A reader once wrote to the Naples Press "Tim Aten Knows" column about a cleared lot on Triangle Boulevard and Collier Boulevard, across from Staybridge Suites. It was supposed to hold a bank and a few restaurants, the reader wrote. Then the land sat with nothing happening on it for months.
That lot now has a breakfast restaurant. Another Broken Egg Cafe opened there on Sept. 19 at 6917 Collier Blvd., in a freestanding building it shares with a TD Bank. At the other end of the stretch of Collier Boulevard that Verona Walk sits beside, at the Rattlesnake Hammock Road corner, the second Naples Costco still has no opening date. Officials had once hoped for a ribbon cutting there this fall.
Shopping corridors in Southwest Florida usually fill in a set order. The big anchor opens, and the restaurant pads and smaller tenants follow. This fall that order ran in reverse on Collier Boulevard. The smaller places opened first, and the anchor is the piece still unfinished.
The Lot That Stalled, and Why It Restarted
The lot is the final phase of Restaurant Row Naples, a 4.5-acre site near the Collier Boulevard entrance to the Freedom Square shopping center. It is bordered by Collier Boulevard on the east, Celeste Drive on the northwest and Triangle Boulevard on the southwest. The developers are Barron Real Estate Inc. and Amera Companies of Coral Springs. Their first building got as far as an empty shell, and then work stopped while the project was refinanced. Neighbors filed code enforcement complaints with Collier County about overgrown weeds and construction debris.
Charles Ladd, president and principal of Barron Real Estate, explained the delay to the Naples Press:
"We didn't walk away. We were in the middle of a refinancing that got delayed and finally is getting done."
In the same column, Ladd said the corridor itself was the reason to keep going. "The area is ready. The growth down there is amazing." He also called the site "just a big mud pit" at that point and said restaurants would show more interest once they could see what was being built. In other words, he expected the site to fill as construction made it look real, with no anchor needed to bring tenants in.
That column named Maple Street Biscuit Co. as the breakfast tenant for the TD Bank building. The restaurant that actually opened at that address is a different breakfast chain, and the published reporting does not say why the tenant changed.
What Opened in September
The site now goes by Triangle Shoppes, which Gulfshore Business describes as "a new collection of businesses being built just north of Restaurant Row and the Collier Boulevard entrance into Freedom Square." More restaurants and businesses are planned there. Another Broken Egg Cafe opened there in September:
- Address: 6917 Collier Blvd., sharing a building with TD Bank
- Hours: 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
- Menu: Southern-leaning breakfast, brunch and lunch, including chicken and waffles, lemon-blueberry goat cheese pancakes and a Champagne lobster omelet
- What's next: franchisee Dillon Gruener plans four locations in Collier and Lee counties, and this is the first
On the other side of Triangle Boulevard is the original Restaurant Row, with Texas Roadhouse, Miller's Ale House, Chipotle Mexican Grill, TheSen Asian Noodle Bar, Jersey Mike's Subs and Starbucks Coffee. One building there had sat empty after Pollo Tropical moved out. Pollo Tropical had been among the first tenants on the row when its drive-thru opened in October 2016. Shake Shack moved into that drive-thru space at 6833 Collier Blvd.
Shake Shack's first Southwest Florida location opened Feb. 20 at Mercato in North Naples, and the company was already building out the Collier Boulevard space at the time. The Naples Daily News reported that Sept. 19 was the opening date for the second Naples restaurant, the same day Another Broken Egg opened across Triangle Boulevard. The Naples Press third-quarter roundup lists both openings for September.
The same roundup shows a third new restaurant close by. Que Chilero, a Guatemalan-focused restaurant, opened in August on U.S. 41 East in East Naples. A Shake Shack, an Another Broken Egg and Que Chilero all opened in this corner of East Naples during the slowest months of the season.
The Anchor That Hasn't Opened
The Costco is at the northern end of the stretch. Its 26-acre site sits on the southeast corner of Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake Hammock Road, inside the Hacienda Lakes Planned Unit Development. The address given in planning coverage is 8392 Collier Blvd., and the site is directly north of Physicians Regional Medical Center. The plan filed with the county shows:
- A store of nearly 162,700 square feet
- About 820 parking spaces
- Gas pumps that can serve 24 vehicles at once
Collier County has had one Costco since 1999, on Naples Boulevard north of Pine Ridge Road. Costco paid $19.4 million for the new parcel in fall 2025, according to county records.
On March 3, 2026, Marco Island's local paper reported that county officials said Costco hoped to begin construction that month and finish in about 100 days. The paper wrote that people in Collier expected a ribbon cutting "by early fall if all the pieces come together." That timeline came with conditions attached. The most recent on-site report we found, published May 22, described dirt still being moved and graded at the corner.
Costco publishes its own New Locations page. Its latest update, dated Sept. 5, 2026, lists 14 openings for October and November 2026, from Lee's Summit, Missouri, to Franklin, Wisconsin. Naples is not on the list. We found no announced opening date. As of early October, the store that was supposed to be the corridor's main draw remains pending.
What the Rattlesnake Hammock Corner Still Has to Settle
Verona Walk residents will feel the details of the Costco site more than anyone, because Rattlesnake Hammock Road is the store's front door. The site plan Costco filed calls for a traffic signal at its Rattlesnake Hammock Road entrance and a separate right-in, right-out entrance with right-turn lanes. Those are proposed features, not road work that has been reported under construction. Costco settled with nearby residents who had opposed the project. Under that agreement, the company is expected to add signage for pedestrian safety, plant more landscaping and donate $35,000 to the Esplanade community for improvements that would make access easier for residents.
The plan also sets aside about four acres along Collier Boulevard for commercial outparcels, and approval coverage said no plans had been proposed for them. The rest of Triangle Shoppes is also unsettled in the published record. Gulfshore Business says more restaurants and businesses are planned there without naming them, and in the earlier Naples Press column Ladd said a building once considered for medical offices could become a larger sit-down restaurant. We found no reporting that names tenants for the Costco outparcels or for the rest of Triangle Shoppes.
North of Davis Boulevard, Collier Boulevard has its own construction season. The Florida Department of Transportation is rebuilding the ramps at the I-75 and State Road 951 interchange and adding flyover connections. FDOT lists the current phase for completion by the end of 2026. Its project update shows overnight closures of a southbound I-75 ramp from Oct. 4 through Oct. 9, along with continuing lane closures on Collier Boulevard.
Open on the Stretch This Week
For someone heading out of Verona Walk along Collier Boulevard this October, here is what has been confirmed:
- Another Broken Egg Cafe, Triangle Shoppes, 6917 Collier Blvd., breakfast through mid-afternoon daily
- Shake Shack, Restaurant Row, 6833 Collier Blvd., in the former Pollo Tropical drive-thru
- The original Restaurant Row: Texas Roadhouse, Miller's Ale House, Chipotle, TheSen Asian Noodle Bar, Jersey Mike's and Starbucks
- Freedom Square, 12663 Tamiami Trail East, with Publix, HomeGoods, Burlington and Planet Fitness among its tenants
- Que Chilero, U.S. 41 East, open since August
The Costco corner at Rattlesnake Hammock Road and Collier Boulevard is still a construction site, with no opening date posted on Costco's own list as of its Sept. 5 update.
New openings on this corridor, and timing at a site like the Rattlesnake Hammock corner, shape daily life in the communities along it. They also shape how a home presents to buyers, especially those coming from out of town. Alfred Robbins Realty Group follows these East Naples changes as they happen. If you would like to talk through how the Collier Boulevard buildout bears on a property in or near Verona Walk, request a private consultation.
