Naples Marina To Finish Upscale Improvements in February

Naples City Dock in Florida, long a popular destination in southwest Florida, had been showing its age in recent years. The fixed timber docks, installed more than 30 years ago, needed replacing.

When the City of Naples decided several years ago to renovate the marina, it chose the engineering firm of Turrell, Hall and Associates to oversee the work. “They determined the best approach was a concrete floating system,” said Steve Ryder, Bellingham Marine’s manager of project development, southeast division. Kelly Brothers Inc. won the bid for the overall construction work and Bellingham Marine was awarded the dock construction.

When completed, Naples City Dock will include a large, fixed-access pier that helps carry utilities to the dock. There will three match-cast floating platforms, one for the dockmaster’s office, one for the restrooms and utility/laundry services, and one for a gazebo, which will be open to everyone in the community. Finger piers with space for 65 slips will extend out from a 536-foot-long floating dock, which runs parallel to the shore. This long dock provides plenty of space along its outer edge for larger boats to tie in. The fueling stations and the pumpout facilities are on a t-head at the end of this dock.

Bellingham’s docks feature composite decking over walers with FRP (composite material) thru-rods on main walks and finger piers, and stainless steel thru-rods on the platforms. While the number of slips will remain the same, their size has increased slightly, so they will be able to accommodate boats from 30 to 60 feet. The slips feature upgraded electric (including ground fault monitoring), potable water and fire protection systems.

Dane Kelly of Kelly Brothers Inc. said the biggest challenge on the job has been trying to bridge the gap between what inspectors will approve on land and what’s feasible in a marine environment. For example, a chase way going out to a dock pedestal will often carry both water and electric, but on land those utilities would never be allowed in the same space. “In a floating dock, you have only so many areas to run all your utilities, but on upland you can’t combine them into the same chase way,” Kelly said. “We are constantly working with inspectors to get things approved.”

Kelly Brothers Inc. worked closely with Bellingham Marine to ensure that all the necessary utilities fit within the limited space available. Gladstone Construction, which was the subcontractor that built the bathrooms, dockmaster’s office and gazebo, had to work with Kelly to ensure that materials meant for marine construction, like marine plywood, would work with materials (like peel and stick roof underlayment) that are typically used for land-side projects.

The marina features unique and upscale finishes, like quartz countertops in the bathroom and refurbished nautical lights that have been removed from old ships and repurposed.

Naples City Dock has been closed since construction began on May 5, 2017. The team had to add 20 days to the construction schedule because of hurricane-related delays. Florida Power and Light, for example, is trying to accommodate the project schedule as well as it can, but is still dealing with higher priority hurricane repairs.

Work on phase 1, which includes the slips for the city’s charter boats, should be completed by the end of January, while the remaining docks in phase 2 should be ready a month later.