🌴 What's Happening in Naples September 21 - 27

Gabriel Iglesias plays Hertz Arena on Thursday, Carlos Mencia does six shows at Off The Hook from Thursday to Sunday, and the Naples Philharmonic is giving away chamber concerts four nights running, which makes this the best week for a cheap ticket since the season ended. Saturday is the crowded one: a Cattle Baron's Ball at the Hyatt, FC Naples on national television, two charity scrambles, a 5K and a nature walk in the same park, and a full moon on Bayshore. Then Sunday afternoon the East Trail's biggest nightclub turns the lights on for a kids' rave, which is the most talked about listing in the whole pack. Start at the top and work down.

We recommend confirming with event hosts for complete details and current schedules

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🎤 Two Comics, Six Nights

😂 Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias: The 1976 Tour
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
⏰ Time: Doors 6:30 PM, show 8:00 PM
📍 Location: Hertz Arena, 11000 Everblades Parkway, Estero, FL 33928
🎟️ Details: The biggest room in the region gets one of the biggest touring comics in the country, a show that was pushed back from April and finally lands with all new material. Tickets start at $33, parking is $30 and cashless, and the arena is a bear to leave, so plan on the Corkscrew exit taking a while.

🎙️ Carlos Mencia at Off The Hook
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24 through Sunday, September 27, 2026
⏰ Time: Thursday 7:00 PM, Friday 6:30 PM and 8:30 PM, Saturday 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM, Sunday 6:00 PM
📍 Location: Off The Hook Comedy Club, 2500 Vanderbilt Beach Rd, Suite 1100, Naples, FL 34109
🌶️ Details: Six shows over four nights from the Mind of Mencia guy, touring new material with two specials recently filmed. Two item minimum per person, photo ID at pickup, and the Friday early show is the one that sells first. Landing in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month was not an accident.

🇪🇸 Pablo Zuniga and Julio Rodriguez, Stand-Up in Spanish
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Off The Hook Comedy Club, 2500 Vanderbilt Beach Rd, Suite 1100, Naples, FL 34109
🎭 Details: A full Spanish language set, $30, billed as irony, sarcasm and nothing filtered. If your Spanish is good enough for the group chat it is good enough for this.

🔮 Kevin Sullivan Live in Naples
📅 Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Off The Hook Comedy Club, 2500 Vanderbilt Beach Rd, Suite 1100, Naples, FL 34109
♏ Details: One night from the Two Broke Gays podcast co-host, astrology jokes and storytelling, $33. The Wednesday slot means the room is full of people who actually chose to be there.

🎭 Naples Players Drop-In Improv Jam
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM
📍 Location: Sugden Community Theatre, 701 5th Ave S, Naples, FL 34102
🙋 Details: Last Saturday of the month, ten dollars, and Kit FitzSimons has spent 26 years getting nervous people to say yes to things. Built for first timers, retirees and anyone who has to give a speech soon and would rather not.

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🎻 Free Mozart, Four Nights

🎻 Naples Philharmonic Chamber Music at Vanderbilt Presbyterian
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church, 1225 Piper Blvd, Naples, FL 34110
🎶 Details: Philharmonic players in a church sanctuary doing Mozart's D minor quartet and the Mendelssohn Octet, which is eight string players trading a tune a sixteen year old wrote. Free, but you need a reserved ticket, and these go faster every year.

📚 Naples Philharmonic Chamber Music at the Regional Library
📅 Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2026
⏰ Time: 2:00 PM
📍 Location: Naples Regional Library, 650 Central Ave, Naples, FL 34102
🎶 Details: The afternoon option, Reger's second string trio and the same Mozart, reserved through the library. Cool, quiet, and done by half past three.

🎼 Naples Philharmonic Chamber Music at Baker Senior Center
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Baker Senior Center Naples, 6200 Autumn Oaks Lane, Naples, FL 34119
🎶 Details: A different program, a new piece called Reach by Daniel Cavanagh, a Carmen fantasy for four violins and bass, and the Debussy quartet. Free with a reservation. Same night as Fluffy and Mencia, so this is where the quiet people will be.

🏛️ Naples Philharmonic Chamber Music at Artis-Naples
📅 Date: Friday, September 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Sharon and Timothy Ubben Signature Event Space, Artis-Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd, Naples, FL 34108
🎶 Details: The only one of the four inside the building, Reach, the Carmen fantasy and the Mendelssohn Octet again. If you can only make one, make this one.

🎹 Mia Vassilev: Keys on Fire
📅 Date: Friday, September 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM
📍 Location: Performing Arts Center at Arts Bonita, 10150 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs, FL 34135
🔥 Details: A concert pianist who works the whole board, classical to crossover, in a small hall where you can watch her hands. Tickets $40 to $50, box office 239-495-8989.

🌙 Time Traveller: The Music of the Moody Blues
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM
📍 Location: Performing Arts Center at Arts Bonita, 10150 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs, FL 34135
🎸 Details: The harmonies and the orchestral rock arrangements, Nights in White Satin included, done by a band that has clearly listened closely. $45 to $55, tickets through artsbonita.org.

🤠 Country on the Gulf with Ben Allen Band
📅 Date: Friday, September 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:30 PM
📍 Location: Dimension Event Center, 2634 Tamiami Trail E, Naples, FL 34112
🎸 Details: The Estero guy who made the top six on The Voice, headlining the 450 seat room on the East Trail with the band that has become the default country act in Southwest Florida. Tickets through Vibeznation. They play the Cattle Baron's Ball the next night, so Friday is the one you can actually get into.

🎶 Live Music at Compass Hotel by Margaritaville
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24 and Friday, September 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
📍 Location: Compass Hotel by Margaritaville Naples, 4805 Tamiami Trail N, Naples, FL 34103
🍹 Details: Free live music on the patio both nights, performer not announced, which is how a Thursday drink turns into a Thursday plan.

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🎉 Saturday Is Overbooked

🤠 Lee County Cattle Baron's Ball
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM
📍 Location: Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa, 5001 Coconut Rd, Bonita Springs, FL 34134
🐂 Details: Twenty two years in, this year's theme is From the Shoreline to the Showdown Against Cancer, which means western dress, a mechanical bull, axe throwing, a live auction and Ben Allen Band on the stage. Six hundred people, 21 and over, and last year cleared $315,000 for the American Cancer Society.

⚽ FC Naples vs. Chattanooga Red Wolves
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Paradise Coast Sports Complex Stadium, 3940 City Gate Blvd N, Naples, FL 34117
📺 Details: A national broadcast for the city's pro soccer team in its second season, which means the stadium will be full of people trying to get on camera. Tickets through fcnaples.com, and City Gate parking is easier than it looks if you come off Collier Boulevard.

🏆 Apex All-Star Awards
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: Check-in 11:30 AM, lunch 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM
📍 Location: Compass Hotel by Margaritaville Naples, pool deck, 4805 Tamiami Trail N, Naples, FL 34103
🦜 Details: An awards show you vote in from your phone, three finalists each for athlete of the year on both sides, sponsor of the year and charity of the year, with lunch, a drink ticket, a T-shirt and live parrots for $35. The afterparty starts at 2:45, poolside, on a Saturday, so nobody is leaving at three.

🌕 Full Moon Ceremony at Omaya Studio
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Omaya Studio, 3212 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112
🔔 Details: Joanna Magdanska's signature gathering on Bayshore: gentle yoga, breathwork, a sound bath with crystal bowls, harp and gong, and herbal tea, under a full moon. Book through Eventbrite. The exact opposite of the Cattle Baron's Ball, happening at nearly the same hour.

🏃 Medal Madness 5K, 10K and Half Marathon
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 AM
📍 Location: North Collier Regional Park, 15000 Livingston Rd, Naples, FL 34109
🏅 Details: A small chip timed race with a themed finisher medal and a best costume award, from $33.80, kids five to fifteen for $5 plus fees. Register online before race day, no signups on site, and water is only at the finish, so carry your own for the half.

🌿 Nature Walks with the Conservancy
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 9:00 AM
📍 Location: North Collier Regional Park, 15000 Livingston Rd, Naples, FL 34109
🦋 Details: The Nature Center is closed for construction until December, so Conservancy guides are walking county parks instead, boardwalks and paved paths through forest and wetland. Registration required, closed toe shoes, and it is National Public Lands Day, which is a good excuse. Same park and same morning as the race, so park on the north side.

🐺 Shy Wolf Sanctuary Charity Golf Scramble
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 AM
📍 Location: Heritage Bay Golf and Country Club, 10154 Heritage Bay Blvd, Naples, FL 34120
⛳ Details: Sixth year, $200 a golfer or $700 a foursome, with lunch, contests and a swag bag, and the fundraiser had already blown past its $25,000 goal when we checked. The money keeps wolves, wolfdogs and other unreleasable animals fed for the rest of their lives.

🩺 Docs and Duffers Charity Golf Tournament
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 AM
📍 Location: Bonita Bay Club East, 2700 Wildwood Blvd, Bonita Springs
⛳ Details: The Collier County Medical Society's thirteenth scramble, $200 a player, breakfast, drinks on the course and an awards lunch, with proceeds going to healthcare scholarships. Open to the public, which is rare for a Bonita Bay tee time. Call 239-435-7727.

🩹 Feria de Salud Community Health Fair
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM
📍 Location: Golden Gate Community Center, 4701 Golden Gate Parkway, Naples, FL 34116
💚 Details: Latinos239's free health fair with Healthcare Network doing blood pressure and blood sugar screenings, Narcan training and kits, and a room full of organizations that answer questions in Spanish. Free, walk in, bring the family.

🍞 Sourdough for Beginners at Hopsized Brewing
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
📍 Location: Hopsized Brewing Company, 9201 Cockleshell Dr #13, Bonita Springs, FL 34135
🍺 Details: Two hours in a taproom with The Sourdough Lady, $85, and you leave with a 170 year old San Francisco starter, dough ready to bake and a care guide. Limited seats and the last few classes have filled.

🎭 Broadway Babies, Final Session
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 10:00 AM
📍 Location: Gulfshore Playhouse, 100 Goodlette-Frank Rd S, Naples, FL 34102
👶 Details: Ages two to four with a grown up, singing and moving through Broadway tunes in the new building, $40. This is the last Saturday of the fall run.

🧺 Third Street South Farmers Market
📅 Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 AM to 11:30 AM
📍 Location: Parking lot behind Tommy Bahama, Third Street South, Naples, FL 34102
🥭 Details: The summer market in the lot behind Tommy Bahama, produce, flowers, seafood, bread and dog treats. Go early, then take the Sizzle Dining lunch menu at any restaurant on the block, because that deal ends Wednesday.

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🪩 Sunday, and the Rest of the Week

🪩 Naples Kids Rave
📅 Date: Sunday, September 27, 2026
⏰ Time: 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
📍 Location: Dimension Event Center, 2634 Tamiami Trail E, Naples, FL 34112
✨ Details: Billed as the first kids' rave Naples has ever had, and the most popular thing on this week's calendar by a wide margin: DJ May, neon lights, glow sticks, bubbles and a dance floor that belongs to anyone under five feet tall. Tickets through Givebutter, and every dollar goes to Eva's Closet, which hands out clothes, shoes, diapers and school supplies to about 1,500 people a month. Wear something that glows.

🏈 Game of the Week Watch Party at The Cove
📅 Date: Sunday, September 27, 2026
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
📍 Location: The Cove at Paradise Coast Sports Complex, 3940 City Gate Blvd N, Naples, FL 34117
📺 Details: The NFL late game on the 40 foot outdoor screen, free to walk in, food and drink specials at the outdoor bar. The obvious landing spot after the rave if you are already on that side of town.

🍝 100 Layer Lasagna Night at Barbatella
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
📍 Location: Barbatella, 1290 Third Street South, Naples, FL 34102
🧀 Details: Jason Goddard's hundred layer lasagna, $29, dine in or take home, one night only and you have to pre-order by calling 239-263-1955. Order two. One is for Friday.

🍽️ Sizzle Dining, Final Week
📅 Date: Through Wednesday, September 30, 2026
📍 Location: 138 restaurants across Naples, Marco Island and Bonita Springs
🍷 Details: Two course lunches from $19 and three course dinners from $29 at everything from Mercato to Fifth Avenue, with a dollar from each meal going to Blessings in a Backpack. Ten years in and this is the last week of it, so book the place you have been putting off.

🕵️ A Very Victorian Murder, Mystery Dinner
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM
📍 Location: Two Meatballs in Naples, 9010 Bellaire Bay Drive, Naples, FL 34120
🔪 Details: Professional actors from GibsonHouse Mystery work the room over dinner, somebody dies before the entrees, and there are prizes for solving it. Reservations by phone at 239-304-9002, and ask about the price when you call.

🛍️ Sip, Shop and Stroll at the Promenade at Bonita Bay
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
📍 Location: Promenade at Bonita Bay, 26795 South Bay Drive, Bonita Springs, FL 34134
🥂 Details: Free refreshments and shop specials around the open air center, then Bruce Teller plays The Center Bar in the same plaza at six for nothing. Two hours, one parking spot.

🏛️ Proposed 1% Tourist Tax Increase, Public Information Meeting
📅 Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
📍 Location: Collier Clerk Heritage Bay Office, 15450 Collier Blvd, Naples, FL 34120
🗳️ Details: County staff explaining the extra penny of bed tax that is on the November ballot, with questions taken from the floor. If you plan to vote on it either way, this is the ninety minutes that tells you what the money would do.

✈️ Build More Workshop: Airplane Model Build and Simulator Flying
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
⏰ Time: 5:30 PM
📍 Location: EAA Chapter 1067 hangar, 250 Aviation Dr S, Naples, FL 34104
🛩️ Details: The chapter whose teenagers built and flew a real kit airplane over three years is running a model build and simulator night in its hangar at the airport. Aimed at kids, run by pilots, and it quietly pulled more interest than anything else on a Tuesday this week. Check the chapter's Facebook page for the age range before you go.

👩‍💼 LCBW Women on the Move, Naples Chapter
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
⏰ Time: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM
📍 Location: Carrabba's Italian Grill, 4320 Tamiami Trail N, Naples, FL 34103
🤝 Details: The monthly lunch for the Naples chapter of Southwest Florida's business women's network, with a trophy drawn from everyone in the room. RSVP through lcbw.org.

🎶 Twisted Bingo at Dylan's Drafthouse
📅 Date: Monday, September 21, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Dylan's Drafthouse, 1258 Airport-Pulling Road, Naples, FL 34104
🎱 Details: Numbered bingo and music bingo in one card, free to play, with a cash jackpot that rolls over until somebody hits it. Cards go out early and the good tables are gone by seven.

🍀 Monday Trivia on Marco Island
📅 Date: Monday, September 21, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Paddy Murphy's Irish Pub, 1089 N Collier Blvd #440, Marco Island, FL 34145
🧠 Details: Five rounds, free, prizes, and an off season crowd of regulars who do not need the hints. The bridge is empty on a Monday in September, which is half the reason to go.

🍕 Monday Night Trivia in Estero
📅 Date: Monday, September 21, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Naples Flatbread Kitchen and Bar, 10801 Corkscrew Rd, Suite 520, Estero, FL 33928
🧀 Details: The Miromar option, free with a $10 food and drink minimum, a guaranteed winner every round, and reservations recommended because the room is small. Same night as Marco, so pick the side of the county you are already on.

🧒 Rainbowdance at the Golisano Children's Museum
📅 Date: Monday, September 21, 2026
⏰ Time: 9:30 AM
📍 Location: Golisano Children's Museum of Naples, 15080 Livingston Road, Naples, FL 34109
🌈 Details: A music and movement class for little kids built around self esteem and empathy, $25, and a museum to wander after. Call 239-514-0084 for a spot.

🌺 W.O.N.D.E.R. at Naples Botanical Garden
📅 Date: Monday, September 21 and Friday, September 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
📍 Location: Hoffmann Lawn, Naples Botanical Garden, 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112
🐛 Details: Drop in family lessons on the lawn, no registration, included with admission, and kids under 18 get in free through the end of the month. The Garden is closed Tuesday and summer hours end at two, so go in the morning.

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🖼️ Last Week to See

🎨 Latin Modernism: Memory, Myth and Material
📅 Date: Through Wednesday, September 30, 2026
📍 Location: Norris Center, 755 8th Ave S, Naples, FL 34102
🖌️ Details: United Arts Collier's free showcase of Hispanic modernists closes at the end of the month, and it is the most on point way to spend part of Hispanic Heritage Month downtown.

🌴 Summertime and Framing the Shape at Marco Island Center for the Arts
📅 Date: Through Tuesday, September 29, 2026
📍 Location: Marco Island Center for the Arts, 1010 Winterberry Drive, Marco Island, FL 34145
🖼️ Details: Sixty eight works by 29 artists in the juried summer show, plus Honduran born Luis Manzanares' solo show in the small gallery as part of Arte Viva. Free, weekdays nine to four, Saturday ten to four.

🌿 Stories of Air and Soil by Pseudomero
📅 Date: Through Sunday, October 25, 2026
📍 Location: Kapnick Hall, Naples Botanical Garden, 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112
🌴 Details: A Puerto Rican artist and historian drawing a line between the palms of Florida and the palms of home, with a bromeliad series that reads as a preservation plea. Included with Garden admission.

🐠 Underwater World: The Beauty Beneath
📅 Date: Through Saturday, October 31, 2026
📍 Location: Marco Island Historical Museum, 180 S Heathwood Dr, Marco Island, FL 34145
🎨 Details: Inez Hudson's oil paintings of rays, reef fish and the water off Marco, free, with a cut of sales going to the historical society. Pair it with the art center two miles away and you have a Marco afternoon.

⚠️ Please verify event details and availability with the respective venues or organizers, as schedules may change.

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📰 What's Happening in Naples

🔗 Collier Passed a $3.18 Billion Budget and Cut the Conservation Collier Tax 3-2
After a three hour hearing with roughly 30 speakers from the Conservancy and both Audubon chapters, commissioners adopted the budget 5-0 on September 17 and then voted 3-2, Kowal, Hall and McDaniel over LoCastro and Saunders, to drop the Conservation Collier millage from 0.2096 to 0.1772, which trims the program from about $35 million to about $30 million a year, saves the owner of a $400,000 home about $13, and lands two years after the board swept $29.6 million out of the same fund and never put it back.

🔗 The Airport Authority Quit Negotiating With the City and Called a Mediator for October 2
After 30 to 40 hours of talks over a lease that currently runs 732 city owned acres for $1 a year through 2068, the NAA board on September 17 told its lawyers to take its offer, 82 to 99 years at $240,000 a year for the first 42 and $2.4 million after that, into formal mediation with Clearwater mediator Erica Augello, and if that fails the city's lawsuit over the state law that made the airport board elected snaps back to life.

🔗 Naples Approved a $294.1 Million Budget and Raised Its Tax Rate to 1.29 Mills
Council gave final approval on September 16 to a budget up about $53 million from this year, with the millage climbing from 1.23 to 1.29, about $60 more on a $1 million taxable home, which City Manager Gary Young pinned on the last year of union contracts, new police and fire hires and not knowing what Amendment 3 does to the tax base in November.

🔗 FDOT Laid Out the 21 Mile I-75 Widening, Express Lanes and $77 Million in Noise Walls
Construction from Golden Gate Parkway to Alico Road starts this fall and runs about three years, with two optional toll express lanes each way from Golden Gate to Corkscrew, a diverging diamond at Immokalee Road, 16 miles of 22 foot noise walls shielding 3,741 homes, and the first relief lanes between Bonita Beach Road and Immokalee Road due in early 2027.

🔗 Federal Inspectors Confirmed 79 Detainees Were Caged Outdoors at Alligator Alcatraz
The DHS inspector general found staff at the now closed Ochopee site locked 79 people in outdoor metal enclosures of 16 to 18 square feet for up to two hours as punishment, called them "calming areas," and failed federal standards on living space, water, medical care and food, and Democratic attorney general nominee Jose Javier Rodriguez wants a full investigation while the governor's office says the pens met standards and were for "violent criminal aliens."

🔗 Twelve Naples Women Formed Artemis Circle to Raise $275 Million for the NCH Pavilion
Julia Van Domelen, Patty Baker, Simone Lutgert and nine others launched the group on September 14 to close the philanthropic gap on the roughly $350 million Van Domelen Pavilion for Women and Children, a four story, 156,000 square foot build above the North Hospital emergency department with Nicklaus Children's that would take the NICU from 19 Level II beds to more than 35 Level III beds, and NCH says about $237 million is still to be raised before anyone digs.

🔗 Council Approved a New Fifth Avenue Car Show 6-1 for February 27
The Fifth Avenue South Business Improvement District gets to stage a free, still unnamed luxury car event with about 350 vehicles and 20,000 expected visitors on a tighter footprint that keeps emergency lanes open, with the mayor as the lone no, a year after the city denied Cars on 5th its permit and sent it to Bayshore Drive.

🔗 ALDI Opens in Immokalee Thursday After Nearly a Year Without a Supermarket
The store in the old Winn-Dixie at 1602 Lake Trafford Road cuts the ribbon at 8:30 AM on September 24 with gift bags and gift cards for the first 200 through the door, hours of 9 to 8 daily, and an end to a grocery gap that had the county running bus trips to Publix until nobody rode them.

🔗 Goodlette-Frank Goes to Four Lanes, Public Meeting September 30
The county will show 30 percent plans for widening the 1.6 miles between Vanderbilt Beach Road and Immokalee Road, with sidewalks, bike lanes, a new bridge over Pelican Marsh Boulevard and a golf cart underpass, from 5 to 6:30 PM at Veterans Community Park, with design wrapping summer 2027, construction in spring 2028 and a $2.75 million state grant expected to help pay for it.

🔗 Blue-Green Algae Confirmed in the Faka Union Canal
The health department sampled a bloom at 16th Avenue SE on September 15 and is telling people to keep themselves, pets and livestock out of the water, wash anything that touches it, skip shellfish from the area and not to count on boiling, with FDEP toxin results going to the state algal bloom dashboard.

🔗 Three New Measles Cases Put Collier at 113 for the Year
Two adults and a child under four tested positive the week of September 6, adding to a 107 case outbreak centered on Ave Maria last winter that made Collier the epicenter of Florida's 2026 numbers, with public school kindergarten vaccination sitting near 89 percent against the 95 percent needed for herd immunity.

🔗 A Shelter Dog Died in a County Vehicle and the Road Dogs Program Is Suspended
A Domestic Animal Services dog died during a ride along under the year old program that lets employees take adoptable dogs to job sites, the county shut it down and opened an investigation, and the advisory committee that oversees the shelter said on September 15 it "definitely" has questions it cannot ask out loud until the investigation is done.

🔗 FGCU and NOAA Will Spend Four Years Testing What Actually Protects Collier Beaches
Christopher Daly of FGCU's Water School is leading a study from now through September 2030 that pits sand replenishment and deep rooted dune plants against doing nothing at Barefoot Beach, Delnor-Wiggins, Naples and Rookery Bay, so the next post storm rebuild is based on measurements rather than instinct.

🔗 Barneys New York Is Coming Back, and It Starts at Bayfront
One Luxury Solutions is opening a roughly 10,000 square foot Barneys with ready to wear, shoes, jewelry and Barneys Home at Bayfront later this year as the first phase of a larger build that includes the FREDS restaurant and possibly a Sports Illustrated bar, with artistic director David Lipman calling Naples "the most special place in the world."

🔗 Six Collier Seniors Made National Merit Semifinalist
Aarohee Dabas of Gulf Coast, Katelyn McDaniel of Naples High and Aaron Bozman, Bennett Bozman, Sarah Dabees and Timothy Mahoney of Aubrey Rogers are among 16,000 semifinalists nationwide from 1.2 million entrants, with about 6,700 scholarships worth $24 million handed out next spring.

🔗 Pepper Ranch Sunflowers Are Open for Free Drive-Through Viewing Until October 12
Conservation Collier is handing out free timed tickets for 9 AM to 2 PM drive-throughs of the sunflower fields at the 2,600 acre preserve at 6315 Pepper Road in Immokalee, which is the same program the county just cut by $5 million, so go look at what the money buys.