that holds the rating.

FEMA's scale runs from Class 10, a community not participating and receiving no discount, down to Class 1 at 45 percent. Class 5 is a strong position and it is not automatic; it is earned through floodplain management work the county chooses to do.

One caveat we insist on stating, because it protects you rather than us: the CRS schedule is not a flat 25 percent for every property. Properties outside Special Flood Hazard Areas typically receive a smaller flat discount rather than the full class-based percentage. We will not tell you every Lely Resort owner saves 25 percent, because the percentage applied to an X-zone property has to be read off FEMA's CRS Discount Guide case by case. Your insurance agent can confirm the applied discount on a specific quote in about two minutes.

The map revision that is coming

Collier County's Floodplain Management page carries a section headed "Collier County 2026 FUTURE Physical Map Revision (PMR) Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map (DFIRM)" alongside a 2026 Flood Protection Newsletter. The scope and effective date have not been published in a form we could retrieve. Flood zone designations in the 34113 ZIP code may change. If you are buying in Lely Resort in 2026 or 2027, check the address against FEMA's Map Service Center before you commit rather than assuming today's designation is permanent.

What we have not established, said out loud

We have not published FIRM panel numbers for the Lely Resort footprint, letters of map revision, or a zone-by-zone map of individual neighborhoods. Collier panels carry the 12021C prefix and the authoritative lookup is by address at FEMA's Map Service Center. For any specific home we run that lookup, pull the elevation certificate if one exists, and get you a quote before the inspection period closes. Flood designation is a per-parcel question and it deserves a per-parcel answer.

One drainage point worth knowing. Lely Resort sits in the Rookery Bay watershed. Collier County's Rookery Bay estuary program names the community directly in project 5.0, "Lely Resort West Outfall / Price Street Weir / Tower Road Weir," identifies the Price Street weir as the primary structure controlling water leaving Lely Resort, and notes it "may not be functioning properly." That project's status is Conceptual and the compilation it appears in is at least a decade old. It is a county-identified aging structure downstream of the community with no funded replacement.

What Is Being Built Next In and Around Lely Resort

Lely Resort has one residential project under construction inside its boundaries: Adonia, 184 rental units on 9.14 acres at 7665 Collier Boulevard, targeted for completion in 2027. The larger changes are just outside: a Costco approved on 14 October 2025 roughly a mile north, and an unresolved 169-acre proposal on Sabal Palm Road.

Adonia, the only new housing inside the PUD

Two clarifications, because both come up. This project has had three names, Lely Resort Tract 12, then Celeste North at Lely Resort, then Adonia. It is one project, not three, and anyone counting Celeste North and Adonia separately is double-counting 184 units. And the townhomes are rentals. The project manager was explicit in May 2026: "The townhomes will be rentable. They won't be for sale."

Beyond Adonia the record is a clean negative. No 2025 or 2026 rezone, PUD amendment or Growth Management Plan amendment for the Lely Resort PUD surfaced in the county's civic portal, Clerk records or planning documents. Adonia is proceeding under existing entitlements through construction plan and site development plan review, not a rezone.

Costco at Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock

This is the biggest coming change to daily life around Lely Resort, and it deserves both halves of an honest description: a real amenity gain a mile up the community's own road, and simultaneously the largest new traffic generator on the corridor.

The approval covered two actions: a waiver of the Land Development Code's 500-foot fuel pump separation requirement, and an insubstantial change to the Hacienda Lakes MPUD, Ordinance 11-41 as amended, addressing glazing, facade massing, light fixture heights, loading zones, landscaping and signage. Any expansion beyond 12 pumps must return to the Board.

In late November 2025 the organized opposition group settled with Costco: enhanced pedestrian safety signage, additional landscaping, retention of the Hacienda Lakes brick sign and native vegetation, and a $35,000 donation to the Esplanade community. On 3 March 2026 county officials said Costco hoped to start construction that month with roughly a 100-day build, and that "Collier folks are anticipating a ribbon cutting happening by early fall if all the pieces come together."

No confirmed opening date has been published, and early fall 2026 was a target, not a date. Local press caution is worth repeating: "Folks who have been around a while undoubtedly will remain skeptical until Costco opens," citing failed BJ's, Sam's Club and Target sites on the same corridor. We will update this page when a ribbon cutting is announced.

South Naples Citrus Grove: what it is now, and what it is not

This is the fastest-changing item on this page and the one most often described wrongly. The property is 169 acres at 341 Sabal Palm Road, roughly 1.4 miles east of Collier Boulevard, near Verona Walk and Tamarindo. It was a citrus grove operated since 1979 by the Smits and Jacobs families, killed by citrus greening. The applicant is SWJR Naples I LLC, led by Naples developer Jon Rubinton.

Three things follow, and all three matter to a buyer.

There is no approved residential entitlement on this land. Anyone telling you "423 homes are coming near Lely Resort" is repeating a proposal that was postponed in January 2026 and has since been set aside in favor of something else entirely.

A golf course is not approved either. The golf club proposal requires a Growth Management Plan amendment creating a new Sabal Palm Road subdistrict, and it has not been heard.

Three outcomes remain genuinely live: the golf club rezone, a Conservation Collier purchase for preservation, or a revived residential petition. We are not publishing a specific hearing date, because there is not one. Collier County canceled the 6 August 2026 Planning Commission meeting, which we checked against the county's own agenda portal on 1 August 2026, and no replacement date for this item has been advertised. The next Planning Commission dates on the calendar are 20 August and 3 September 2026, neither with a posted agenda. We will update this page when a hearing is actually noticed.

Context on the opposition, since it shapes the odds: a change.org petition reached 3,039 signatures by June 2026, Audubon of the Western Everglades and the Conservancy of Southwest Florida mobilized, and Verona Walk residents are the organized core. Access would be off Collier Boulevard via Sabal Palm Road, and no developer has proposed upgrading Sabal Palm Road.

Everything else within roughly two miles

Two verified negatives that are as useful as the positives. No new school, expansion or approved school site exists within roughly two miles of Lely Resort in any dated source. The school district's five-year capital budget through FY2029-30 contains exactly two new school line items countywide, both in eastern Collier, against $329,354,525 of capital maintenance and renovations. And zero new park land acquisition is programmed anywhere in Collier County through FY2030, with community parks at 1,136.83 acres against 582.65 required by 2030 and regional parks at 2,686.77 against 1,442.62 required. The county is well ahead of its own standards on both, which is why nothing is programmed.

On healthcare: Physicians Regional Collier Boulevard, at 8300 Collier Boulevard, is a 212,400-square-foot, 130-bed acute care facility with a 94,000-square-foot medical office building, opened 5 February 2007. It is adjacent to Lely Resort, not inside it. NCH has an outpatient presence at Stock Plaza inside the PUD. No new healthcare capacity is announced within two miles.

Getting Around: Roads, Access and the Collier Boulevard Corridor

Lely Resort fronts Collier Boulevard (County Road 951) on its east boundary and Tamiami Trail East (US-41) on its southwest boundary, with its main entrance at Grand Lely Drive. Collier County's 2025 annual inventory report gives the Collier Boulevard segment serving the community a level of service D at 83.8 percent of capacity, with 517 trips of headroom remaining.

The numbers, from the county's own inventory

These come from Collier County's 2025 Annual Update and Inventory Report, presented to the Board of County Commissioners on 27 January 2026.

Collier Boulevard

US-41 East (Tamiami Trail East)

How to read that

The segments directly in front of Lely Resort are among the least congested in the corridor. Collier Boulevard from Rattlesnake Hammock to US-41 runs at level of service D with real headroom, and the US-41 segments beside the community, at 68.1 percent and 53.7 percent, are level of service C, the best readings on the entire corridor.

The chokepoints sit on either side. Immediately north, Davis Boulevard to Rattlesnake Hammock is already failing at 107.8 percent, and the county's note reads: "Continue to Monitor; In FY2032, anticipate pursuing a study of the Wilson Benfield Corridor Alignment which is a parallel facility." Immediately south of US-41, Wal-Mart driveway to Manatee Road is failing at 122.0 percent, with the note "6-lane Improvement by FDOT was funded for ROW FY2021, CST not funded." Right of way funded, construction not. On US-41 the tightest link is Airport Road to Rattlesnake Hammock at 99.3 percent, expected deficient in 2026, and that is the segment a Lely Resort resident uses to reach downtown Naples.

Collier Boulevard is already six-laned in front of the community, which matters because the widening headaches are elsewhere. The county's transportation engineering projects page, retrieved 31 July 2026, lists 16 active projects and none on Collier Boulevard south of Davis Boulevard. FDOT's Collier list carries none between Davis Boulevard and US-41.

The policy fact that matters most

The county expanded its Transportation Concurrency Exception Area in 2023 to include several segments of US-41 from Rattlesnake Hammock Road south to Collier Boulevard. The county's own language explains why: the area "was expanded to encourage development, or infill redevelopment in existing urban areas, rather than expanding into new rural locations," and "Development located within the boundaries of the TCEA area is exempt from transportation concurrency requirements so long as impacts to the transportation system are mitigated using Transportation Demand Management strategies enumerated in the LDC."

Plainly: on the US-41 segments beside Lely Resort, a failing level of service does not block development approvals. That is the single most useful thing to understand about this corridor's future, and it explains the pattern along US-41 East, where large volumes of workforce and affordable rental housing are being approved at 20 to 40 percent set-asides.

Active and planned road work

Two verified negatives on the long horizon. The Collier MPO's Transportation Improvement Program for FY2027 to FY2031, approved 12 June 2026, contains no funded project on Collier Boulevard south of Rattlesnake Hammock or on US-41 East near Collier Boulevard. The 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan contains no cost-feasible project on Collier Boulevard between Rattlesnake Hammock and US-41. That segment is not scheduled for construction because it is not currently failing.

What is actually at the corner

The four corners at Rattlesnake Hammock and Collier Boulevard hold Publix at Naples Lakes to the northwest, a 7-Eleven to the northeast, a RaceTrac to the southwest and the approved Costco to the southeast, with Physicians Regional immediately south of the Costco parcel. North of Rattlesnake Hammock, FL Star Development is building the 2,200-home Hacienda Lakes development, the 265-unit Hammock Park Apartments and the nearly 20,000-square-foot Hammock Park retail center at 8590 Collier Boulevard, anchored by First Watch.

Restaurant Row Naples fronts Collier Boulevard just north of US-41 with Texas Roadhouse at 6815, Chipotle at 6821, Starbucks at 6839, Miller's Ale House, Jersey Mike's, TD Bank and the Shake Shack coming at 6833. Inside the PUD footprint sit the 30,000-square-foot South Regional Library at 8065 Lely Cultural Parkway, where foot traffic rose roughly 22 percent from 100,248 visits in 2020 to 122,363 in 2024 with no expansion programmed, and the Collier County Emergency Services Center at 8075 Lely Cultural Parkway. Fire coverage comes from Greater Naples Fire Rescue District, whose Station 23 at 6055 Collier Boulevard and Station 21 at 11121 Tamiami Trail East are the two nearest, though we do not publish which is first due to any given address because no first-due map has been obtained. Law enforcement is the Collier County Sheriff's Office East Naples Substation, 239-252-9443.

Lely Resort Is Not Lely Golf Estates: Clearing Up the Name Confusion

Lely Resort and Lely Golf Estates are two different communities that do not share a boundary. Lely Golf Estates, part of the Lely Country Club development, sits west of Lely Resort on the far side of Naples Manor, was built out in 1998, and covers 445.68 acres. Lely Resort covers 2,892.50 acres and is still an active development.

If you searched one name and landed here, you are in the right place to sort out which one you actually want.

The county's own records, side by side

Collier County's PUD Master List carries these as two separate Developments of Regional Impact, approved eight years apart, in different sections of the township grid.

Two Developments of Regional Impact, approved eight years apart, in different sections, one finished in 1998 and one still active. They share a surname and nothing else.

Why they are not adjacent

Sections 19, 20 and 21 sit west of Lely Resort's block, with Naples Manor and the Lely census designated place in between. Census coordinates put Lely at 26.10306, -81.72972 and Lely Resort at 26.08889, -81.70306, roughly a mile and a half apart, with Naples Manor at 26.08917, -81.72528 between them. The correct description is near, not abutting.

Where the name came from

The shared name traces to one man and one land assembly. In 1972 Cornelius van der Lely purchased over 25,000 acres bounded by Rattlesnake Hammock Road, US-41 (Tamiami Trail East) and Route 951 (Collier Boulevard), and the first golf course built on that tract was Hibiscus. He was a farm machinery industrialist, not a bulb grower: Cornelis and Arij van der Lely founded the Lely company in 1948 in Maassluis, Netherlands, patenting the Lely Acrobat finger-wheel rake on 2 June 1948. One man, one 1972 assembly, two unrelated communities built decades apart, both keeping his name.

The cost structure is different too, and this is the part buyers care about

A Lely Golf Estates owner pays an extra 2.0 mills of county tax for roadway landscaping, which scales with assessed value. A Lely Resort owner pays a flat $997 district assessment with no bond debt behind it. Those are structurally different charges, and quoting one at a buyer looking at the other is a real and common error.

The other Lely traps

The name problem runs deeper than two communities. Collier County's PUD ordinance index carries at least six separate "Lely" entries that are not Lely Resort: Lely Barefoot Beach Condominium, Lely Lakes, Lely Lakes Golf Resort, Lely Palms of Naples, Lely Research and Development Park, Lely Square, and Naples R&D Park at Lely. There are also Lely Country Club, Lely Pines, Lely Pine Hurst Estates and Lely Tropical Estates. The only correct index entry for this community is LELY RESORT. Two of the others, Lely Research and Development Park and Lely Lakes, are now Wentworth Estates, which means a "Lely" search can deposit you in Treviso Bay, a different community across US-41 East.

A further wrinkle inside the older community: "Lely Golf Estates" and "Lely Country Club" are not the same association, and the MSTU district and the property owners association cover overlapping but distinct street sets. Palmetto Dunes Circle is a Lely Country Club street and the origin of the MLS designation "Palmetto Dunes at Lely Golf Estates." That association advertises annual fees "as low as $240." And one shared-venue confusion to head off: the Lely Golf Estates MSTU advisory committee meets at the South Regional Library, 8065 Lely Cultural Parkway, which is inside the Lely Resort PUD. A shared meeting room is not adjacency.

If you are not sure which community a listing is actually in, send us the address. Sorting that out takes about a minute and it has saved buyers from writing offers on the wrong side of Naples Manor.

Schools Serving Lely Resort

Lely Resort is zoned to three Collier County public schools at every address tested across the community: Lely Elementary School, graded A, Manatee Middle School, graded A, and Lely High School, graded B, under the district's 2026 Accountability Brief. Lely Resort is not affected by the 2026-27 boundary changes.

Note the ZIP codes. Manatee Middle is in 34114, south of the community, not Lely Resort's 34113. That is not an error: Lely High and Manatee Middle serve both Lely Resort and Marco Island, which is why the middle school sits where it does.

A point of geography other sites get wrong: Lely Elementary School and the Collier County South Regional Library both sit inside the Lely Resort PUD, on the cultural center tract along Lely Cultural Parkway. Lely High School does not. It is west of Tamiami Trail, outside the PUD. The accurate phrasing is that Lely Resort is zoned to Lely High School, not that Lely High is in Lely Resort.

One zone, not several

Plenty of large master-planned communities in Southwest Florida are split by an attendance boundary, so two neighbors across a street feed different schools. Lely Resort is not one of those. Ten sampled points spanning the community, from Mustang Island in the south to Aster in the north, returned the same three schools at all three levels, in both the 2025-26 dataset and the modified 2026-27 dataset published through the Collier County Public Schools zoning application.

The district attaches its own disclaimer to that tool: "The completeness or accuracy of the mapping is not guaranteed nor should the user assume the results as a guarantee of student placement at any school." Confirm your address before you write an offer around a school. The Department of Student Assignment is at (239) 377-0540, and [email protected] takes questions.

The 2026-27 boundary process does not touch Lely Resort

The district's Boundary Modification Proposal page lists the complete impacted set for changes taking effect in August 2026: Ave Maria Elementary, Corkscrew Middle, Estates Elementary, Immokalee High, Immokalee Middle, Naples Park Elementary, Palmetto Ridge High, Pelican Marsh Elementary and Pinecrest Elementary.

Lely Elementary, Manatee Middle and Lely High appear nowhere on that list. No South Naples school does. The driver is the opening of Ave Maria Elementary School in eastern Collier County, with knock-on adjustments at Estates Elementary and small changes in North Naples. The district's own 2026-27 zone dataset agrees independently: identical three schools at all ten Lely Resort points.

The process ran from a November 12, 2025 Board information item through a Board vote on December 10, 2025 and a Parental Choice Priority Window that closed February 22, 2026. The district also states that "All school attendance areas are evaluated on an annual basis." So: confirmed for 2025-26, confirmed unchanged for 2026-27, reviewed every year.

Rules a relocating family needs. Policy 5120.02 lets rising 11th and 12th graders stay at their existing schools after a rezone, with no district transportation; all other rezoned students attend the new school, and an approved parental choice survives a rezone through the terminal grade, 5th or 8th. Under the two-mile transportation rule, students within two miles on a non-hazardous walking route get no bus.

Grades in context

The grades above come from the Collier County Public Schools 2026 Accountability Brief, dated July 1, 2026, the board-published primary document for Florida school grades in this county.

Both halves of that table belong on the page. Lely Elementary and Manatee Middle have each held an A for two consecutive years. Lely High climbed from a C in 2022 to an A in 2025 and moved back to a B in 2026. The Naples Daily News reported it plainly: "Lely High School and Palmetto Ridge High School both went from an A to a B grade." Lely High is currently a B.

District-wide, Collier County Public Schools is one of only five Florida districts rated an A for the last nine consecutive years, and earned the sixth highest number of points possible out of 67 districts. Total points rose from 848 in SY25 to 872 in SY26, the graduation-rate component moved from 91 to 94, and 51 of 52 traditional schools earned an A or B. The Superintendent is Dr. Leslie C. Ricciardelli.

Charter, private and higher education

Charter schools carry no attendance zone, so they are an application rather than a zoning outcome. SY26 grades at nearer options: Innovation Preparatory Academy of Naples A, Naples Classical Academy A, Mason Classical Academy A, Marco Island Academy A, Marco Island Charter Middle A, Bridgeprep Academy Collier B, Gulf Coast Charter Academy South C. The closest campuses are Gulf Coast Charter Academy South, a K-8 at 215 Airport Pulling Road North, Naples 34104, and Marco Island Academy at 2255 San Marco Road, Marco Island 34145.

On the private side, Seacrest Country Day School is at 7100 Davis Boulevard, Naples 34104, and Community School of Naples is at 13275 Livingston Road, Naples 34109. Royal Palm Academy and St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic School are also in the market, and I will not publish drive times to private schools I have not routed. For higher education, Florida SouthWestern State College's Collier Campus sits at 7505 Grand Lely Drive, inside the Lely Resort PUD, 2.3 miles from the center of the community.

Healthcare Near Lely Resort

Lely Resort sits under three road miles from a full-service hospital. Physicians Regional Medical Center at Collier Boulevard, a 130-bed acute care facility with a 24-hour emergency room, is 2.9 miles and eight minutes away. Naples Comprehensive Health operates NCH Baker Hospital 8.2 miles north of Lely Resort.

Physicians Regional at Collier Boulevard

This is the hospital people here mean when they say "the hospital." It is at 8300 Collier Boulevard, Naples, FL 34114, immediately outside the community's northeast corner near Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock Road. Note the ZIP: 34114, not Lely Resort's 34113. It is just across Collier Boulevard from the community, not inside it. Anyone telling you there is a hospital "in Lely Resort" is shading the truth by one intersection.

The facility is Joint Commission accredited: a 212,400 square-foot, 130-bed acute care hospital with a 94,000 square-foot medical office building. Its Certificate of Need was granted in 2005, construction began September 8, 2005, and it began accepting patients February 5, 2007. The main number is (239) 354-6000. The system also runs Physicians Regional at Pine Ridge, Physicians Regional North, an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and outpatient practices branded Collier Boulevard and East Naples. For a household that wants an emergency room reachable in under ten minutes, this is the most consequential piece of infrastructure near the community.

Naples Comprehensive Health

The organization long known as NCH now presents as Naples Comprehensive Health. If a website still says "NCH Healthcare System," that site is out of date. It describes itself as an Advanced Community Healthcare System, locally governed and non-profit, running two hospitals, NCH Baker Hospital and NCH North Hospital, with more than 700 beds between them, five emergency rooms, and an alliance of over 750 physicians serving more than 40,000 patients a year.

The credentials: a Healthgrades America's Top 50 Hospitals designation, the top one percent nationally, and a Top 50 Hospital for Surgical Care designation, with cardiac care ranked top three in the state. It collaborates with the Hospital for Special Surgery in orthopedics, Nicklaus Children's Hospital in pediatrics and ProScan Imaging in radiology. Two regional distinctions: it is the region's only Joint Commission accredited Comprehensive Stroke Center and it operates the only pediatric emergency department in Collier County. Confirm which campus holds each service before you plan around it. NCH Baker Hospital, 350 7th Street North, is 8.2 miles from Lely Resort; NCH North Hospital, 11190 Health Park Boulevard, is 20.8 miles.

Outpatient care and what is coming

An NCH outpatient presence is recorded at Stock Plaza, 7735 Collier Boulevard, from a 2019 announcement, so confirm it is current. The Willough at Naples, an 87-bed psychiatric hospital, is at 9001 Tamiami Trail East, roughly 2.5 miles northwest on US 41.

On January 20, 2026, Naples Comprehensive Health and Nicklaus Children's Hospital announced the Van Domelen Institute for Women and Children and the Van Domelen Pavilion for Women and Children, funded by a gift from the Bill and Julia Van Domelen Foundation. The Pavilion is planned as a four-story, 156,000-square-foot center built above the existing emergency departments on the NCH North campus, with labor and delivery suites, maternal-fetal medicine, a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a rooftop helipad. The release calls it "an over $350 million investment in our community, with NCH and Nicklaus Children's partnering to raise 80 percent through philanthropy to break ground."

Two qualifiers. It is not funded to groundbreaking, so it is a plan and not a construction site. And it sits at NCH North, 20.8 miles from Lely Resort, so it is a county-level improvement rather than a neighborhood one. Naples Comprehensive Health delivers nearly 3,700 babies each year, and Paul Hiltz is its President and CEO.

Hurricanes at Lely Resort: What Actually Happened, and What the Maps Say

Lely Resort's hurricane exposure is a wind and power exposure rather than a storm surge exposure. The National Weather Service's Hurricane Ian survey drew the surge boundary at Tamiami Trail, and Lely Resort sits entirely north and east of that line. Flood zones inside Lely Resort are an address-level question.

The line the National Weather Service drew

The National Weather Service storm survey for the Coastal Collier County storm surge and tide event of September 28, 2022 opens: "Significant to major storm surge flooding covered almost all of Collier County south and west of Tamiami Trail from Everglades City to the Lee County line."

Tamiami Trail is the line, and Lely Resort lies north and east of it along the community's entire frontage. Checked longitude by longitude against the roadway centerline, the closest point of the community, Mustang Island in the south, sits roughly half a mile inland, and the northern neighborhoods sit two to three miles inland. The correct statement: Lely Resort sits entirely on the inland side of the line the National Weather Service drew, with roughly half a mile of margin at its closest corner and two to three miles at its farthest.

There is a second, quieter confirmation. The Ian survey names inland surge locations down to individual streets: Gordon River, Rock Creek, Palm River Estates, Naples Bay, Royal Harbor, Baker Park, Bayshore Drive, Goodland, Chokoloskee. Lely Resort is named in none of the three surveys, and every inland location that is named sits north or west of it.

That does not mean Lely Resort is safe from hurricanes, and no one should sell it that way. The community took the same countywide wind field and the same power outage as everywhere else in Collier County, and roughly a third of the sampled points inside it sit in a Federal Emergency Management Agency Special Flood Hazard Area for rainfall-driven and combined riverine flooding, a different hazard from surge. Anyone who tells you "Lely Resort is not in a flood zone" is wrong.

Hurricane Ian, September 28, 2022

Gusts of 100 to 110 mph were measured at 100 to 150 feet above ground level at the Naples Grande Resort, Kalea Bay and Naples Municipal Airport. The National Weather Service's assessment at ground level: "Peak near-surface wind gusts were likely in the 80-90 mph range. Wind damage was mainly confined to trees/fences/screens, with minor wind damage to vulnerable structures." The survey adds that "Lower wind speeds occurred farther south and east in the county," which is where Lely Resort sits.

That sentence about trees, fences and screens is the most useful line in the record for a community whose exposure was wind rather than water. In a Southwest Florida golf community, "screens" means pool cages and lanai screening, expensive to repair even when the house behind is untouched. No Lely Resort screen enclosure damage rate exists, so ask your association what it replaced.

Power peaked at 201,095 customers out countywide as of 3 PM on September 29, and Lely Resort was inside that footprint. Countywide damage totaled $2.2 billion, $1.7 billion residential and $492 million commercial, with 33 buildings destroyed and 3,515 sustaining major damage. By area: unincorporated Collier County $948 million, city of Naples $989 million, Marco Island $256 million, Everglades City $7.1 million.

Read that breakdown twice. The City of Naples, a small coastal municipality, took $989 million. All of unincorporated Collier County, vastly larger with far more housing, took $948 million. The damage concentrated at the water. There is no Lely Resort specific damage figure. Eight deaths in Collier County were attributed to the storm: three in Naples directly caused by storm surge drowning, and five from indirect causes.

Helene, September 26, 2024, and Milton, October 9, 2024

Helene passed offshore to the west. Coastal Collier saw sustained tropical-storm-force winds around 40 mph and a highest gust of 67 mph at Naples Municipal Airport. The survey: "Wind damage was primarily to trees, although some weaker structures suffered minor roof and lanai/porch damage." An estimated 25,000 customers lost electricity and countywide wind damage was logged at $20,000. Surge put 3 to 4 feet of water above ground in beachfront streets and into structures in Vanderbilt Beach and the Bayshore Drive corridor of East Naples. The survey notes: "Damage totals are primarily from the city of Naples." Countywide surge damage was $1.2 million.

Helene is the cleanest illustration of the geography: a storm that put water into Bayshore Drive structures produced $1.22 million of total logged damage across all of Collier County and named no location north or east of Tamiami Trail near Lely Resort. Milton, two weeks later, brought sustained winds of 35 to 45 mph in coastal Collier and a gust of 58 mph at Naples Municipal Airport. The countywide summary: "Across Collier County as a whole, Hurricane Milton led to property damage estimated at $280 million with a total of 88 structures incurring major damage and 224 with minor damage. An estimated 85% of customers in the county lost power." That 85 percent outage is the Milton fact that actually touched Lely Resort. Buy the generator, or buy the house with one. Across three named storms in three years, the consistent Lely Resort experience is wind, screens and days without electricity.

Flood zones: the real underlying story

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Flood Hazard Layer, queried at seventeen points across Lely Resort and six controls elsewhere in Collier County against the panels effective February 8, 2024, returned this:

• Zone AE, subtype "combined riverine and coastal floodplain," in a Special Flood Hazard Area, six points: the community centroid, Ole, Mustang Island, Lakoya, Cordoba and Signature Club.
• Zone X, 0.2 percent annual chance, not in a Special Flood Hazard Area, ten points: Classics Plantation Estates, Players Cove, Moorgate Point, Tiger Island Estates, Prestwick Place, Alden Woods, Aster, Legacy, Caldecott and The Players Club and Spa.
• Zone X, minimal flood hazard, one point: Lely Elementary School.
• Controls: Naples Pier VE, Isles of Capri VE, and Old Naples at 5th Avenue South, Marco Island and Fiddler's Creek all Zone AE with the subtype "coastal floodplain."

First, there is no VE zone anywhere in Lely Resort. VE is the coastal high hazard velocity zone, where the federal maps expect wave action. It appears at Naples Pier and Isles of Capri in the controls and at no point in Lely Resort. That is a mapped federal distinction and the cleanest true statement anyone can make about the community's position.

Second, the zone subtype differs, and that is the mechanism behind everything above. Lely Resort's AE areas are typed "combined riverine and coastal floodplain." The coastal controls' AE areas are typed "coastal floodplain." Same letter, different hazard driver. Lely Resort's mapped flood risk is substantially a rainfall and drainage risk; the coastal communities' risk is a surge and wave risk. Which is what the storm record shows played out in 2022 and 2024.

Third, six of seventeen points are in a Special Flood Hazard Area. At those addresses a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance. Flood zone here is an address-level question: the community contains both AE and X areas, and no VE area at all.

Those seventeen points are geographic centroids, not street addresses, and Lely Resort is heavily lake-and-golf, so a centroid can land on water or fairway. They establish that the community is mixed AE and X with no VE. They do not establish the zone for any specific address. Use Collier County's flood information viewer or the FEMA Map Service Center, and get the elevation certificate before you close.

Flood insurance and recovery, honestly bounded

Unincorporated Collier County is a National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System Class 5 community, and the county's own floodplain management FAQ states this "equates to a 25% discount on regular flood" premiums. The qualifier matters: the schedule is not flat, and properties outside Special Flood Hazard Areas typically receive a smaller flat discount, so get a quote on the actual address.

There is no Lely Resort specific recovery timeline in the public record, and I would rather say so than manufacture one. For a sourced recovery signal, look at capital flowing into the PUD across the storm window: Stock Development sold the 9.14-acre Adonia parcel to Davis Development for $6.95 million in 2022, and the 184-unit Adonia project at 7665 Collier Boulevard is under construction with completion expected summer 2027.

Two financial notes people wrongly attribute to hurricanes. The Lely Community Development District carries no outstanding bond debt; its FY2024 audit states, "There was no debt as of September 30, 2024 since bonds have been paid in full in prior years." That is unusual among comparably priced Collier communities. Separately, the CDD's FY2026 assessment is $997 per unit, up from $879, a 13.4 percent increase driven by irrigation, field management, access control and two new Florida Retirement System lines. That is not storm-related, and neither is the Greater Naples Fire Rescue District FY2026 final millage of 2.0 mills, a 41.23 percent increase over the rolled-back rate of 1.4161 mills.

Beaches, Parks and the Outdoors Around Lely Resort

Lely Resort sits 1.9 miles from Eagle Lakes Community Park, 5.3 miles from the Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center, which shares the community's 34113 ZIP code, and 9.0 miles from Naples Municipal Beach and the Naples Pier. Marco Island is 11.8 miles from Lely Resort.

Rookery Bay, the anchor nobody markets

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve is the strongest outdoor asset attached to this community and the one left out of nearly every Lely Resort page online. Its Environmental Learning Center at 300 Tower Road is in 34113, the same ZIP as the community, 5.3 miles away. The Reserve's 110,000 acres "stretch from downtown Naples east through the Western Everglades, encompassing 40% of Collier County's coastline."

Three current closures to know before you drive out: Briggs Boardwalk is closed until further notice for renovations, the Primitive Trails are closed, and Second Chance, also called Shell Island, is closed March 1 through August 31, 2026. Summer hours at the Environmental Learning Center run July and August, Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Parks and beaches

Eagle Lakes Community Park is 1.9 miles and about six minutes from the center of Lely Resort, the closest public recreation anchor and materially under-used in local real estate content. Sugden Regional Park, built around Lake Avalon, is 5.8 miles out, and Baker Park on the Gordon River is 8.3 miles.

Naples Municipal Beach and the Naples Pier are 9.0 miles and about twenty minutes out. Marco Island is 11.8 miles and roughly 23 minutes, with Tigertail Beach on the island's north end at 12.4 miles and 25 minutes. Everglades City, gateway to the Ten Thousand Islands, is 30.7 miles and about 44 minutes east on US 41.

Those times are free-flow; January through April the run up US 41 and across Collier Boulevard is materially slower, and the Marco Island approach backs up. The Stan Gober Memorial Bridge on State Road 92 at San Marco Road, on one Marco Island approach route, is under an $8.94 million rehabilitation contract expected to complete in spring of 2027.

Naples Botanical Garden and the Naples Zoo

Naples Botanical Garden is at 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112, 5.6 miles and about fourteen minutes from Lely Resort. It describes itself as "among a handful of tropical gardens in the United States, a place to experience everything from rainforests to succulent displays to waterlily-laden pools to flowering trees." The phone is 239.643.7275. Admission is $27 for adults, and children 4 to 17, children 3 and under, and members are all free. Free admission for every child under 18 is unusual and worth planning around. Summer hours, June 1 through September 30, run 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily, so check the current schedule if you visit in season.

Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is 10.0 miles and about 22 minutes from Lely Resort.

Dining, Shopping and Everyday Errands from Lely Resort

Everyday errands from Lely Resort are short. The community's own commercial core sits at Collier Boulevard and Tamiami Trail, with Stock Plaza at the Grand Lely entrance. Coastland Center Mall is 8.6 miles from Lely Resort, and 5th Avenue South is 7.8 miles, about seventeen minutes outside of season.

The commercial core inside the PUD

One underrated feature of Lely Resort is that the master plan entitled its own commercial acreage, so a meaningful amount of daily retail sits inside or at the edge of the community. Those tracts front Collier Boulevard and Tamiami Trail at the northwest corner of the PUD, anchored historically by the Freedom Square Shopping Center at roughly 216,911 square feet. National brands recorded in the PUD's own monitoring filings include Texas Roadhouse, Carrabba's, Chipotle, Starbucks, Pollo Tropical, McDonald's, Burger King and Bank of America.

One caution, because this is where community pages go wrong: that roster comes from a 2017 filing and demonstrably is not a complete current inventory. Hobby Lobby and Outback Steakhouse both operate in that corridor and neither appears in the filing. Treat it as evidence that the corridor is a real commercial center, not as this morning's tenant directory. Stock Plaza, at the Grand Lely Drive entrance, is a newer center of roughly 65,297 square feet built in 2017 and 2018 on 8.8 acres, with recorded tenants including Five Guys at 7729 Collier Boulevard and an NCH outpatient location at 7735 Collier Boulevard.

Naples shopping and dining districts

Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South are the two historic Naples dining and gallery districts, and they are different animals. Fifth is the longer, busier restaurant-and-shop spine; Third Street South is smaller and clustered around a courtyard a block from the Gulf. I am not naming individual restaurants or galleries on either street here, because Naples turnover is real and nothing damages trust faster than sending a client to a place that closed two seasons ago. Pull the current merchant directory from the districts' own sites.

Entitled but not yet built

The PUD still holds meaningful unbuilt commercial entitlement: the Resort Center tract is entitled for 315,000 square feet of commercial and 350 transient lodging rooms, and as of the 2017 monitoring filing none of it had been built, with a further 91,500 square feet unbuilt in C-2 and 101,000 in C-3. Treat that as an open question, not a prediction, because entitlement is permission rather than a schedule. On the residential side, Adonia, 184 units at 7665 Collier Boulevard inside the PUD, is expected to be completed by summer 2027 per Gulfshore Business reporting from May 15, 2026.

Arts and Culture Within Reach of Lely Resort

Arts and culture from Lely Resort means a drive north. Artis—Naples, home of The Baker Museum and the Naples Philharmonic, is 14.2 miles and about thirty minutes from Lely Resort. Naples Botanical Garden is 5.6 miles away, and the Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is 10.0 miles.

Artis—Naples

Artis—Naples, at 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard, is the cultural anchor of the region and describes itself as "the premier center for the arts in Southwest Florida." It is the home of both The Baker Museum and the Naples Philharmonic, and it "produces more than 300 concerts, art exhibitions and educational events each year."

What that campus offers a resident is broader than a concert ticket: a full subscription season, currently the 2026-27 Season, rotating Baker Museum exhibitions, Naples Philharmonic Youth Ensembles with open auditions, free Community Days, a Lifelong Learning program of classes, and off-campus performances around the county. Recent programming gives the flavor: Art After Hours at The Baker Museum with free museum admission, a Creative Sculptures make-and-take workshop, and chamber concerts in the Daniels Pavilion. Dates roll, so pull the current calendar before planning around any single event.

The county's other cultural anchors

Naples Botanical Garden at 4820 Bayshore Drive is the closest major cultural institution to Lely Resort at 5.6 miles. Between the Garden's tropical collections and the Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center at 5.3 miles, a Lely Resort household has two serious interpretive institutions inside a fifteen-minute drive. Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens, 10.0 miles out, sits on a historic botanical garden site dating to the 1920s, and Baker Park, 8.3 miles out on the Gordon River, connects the downtown cultural district to the greenway system.

I am not publishing a festival calendar here, because Collier County event calendars roll annually and a stale listing is worse than none. The fixed cadences worth knowing: Artis—Naples runs a full subscription season plus free Community Days, Grace Place holds a Family Literacy Day each February and a Back to School Bash each July, and Habitat Collier runs build days Tuesday through Saturday year round.

Giving Back: Volunteer Organizations Serving the Lely Resort Area

Volunteering near Lely Resort starts close to home. Two of Collier County's largest nonprofits, Rookery Bay and Habitat for Humanity of Collier County, hold addresses in Lely Resort's own 34113 ZIP code, and Meals of Hope runs a Monday food pantry at Lely Presbyterian Church.

All of the organizations below are verified as currently operating, ordered by proximity and ease of entry. Where one has a paused program or a name change, I say so.

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and Friends of Rookery Bay

Rookery Bay is the best geographic fit here. Its Environmental Learning Center at 300 Tower Road, Naples, FL 34113 shares Lely Resort's ZIP code and is 5.3 miles away. The Reserve is state-managed and Friends of Rookery Bay is the supporting 501(c)(3); they share one website and one volunteer program, so you apply once.

The roles are unusually varied: Aquarium Assistant, Docent, Visitor Services, Fisheries Research, Trail Guide, Team OCEAN, which is boat-based work with recreational boaters, Elementary Education, Facilities, Grounds and Special Events. If you have wanted to spend a morning a week explaining what a mangrove actually does, this is where that happens.

To start, go to rookerybay.org, follow the volunteer page under Make A Difference, and complete the Volgistics application. Questions go to [email protected]. Aquarium Assistant asks for "at least three hours a week between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., with a minimum three-month commitment," minimum age 16. Note that Briggs Boardwalk and the Primitive Trails are closed, which affects some guide roles.

Habitat for Humanity of Collier County

Habitat Collier's Naples office is at 11145 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, FL 34113, the same ZIP as Lely Resort and a short run down US 41. Its stated mission is "eliminating poverty housing in Collier County." The legal entity is Habitat for Humanity of Collier County, Inc., tax ID 59-1834379.

The work happens on jobsites, currently Las Palmas at 4170 Broken Back Road, Naples 34119, and Kaicasa at 2252 Bahay Loop, Immokalee 34142. Construction shifts run Tuesday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., split into three crews: Framers, Millwork and Finishing, and Painters. The organization is explicit that "no experience is required." Closed-toe shoes are required, and that is the rule that sends people home.

To start, register and check in for shifts through VolunteerHub at habitatcollier.volunteerhub.com. Barbara St. Fleur is Director of Volunteers, at [email protected] or 239-775-0036. This is one of the more turnkey options here: sign-up, calendar and check-in sit in one system.

Meals of Hope

Meals of Hope offers the most walkable-scale involvement on this list, because it runs a weekly food pantry at Lely Presbyterian Church. Founded in 2007, it has packed over 100 million meals, works with over 30,000 volunteers and a staff of 18, and is led by President and CEO Stephen Popper. It recently opened an 18,000-square-foot Naples distribution center.

The pantry network runs roughly a dozen to fifteen weekly distributions countywide. Closest to Lely Resort is the Monday pantry at Lely Presbyterian Church, where volunteers arrive between 1:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Others run Tuesday at Sugden Community Park and the Greater Naples YMCA, Wednesday at Max A. Hasse Jr. Community Park and Emmanuel Community Park, and Thursday at the Golden Gate Senior Center.

To start, use the pantry page at mealsofhope.org/pantry; there is no volunteer URL. Create a VOME account at vomevolunteer.com, sign the waiver and pick a shift. The minimum is two hours and no experience is necessary. Warehouse packing runs Tuesday through Friday for groups of 8 to 20, at [email protected]. No background check and no age minimum are stated, just the waiver, which makes this the lowest barrier to entry on the page.

St. Matthew's House

St. Matthew's House is the closest large human-services nonprofit to Lely Resort, roughly five miles away at 2001 Airport Road South, Naples, FL 34112. Its mission statement is that "no one experiencing hunger, homelessness or addiction is alone or without a pathway for their journey from crisis to contributor." Florida charitable registration is #CH3575.

Programs span food assistance, homeless shelters, transitional housing, workforce development, thrift stores and Justin's Place, its addiction recovery program, whose 49th graduating class of 24 was scheduled for July 16, 2026.

To start, register through VolunteerHub at smh.volunteerhub.com. Roles include packing groceries and organizing pantry shelves, assisting with community meal service, stocking thrift-store merchandise, supporting fundraising and special events, and administrative support. The organization does not publish an age minimum, a minimum shift length or a background check policy, so ask when you register.

Collier County Public Schools volunteer program

This is the district's own program rather than a nonprofit, and it is the direct route into the three schools that serve Lely Resort. The district names volunteer contacts by school, including Jainy Maldonado at Lely Elementary and Crystal Tanguma at Lely High School, along with contacts at East Naples Middle, Manatee Elementary, Manatee Middle, Parkside, Sabal Palm and Avalon.

The process has three steps and no shortcuts. Submit the online application through the district's Raptor Technologies portal, complete orientation by reviewing the Volunteer Handbook and Volunteer Orientation materials, then contact the school, where the Volunteer Support Contact reviews your application and tells you when you are approved. A valid United States-issued photo ID is required, and no volunteering may occur before approval.

One item specific to this county: the district publishes a statutory notice regarding section 121.091, Florida Statutes, and eligibility for Florida Retirement System retirees within the first twelve months of retirement. With as many recent retirees as this corner of the county has, that is worth reading before you apply. Start at collierschools.com/volunteer.

Conservancy of Southwest Florida

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is at 1495 Smith Preserve Way, Naples, FL 34102, roughly ten miles from Lely Resort. Its work covers Environmental Education, Policy, Science and Wildlife Rehabilitation, and volunteers "have provided well over $1-million in service to the Conservancy during the past year alone."

The current caveat matters: the Nature Center is closed for construction through December 2026, and the organization states that "Some volunteer roles are currently unavailable due to the closure of our current Nature Center through December 2026." It is not defunct, it is rebuilding. Suspended roles include Docent, Guest Services Concierge and Dock Master. Still open are the von Arx Wildlife Hospital, which admits animals 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., 365 days a year, plus Critter Courier, Smith Preserve Maintenance, Clam Pass Tour Guides, Outreach, and Fairs and Festivals.

To start, apply through VolunteerHub at conservancy.volunteerhub.com, call 239.262.0304, or email [email protected]. Minimum age is 16, and the Wildlife Hospital prefers a weekly four-hour shift. One role deserves mention for the boaters here: the Good Fortune II Naturalist position requires man-overboard training, CPR qualification and random drug testing, because the volunteer serves as a United States Coast Guard "first mate."

Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida

Harry Chapin Food Bank runs its own Collier County distribution center at 3940 Prospect Avenue, Suite 101, Naples, FL 34104, roughly eight miles north of Lely Resort. Across Southwest Florida it serves more than a quarter of a million people monthly through Feeding Children, Feeding Families mobile pantries, Feeding Seniors, SNAP outreach and disaster response. EIN 59-2332120.

The scale is worth stating: 4,300 volunteers supported the mission in 2025, contributing 49,000 hours of service valued at $1.5 million in-kind. That is a large operation with a shift system built to absorb people who show up once a week.

To start, individuals register through Volgistics, groups use the organization's Microsoft Forms group request, and court-mandated service has a separate application. All volunteering must be scheduled in advance, volunteers must be at least 14 years old, and 14- and 15-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult, which makes this one of the few options open to younger teenagers. Warehouse shifts at the Naples center run Monday through Thursday, morning through late afternoon. Contact Angelina Codi at [email protected] or 239.334.7007 extension 159.

Baker Senior Center Naples

Two names you may have heard for this organization are now wrong. It is not "Naples Senior Center" and it is not "Naples Senior Center at JFCS." It is Baker Senior Center Naples, at 6200 Autumn Oaks Lane, Naples, FL 34119, at 239-325-4444. That address is North Naples, making this the farthest-north organization here at roughly fifteen to eighteen miles from Lely Resort.

The center provides "Confidence, Connection, and Support to people ages 60 and older, regardless of background, religion, beliefs, or financial status," serving Collier County and southern Lee County. Programming includes Brookdale Cognitive Health Services dementia respite, Brain Joggers, a food pantry, classes and social programming. Naples Comprehensive Health named the center among its collaborators in January 2026.

To start, and this is the most demanding onboarding on the list, the requirements are quoted directly: "Be 18 years of age or older / Complete an application online / Pass a Level 2 background check and fingerprinting / Commit to a minimum six-month volunteer term." The application runs through Volgistics, and the center notes that applications are running at high volume with longer processing times than usual.

Patty Baker Humane Society Naples

Three things trip people up here. The name changed: Humane Society Naples is now Patty Baker Humane Society Naples, renamed in recognition of Collier County philanthropists Patty and Jay Baker, and the primary domain is now pbhsnaples.org. The legacy domain hsnaples.org is badly out of date, still telling visitors onboarding is closed "for the remainder of 2024." And general volunteer onboarding is currently paused.

The organization's statement: "We are currently revamping our new volunteer onboarding process and training protocols... Please check our website again on August 15, 2026 when we will post all the information you will need to begin the onboarding process." So there is no open general onsite volunteer application right now. The shelter is a no-kill operation and states that "Since 1960... helped over 110,000 pets find loving adoptable homes."

Given the pause, several paths remain open: fostering, Rescue Recess dog outings, Collier County middle and high school offsite hours with no orientation required, FGCU service-learning placements, and court-ordered service case by case for those 18 or older. Questions go to [email protected].

Also worth knowing: the county's own program

Collier County Parks and Recreation runs a volunteer program requiring an application and a signed Volunteer Handbook Acknowledgement, with a Volgistics portal, and a minimum age of 13. Note that the collierparks.com volunteer-program URL returns a 404; use the Division Information volunteer opportunities page. One county policy is written for a community like this one: inactive applications are removed after 180 days "unless the applicant is a seasonal resident and notes seasonal dates in their availability."

How Far Is Lely Resort From Everything? A Real Drive-Time Table

Lely Resort is 2.9 miles from a hospital, 7.8 miles from 5th Avenue South, 9.0 miles from Naples Municipal Beach, 11.8 miles from Marco Island and 39.4 miles from Southwest Florida International Airport. Every figure below is routed road distance from the center of Lely Resort, not straight-line distance.

Three caveats that travel with those numbers

These are free-flow times. There is no traffic model behind them. From roughly January through April, Collier County runs materially slower on US 41 and Collier Boulevard, and every number in the twenty-minute range stretches. There is no sourced seasonal multiplier.

They are measured from a single center point. Lely Resort covers roughly 3,000 acres, and a Moorgate Point address and a Mustang Island address differ by two to three minutes on most of these routes.

Round them when you use them. "About eight miles, under twenty minutes outside of season" is the honest register for a trip to Fifth Avenue South.

Road construction that actually affects these drives

Collier County's own current Transportation Engineering Projects list contains no project in the Lely Resort, US 41 South, or southern Collier Boulevard corridor. All sixteen current county projects are in Golden Gate Estates, North Naples, or on Marco Island. As of this writing the roads at Lely Resort's front door are not torn up.

The one project that does affect Lely Resort commutes is a state project: the Florida Department of Transportation's I-75 at State Road 951, Collier Boulevard, Interchange work at Exit 101. Project ID 425843-2, construction cost $97 million, length 1.3 miles, limits described as "I-75 at SR 951 (Collier Boulevard) Interchange and Collier Boulevard from Business Circle South to City Gate Drive." A single-lane flyover ramp extension will carry I-75 southbound traffic over Davis Boulevard to a new signalized intersection at Collier Boulevard and Business Circle North, with completion expected at the end of 2026. It matters because Collier Boulevard is Lely Resort's primary north-south spine and the direct route to I-75, so every trip to Fort Myers, to Southwest Florida International Airport, or to anywhere north runs through that interchange.

A related project people confuse with it: Collier Boulevard Widening Phase III is not adjacent to Lely Resort. It runs between City Gate Boulevard North and Green Boulevard and is "the final project, in a series of five projects, to improve 15 miles of Collier Boulevard, from US 41 to Immokalee Road, to a six-lane roadway." The useful fact buried in that description is that the US 41 end of that corridor, Lely Resort's front door, is already complete.

If you want these numbers checked against a specific address inside Lely Resort, that is a phone call. McGreevy and Comisar have been routing these roads for twenty years, and Domain Realty Group works this community daily.

Thinking of Selling Your Lely Resort Home? List With the #1 Team in Southwest Florida Since 2012

If you are thinking "I need to sell my house in Lely Resort, Florida," or you are searching for the best Lely Resort listing agent, here is what matters: Lely Resort sold 232 homes in the last twelve months at a median 78 days on market and a 94.54% median sale-to-list ratio, and the difference between hitting those numbers and missing them by two months is almost entirely pricing and preparation.

McGreevy and Comisar are listing agents first. Jesse and Marc are the listing engine of Domain Realty Group, and the credentials behind that are not marketing copy:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

What is your Lely Resort home worth? Get a free valuation in 60 seconds.

Start here: https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation. Then call Jesse direct at (239) 898-6072, text or call, same-day response, and we will reconcile the automated number against the actual condition-matched comps in your specific subdivision. Automated valuations are condition-blind and they cluster high in golf communities, because they cannot see whether your lanai faces the fourth fairway or a retention pond.

The four things that decide a Lely Resort sale

1. Price against price per square foot, not against last year's median. The community median rose 12.9% while per-square-foot value fell 2.7%. A seller who anchors on the first number and ignores the second lists high, sits, and takes a price reduction in month three. The active median days on market is currently 134 against a sold median of 78, and that spread is where over-priced listings live.

2. Get the Players Club status right, in writing, before your listing goes live. Your listing needs to state accurately whether your address carries a mandatory obligation, an optional one, or none. Getting this wrong is the fastest way to lose a buyer at the inspection stage, and six neighborhoods are mixed on a per-address basis, so your neighbor's answer is not your answer.

3. Order the estoppel from RealManage. The Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association is managed by RealManage. Estoppel requests sent to the prior manager come back late, and in Florida the statutory delivery window is short enough that a misdirected request routinely costs a closing three to five days. Your neighborhood association estoppel is a separate request from the master.

4. Understand what your district assessment says about your home. The Lely Community Development District carries no bond debt. Your $997 FY2026 assessment is operations and maintenance only. That is a genuine selling point against a comparable home in a Collier community still carrying district debt service, and most listing agents never mention it because they do not know it. We put it in the listing remarks.

Seller quick answers

How much does it cost to sell a house in Lely Resort? Florida seller costs typically run documentary stamp tax on the deed at $0.70 per $100 of sale price, title and settlement fees, prorated property taxes, an association estoppel fee, and negotiated brokerage compensation. Since the 2024 NAR settlement changes, buyer-side compensation is separately negotiated rather than assumed, and we will model your specific net sheet before you list rather than after.

How long will it take? The median Lely Resort listing went under contract in 78 days over the last twelve months, against 75.5 the prior year. Correctly priced product in a liquid subdivision moves faster than that; over-priced product in a thin subdivision moves much slower.

When is the best time to list in Naples? Southwest Florida is a seasonal market driven by winter residents, and inventory decisions made in October look very different from ones made in April. We do not have a defensible month-by-month seasonality breakdown specific to Lely Resort published yet, and rather than guess at one we will pull your subdivision's closings by month when we sit down. That is a real analysis, not a rule of thumb.

Should I renovate before I sell? Sometimes, and in Lely Resort the answer is unusually product-specific. In the attached and villa product, kitchens and impact glass move the needle. In the estate product at The Classics, buyers are frequently planning their own changes and a partial renovation can actively reduce your return. We will walk your home and tell you which of the two you are in.

Want the complete Lely Resort seller's guide? A dedicated seller page for Lely Resort with our full pricing strategy, marketing methodology, and listing process is in development, and we will link it here when it goes live. Until then, call Jesse at (239) 898-6072.

Thinking of Buying in Lely Resort?

Buying in Lely Resort means choosing among 43 neighborhoods with genuinely different cost structures, not just different floor plans. Two homes at the same price can carry a $6,784 annual difference in club obligation, different neighborhood association fees, and very different resale liquidity. Getting the neighborhood right matters more here than in almost any community in South Naples.

Marc Comisar handles buyer representation for this team. Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

McGreevy and Comisar are Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008, #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012, with over $2.5 billion sold as a team with Domain Realty Group and $900 million in personal sales.

The buyer's decision tree for Lely Resort, in order

First, decide on the Players Club. If you want the club, buy in a mandatory neighborhood and stop worrying about it. If you are certain you do not, buy in one of the 949 doors with no obligation and keep $6,784 a year. If you are unsure, buy optional, which is the single largest group at 1,907 doors, and you can join later. What you should not do is buy in one of the six mixed neighborhoods without pulling the covenant for your exact address.

Second, decide on golf. Two of the three courses are public daily-fee, so you do not need to buy inside Lely Resort at all to play Flamingo Island or The Mustang. If private golf is the point, The Classics is the answer and it is tied to the estate section.

Third, run the total carrying cost, not the price. For any Lely Resort address that is: property taxes at the Collier millage, the $997 district assessment, the $29.85 quarterly master assessment, your neighborhood association fee, your Players Club obligation if any, and insurance. We build this table for our buyers on every property they are serious about, because the fourth item is the one nobody publishes and the fifth is the one that surprises people.

Fourth, check the flood zone for the specific parcel. Six of seventeen points we tested inside Lely Resort are in FEMA Zone AE. Your parcel's zone drives your insurance quote, and there is no community-wide answer.

Fifth, look at liquidity. Twenty-three of the forty-two active subdivisions sold four or fewer homes last year. If this is a five-year hold, that is fine. If there is any chance you resell inside two years, buy where the market is deep.

Call Marc at (239) 287-5873 and we will build that table for the three properties you are actually considering.

Rental Market and Property Management in Lely Resort

Lely Resort supports both seasonal and annual rentals, but the rules are set by Collier County and by each neighborhood association rather than by the City of Naples, which is the most common mistake owners make when they research this. Lely Resort is in unincorporated Collier County, so City of Naples short-term rental ordinances do not apply here, and the binding constraints are your association's lease restrictions and the county's tourist development tax.

One disclosure up front. Our Southwest Florida MLS rental pull for Lely Resort is not complete as of this writing, so we are not publishing a median achieved rent figure. Rent numbers circulating for Lely Resort range from roughly $1,711 to $11,000 a month depending on season, furnishing, and product type, which tells you the published figures are not measuring the same thing. Rather than pick one and dress it up, we will pull the actual achieved rents for your specific product type and season when you call. This section is being updated with verified MLS rental data on the next refresh.

For a public benchmark in the meantime, HUD's FY2026 Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit in the Naples-Marco Island metropolitan area is $1,797 per month, effective 1 October 2025. That is a federal program benchmark for standard-quality unsubsidized units across the whole metro, not a Lely Resort figure, and it will sit well below what furnished seasonal product achieves here. Use it as a floor reference, not a comp.

Collier County tourist development tax: the part owners get wrong

If you rent your Lely Resort property for six months or less, Collier County levies a 5% tourist development tax on the rental income under county ordinance, and the owner is responsible for collecting it and remitting it to the Collier County Tax Collector. This applies to condos, single-family homes, and villas, not just hotels.

What owners consistently get wrong:

• You must register with the Collier County Tax Collector and receive an account number before you rent short-term.
• The 5% tourist development tax is not the only tax due. Florida sales tax applies to short-term rental income as well.
• Renting to friends or relatives does not exempt you if you are charging rent for a stay of six months or less.
• Renting to a Florida resident does not exempt you either. The test is the length of stay, not where the tenant lives.
• If a rental agency or property manager collects and remits on your behalf, they are typically the registered party for those bookings, but if you also rent on your own at any point, you need your own account number.
• Filing frequency varies. Monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual schedules exist, and most owners who rent only during season qualify for annual filing.
• If you have no rental activity in a period, you still file a zero return. Skipping it is how accounts fall out of good standing.

The Collier County Tax Collector publishes the full tourist tax FAQ and the registration path, and Collier County publishes a short-term vacation rental registration application. Both are linked in the documents section below.

Lease restrictions inside Lely Resort

Minimum lease terms in Lely Resort are set at the neighborhood association level, not by the master association, and they vary. Most association-governed neighborhoods in South Naples golf communities run minimum lease terms measured in months rather than nights, along with a lease application, an application fee, and an approval step that takes real calendar time.

Two things follow from that, and both cost owners money when they get them wrong:

Your closing and your tenant's move-in are not the same timeline. If your buyer intends to rent the unit out, the association approval process runs after closing, and it is not instant. Build that into the offer.

GreenLinks appears to operate on a different model. Marketing material for the Golf Villas at Lely Resort describes nightly availability with no minimum-stay restriction, operating on a hotel model with an owner revenue split. If accurate, that would be a genuine exception to the pattern across the rest of Lely Resort. We have not been able to verify it against a recorded governing document, so we are flagging it as unverified rather than publishing it as fact. If you are buying at GreenLinks specifically for rental income, get the rental program agreement and the declaration in front of an attorney before you close.

Rent or sell? The framework we actually use

The math is not complicated, but people skip steps. For a Lely Resort property, run these five:

1. Achieved rent for your exact product and season, not asking rent and not a metro average.
2. Full carrying cost, including the district assessment, the master assessment, your neighborhood fee, taxes, insurance, and any Players Club obligation, which does not pause because you moved out.
3. Management cost. Seasonal management runs materially higher than annual management because of turnover, and short-term programs frequently take a percentage of net rather than gross.
4. Tax treatment, including the 5% tourist development tax on short stays, Florida sales tax, and the homestead exemption consequences of converting a primary residence to a rental. Talk to your CPA; we are not tax advisors.
5. What the property is worth today against what holding it another three years costs you, using the actual per-square-foot trend rather than the median headline.

Looking for property management in Lely Resort? Call us at (239) 898-6072 and we will connect you with the right local resource. Our team works closely with a property management operation we trust, and we will make the introduction directly rather than handing you a list.

Your Local Real Estate Experts

McGreevy and Comisar are Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar, who lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 real estate team in Southwest Florida since 2012. They have been Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008, hold the 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years, and their team has sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate across more than 4,000 transactions.

Jesse McGreevy has been in Southwest Florida real estate since October 2004 and launched his own team in October 2008. He moved to Estero in October 2003, closed on his first home in Stoneybrook in January 2004, and still lives there. That is not a biography detail, it is the reason this page exists in the form it does: Jesse did not just sell Southwest Florida, he chose it, and the difference shows up in how the analysis gets done. Jesse runs pricing, marketing strategy, market analysis, and the systems behind the team, and he is the person a Lely Resort seller talks to first. Reach him at (239) 898-6072 or [email protected].

Marc Comisar is the field half of the partnership and a team lead in his own right. Marc lives on listing appointments and in showings, and he handles buyer representation across the South Naples corridor including Lely Resort. Reach Marc at (239) 287-5873.

Honors and recognition, in full:

• Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008
• 5 Star Award for Customer Satisfaction for 20 Straight Years. Only 5 out of 21k+ Licensees (Gulfshore Life Magazine)
• #1 Team in Southwest Florida since 2012
• McGreevy and Comisar and their Domain Realty Group team have sold over $2.5 Billion in Real Estate
• McGreevy and Comisar alone have over $900 million in Sales
• Nationally Recognized Top Producing Realtors
• Platinum Sales Production Award Winners

About our team. McGreevy and Comisar lead Domain Realty Group, a full-service Southwest Florida real estate team of roughly forty agent-partners. Learn more about our team at DomainRealtyGroup.com. Domain Realty Group is not structured like a conventional team. The agents are partners with real stake in the outcome, which is why the coverage across Estero, Bonita Springs, Naples, and Fort Myers is as deep as it is.

Track record you can check. Our team has closed transactions across every price band in Southwest Florida, from South Naples golf communities like Lely Resort up through Gulf-access luxury on the Estero and Bonita coast, and in the last 12 months we have tracked every Lely Resort listing and closing in the Southwest Florida MLS in real time. That is where the 232 closings, the $722,500 median, and the 5.43 months of supply on this page come from. They were pulled the day this page was written, not copied from an aggregator.

Among the top-reviewed Lely Resort and Naples-area realtors. Read what past clients say directly on our Google reviews profile.

McGreevy and Comisar are part of Domain Realty, Southwest Florida's full-service brokerage, regulated by the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC), licenses SL3101296 and BK3060671. Learn more about McGreevy and Comisar, meet Jesse McGreevy and Marc Comisar, or see the wider Naples area that Lely Resort sits inside.

Contact us:

• Jesse McGreevy: (239) 898-6072 · [email protected]
• Marc Comisar: (239) 287-5873
• Office: 24031 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 101, Bonita Springs, FL 34135
• Brokered by Domain Realty.

Whether you are selling a Lely Resort home and want it priced against real per-square-foot data instead of a headline median, or buying and want the full carrying-cost picture before you commit, call (239) 898-6072. Same-day response, every time.

Frequently Asked Questions: Buying in Lely Resort

Lely Resort generates more buyer questions than almost any community in South Naples, mostly because the club obligation, the district assessment, and the neighborhood association fee are three separate line items that people expect to be one. These are the real questions buyers ask, answered from primary sources rather than from marketing material.

Is Players Club membership mandatory in Lely Resort?

Not community-wide. Seventeen Lely Resort neighborhoods carry a mandatory Players Club obligation covering 1,584 doors, seventeen are optional covering 1,907 doors, six are mixed on a per-address basis covering 838 doors, and 949 doors carry no obligation at all. That sums to all 5,278 doors. Because six neighborhoods are mixed, the only reliable answer is the one attached to your specific address.

Is Players Club membership required in every Lely Resort neighborhood?

No. The 949 doors with no obligation and the 1,907 optional doors together make up more than half the community. If avoiding the annual cost is a priority, the inventory to do that in is substantial. Ask us to confirm obligation status in writing before you write an offer, because listing remarks are not a legal source.

How much does the Players Club and Spa cost?

A $10,000 refundable deposit, plus $6,400 in annual dues, plus 6% Florida sales tax, which brings the annual dues figure to $6,784.00. The deposit is refundable under the club's terms but it is expressly not transferable, so a buyer of a covenant property posts their own $10,000 rather than assuming the seller's.

Does the Players Club deposit transfer with the house?

No. This is the single most misunderstood cost in Lely Resort. The membership obligation runs with the land on covenant properties, meaning a buyer inherits the duty to be a member, but the $10,000 deposit itself does not transfer. Budget for it as a closing-adjacent cost, not something you inherit.

Does the Players Club have a lazy river?

No. There is no lazy river at the Players Club and Spa. We are stating this plainly because the claim circulates widely. The verified amenity inventory is published by the club itself and is detailed in the club section above.

Are there CDD fees in Lely Resort?

Yes. Lely Resort sits inside the Lely Community Development District, and the FY2026 assessment is $997 per unit, up 13.4% from $879. Critically, that assessment is operations and maintenance only. The district's bonds were paid in full in prior years, confirmed by its FY2024 audited financial report, so there is no debt service component riding on top of it.

What is a Community Development District, and what does it do?

A community development district is a special-purpose local government created under Florida law to finance and maintain community infrastructure such as roads, drainage, water management, and common landscaping. It levies a non-ad-valorem assessment that appears on your property tax bill. Its board meetings are open to the public and its budgets and audits are public records.

How do I find the CDD fee and property taxes for a specific Lely Resort home?

The non-ad-valorem assessment appears as a separate line on the Collier County tax bill for that parcel, and the parcel record is searchable through the Collier County Property Appraiser. We pull the full bill, including both the ad-valorem and non-ad-valorem lines, on every property our buyers get serious about. Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

How many neighborhoods are in Lely Resort?

Forty-three named neighborhoods totaling 5,278 doors, reconciled against the Master Property Owners Association's own community roster. Forty-two distinct subdivisions recorded at least one MLS sale in the last twelve months, which is independent confirmation of the roster's scale.

How many homes are in Lely Resort?

5,278 doors across the 43 neighborhoods. That is the built figure. The entitlement figure is different and larger, and the two are frequently conflated. See the PUD section for the full explanation of why 8,946 or 9,150 entitled units does not mean thousands of homes are still coming.

Is Lely Resort still being built?

On the ground, the named neighborhoods are finished. There is unassigned paper entitlement remaining, roughly 3,318 units against the county's 8,946 cap, but that is an accounting figure and not developable land inventory for 3,318 homes. There is active multifamily construction inside the PUD boundary, which the development pipeline section covers in detail.

Are there gated neighborhoods within Lely Resort?

Yes, several Lely Resort neighborhoods operate their own guard houses or gates, and others are ungated within the larger community. The complete gated roster is covered in the neighborhoods section, and we say clearly there where the public record is incomplete rather than guessing.

Is Lely Resort a 55+ or age-restricted community?

No. Lely Resort has no age restriction. A large national aggregator publishes a Lely Resort page titled "55+ Community" whose own data field on the same page reads "No Age Restrictions," which is where most of the confusion comes from. Buyers of any age can purchase here.

Is Lely Resort safe from hurricane flooding?

Lely Resort's hurricane exposure is wind and power rather than storm surge. The National Weather Service survey of Hurricane Ian placed the surge line south and west of Tamiami Trail, and Lely Resort sits entirely north and east of that line. That said, six of seventeen points we tested inside Lely Resort are in FEMA Zone AE, so no one should tell you Lely Resort is outside a flood zone.

Is Lely Resort in a flood zone?

Parts of it are. Six of seventeen tested points fall in FEMA Zone AE, which is a Special Flood Hazard Area. The accurate community-wide statement is that there is no VE zone, the high-velocity coastal zone, anywhere in Lely Resort. Collier County holds CRS Class 5, which carries a 25% flood insurance discount for policies in Special Flood Hazard Areas.

How much is flood insurance in Lely Resort?

It depends entirely on the parcel's zone, the structure's elevation, and the current FEMA Risk Rating methodology, so any single number quoted community-wide is meaningless. What is verifiable is the discount: Collier County's CRS Class 5 rating produces a 25% reduction on National Flood Insurance Program premiums in Special Flood Hazard Areas. Get a quote on the specific address before you go under contract.

What are the HOA fees in Lely Resort?

There are three layers. The Lely Resort master assessment is $29.85 per quarter, verified two independent ways. The district assessment is $997 per year. Your neighborhood association fee is separate and varies. Only one neighborhood-level figure in the entire public record is properly sourced, Lely Island Estates at $599 per quarter for homes and $269 per quarter for lots in 2026. We pull the real figure per address on request.

Why can I not find HOA fees for most Lely Resort neighborhoods?

Because they are not published anywhere reliable. Forty-two of the forty-three neighborhoods have no sourced, verifiable fee in the public record, and the figures circulating online sit on sources we will not cite. We would rather tell you that than publish an invented number you would find out was wrong at estoppel. Call (239) 898-6072 and we will get the actual figure for the specific address.

Which golf courses can I play at Lely Resort, and do I have to be a member?

Three courses. Flamingo Island, designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., and The Mustang, designed by Lee Trevino, are both public daily-fee courses, so you do not need to own in Lely Resort or hold a membership to play them. The Classics, designed by Gary Player, is private and tied to the estate section.

Is Lely Resort a bundled golf community?

Not in the usual sense. Unlike most South Naples golf communities, Lely Resort separated golf from the social and fitness amenity. Golf is its own structure across three courses, and the Players Club and Spa is a separate membership with a separate cost carried by some addresses and not others. That decoupling is why the price range here is so wide.

What schools serve Lely Resort?

Lely Elementary School, Manatee Middle School, and Lely High School, uniform across all ten points we sampled inside the community. Their most recent published grades are A, A, and B respectively per the Collier County Public Schools grade release. Lely Resort is not affected by the 2026-27 boundary process.

Is Lely High School an A-rated school?

No. Lely High School's most recent published grade is a B. The school's own website still displays an older "A Rated School" banner, which is out of date. Always check the current Collier County Public Schools grade release, which is linked in the documents section, rather than a school banner or a third-party rating.

How far is Lely Resort from the beach and from downtown Naples?

Lely Resort sits roughly six miles southeast of downtown Naples along Collier Boulevard. The full routed drive-time table, with real distances and times to the Gulf beaches, Fifth Avenue South, Marco Island, and Southwest Florida International Airport, is in the drive-time section above. Published figures for these distances vary wildly, which is why we routed them ourselves.

What is coming to the area around Lely Resort?

The biggest single change is Costco, approved on 14 October 2025 at Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock, roughly a mile north. It is both a convenience gain and a traffic generator, and we treat it as both in the development section rather than only as a selling point.

What is happening with the South Naples Citrus Grove property?

The 169-acre property at 341 Sabal Palm Road has been through several proposals. A 423-home residential rezone was postponed by Collier commissioners on a 3-2 vote in January 2026, and the applicant has since pivoted to a private golf club proposal with recreational accessory uses and up to ten member and guest cabins, with a neighborhood information meeting held on 25 June 2026. Conservation Collier is separately evaluating buying the site for preservation. As of 1 August 2026 no hearing date is set: the county canceled its 6 August 2026 Planning Commission meeting and has not advertised a replacement date for this item.

Can I run a home business from my unit in Olé?

That is governed by the recorded declaration for the Olé association, not by the master association, and home-occupation provisions vary by neighborhood inside Lely Resort. Do not rely on a general answer for this one. Pull the declaration for the specific association before you buy if a home business is part of your plan, and we will get it for you.

Are clear hurricane shutters allowed at Lely Resort before June 1?

Exterior alterations at Lely Resort are governed by the Master Architectural Review Committee guidelines, which are published by the Master Property Owners Association and linked in our documents section, plus your individual neighborhood's own rules. Shutter deployment timing is the kind of provision that lives at the neighborhood level, so check both.

What are the pet and breed restrictions in Lely Resort?

They are set at the neighborhood association level, and they vary across the forty-three associations. There is no single Lely Resort pet policy. Any pet restriction is also subject to federal and state assistance-animal law regardless of what a declaration says. If pets are a deciding factor, tell us up front and we will screen the associations for you before you tour.

Is Lely Resort the right golf community for me compared to Fiddler's Creek or Treviso Bay?

That comparison depends on whether you want golf bundled into your purchase or separated from it. Lely Resort's structure separates them, and two of its three courses are open to the public. Rather than write a comparison from marketing material, we would rather sit with you and run all three against your actual budget and use pattern. Call Marc at (239) 287-5873.

What does it cost to live in Lely Resort per month?

Build it from six components: property taxes at the Collier millage on your assessed value, the $997 annual district assessment, the $29.85 quarterly master assessment, your neighborhood association fee, your Players Club obligation if your address carries one at $6,784.00 a year including sales tax, and insurance including flood if your parcel is in Zone AE. We build this table for every property our buyers consider seriously.

Who manages the Lely Resort Master POA?

RealManage. This matters for buyers because that is where documents and estoppels come from, and it matters even more for sellers. Older references naming a different management company are out of date.

Frequently Asked Questions: Selling in Lely Resort

Selling in Lely Resort has three complications that a general Naples listing does not: the club obligation has to be disclosed accurately, the estoppel comes from two separate places, and the community's headline price movement is misleading. These are the questions sellers actually ask.

What is my Lely Resort home worth?

Start with our free valuation at https://mcgreevyandcomisar.com/home-valuation, then call Jesse at (239) 898-6072 so we can reconcile it against condition-matched comps in your specific subdivision. Automated valuations are condition-blind and cluster high in golf communities because they cannot see lot position, view, or whether the kitchen was updated in 2006 or 2024.

How hot is the Lely Resort housing market right now?

Volume is genuinely strong and pricing power is not. Closed sales rose 26.1% year over year and dollar volume rose 33.8%, but median price per square foot fell 2.7%, days on market rose from 75.5 to 78, and the median sale-to-list ratio slipped from 95.48% to 94.54%. Buyers are active and negotiating.

Did Lely Resort home prices really rise 12.9% last year?

The median sale price rose 12.9%, and that figure on its own is misleading. Median price per square foot fell 2.7% over the same period, while the median home that sold grew 7.6% larger. The median rose because the mix shifted toward larger and higher-end product, not because a square foot of Lely Resort appreciated. Price off the per-foot number.

What is the average time to sell a house in Lely Resort?

The median closed listing went under contract in 78 days over the twelve months ending 31 July 2026. For context, the median active listing currently sitting on the market has been there 134 days, and that spread is almost entirely a pricing story.

How do I obtain estoppel information for a Lely Resort sale?

You need two, and this is where Lely Resort closings most often slip. The master association estoppel comes from RealManage, which manages the Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association. Your neighborhood association estoppel is a separate request to that association or its own manager. Order both early. Florida's statutory delivery window is short and a misdirected request costs days.

What is the payoff on the CDD debt for my Lely Resort unit?

There is no bond debt to pay off. The Lely Community Development District's bonds were paid in full in prior years per its FY2024 audited financial report, so the FY2026 assessment of $997 per unit is operations and maintenance only. That is a genuine advantage over comparable Collier communities still carrying district debt, and it belongs in your listing remarks.

Do I have to disclose the CDD fee when selling my Florida home?

Florida law requires disclosure of community development district assessments to buyers, and the assessment appears on the property tax bill regardless. In Lely Resort's case, the disclosure works in your favor once you explain what it does and does not include, which most listing agents never do.

Are copies of the Lely Resort budget or minutes available?

Yes. The Master Property Owners Association publishes its approved master budget, its audited financial statements, its recorded declaration, its by-laws, and its architectural review guidelines. The Lely Community Development District publishes its budgets and its audited annual financial reports through the Florida Auditor General. Direct links to all of these are in the documents section.

Who pays the HOA capital contribution at a Lely Resort closing?

Capital contributions in Florida are negotiable between buyer and seller and are frequently allocated by local custom rather than by statute. There is a $500 capital contribution associated with Lely Resort, and whether it applies resort-wide or at the neighborhood level is not settled in the public record. Do not assume. Get it addressed in the contract, and we will.

What is an estoppel and what does it cost?

An estoppel certificate is a written statement from an association confirming what a specific unit owes as of a specific date: regular assessments, special assessments, transfer fees, capital contributions, and any violations. Florida statute caps estoppel fees and sets a delivery timeframe. Order it early, because in Lely Resort you are ordering two.

Can hidden HOA fees show up after closing?

That is exactly what the estoppel exists to prevent, which is why ordering both the master and the neighborhood estoppel matters so much here. The most common surprise in Lely Resort is not a hidden fee, it is a Players Club obligation the buyer did not realize attached to the address. Disclose it correctly in the listing and it never becomes a problem.

How do I disclose the Players Club obligation when I list?

Accurately and specifically. State whether your address carries a mandatory obligation, an optional one, or none, and state that the $10,000 deposit is not transferable so the buyer will post their own. Six neighborhoods are mixed on a per-address basis, so a buyer cannot infer their answer from the neighborhood name. Getting this right up front prevents a renegotiation at inspection.

When is the best time to sell a house in Naples?

Southwest Florida is a seasonal market driven by winter residents, and listing decisions made in October look very different from ones made in April. We do not have a defensible month-by-month seasonality breakdown specific to Lely Resort published yet, and we are not going to invent one. We will pull your subdivision's closings by close month when we sit down with you.

How long does it take to sell a house in Florida?

In Lely Resort specifically, the median was 78 days to contract over the last twelve months, plus a typical financed closing period after that. Statewide averages are not useful for pricing a Lely Resort home, because a community with 5.43 months of supply and 42 distinct subdivisions does not behave like a state average.

Should I renovate before selling my Lely Resort home?

It depends on which product you own. In the attached, villa, and coach home product, kitchens and impact glass consistently move the number. In the estate product at The Classics, buyers frequently arrive with their own plans and a partial renovation can reduce your return rather than raise it. We will walk your home and tell you which situation you are in before you spend anything.

Does selling turnkey furnished add value in Lely Resort?

Sometimes, and it depends heavily on product tier and on the quality and age of the furnishings. Turnkey sales are common in seasonal Southwest Florida markets and buyers often value the convenience. What we will not do is tell you a blanket rule. Bring us the inventory and we will price it both ways.

What questions should I ask a Naples listing agent before I hire them?

Four that actually matter: how will you price my home and why, what specifically is your marketing plan, what is your track record in my community and my price range, and what do you know about the association and district structure at my address. If an agent cannot tell you who manages the Lely Resort Master POA, they have not sold here.

What is your track record in Lely Resort and in my price range?

McGreevy and Comisar lead Domain Realty Group, the #1 team in Southwest Florida since 2012, Top 1% Real Estate Agents Nationally Since 2008, with over $2.5 Billion sold as a team and over $900 million in personal sales between Jesse and Marc. Call Jesse at (239) 898-6072 and we will show you the comparable work directly.

How will you price my Lely Resort home?

Against condition-matched sold comps in your specific subdivision, reconciled to current price per square foot rather than to the community median, and adjusted for lot position, view, product type, and club obligation status. Twenty-three of Lely Resort's forty-two active subdivisions sold four or fewer homes last year, so a thin comp set is common and it is where most pricing errors originate.

What exactly is your marketing plan?

Professional photography and media, full MLS syndication, the Domain Realty Group agent network of roughly forty partners across Southwest Florida, targeted digital distribution, and a listing presentation built on the actual data in this page rather than on generic community copy. We will walk you through it in detail before you sign anything.

Who pays realtor fees in Florida after the NAR settlement?

Since the 2024 changes, buyer-side compensation is negotiated separately rather than assumed, and what a seller offers, if anything, is a strategic decision rather than a default. We model your net sheet under multiple scenarios before you list so the decision is made with numbers in front of you.

What is negotiable with a real estate agent?

More than most sellers realize, and the honest answer is that the structure of compensation, the length of the listing agreement, the marketing commitment, and the terms around a buyer the seller found independently are all discussable. We would rather have that conversation openly at the listing appointment than have you wonder.

Can a milestone inspection lead to a special assessment on my Lely Resort condo?

It can, and Florida's milestone inspection and structural integrity reserve study requirements are the largest current source of condo buyer anxiety statewide. Requirements depend on building age, height, and structure type, so they apply unevenly across Lely Resort's condo stock. If you own condo product here, get your association's current milestone and reserve study status in hand before you list.

My Lely Resort listing expired. What now?

Almost always a pricing and positioning problem rather than a market problem, because 232 homes closed here in the last twelve months. Bring us the listing history and we will tell you plainly what happened, including if the answer is that the price was right and the presentation was not. Call Jesse at (239) 898-6072.

Frequently Asked Questions: Renting and Property Management in Lely Resort

Rental questions in Lely Resort split into two very different categories: what the county requires of you as a short-term landlord, and what your individual neighborhood association allows. Owners routinely research the first and skip the second, which is backwards, because the association is the binding constraint.

Can I rent out my home in Lely Resort short term?

That depends on your neighborhood association's lease restrictions, not on the master association and not on the City of Naples. Lely Resort is in unincorporated Collier County, so City of Naples short-term rental ordinances do not govern here. Minimum lease terms in Lely Resort are set at the neighborhood level and most run in months rather than nights.

Does Naples allow short-term rentals, and does that rule apply to Lely Resort?

The City of Naples has its own short-term rental regulations, and they do not apply to Lely Resort, which sits in unincorporated Collier County. This is one of the most common research mistakes owners make. Read your association declaration, then read the county's requirements.

What is the Collier County tourist development tax?

Collier County levies a 5% tourist development tax on rental income from accommodations rented for six months or less. It applies to condos, single-family homes, and villas, not just hotels. The owner is responsible for collecting it and remitting it to the Collier County Tax Collector.

Who actually pays the tourist development tax?

The tenant pays it as part of the rental charge, and the owner is legally responsible for collecting it and remitting it. If you fail to collect it, the liability is still yours. Owners who quote an all-in rent without breaking the tax out are paying it themselves without realizing.

Is the 5% tourist development tax the only tax due on a short-term rental?

No. Florida sales tax also applies to short-term rental income. The 5% county tourist development tax is in addition to state sales tax, not instead of it.

Do I need a tourist tax account number if I use a rental agency or a realtor?

If an agency collects and remits on your behalf for every booking, they are typically the registered party for those bookings. If you also rent on your own at any point, even occasionally, you need your own account number. Owners who rent through a platform part of the year and directly to a returning guest the rest of the year are the ones who get caught out.

If I only rent to friends or relatives, do I still charge tourist tax?

Yes, if you are charging rent and the stay is six months or less. The test is whether rent is being paid for a short-term stay, not who the tenant is.

If I rent to a Florida resident, do I still collect the tourist development tax?

Yes. The test is the length of the stay, not the tenant's state of residence.

How do I register and get the forms for the tourist development tax?

Register with the Collier County Tax Collector, which assigns an account number and provides tax return forms. Collier County also publishes a short-term vacation rental registration application separately. Both are linked in the documents section of this page.

When is the tourist development tax due, and how often do I file?

There are four reporting frequencies: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual. Most individual owners who rent only during season qualify for annual filing, while active rental businesses report monthly. Your assigned frequency comes with your account.

What if I have no renters during a reporting period?

You still file a return showing zero activity. Skipping the filing entirely is the most common way an otherwise compliant account falls out of good standing.

What do I do if I sell the property or stop renting it?

Notify the Collier County Tax Collector of the change, including an address change, a sale, or a decision to stop renting. Leaving an account open and unfiled after a sale creates a problem for you and sometimes for the new owner.

Are there HOA lease application fees for Lely Resort condo rentals?

Most association-governed neighborhoods in Lely Resort require a lease application, charge an application fee, and run an approval process before a tenant can take possession. The fee amounts and the timelines vary by association. Build the approval period into your lease start date rather than assuming it is instant.

What lease length options are available in Lely Resort?

Minimum lease terms are set by each neighborhood association and vary across the forty-three associations. Most run in months rather than nights. There is no single Lely Resort answer, and any source giving you one has not read forty-three declarations.

Can renters use the Players Club at Lely Resort?

Tenant access to the Players Club and Spa is governed by the club's own rules and involves a transfer arrangement rather than automatic access. Figures circulating for the tenant transfer fee do not agree with each other, so we are not publishing one. Confirm the current terms with the club's membership office before you advertise club access in a rental listing, because advertising an amenity a tenant cannot actually use is a real liability.

What are seasonal rents like in Lely Resort?

We are not publishing a figure yet, deliberately. Our Southwest Florida MLS rental pull for Lely Resort is not complete, and the numbers circulating publicly range from roughly $1,711 to $11,000 a month, which tells you they are not measuring the same product or the same season. Call us and we will pull achieved rents for your exact product type and season.

What is the Fair Market Rent benchmark for the Naples area?

HUD's FY2026 Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit in the Naples-Marco Island metropolitan area is $1,797 per month, effective 1 October 2025. That is a federal program benchmark for standard-quality units across the entire metro, not a Lely Resort figure, and furnished seasonal product here will sit well above it. Use it as a floor reference only.

Should I rent my Lely Resort home or sell it?

Run five numbers: achieved rent for your exact product and season, full carrying cost including the district and master assessments and any Players Club obligation that does not pause when you move out, management cost, tax treatment including the tourist development tax and any homestead consequences, and what the property is worth today against the cost of holding it three more years. We will build that comparison with you. We are not tax advisors, so bring your CPA in on item four.

Does the Players Club obligation continue while I rent the property out?

Yes. If your address carries a mandatory obligation, that obligation attaches to the property and does not pause because you are not living there. Owners who model rental income without carrying the $6,784.00 annual dues figure through the calculation get a materially wrong answer.

Do Lely Resort associations comply with Fair Housing requirements?

Federal and Florida fair housing law applies to every rental in Lely Resort regardless of what any individual association document says, and it governs tenant screening, occupancy standards, and assistance animals. Any association rule that conflicts with fair housing law is unenforceable. If you are renting your property out, get your screening criteria reviewed rather than copying someone else's.

How do I find a property manager for my Lely Resort home?

Call us at (239) 898-6072 and we will connect you with the right local resource directly. Our team works closely with a property management operation we trust and we will make the introduction ourselves rather than handing you a list of names. Look for a manager who knows Lely Resort's association approval processes specifically, because that is where the delays happen.

Downloadable Documents and Primary Sources for Lely Resort

Lely Resort in Naples, Florida publishes an unusually complete public document set. The Master Property Owners Association, the Lely Community Development District, Collier County and the Players Club and Spa all post primary records online. The documents below are the governing instruments, budgets, audits and county filings a Lely Resort seller or buyer actually needs.

• Lely Resort Master POA, 2025 Recorded Declaration of Covenants (PDF, 3.4 MB) Sellers attach this to the disclosure package, and it is the recorded instrument that controls use, leasing and transfer across the whole community.
• Lely Resort Master Budget, Approved This is where the quarterly master assessment figure comes from, so a seller can quote the real number instead of an estimate.
• Lely Resort Sign Regulations Read this before a listing goes live, because Lely Resort restricts for-sale signage and the rules surprise most sellers and most agents.
• The Players Club and Spa, 2026 Fees and Overview of Amenities The first-party fee schedule a seller needs when a buyer asks what the club deposit and annual dues actually cost.
• Lely Community Development District, FY2024 Annual Audited Financial Report (PDF, 2.3 MB) The state-filed audit showing the district carries no bond debt, which is the single strongest competitive point a Lely Resort seller can document.
• Lely Resort Master POA, Architectural Review Committee Guidelines Check this before any pre-listing paint, roof, driveway or landscape change, and use it to answer buyer questions about what a new owner may alter.
• Amendment to the Declaration, 22 April 2026 The most recent recorded change to the governing documents, and the one a stale disclosure package will be missing.
• Lely Resort Master POA, 2025 Recorded By-Laws Sets out how the master association is governed, how boards are elected and how votes are counted.
• Lely Resort Master POA, 2024 Audited Financial Statements An independent audit of the master association's reserves and operations, useful evidence for a buyer worried about a future special assessment.
• Lely Island Estates 2026 Adopted Budget The only published neighborhood-level HOA fee inside Lely Resort, and it independently confirms the master assessment figure.
• Lely Island Estates Amended and Restated Declaration of Neighborhood Covenants (PDF, 2.9 MB) The 1990 founding covenants, articles and bylaws for one of the original Lely Resort neighborhoods, with the neighborhood-level restrictions that sit on top of the master documents.
• Collier County PUD Master List, 11 June 2026 The county's own entitlement row for Lely Resort: total acreage, residential unit cap, golf acreage, conservation acreage and commercial square footage.
• Lely Resort PUD Monitoring Report and Schedule, Submittal 1 The developer-side build-out schedule and tract tables, which a buyer should read alongside the county list because the two report different unit caps.
• FEMA National Flood Insurance Program, Community Rating System guide Explains the CRS class discount that applies to flood insurance premiums in Collier County, which changes a buyer's real carrying cost.
• Collier County Public Schools, 2025-2026 School and District Grades The current state grades for the schools zoned to Lely Resort, and the correct source to quote instead of a school's own outdated banner.
• Flamingo Island Course Scorecard Yardage, slope and rating for the Robert Trent Jones Senior course, for a buyer comparing golf inside Lely Resort.
• Mustang Course Scorecard Yardage, slope and rating for the second public-access course at Lely Resort.
• The Classics Course Scorecard Yardage, slope and rating for the private course, relevant to any buyer weighing a Classics membership.

Sources and Authoritative References

County and Municipal

• Collier County, PUD Master List and Maps: https://www.collier.gov/County-Development/Land-Development/Codes-Regulations/PUD-Monitoring/PUD-Master-List-and-Maps
• Collier County PUD Master List, 11 June 2026: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/4/planning-and-zoning/documents/pud-master-list-6-11-26.pdf
• Collier County PUD Master List, 25 January 2022: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/planning-and-zoning/documents/planning-and-zoning-maps-library/pud-master-list-12522.pdf
• Collier County PUD Monitoring: https://www.collier.gov/County-Development/Land-Development/Codes-Regulations/PUD-Monitoring
• Collier County 2025 AUIR and Capital Improvement Element: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/2/impact-fees/2025-auir-final-print-01-21-26.pdf
• Collier County FY2026 Adopted Budget: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/budget/documents/adopted-budgets/fy-2026-adopted-budget-rev.pdf
• Collier County Floodplain Management: https://www.collier.gov/Business-Resources/Floodplain-Management
• Collier County Floodplain Management Plan, 2014-2015: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/community-planning-amp-resiliency/documents/floodplain-management/2014-2015_final-fmp-with-reso_collier-county-fl.pdf
• Collier County Land Development Code: https://www.collier.gov/County-Development/Land-Development/Codes-Regulations/Land-Development-Code
• Collier County Comprehensive Plan: https://www.collier.gov/County-Development/Land-Development/Codes-Regulations/Comprehensive-Plan
• Collier County Future Land Use Element, as amended by Ordinance 2024-46: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/growth-management/documents/growth-management-plan/flue-amended-ord-202446.pdf
• Collier Boulevard and Lord's Way Mixed Use Subdistrict map: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/growth-management/documents/growth-management-plan/collier-boulevard-lords-way-mixed-use-subdistrict-ma.pdf
• Rural Fringe Mixed Use District Ordinance 2023-25: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/growth-management/documents/rural-fringe-mixed-use-district-ordinance-202325.pdf
• Lely Mitigation Park map, Collier County growth management: https://www.collier.gov/files/assets/county/v/1/growth-management/documents/growth-management-plan/lely-mitigation-ma.pdf
• Collier County Conservation Collier: https://www.collier.gov/Resident-Resources/Conservation-Collier
• Collier County Community Planning and Resiliency: https://www.collier.gov/County-Development/Land-Development/Community-Planning-and-Resiliency
• Collier County Transportation Engineering Projects: https://www.collier.gov/County-Development/Transportation-Management/Transportation-Engineering/Transportation-Engineering-Projects
• Collier County Public Library, South Regional Branch: https://library.collier.gov/About-Us/Locations/South-Regional-Branch
• Collier County CityView planning portal: https://cvportal.colliercountyfl.gov/CityViewWeb/
• Collier County Growth Management, PUD Monitoring section: https://www.colliercountyfl.gov/government/growth-management/divisions/planning-and-zoning-division/zoning-services-section/pud-monitoring
• Collier County Property Appraiser: https://www.collierappraiser.com
• Collier County Property Appraiser GIS: https://maps.collierappraiser.com/
• Collier County Tax Collector: https://www.colliertax.com
• Collier Clerk of the Circuit Court, Official Records search: https://app.collierclerk.com/LFOfficialRecords/
• Collier Clerk, South Naples Citrus Grove rezoning coverage: https://www.collierclerk.com/south-naples-citrus-grove-rezoning-draws-extensive-public-comment-at-county-commission-meeting/
• Collier Clerk, Fiddler's Creek 750-unit approval: https://www.collierclerk.com/bcc-unanimously-approved-750-multi-family-unit-development-at-fiddlers-creek/
• Collier Clerk, adopted maximum millage rates: https://www.collierclerk.com/board-of-county-commissioners-adopts-proposed-millage-rates-as-maximum-property-tax-rates/
• Collier County Sheriff's Office, patrol districts: https://www.colliersheriff.org/my-ccso/patrol-districts
• Collier County Sheriff's Office, crime maps: https://www.colliersheriff.org/news/crime-maps
• Collier County Board of County Commissioners agendas, BoardDocs: https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/collier/
• Collier County meeting portal, CivicClerk: https://colliercofl.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1455/overview
• Collier County Planning Commission calendar and the canceled 6 August 2026 meeting, CivicClerk: https://colliercofl.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1473/overview
• Collier County Land Development Code Appendix F: http://colliercounty.elaws.us/code/ldc_appf
• Collier County adopted ordinance download, Municode API: https://mcclibraryfunctions.azurewebsites.us/api/ordinanceDownload/13992/1099893/pdf
• Collier County PTNE, Lely Golf Estates Beautification MSTU: https://www.collierptne.com/mtsu/lely-golf-estates-beautification-advisory-committee/
• Lely MSTU boundary map: https://www.collierptne.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Lely-MSTU-Boundary-2.pdf
• Lely MSTU agenda backup, 21 May 2026: https://www.collierptne.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Agenda-Backup-Lely-MSTU-05-21-26-Optimized.pdf
• Collier MPO, Transportation Improvement Program: https://colliermpo.org/tip
• Collier MPO, FY27-31 TIP approved 12 June 2026: https://colliermpo.org/wp-content/uploads/FY27-31-TIP-approved-6.12.26.pdf
• Collier County Parks and Recreation: https://www.collierparks.com/Division-Information/Volunteer-Opportunities
• Lely Community Development District: https://www.lelycdd.com/
• Lely Community Development District, district overview: https://www.lelycdd.com/cdd-overview/
• Greater Naples Fire Rescue District, Station 26: https://greaternaplesfire.org/gnfrd-capital/station-26/
• Greater Naples Fire Rescue District, final millage resolution 2025: https://greaternaplesfire.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Resolution-2025-10-Final-Millage-Rate.pdf
• FDOT District One, Collier County projects: https://www.swflroads.com/projects/County/Collier

State of Florida

• Florida Auditor General, Lely CDD FY2024 audited financial report: https://flauditor.gov/pages/specialdistricts_efile%20rpts/2024%20lely%20community%20development%20district.pdf
• Florida Auditor General, Lely CDD FY2023 audited financial report: https://flauditor.gov/pages/specialdistricts_efile%20rpts/2023%20lely%20community%20development%20district.pdf
• Florida Division of Corporations, Sunbiz: https://search.sunbiz.org
• Sunbiz record, Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association: https://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=EntityName&directionType=Initial&searchNameOrder=LELYRESORTMASTERPROPERTYOWNERS%20N369910&aggregateId=domnp-n36991-c5f4cf3d-5897-4986-aff9-d1819ab2f897&searchTerm=Lely%20Resort%20Master&listNameOrder=LELYRESORTMASTERPROPERTYOWNERS%20N369910
• Florida Statutes, Florida Senate: https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes
• Florida Legislature, published reports: https://www.leg.state.fl.us/data//Publications/2004/senate/reports/budget_issues/SENReq382FY0304.htm
• South Florida Water Management District, Picayune Strand Restoration Project: https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/picayune-strand-restoration-project
• South Florida Water Management District, Henderson Creek boundary survey: https://www.sfwmd.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BCB_Henderson_Creek_Bndry_Survey_Final_R9-14-2023_DS.pdf
• South Florida Water Management District, Collier stormwater improvement release: https://www.sfwmd.gov/sites/default/files/documents/nr_2009_0205_collier_stormwater_improvement.pdf
• Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Rookery Bay NERR Management Plan: https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/Item%2021%20Rookery%20Bay%20NERR%20MP.pdf
• Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve: https://rookerybay.org
• Rookery Bay watershed projects: https://rookerybay.org/wp-content/uploads/5-RookeryBayWatershedProjects.pdf
• Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Picayune Strand: https://myfwc.com/recreation/cooperative/picayune-strand/
• Florida Forest Service, Picayune Strand State Forest: https://www.fdacs.gov/Forest-Wildfire/Our-Forests/State-Forests/Picayune-Strand-State-Forest
• Florida Health Finder, licensed facility profile: https://quality.healthfinder.fl.gov/Facility-Provider/Profile/?LID=178823

Federal

• FEMA, National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System: https://www.fema.gov/floodplain-management/community-rating-system
• FEMA NFIP Community Rating System guide: https://agents.floodsmart.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/2025-07/fema-nfip-crs-guide-2023.pdf
• FEMA Map Service Center, FIRM panels: https://msc.fema.gov/
• FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer service: https://hazards.fema.gov/arcgis/rest/services/public/NFHL/MapServer/28/query
• NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events database: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/swdi/stormevents/csvfiles/
• National Center for Education Statistics, school detail record: https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schooLSearch/school_detail.asp?State=12&SchoolPageNum=166&ID=120033008906
• National Center for Education Statistics, private school search: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/school_list.asp
• US Census Bureau geocoder: https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/locations/onelineaddress?address=8060+Grand+Lely+Drive+Naples+FL+34113&benchmark=Public_AR_Current&format=json
• GovInfo, 1994 federal Rookery Bay and Henderson Creek planning document: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CZIC-tc424-f6-d26-1994/html/CZIC-tc424-f6-d26-1994.htm
• MSRB EMMA, municipal securities disclosure: https://emma.msrb.org
• US Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR filing archive: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1108109/000119312526138026/cyh-ex99_2.htm

Association and Developer

• Lely Resort Master Property Owners Association: https://lelymasterpoa.com/
• Lely Resort Master POA, financial documents: https://lelymasterpoa.com/financial
• Lely Resort Master POA, meeting minutes: https://lelymasterpoa.com/meeting-minutes
• Lely Resort Master POA, 2025 Recorded Declaration of Covenants: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/7bb1a36e-eebe-432e-8524-70add8f08924/2025%20Recorded%20Declaration%20of%20Covenants.pdf?ver=1785358273853
• Lely Resort Master POA, 2025 Recorded By-Laws: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/6d32a72e-1ab8-4158-89bd-feb44c2c15fd/2025%20Recorded%20By%20Laws.pdf?ver=1785358273853
• Lely Resort Master POA, 2025 Recorded Articles of Incorporation: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/de388f8d-c2c2-446e-98a8-4ed4491646f6/2025%20Recorded%20Articles%20of%20Incorporation.pdf?ver=1785358273853
• Lely Resort Master Budget, approved: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/f0fbe2fc-a972-47fb-9896-5c3b55dfee1d/Lely%20Resort%20Master%20Budget%20-%20Approved.pdf?ver=1785358273949
• Lely Resort Master POA, 2024 audited financial statements: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/a110ad51-528e-4813-b428-68548a39a478/Lely%20Resort%20Master%20POA%20-%202024%20Audited%20Financia.pdf?ver=1785358274224
• Lely Resort Master POA, ARC Guidelines: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/b350632c-73b7-4cdf-93db-3bdb6cd1a3f0/Lely%20Resort%20Master%20Property%20Owners%20ARC%20Guideli.pdf?ver=1785358273853
• Lely Resort Communities roster: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/30324137-40da-447e-be9b-45128ebf119b/downloads/4270af81-b475-4aaf-92a5-506d593a678e/Lely%20Resort%20Communities.xlsx?ver=1785358273933
• Lely Resort Master POA, homeowner portal: http://lelyresortmaster.frontsteps.com/users/sign_in
• Lely Island Estates Homeowner Association: http://www.lelyisland.com/default.php
• Lely Island Estates, 2026 adopted budget: http://www.lelyisland.com/editor_upload/File/Financial/Annual%20Budgets/2026%20Adopted%20Budget/2026%20Adopted%20Budget.pdf
• Lely Island Estates, fine schedule for violations 2024: http://www.lelyisland.com/editor_upload/File/Miscellaneous/Fine%20Schedule%20for%20Violations%202024.pdf
• The Players Club and Spa: https://www.playersclubandspa.com/
• The Players Club and Spa, membership: https://www.playersclubandspa.com/membership
• The Players Club and Spa, court sports: https://www.playersclubandspa.com/court-sports
• Lely Resort Golf and Country Club: https://www.lelyresortgolfandcountryclub.com/
• Lely Resort Golf and Country Club, Flamingo Island: https://www.lelyresortgolfandcountryclub.com/flamingo-island/
• Lely Resort Golf and Country Club, Mustang: https://www.lelyresortgolfandcountryclub.com/mustang/
• Lely Resort Golf and Country Club, The Classics: https://www.lelyresortgolfandcountryclub.com/the-classics/
• Lely Resort Golf, tee times and rates: https://www.lelyresortgolf.com/naples-golf-tee-times
• The Classics Country Club: https://www.theclassicsclub.com/
• Ole at Lely Resort Condominium Association: https://oleatlelyresortcondo.sites.townsq.io/
• Saratoga at Lely Resort: https://www.saratogalely.net/
• The Majors at Lely Resort Homeowners Association: https://www.themajorshoa.com/
• Stock Development, archived Lely Resort developer site: https://lely-resort.com/
• Stock Development, Lely Resort neighborhood overview: https://lely-resort.com/neighborhood.asp
• Stock Development, Stock Plaza: https://www.stockdevelopment.com/projects/stock-plaza/about
• American Golf Corporation: https://www.americangolf.com/
• Davidson Engineering, Staybridge Suites project: https://davidsonengineering.com/project/staybridge-suites/
• Brixmor Property Group, Freedom Square: https://brixmor.com/leasing/retail-space/fl/naples/freedom-square
• Minto Communities, The Isles of Collier Preserve: https://www.minto.com/usa/new-homes/news/Isles-of-Collier-Preserve~0_220.html
• Verona Walk Community Development District: https://veronawalkcdd.org/
• Verona Walk CDD creation ordinance 2004-27: https://veronawalkcdd.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/124/2021/10/Creation-Ordinance-2004-27.pdf
• Wentworth Estates Community Development District: https://wentworthestatescdd.org/AboutTheDistrict.php
• Hacienda Lakes Community Development District: https://www.haciendalakescdd.com/
• Fry Straka Global Golf Course Design, Lantern Club announcement: https://www.frystraka.com/news/lantern-club-2026-03-17
• Royal Palm Golf Club: https://royalpalmgc.com/
• Lely Country Club Property Owners Association: https://lelycountryclub.com/

Schools

• Collier County Public Schools, school directory: https://www.collierschools.com/schools
• Collier County Public Schools, attendance boundaries: https://www.collierschools.com/exploreccps/attendance-boundaries
• Collier County Public Schools, school zone locator: https://zones.collierschools.com/live/
• Collier County Public Schools, boundary tool: https://www.collierschools.com/boundary
• Lely Elementary School: https://les.collierschools.com/
• Lely High School: https://lhs.collierschools.com/
• Manatee Middle School: https://www.collierschools.com/MMS
• Collier County Public Schools, 2025-2026 School and District Grades: https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1782924022/collierschoolscom/nb5dnkgvvzlxc0278ell/2025-2026SchoolandDistrictGrades.pdf
• Florida Department of Education, school grades: https://www.fldoe.org/accountability/accountability-reporting/school-grades/
• Florida Department of Education, 2025 school grades results packet: https://www.fldoe.org/file/18534/SchoolGradesResultsPacket25.pdf
• Florida Department of Education, 2025 school grades data: https://www.fldoe.org/file/18534/SchoolGrades25.xlsx
• Florida SouthWestern State College, Collier campus: https://www.fsw.edu/collier
• Florida SouthWestern State College, Collier campus map: https://www.fsw.edu/assets/pdf/about/maps/CollierCampusMap.pdf

Healthcare and Civic

• Physicians Regional Healthcare System, Collier Boulevard campus: https://www.physiciansregional.com/physicians-regional-collier-boulevard
• Physicians Regional Healthcare System, hospitals: https://www.physiciansregional.com/hospitals
• Physicians Regional Healthcare System, urgent care: https://www.physiciansregional.com/urgent-care-prhs
• Naples Comprehensive Health: https://nchmd.org/
• Baker Senior Center Naples: https://www.bakerseniorcenternaples.org
• Conservancy of Southwest Florida: https://conservancy.org
• Habitat for Humanity of Collier County, Naples Manor: https://www.habitatcollier.org/communities/naples-manor/
• St. Matthew's House: https://stmatthewshouse.org
• Guadalupe Center: https://guadalupecenter.org
• Grace Place for Children and Families: https://graceplacenaples.org
• Harry Chapin Food Bank: https://harrychapinfoodbank.org
• Meals of Hope: https://mealsofhope.org
• Champions For Learning: https://championsforlearning.org
• Humane Society Naples: https://hsnaples.org/volunteer
• Collier County Museums, volunteer program: https://colliermuseums.com/volunteer
• Naples Botanical Garden: https://www.naplesgarden.org/visit/
• Artis Naples: https://artisnaples.org/

News and Local Media

• Gulfshore Business, site work begins for two housing projects at Lely and Collier: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/development/site-work-begins-for-2-housing-projects-at-lely-collier/article_5a051460-bbb8-496f-ac09-c6bae576e5ec.html
• Gulfshore Business, multifamily housing at the Lely Resort site: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/development/tim-aten-knows-about-multifamily-housing-at-lely-resort-site/article_910a5670-3e5b-42de-823b-f36b35bb8f8a.html
• Gulfshore Business, Collier County delays vote on 423-home East Naples plan: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/collier/collier-county-delays-vote-on-423-home-east-naples-plan/article_282286df-2202-4d39-b0ca-ea9bd0ee8509.html
• Gulfshore Business, county weighs buying East Naples grove: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/collier/collier-county-weighs-buying-east-naples-grove-for-423-homes/article_3ca877f4-436a-4eb3-ba0a-888c88a42140.html
• Gulfshore Business, developer proposes golf club and cottages for the citrus grove property: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/news/naples-developer-proposes-golf-club-cottages-for-east-naples-citrus-grove-property/article_5cb4df60-5250-4c6c-88cb-16b5eb1466b3.html
• Gulfshore Business, Hibiscus Golf Club sold: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/real_estate/hibiscus-golf-club-sold-what-does-it-mean-for-naples/article_6776f2f8-9958-4375-bb5f-8a8c4973ba88.html
• Gulfshore Business, Collier County sets maximum millage rate for the 2027 budget: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/collier/collier-county-sets-maximum-millage-rate-for-2027-budget/article_7a5a6564-c64b-4d8f-8b78-324063302cc2.html
• Naples Press, Hibiscus Golf Club announces transition into a private club: https://www.naplespress.com/local-news/hibiscus-golf-club-announces-transition-into-private-club/article_645776af-1bfb-48a0-b93c-73a486ac7d9e.html
• Naples Press, site work begins for two housing projects: https://www.naplespress.com/local-news/site-work-begins-for-2-housing-projects/article_ace262ef-04b6-58d3-bce8-34f90e1c9c20.html
• Naples Press, Costco gets approval to build a second store: https://www.naplespress.com/local-news/costco-gets-ok-to-build-second-store/article_b9f0e9c7-e868-5f67-8706-7de9a2e29d64.html
• Naples Press, county approves workforce housing plan in East Naples: https://www.naplespress.com/local-news/county-approves-workforce-housing-plan-in-east-naples/article_f69e11d2-06df-47f6-a536-aa218755e5af.html
• Naples Daily News, Mustang golf course reopens at Lely Resort: https://www.naplesnews.com/story/money/real-estate/2017/12/30/mustang-golf-course-reopens-lely-resort/984245001/
• Naples Daily News, Florida school report cards are out: https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/education/2026/07/07/florida-school-report-cards-are-out-how-did-your-school-do/90819930007/
• Naples Daily News, Hurricane Ian damage in Collier County: https://www.naplesnews.com/story/weather/hurricanes/2022/10/11/hurricane-ian-damage-2-2-billion-collier-naples-marco-island/10466660002/
• Naples Daily News, Collier Boulevard flyover project timeline: https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/2025/12/07/when-will-the-collier-county-flyover-project-be-finished-fdot-collier-boulevard-davis-construction/87661310007/
• Naples Daily News archive, Lely Canal project officially complete: https://archive.naplesnews.com/community/lely-canal-project-officially-complete-ep-400805855-330642181.html/
• Marco Eagle, developer proposes golf course in East Naples: https://www.marconews.com/story/news/local/2026/06/23/developer-proposes-golf-course-in-east-naples-naples/90668607007/
• Marco Eagle, South Naples Costco could be ready to open by fall: https://www.marconews.com/story/news/local/2026/03/03/south-naples-costco-could-be-ready-to-open-by-fall/88958288007/
• Marco Eagle, Collier County road construction and the FDOT flyover: https://www.marconews.com/story/news/local/2026/03/20/collier-county-road-construction-includes-massive-fdot-flyover-boulevard-traffic-congestion/89224811007/
• WINK News, new homes coming to Isles of Collier Preserve: https://www.winknews.com/news/collier/new-homes-coming-to-isles-of-collier-preserve-causing-concerns/article_0eebc874-95de-58de-89f4-de334093eedf.html
• WGCU, prescribed burns planned at six Conservation Collier preserves: https://www.wgcu.org/section/environment/2025-12-03/prescribed-burns-planned-at-six-conservation-collier-preserves
• Coastal Breeze News, commissioners approve East Naples Costco: https://www.coastalbreezenews.com/news/commissioners-approve-east-naples-costco/article_3c9987c4-5561-44b9-b40d-4e4b27f806d6.html
• Coastal Breeze News, affordable housing coming to 951: https://www.coastalbreezenews.com/news/affordable-housing-coming-to-951/article_7c553850-6a6c-4deb-869b-8e1136dd418a.html
• Business Observer, DiVosta Homes releases homesites in Winding Cypress: https://www.businessobserverfl.com/news/2019/mar/28/divosta-homes-pultegroup-releases-200-homesites-in-winding-cypress-in-naples/
• Golf Course Trades, renovation becomes reality at Royal Palm Golf Club: https://golfcoursetrades.com/renovation-becomes-reality-at-royal-palm-golf-club/
• Shopping Center Business, Publix-anchored center breaks ground in Southwest Florida: https://shoppingcenterbusiness.com/halvorsen-holdings-breaks-ground-on-publix-anchored-shopping-center-in-southwest-florida/
• FGCU 360, FGCU's role in a Collier County restoration project: https://fgcu360.com/2024/11/21/paving-a-way-forward-fgcus-role-in-a-collier-county-restoration-project/