Investment begins to pay off.
A new parking lot typically isn’t greeted with huzzahs. But on State Road A1A in Ormond Beach, it’s a welcome sign of progress.
The Volusia County Council Tuesday approved, without fanfare, a $1.7 million deal to replace the long-abandoned The Other Place nightclub, paving the way to turn the surrounding property into parking. The county had purchased the parcel at 650 S. Atlantic Ave. in 2015 for $1.8 million. However, it has been unable to proceed with turning it into parking because of a lease agreement between the original property owner and the businesses that once used it, and because of the need to remove underground fuel tanks at an old gas station on the corner. That has been resolved, and the county this week secured the rights to tear down The Other Place.
The deal is a twofer for the city and the county. It will remove a blighted property in the community’s main tourism corridor, which has been a major focus of the Beachside Redevelopment Committee. And it will provide much-needed off-beach parking in a prime location, on the west side of the street from a beach access ramp that currently has only 12 public parking spaces. The parking at popular Andy Romano Beachfront Park, about a half-mile south on A1A, often fills up quickly.
The county’s action also creates much-needed momentum for its off-beach parking initiative. Between 2013 and 2015 the county took advantage of historically low property values to spend a total of $12.1 million purchasing seven parcels on A1A from Ormond Beach to New Smyrna Beach to secure future off-beach parking. The properties were chosen strategically: Some were adjacent to soft-sand beaches where driving was no longer possible, while others were located near existing or planned developments where county officials were contemplating removing driving from the beach itself.
(READ: Ormond Beach’s ‘Other Place’ to become off-beach parking, storage space)
The emphasis was on the future, and many taxpayers were beginning to wonder when that would arrive — and when their investment would pay off. They included County Chair Ed Kelley, a former Ormond Beach mayor. Tired of the empty lots and vacant buildings, he last year proposed selling off those parcels to developers.
Patience has been rewarded. Two of those off-beach lots, one beside the Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach and another at Hiles Boulevard in New Smyrna Beach, have been completed. The contract to remove The Other Place will get the ball rolling in Ormond Beach. The News-Journal’s Dustin Wyatt reports that a 44-space lot planned for Ormond-by-the-Sea at 1255 Oceanshore Blvd. (the former site of the Argosy Hotel) is expected to open later this year, and a 70-space lot at 726 N. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Beach (the site of the former Sun & Surf Motel) is also expected to open this year.
Off-beach parking is a relatively inexpensive and utilitarian solution to beachside blight. It’s not a glitzy hotel or retail development, but it improves vacant property while providing much-needed parking that allows people to enjoy surrounding attractions.
The only disappointing aspect to the county’s action Tuesday was its plan to replace part of the old nightclub with a storage facility for housing unused lifeguard towers, cones, signs, tools and lumber. Officials say there’s nowhere else to put large equipment on the northern side of the county. Kelley is right, though, to question whether that’s the best use of a prime location, especially when it will require reducing the number of parking spaces from 150 (the original estimate when the county purchased the property in 2015) to 124 (the current figure).
Still, that’s a net gain for the community. It’s good to finally see movement on the parking front.