- May 13, 2026
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The Naples Airport has launched a more than $25 million project that officials say will strengthen its resiliency in the event of a storm. Over the next year and a half, crews will install 1,080 elevated edge lights along runways and taxiways at the airport.
Watertight lights will be positioned 20 inches off the ground to protect against potential storm surge in the event of flooding. The new lights will be LEDs, providing more illumination and cost savings, officials say, compared with the incandescent lights currently positioned along the airfield.
The airport will also reconstruct its electrical vault — raising it five feet above its current elevation.
The Naples Airport has experienced firsthand the hazards of being a coastal airport during a major weather event. Storm surge from Hurricane Ian inundated parts of the airport in 2022, destroying lighting and navigational aids and coming within inches of flooding the airport’s lighting vault. A breach could have knocked out lighting and prevented nighttime and low-visibility operations for weeks, the airport says.
“After a natural disaster, Naples Airport serves as a base for rescue operations and humanitarian missions, so it’s imperative that the airfield reopens as quickly as possible after a hurricane or tropical storm,” Naples Airport Authority Executive Director Chris Rozansky says in a statement. “An elevated lighting system will help keep the airport operational during a period when the community needs immediate access to critical resources like food, water and relief supplies.”
Orlando-based Avcon is the engineer of record for the lighting and electrical vault project, responsible for the design and construction administration. Atlantic Electric, headquartered in South Carolina, is the general contractor.
“Airports do a lot of lighting rehabilitation work, but it’s not often that an airport gets to redo the entire airfield,” Avcon President and CEO Sandeep Singh says in the statement. “Every inch matters when water is coming up."
At northern airports, it is a common practice to elevate airfield lights so that pilots and air traffic controls can maintain visibility amid snowstorms. In the South, however, many airports have lights mounted flush to the ground or just above ground level.
The Naples Airport Authority, an independent government agency that operates the airport, worked with the FAA to advocate for what it calls a "practical design change for flood-prone airports,” according to the statement. “As a result, the FAA intends to update its national design standards.”
The lighting and electrical vault project remains in in the procurement and permitting phase. If permitting is approved by the City of Naples this month, construction should start in June, officials say.
Once permits are issued, Atlantic Electric will have 535 calendar days, or nearly 18 months, to complete the work. The Naples Airport is projecting completion by the end of 2027.
Planning has been underway for months, since the Naples Airport Authority board, in October 2025, approved $25.4 million in construction and construction administration services for the airfield lighting rehabilitation and electrical vault replacement project.
Construction funds for the project come from a combination of insurance proceeds; grants from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Resilient Florida Program; allocations from the FAA’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; Florida Department of Transportation Public Transportation Grant Agreement; and capital funds included in the Naples Airport Authority’s annual budget. Naples Airport receives no local taxpayer dollars to fund operations or capital projects.
The lighting and electrical vault replacement are the latest measures to strengthen resiliency at the Naples Airport. In August 2025, the airport received a Tiger Dam consisting of 3,000 feet of flexible tubing that forms an airtight barrier when filled with water. It can be deployed within hours to protect buildings, equipment and technology against potential flooding. It cost $259,370 and was paid for using airport funds.
The Naples Airport is home to private and corporate aviation, flight schools, air charter, aircraft maintenance and repair services. It also houses the Collier County Sheriff’s Office aviation unit, Collier Mosquito Control District, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Fire Station 3 and Collier County EMS MedFlight.
