From last summer until April, 14 local leaders sat on a temporary committee to brainstorm ways to help the peninsula from Granada Boulevard down to Dunlawton Avenue.
DAYTONA BEACH — After spending a year leading a temporary committee tasked with coming up with recommendations to turn around the struggling beachside, Tony Grippa is urging Daytona Beach city leaders to use the suggestions.
"Please don't let them sit," Grippa, chairman of the now dissolved Beachside Redevelopment Committee, implored the city manager, mayor and city commissioners at their meeting Wednesday night. "We can't allow this to just sit on a shelf."
Frank Molnar, also a Beachside Redevelopment Committee member, echoed the call to keep the committee's ideas alive and moving toward real change.
"We need to keep it at the forefront," Molnar said. "The key is everyone working together."
From last summer until April, 14 local leaders on the committee huddled monthly to talk about what can help the peninsula from Granada Boulevard down to Dunlawton Avenue stop distinguishing itself as such an underachiever.
The result of those Beachside Redevelopment Committee meetings is a comprehensive report packed with recommendations to launch an aggressive crackdown on code violations, overhaul infrastructure along key corridors such as East International Speedway Boulevard and State Road A1A, and transform the large parking lots around the Ocean Center and Peabody Auditorium into the sites of new hotels, condos, shops, restaurants and parking garages.
There's also a suggestion to soften redevelopment rules enough for investors to feel more comfortable sinking their money into renovations and new buildings.
The full report is being handed off to local governments now, and the County Council members who formed the committee last year got first crack at saying what they think should happen next when they got a presentation from Grippa at their May 15 meeting. More presentations of the recommendations will be made in the coming weeks to elected officials in Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach Shores.
The CEO Business Alliance and Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce have already endorsed the committee's recommendations.
County Council member Billie Wheeler, who was at Wednesday's meeting, has said the full burden of redeveloping the beachside doesn't have to rest on Daytona's shoulders.
"Anything that can be a joint venture I'll work with," Wheeler, whose district includes most of Daytona Beach, recently said.
Wheeler said she's met with Daytona Beach city staff members and commissioners to ask what she and the county can do to help the struggling but promising area between the Halifax River and Atlantic Ocean. Last week, Wheeler joined a group of local leaders who took a walking tour of the beachside to see what's improving and what needs help.
Mayor Derrick Henry, who was a member of the committee, said the recommendations are "commendable and something we need to use as we move forward."
City Commissioner Rob Gilliland said he doesn't see any problems with what the committee is suggesting, but he also doesn't see anything the city isn't already working on or has in the past.
"I think they just want us to press the gas pedal harder," Gilliland said.
Grippa zeroed in on the beachside's main corridors as needed anchors of change.
"When you sit here as leaders of Daytona Beach, what do you want to be on A1A? Is it a massage parlor? Grippa challenged.
Main Street is also key, he said.
"Main Street is crucial to economic development, crucial to the neighborhoods," Grippa said. "We have to figure out how we're going to transform from an event economy to a 365-day-per-year place."
He said there's "a great opportunity to do something visionary near the Ocean Center."
Although the idea of overhauling the beaten down peninsula can seem daunting, Grippa argued it can be done.
"How did Jacksonville Beach turn into what it is today?" asked Grippa, a former Brown & Brown Inc. executive and former chairman of the Leon County Commission. "How did Destin become what it is? All of that was an investment made by visionaries."
Grippa asked city leaders to look at what they're spending east of the Halifax River versus what's getting poured into infrastructure west of the river, where the city has sent financial help for projects such as One Daytona.
Grippa said the beachside is "being starved." But Gilliland and City Manager Jim Chisholm said the city has had to prioritize, and they don't regret the money put into the Orange Avenue overhaul as well as parks and new community centers on the mainland.
"It's helping us build our neighborhoods," Chisholm said.
Grippa argued that investing more money in the beachside will pay dividends with a larger tax base and higher city fee collections. Molnar told commissioners the assessed value of the beachside has plummeted by $700 million over the past decade.
"That's a big number for such a small area," said Molnar, a local investor and financial advisor who has been a member of local redevelopment boards. "We need to bring in investment, but the area is not on the radar for a lot of people because of the condition it's in."
There have been some investment pioneers on the beachside, including the developers behind the oceanfront Marriott Renaissance project on A1A that at Wednesday's meeting got two key approvals from city commissioners to move forward.
Molnar said he's also encouraged that the city has made a few land purchases at the intersection of East International Speedway Boulevard and A1A, setting the stage for a planned roundabout there.
In April, city commissioners agreed to buy a small property on the northwest corner of A1A and East ISB along with two properties across the street on the southwest corner of the intersection that's traveled by millions of tourists every year. The combined purchase price for the trio of parcels was $2.63 million.
If $25 million in state funding comes through, the land will be used for a roundabout and a larger overhaul of the half-mile-long East ISB, the city's long-struggling gateway to the beach lined with aging and dilapidated buildings.
Other improvements are on the horizon as Eddie Hennessy is accumulating property between his Streamline Hotel and East ISB and creating a block of land he'll redevelop.
"We're definitely moving in the right direction," Molnar said, adding he doesn't want to lose momentum. "These bull markets don't last forever."
He said improving "that first impression" of the beachside "will pay off."
"We could be so much more than we are," Molnar said.
"The opportunity is real," Grippa agreed.