The Halcyon Residences: What Buying Before Groundbreaking Actually Costs You

If you sign a contract for a unit at The Halcyon Residences & Marina this year, what do you actually own? Not a condo. Not a marina slip. You own a claim on a building that does not exist yet, backed by a deposit schedule, a set of Florida statutes, and a developer's promise about a date more than three years out. That is a different kind of purchase than anything else on the Naples waterfront right now, and the difference matters more than the pickleball courts.

The Halcyon Residences & Marina is the joint project of Henley US, the Florida arm of Henley Investments, and Naples-based Gillette Development. It occupies close to nine acres on Davis Boulevard in East Naples, on the site of Capital Pawn and the decades-old Brookside Marina, with the marina being renovated into the new project rather than removed. The plan calls for 66 residences across two connected mid-rise towers, ranging from 2,190 to 3,375 square feet, priced from just under $3 million to $7 million. A 120-slip private marina anchors the property, expanding the existing 39-slip Brookside footprint with 73 additional slips and direct water access via Rock Creek to Naples Bay and the Gulf. Architecture comes from Matthew Kragh at MHK Architecture, interiors from Megan Sherwood Design, and construction from DeAngelis Diamond. The sales gallery, run by the Dawn McKenna Group, opened in an appointment-only format in January 2026, built inside the old pawn shop building that will be demolished once construction starts.

Every one of those facts is already public. What is worth a longer look is what happens between now and the day someone actually moves in, because that gap is where the real decision lives.

The Timeline Is the Product

Henley and Gillette have full entitlement in hand and sales are underway, but construction is not expected to start until 2027, with completion targeted for late 2029. That is not an estimate padded for safety. It is the structure of how a project like this gets financed.

Gillette Development principal Gavin Gillette has said the goal is to start construction around the first quarter of 2027, once roughly 30 percent of the units are under contract. That threshold is not a marketing detail. It is the point at which a construction lender is typically willing to fund the loan that lets the developer break ground. In other words, early buyers are not just securing a unit. They are helping the project qualify for the financing that makes the project buildable at all.

That arrangement can work well for a buyer, and it has moved fast so far. Within about two weeks of opening the sales office, Henley reported the first units under contract, including one penthouse near the $7 million mark. A Real Deal report from May 2026 put the count at three units sold. But the same arrangement means your capital is doing double duty from day one: buying you a future home, and buying the developer proof of demand.

What a Deposit Schedule Actually Asks of You

Florida law does not leave pre-construction deposits unregulated, but it also does not protect every dollar equally, and the distinction is one buyers routinely miss.

Under Florida Statute 718.202, the first 10 percent of a buyer's payment must sit in escrow and cannot be released to the developer before closing, except as the escrow statute allows. Anything collected above that 10 percent is also escrowed by default, but many developer contracts include language permitting those additional funds to be used for actual construction costs once the buyer has acknowledged that provision in writing. That single clause changes what "your deposit" means. Below the 10 percent line, your money is sitting still. Above it, your money may already be poured into concrete.

The schedule that governs most 2026-era Florida luxury pre-construction contracts, including the kind of terms buyers at a project like Halcyon should expect to see, generally looks something like this:

Total deposits before closing commonly land between 30 and 50 percent of the purchase price, with ultra-luxury projects trending toward the higher end. On a $5 million unit, that is $1.5 to $2.5 million committed and largely illiquid for the better part of three years, separate from whatever you eventually finance at closing.

Florida Statute 718.503 also gives buyers a 15-day window to void the contract, counted from the later of signing or receipt of the required condominium documents. That right cannot be waived, and a new 15-day window opens if the developer later delivers an amendment that materially changes the deal against the buyer. After that window closes, backing out generally means forfeiting the deposit unless the developer has failed to meet its own written obligations.

The clauses that catch buyers off guard are rarely the ones about price. They are the ones about flexibility. Developer contracts commonly permit substitutions of finishes or specifications judged to be of comparable value, and they commonly allow delivery-date adjustments with limited buyer remedy. A rendering with a particular stone or a particular layout detail is not a guarantee. Buyers planning to finance the balance at closing should also confirm their contract actually includes a financing contingency, since many developer agreements are written as cash contracts by default. New attached condo buildings frequently need Fannie Mae's Project Eligibility Review Service approval before conventional loans are available at all, which is worth confirming rather than assuming.

What the Same Money Buys Right Now

Here is the comparison that matters for a buyer weighing Halcyon against something already standing in Aqualane Shores, Port Royal, or Park Shore. Naples enters this window with real inventory movement. The Naples Area Board of Realtors reported 6,447 homes in county inventory and 91 days on market on average for February 2026, a noticeably looser market than the ultra-tight conditions of 2021 and 2022. That gives resale buyers negotiating room and time to inspect an actual property rather than a floor plan.

At the same time, demand for the luxury segment has not softened. Dawn McKenna, whose team also leads sales at Halcyon, told The Real Deal that pending sales in Naples were up 56 percent year over year in February 2026 while inventory was down 15 percent over the same period, a signal that established luxury addresses are still moving briskly even as overall county inventory expands. That combination, more choice in the broader market alongside tighter competition at the top, is exactly the environment where the difference between "buy now" and "wait until 2029" becomes a real financial decision rather than a preference.

A resale purchase in an established Naples waterfront neighborhood delivers something Halcyon cannot yet offer at any price: a finished structure you can inspect, a dock you can measure, a neighborhood whose character is already set rather than promised. A pre-construction purchase at Halcyon offers something resale cannot: a brand-new building on a nine-acre site with a fresh 120-slip marina and an amenity program the developer describes as the largest in the local market, priced today at what today's construction and land costs allow, before three more years of Naples land scarcity work in the other direction.

Neither answer is universally correct. The right one depends on how a buyer weighs liquidity against ground-floor pricing, and how comfortable that buyer is holding a six-figure deposit through a build cycle that runs past 2029.

A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Sign

Is the deposit refundable if the project stalls before groundbreaking? Florida's 15-day rescission window is the clearest exit, but once it closes, refund rights depend heavily on whether the developer meets its own contractual and escrow obligations. Read that section of the purchase agreement before the clock starts, not after.

Can I sell my contract before closing if my plans change? Assignment rights vary by project and are usually spelled out in the purchase agreement itself. Confirm whether Halcyon's contract allows assignment and under what conditions before you assume it does.

How does the 2027 to 2029 timeline affect financing? A rate locked today will not hold for three years. Buyers planning to finance the closing balance should revisit financing roughly six to twelve months before the projected delivery date, not at signing.

The Halcyon Residences may turn out to be exactly the kind of project that rewards early buyers the way Henley and Gillette expect. The marina, the site, and the design team behind it are all real and all documented. But the decision to sign now is a decision about capital and time as much as it is about waterfront living, and that half of the equation deserves the same attention as the floor plan.

If you are weighing a pre-construction commitment at Halcyon against a resale option in an established Naples neighborhood, that comparison is worth walking through with someone who knows both sides of the local market. Coastal Living Naples works with buyers across Naples and Bonita Springs on exactly this kind of decision. Schedule your free consultation to talk through what fits your timeline.