Whole Foods, Wawa and Hundreds of New Homes Are Headed to South Naples

Yes. Two separate projects along the Davis Boulevard and Santa Barbara Boulevard corridor in East and South Naples would together bring a Whole Foods Market, a Wawa, hundreds of new townhomes and apartments, and several more retail spaces to the area, according to reporting published September 7, 2026, by WINK News reporter Damien Alvarado. Neither project has broken ground yet, and both are still moving through planning and permitting.

I am Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, and I sell across nine Southwest Florida markets including Naples.

The larger of the two projects is called Vitano. As reported, it is planned to include a nearly 32,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market, more than 20 additional retail spaces, 200 townhomes and 422 apartments. WINK News reports the project is still working through planning and permitting, with a groundbreaking projected for 2027 rather than any date already on the calendar.

That is a meaningful mix of grocery, retail and housing on one site, and it is the kind of project that changes what is within a short drive for anyone already living along that stretch of Davis Boulevard, whatever else happens with the timeline. A full-size grocery anchor is a different category of tenant than a strip of small shops. It is the kind of use that a retailer commits to only after studying rooftops, traffic counts and household growth in the surrounding miles, which is part of why a project like this gets watched closely by anyone already living nearby.

The 200 townhomes and 422 apartments planned on the same site add up to well over 600 new households on one parcel alone, once Vitano is fully built out. That is on top of whatever Egrets Crossing brings with it next door, so the two projects together represent a larger, coordinated push into this corridor rather than one isolated development sitting by itself.

The second project, Egrets Crossing, sits on a separate nearby parcel and is planned around a Wawa convenience store with 16 fueling stations, along with a McDonald's and an AutoZone. WINK News reported that a neighborhood information meeting on a zoning change needed for the project was scheduled for the Thursday after the story published. A neighborhood information meeting is a standard, required step for a zoning change in Collier County, not a sign of a dispute; it is simply where nearby property owners get to hear the plan and ask questions before it advances.

A 16-pump Wawa is a large-format fuel and convenience site, built for a corridor that is expected to carry meaningfully more daily traffic than it does today. Pairing it with a quick-service restaurant and an auto parts store is a familiar outparcel combination near a growing residential base, the kind of everyday-errand mix that tends to follow rooftops rather than lead them.

The reporting includes reactions from people who already live in the area. South Naples resident Gretchen Carroll told WINK News the added convenience would be welcome: "It'll be a hop and a skip away to get whatever I need." She also raised the question that tends to come with any fast-growing corridor: whether the infrastructure underneath it can keep pace. "We need to be prepared for it," she said. "So the roads, the lighting, the power, the water." Collier County visitor Jenny Day was also quoted on new businesses and new residences arriving in the same stretch of the county at the same time.

That is a fair, practical question rather than an objection to the projects themselves, and it is worth taking at face value: two projects of this size arriving together do put real pressure on roads and utilities that were sized for what was there before.

Nobody can honestly put a number on what two still-unbuilt projects do to nearby property values, and be skeptical of anyone who tells you otherwise before a shovel is in the ground. What is fair to say is narrower: a national grocer and an established convenience-and-fuel brand choosing to commit to this stretch of Naples is a real signal about how the area is read by companies that study trade areas closely before they sign a lease or buy land, separate from what any specific home nearby is worth.

South Naples along Davis Boulevard and Santa Barbara Boulevard sits inland from the coast, in a corridor that has been filling in with rooftops and retail for years rather than turning over quickly. A buyer weighing that part of the county, whether comparing it against luxury homes in Naples closer to the coast or looking at Naples condos nearer Fifth Avenue, is better served by what is actually approved and under construction than by a rendering.

A planned Whole Foods and a planned Wawa are two data points about a corridor's direction, not a substitute for the numbers that actually decide what a property costs to buy and keep: what has actually sold nearby, what an association holds in reserves if there is one, and what an inspection turns up. The home buying process walks through where each of those gets checked, in order, before you are under contract, and the Naples real estate page covers what else is moving across the wider market.

If you are weighing a property along Davis Boulevard, Santa Barbara Boulevard, or anywhere else across the nine markets I cover, get in touch or call (239) 300-1427 for a straight read on a specific address rather than the corridor in general.