The city and beachside landowner Eddie Hennessy are a City Commission vote away from locking in a deal that could provide more property for a planned roundabout at A1A and East ISB as well as replace some dilapidation with new development.
DAYTONA BEACH — Two weeks ago, the city spent $2.63 million to buy out three properties at the intersection of State Road A1A and East International Speedway Boulevard.
Now another land deal looks like it could help the city keep striding toward its goal of resurrecting that blight-riddled intersection millions of tourists pass through every year.
The city and beachside landowner Eddie Hennessy are a City Commission vote away from locking in a deal that could provide more property for a planned roundabout at A1A and East ISB. The deal could also help replace some longstanding beachside blight with new development.
The city's Planning Board unanimously backed the idea at their meeting last week, and the City Commission is slated to vote May 16.
The new deal comes in the wake of the city's purchase of a hurricane-damaged convenience store that's been vacant for 18 months, a crime-ridden strip club and a small Segway rental shop all at the heavily traveled intersection of East ISB and A1A. The new land deal would build on those acquisitions by adding most of the rest of the block where the Segway business is located, along with more property just to the west.
The plan is to vacate 380 feet of Coates Street, a narrow road that runs parallel to A1A, and provide a cleared swath of property from East ISB north to Hennessy's Streamline Hotel on A1A. Hennessy owns the land on both sides of Coates between East ISB and the southern edge of the hotel property at Fifth Avenue. Some of his property fronts A1A, and the west side of his holdings back up to the rear of homes and apartments on Grandview Avenue.
Only the tiny property that's home to Bam Bam's Bar & Grill on East ISB is in another owner's hands. The city owns a small slice of property at Coates and Fifth Avenue, but Hennessy is going to purchase that land. So what the city and Hennessy hold together is enough property for both the roundabout and new development that's yet to be revealed.
City Commissioner Rob Gilliland said some of Hennessy's property would be needed for the roundabout.
"I have no problem if the city wants to swap (Coates Street) right of way for the roundabout," Gilliland said.
Neither Hennessy nor top city staffers are going into detail of what they envision.
"It could be a plaza, a Publix, who knows," Hennessy said at last week's Planning Board meeting.
"Obviously our ultimate goal is to clean up Daytona and ISB and take care of that whole corridor," said Hennessy, managing partner of property management and acquisition company SIG Global Family LP. "So basically we're just trying to assemble properties and kind of clean everything up and demolish what needs to be demolished and basically start all over again."
Hennessy said after he demolishes the decrepit buildings that have been sitting empty, he'll add landscaping and improved parking lots with a pedestrian friendly design. The new parking lots could be used for both Streamline guests as well as people going to the beach, shopping, dining or heading for an event on the beachside, said city Redevelopment Director Reed Berger.
It's just a temporary use of the property "until we figure out what the big picture is in development stage," Hennessy said. "We have a lot of great ideas. We just want to make sure whatever we decide to do, it'll be beneficial to everybody."
A memo from Berger to Planning Board members said Hennessy "intends to redevelop the property in a cooperative partnership with the city that promotes the community's vision for improving the intersection of A1A and ISB."
"They do want to work with the community and the city to try to improve this area for commercial mixed-use development of some kind so that when there are improvements to East ISB things will be more likely to occur than without an improvement to the road," Berger told the Planning Board.
Amy Pyle, a member of the city's Beachside Redevelopment Board who lives behind the Streamline on Grandview Avenue, said she wants to know more detail.
"I don't have any problem with it per se," said Pyle, who is also a City Commission candidate. "I just want people to have access to information."
The city has had the 380 feet of Coates Street closed off to traffic with blockades for the past year, and Berger said the city sees no need for it now or in the future.
If city commissioners OK vacating that one-block section of Coates Street, then Hennessy could move toward demolishing the vacant building he owns at Coates and East ISB, as well as the old Shell's restaurant on A1A just south of his hotel that's been empty and falling apart for several years. The rest of his property is already vacant.
Two Planning Board members, Tony Servance and Tony Barhoo, said they're concerned about so much property at a high-visibility intersection sitting vacant indefinitely.
"How long will it sit, and will it become an eyesore?" Barhoo asked.
Hennessy said he's already done major cleanup work in the area and will continue with the rest of his land.
"It's 360 degrees from what it was four years ago," Hennessy said. "It's just getting better and cleaner. This is going to be a very fast process. I'm ready to bulldoze now and clean up the town."
After all the money Hennessy spent to renovate the historic Streamline, the hotel owner is trying to protect his investment, said Tim Davis, principal senior advisor with SVN Alliance commercial real estate in Ormond Beach.
Jim Cameron, senior vice president of government relations for the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce, will never forget what he saw from the rooftop bar of the Streamline. Directly behind the hotel is a full block that's vacant except for a few rundown buildings. The rest of the neighborhood is peppered with ailing structures that pull down the value and vibrancy of much better maintained homes around them.
"When I saw that view behind the Streamline, they're right," Cameron said. "We've got to pick up that area."