Sustainability
Naples Beach Club: A construction case study in coastal resilience
Cole Gile
October 15, 2025
In 2024, Hurricane Milton became the most intense hurricane recorded over the Gulf of Mexico. Through thoughtful design, proactive planning and a deep commitment to climate resilience, Suffolk’s team at the Naples Beach Club blunted Milton’s impact on the project — and resumed construction within 36 hours of the storm’s passing.
When Hurricane Milton struck the Florida coast in October 2024, the Naples Beach Club construction site became a real-world testbed for how thoughtful design and proactive planning can protect a project from the impacts of extreme weather. For Suffolk and our operations team, it was more than a construction challenge — it was an opportunity to demonstrate what resilience looks like in action.
Rising to the challenge
Naples Beach Club is a high-profile resort development located in a vulnerable coastal zone. From the outset, the Suffolk team knew that resilience planning would be critical. My background is in in mining and civil work, so I was able to draw on lessons from my past experience to help lead the implementation of a site-specific flood protection strategy ahead of the storm’s arrival.
Building an earthen berm
The most visible mitigation feature was a large earthen berm, constructed from previously staged material already on site. The berm was built with a 2:1 slope and elevated low-lying areas by roughly 5.5 feet. Our team strategically placed this physical barrier to protect high-risk areas including the lower lobby, junior ballroom, retail spaces, and a car stacker system. We also built separate berms around critical infrastructure, such as the electrical transformer yard, to prevent power loss and downtime, sealed flood vents and deployed pumps to remove rainwater from key areas.
Lessons in real-world resilience
While permanent flood panels were still under construction and not yet in place at the time of the storm, our temporary measures proved highly effective. The berms and supporting systems kept the vast majority of water out of the main structures. Approximately 18 to 24 inches of water entered the garage, but critical systems remained dry, and the site was able to resume operations within 36 hours of the storm passing. In contrast, neighboring properties suffered weeks to months of delays and extensive damage.
A blueprint for future projects
Our work ahead of Hurricane Milton at the Naples Beach Club offers a compelling example of the role proactive site planning and civil coordination can play in climate resilience. It also illustrates Suffolk’s commitment to embedding resilience thinking into construction, from temporary conditions to long-term design partnerships.
This success didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of clear-eyed planning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a willingness to treat resilience not as a checklist item, but as a core element of construction strategy.