Ask a Park Shore homeowner what has changed at Waterside Shops in the last twelve months and you'll usually get one answer: Dior. Ask what will have changed by Christmas and the honest reply is that most residents haven't finished counting. The 290,000-square-foot open-air center at 5415 Tamiami Trail North is in the middle of the most concentrated tenant turnover in its history, and the second half of 2026 is when the pieces start landing in the same quarter.
The point of this post isn't a roundup. It's a claim: by the end of 2026, Waterside will function less like a shopping center that Park Shore residents visit and more like a third address they use on weeknights. Three unrelated sit-down restaurants, a returning European luxury flagship, and a home-furnishings gallery that behaves like a hotel lobby all open on the same property within roughly nine months of each other. That is a rhythm change, not a refresh.
The Nordstrom footprint is becoming a restaurant with a store around it
The most telling project on the property is the one most residents still refer to by its former name. The 74,591-square-foot Nordstrom building, vacant since 2020, is the construction site for RH Naples, and the concept bears almost no resemblance to what it replaces.
Collier County issued RH's construction permit on August 7, 2025, and the approved final site plans describe a 29,382-square-foot, one-story building with six separate galleries under skylights, connected by landscaped courtyards and glass-roofed walkways, wrapped around a 4,143-square-foot, 174-seat restaurant and wine bar beneath an elongated glass atrium. Naples-based DeAngelis Diamond is executing the build. RH has not committed to a public opening date, but the projected timeline points to late 2026, with the company's leadership having previously told local reporters they were pushing for the fourth quarter.
Read that footprint carefully. The restaurant is not an amenity attached to the retail. The retail is arranged around the restaurant. For a Park Shore resident who already treats Waterside as a weekly errand, that is a different building than the one they've been driving past.
Three sit-down rooms, no overlap
At the start of 2025, Waterside's sit-down dining consisted of one serious seafood option and a casual Italian chain that had filed for bankruptcy. By the close of 2026, the property is on track to hold three full-service restaurants with no overlap in price point, format, or menu identity.
| Concept | Address / Location | Format | Target Opening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eddie V's Prime Seafood | 765 Seagate Drive | Fine-dining seafood and steaks, live jazz, deep wine list | Summer 2026 (Darden confirmed as its first regional location) |
| RH Naples Restaurant | 5489 Tamiami Trail N., inside the RH campus | 174-seat gallery restaurant and wine bar under glass atrium | Late 2026 (targeted Q4) |
| Existing anchors | Waterside Shops interior | True Food Kitchen and Brio Italian Grille, casual daytime dining | Open |
The practical consequence for a resident within walking distance of the property is that three evenings a week you could dine at a different concept inside Waterside and not repeat a cuisine, a price tier, or a room. That has never been true here before. Eddie V's alone has historically pulled Naples customers to Fort Lauderdale or Tampa; its Seagate Drive address ends that drive.
The retail changes are filling gaps, not duplicating stores
The tenant moves running parallel to the dining additions follow the same logic. They are not additions on top of a stable roster. They are replacements, and each one removes an adjacency that Park Shore residents had learned to work around.
- Dior stepped out of its longtime store-within-a-store at Saks Fifth Avenue on June 11 into a standalone 6,000-square-foot suite, giving the fashion, accessories, fragrance, and beauty lines their own address for the first time.
- Hermès has returned to Waterside after a nine-year absence, occupying a freestanding, tropical-pavilion store.
- Brunello Cucinelli is building out the former Williams Sonoma interior space alongside Dior; construction documents were approved July 28, 2025.
- Peter Millar is taking the former White House Black Market space, aimed at the premium sportswear and golf-apparel customer that has historically had to shop for that category at private clubs.
- Vuori, the California athletic-apparel brand, is opening this fall.
- Anthropologie is relocating within the property to a larger storefront expected to open this fall.
- Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn will share a new two-story outparcel in the former Barnes & Noble building.
The through-line is co-tenancy math. Waterside carries an A++ classification, the highest assigned in the Florida market, and its 290,000 square feet is a deliberately compressed format that produces spend-per-square-foot in line with Bal Harbour and Palm Beach. Operator The Forbes Company appears to be defending that positioning rather than diluting it. Every incoming name either fills a category Waterside didn't have (Vuori, Peter Millar) or upgrades a category that had been diluted by a chain closure or a shared footprint (Dior, Brunello Cucinelli, Hermès).
What changes for a Park Shore walk-up
Waterside sits directly across from the residential streets that Park Shore homeowners already walk for coffee and errands. The Village Shops on Venetian Bay and The Village Pub, a Park Shore fixture since 1995, remain the daytime and casual-evening anchor two minutes from the Park Shore Drive parking. The Waterside changes don't compete with that; they extend it.
The practical effect breaks into three habits worth naming now, because reservation systems and the season crowd will reshape them fast.
If you have historically used Waterside as a daytime property and Fifth Avenue South as an evening property, the fall calendar is going to invert that assumption for you at least one night a week.
Reservations. Eddie V's opens in a market where its brand is already known by second-home owners who moved from cities that had one. The Naples location will be booked on the strength of the name for the first several months. Park Shore residents who plan to try it in season will want to hold dates in advance rather than walk in.
The RH restaurant. The 174-seat format under the atrium is not a traditional chain rollout. RH's Naples opening precedes any other East Coast city, and the room reads closer to a European gallery restaurant than to the anchor tenant of a shopping center. Expect it to draw a destination crowd on weekends and to be quietest, and most useful for residents, at midweek lunch.
Retail hours. Dior, Hermès, and Brunello Cucinelli all keep their own hours independent of Saks. That has already changed the pattern of parking near the north end of the property, and it will change further once Vuori, Peter Millar, and the relocated Anthropologie open this fall. The lot that used to empty out at 6 p.m. is now holding cars past 8.
Waterside is also running a summer guest program, "The Squeeze," offering complimentary lemonade on Fridays and Saturdays through July and August 2026. It is a small thing, but it is a signal about how the operator is thinking. Centers that expect to compete on transactional volume don't hand out lemonade. Centers that expect to compete on how long you linger do.
What to watch between now and January
For the resident who wants a working timeline rather than a press release, three dates matter more than the rest.
- Summer 2026 — Eddie V's opens at 765 Seagate Drive.
- This fall — Vuori, the relocated Anthropologie, Peter Millar, and Brunello Cucinelli all target openings in a compressed window.
- Late 2026 — RH Naples debuts the six-gallery campus and glass-atrium restaurant on the former Nordstrom footprint.
If any single one of those slides, the character of the property in early 2027 changes noticeably. If all three land on schedule, Waterside enters season with a lineup that no other Southwest Florida center will match, and Park Shore residents wake up next to it.
A note from the desk
The homes closest to Waterside and The Village on Venetian Bay have always traded on walkability to the water. That story is starting to include walkability to a restaurant week that runs seven days. If you own in Park Shore and you're weighing what this next chapter means for your address, or you're watching Park Shore from out of state and want a read on how these openings are shaping value on Gulf Shore Boulevard, Kristin Stroh is available for a private conversation. Schedule a consultation and we'll walk the property together, on foot.
