Leaving Cypress Woods means driving down Northbrooke Drive to Immokalee Road, where the gate road lines up with Juliet Boulevard and the Walmart entrance on the south side. The club gives its address as 3525 Northbrooke Drive, north of Immokalee Road. I-75 is a short drive east of that corner, and Livingston Road is a short drive west. All three are now part of a long chain of public projects, and the order of that chain matters more than any one project in it.
Collier County has put the Northbrooke Drive intersection on its list of planned improvements. The two bigger projects nearby, an interchange at I-75 and a flyover at Livingston Road, have to happen one after the other, and the first is expected to start in early 2027. The same Immokalee Road you drove last spring will mostly carry you through this season, and the changes worth knowing about are on the errand runs south and east.
The Order the Work Has to Happen In
Collier County staff explained the sequence to the Board of County Commissioners on July 28, when the board approved a design contract for a Livingston Road flyover. Gulfshore Business covered the meeting, and here is the chain as county staff described it.
- FDOT builds a diverging-diamond interchange at I-75 and Immokalee Road. County staff said that work was expected to begin in early 2027.
- The county builds a four-lane flyover carrying Livingston Road over Immokalee Road. Construction can't start until the interchange is finished.
- Intersection improvements east of the flyover. County staff said several are scheduled and named Juliet Boulevard, the entrance to Walmart and TownePlace Suites by Marriott Naples, and Northbrooke Drive across from Juliet, which they described as serving Huntington Lakes, Cypress Woods Golf & Country Club and the planned STARability campus.
County staff also said they are working with the Florida Department of Transportation to fold more intersection improvements into the planned interchange, and are studying Logan Boulevard east of the flyover. That puts the stretch of Immokalee Road at the Cypress Woods gate between two major projects, with the state and county coordinating the intersection work around them.
Exit 111 Is Part of a 21-Mile Job
The Immokalee Road interchange belongs to a much larger FDOT project. Project 452544-1 covers I-75 from north of Golden Gate Parkway to south of Alico Road, 21 miles across Collier and Lee counties. FDOT lists it in the construction phase, with the current phase starting in mid-2026. The planned work includes:
- Resurfacing I-75 from Golden Gate Parkway to Alico Road
- Two express lanes in each direction from Golden Gate Parkway to Corkscrew Road
- New auxiliary lanes in both directions along the full length
- Accelerated congestion relief lanes between Immokalee Road and Bonita Beach Road
- The new diverging-diamond interchange at Immokalee Road
- Direct express-lane access at Vanderbilt Beach Road
- Noise walls in qualifying locations and ramp changes at key interchanges
FDOT held a public hearing on the auxiliary lane plans on October 27 in person and October 28 online. The department said noise wall details would come later.
The part you'll notice soonest runs north of exit 111. FDOT's District One Roadwatch report for November 1 through 7 lists resurfacing on I-75 from Immokalee Road to Bonita Beach Road. Crews are setting up traffic control, and the report warns of overnight single- or double-lane closures, ramp closures and lane shifts during construction. If you head north toward Bonita Springs after dinner, that stretch is where the season's construction first shows up.
When the interchange itself is built, it will change how Immokalee Road feels at the ramps. As Gulfshore Business described it, a diverging diamond temporarily moves traffic to the left side of the road, which removes left turns across oncoming lanes and cuts the number of signal phases.
Why the Flyover Waits Its Turn
The flyover dates to the Immokalee Road Corridor Congestion Study, finished in August 2021, which recommended carrying Livingston Road over Immokalee Road. The board unanimously awarded the $7,594,351.10 design contract to Fort Myers-based DRMP Inc. Design is expected to take about 30 months, inside a project budgeted at $111 million. If the 30-month design clock started with the July 28 vote, design would wrap up around early 2029. Trinity Scott, the county's Transportation Management Services director, told commissioners that construction would begin in the third or fourth year of the county's five-year work program.
Scott compared the payoff to the Golden Gate Parkway overpass at Airport Road. Gulfshore Business reported her remarks to the board:
"We used to have miles of backup for both roadways, but once that overpass went in, now Golden Gate Parkway flows very freely and Airport Road benefits from that because it gets significantly more north-south green time from that and you can still go at grade on Golden Gate Parkway."
The same idea applies to Immokalee Road. With most north-south Livingston traffic passing overhead, the signal below can give more green time to east-west drivers. According to Scott, the study's early traffic modeling showed the overpass would cut wait times by about six minutes. Scott estimated about five and a half to six years until construction is complete.
That faster flow raised a question at the meeting. Commissioner Burt Saunders asked whether intersections west of the flyover would be improved too, since more westbound morning traffic could back up further along. Scott said no improvements are planned west of the flyover, while several are scheduled east of it, which brings the list back to Northbrooke Drive.
The Building Going Up Next Door
The one project on Northbrooke Drive with a target date is a building, not a road. STARability Foundation is turning a 42,000-square-foot building on the former Hodges University campus at 2655 Northbrooke Drive into the Golisano Program Center. The building is named for Tom Golisano, whose foundation committed $10 million. Gulfshore Business reported a spring 2027 target for this first phase, with an events center and a residential component planned for later phases.
The latest progress update says Connor+Gaskins Studio has finished second-floor demolition in the north and south wings and is starting on a new lobby and porte cochere. STARability expects the campus to serve about 1,000 people a year, up from more than 370, with about 180 participants on site each day. Those daily trips will use the same Northbrooke Drive and Immokalee Road intersection as the club, and the site sits near the northeast corner of Immokalee Road and I-75.
This Season's Changes Are on the Errand Run
The errand map shifted this year, and the biggest change for a bundled-golf community is the golf store.
According to Gulfshore Business, Golf Galaxy left its 35,355-square-foot freestanding building at 6428 Hollywood Blvd. in the Promenade at Naples Centre. It moved less than half a mile south on Airport-Pulling Road into Ridgeport Plaza. The new Golf Galaxy Performance Center at 5351 Airport-Pulling Road opened Sept. 6 at the northwest corner of Airport-Pulling and Pine Ridge roads. At 20,780 square feet, it is more than 40% smaller than the old store. It keeps the simulators, a putting green, PGA/LPGA-certified pros for lessons and custom fittings. Hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
Golf Galaxy shares the old Bed Bath & Beyond anchor space with Sprouts Farmers Market, which opened May 15. The same Gulfshore Business report notes it is Collier County's second Sprouts. The first opened in 2019 at Logan Landings, at Logan Boulevard and Immokalee Road, which is still the closer one to Northbrooke Drive. The Ridgeport store is 24,491 square feet, somewhat smaller than the 29,843-square-foot Logan Landings store. In the same row, Max's Natural Pet Market & Salon is now open at 5327 Airport-Pulling Road. That report says the space was home to the Before & After Salon & Spa for many years.
If you take I-75 south toward Ridgeport Plaza or downtown, the Pine Ridge Road interchange is already under construction. FDOT is converting exit 107 to a diverging diamond, adding new ramp signals and resurfacing Pine Ridge Road, and estimates this phase will finish in mid-2027. FDOT scheduled a full closure of Pine Ridge Road under I-75 from 11 p.m. Friday, October 30, to 6 a.m. Sunday, November 1. Its posted detours sent drivers to the Immokalee Road exit and Livingston Road. Diverging diamonds at both exits mean drivers from Cypress Woods will deal with this layout heading north and south.
East on Immokalee Road, Chipotle opened Sept. 22 in Tree Farm Plaza at 8710 Addison Place Drive, near the northwest corner of Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard. It was the center's first tenant. Its "Chipotlane" window is for app and website pickup orders only, and the restaurant is open 10:45 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Gulfshore Business also listed Cava, Riko's Pizza, Jersey Mike's and Nothing Bundt Cakes as coming to the same center.
Back at exit 111, the Immokalee Road interchange is expected to begin in early 2027, and construction on the Livingston Road flyover follows only after it is finished.
If you're weighing a purchase or sale in Cypress Woods and want to understand how this road sequence affects timing, access and day-to-day life, Team Faby can walk you through it project by project. Schedule a consultation today.
