Three months after an exhaustive 400-page plan for overhauling the beachside core tourist area around the Ocean Center and Main Street was completed, city leaders say they're beginning to take steps to make the colorful drawings in the plan come to life.
"What's important here is to change things the way they are," city Redevelopment Director Reed Berger said Wednesday during a community meeting at Peabody Auditorium to discuss the plan consultants compiled over the past year. "What we have here is unacceptable."
During the meeting attended by a few dozen beachside residents and business owners, Berger ran through a list of things the city is tackling to create what has been dubbed the e-zone, short for entertainment zone.
The list included everything from improved lighting for safety to city leaders talking to legal and financial experts about ways to fund developments outlined in the plan.
Some of the more dramatic parts of the plan, such as creating 1,500 new hotel rooms and 150,000 square feet of retail and dining space, are not in full swing yet. But some people at the meeting have faith that will happen eventually, or at least some of it will.
"I think some can happen and other parts will probably change," Pat Drago, who lives on the beachside, said after the meeting. "Some of these things are not financially feasible."
In a discussion after the meeting, Berger talked about things happening in and around the e-zone that will give the area a shot at reinventing itself.
The city is about to buy a piece of property just south of Breakers Oceanfront Park, and hopes to buy another nearby soon, Berger said. That land could possibly become parking for the Joe's Crab Shack city leaders hope will open on the Daytona Beach Pier, he said.
The city is pouring more than $3 million into pier improvements, and has been negotiating with Joe's Crab Shack the past few months to try to get an agreement for the seafood restaurant to lease the historic building on the city-owned landmark.
For sale signs are popping up around the e-zone area, including one on a lot near the Halifax River that city leaders hope will become a hotel with a marina, and another in the parking lot on the east side of Peabody Auditorium that the plan suggests be used for green space and retail shops.
There are also plans for improvements on the edges of the e-zone, something both city leaders and residents have said will be essential to entice developers and make the proposed collection of new shops, hotels, restaurants and parks successful.
An aggressive code enforcement campaign dubbed Daytona Proud, which started on the beachside in March and will eventually go citywide, "has been very successful," Berger said.
"It's started to change the look of the e-zone area," he said.
Drago, who's chairwoman of the city's Historic Preservation Board, said there are "architectural gems" in the neighborhoods being targeted by the code sweep on either side of Main Street that need to be protected.
Berger said the city has started design work for streetscape improvements along International Speedway Boulevard east of the bridge.
"That'll finally change the look of that area," he said.
One woman at Wednesday's meeting, Helen Kostidakis, said those International Speedway Boulevard improvements are long overdue.
"I've been here 39 years and ISB looks worse than it ever has," said Kostidakis, whose family owns property on that section of the city's main entry corridor as well as along State Road A1A.
No matter how good the e-zone looks, it could be sabotaged if International Speedway Boulevard isn't improved, she said.
The city also can't forget the basics, such as helping existing businesses survive the protracted ailing economy with grants to fix up their buildings, she said.
Kristin Mixell, a South Daytona resident who said she has a master's degree in city planning, said implementing the e-zone master plan will be the hard part. But she said the city has "the political will and vision" for the first time in a long time.
Drago agrees the e-zone plan doesn't appear to be headed for the heap of other plans the city never did much with.
"There's a sea change in attitude," she said.
"What's important here is to change things the way they are," city Redevelopment Director Reed Berger said Wednesday during a community meeting at Peabody Auditorium to discuss the plan consultants compiled over the past year. "What we have here is unacceptable."
During the meeting attended by a few dozen beachside residents and business owners, Berger ran through a list of things the city is tackling to create what has been dubbed the e-zone, short for entertainment zone.
The list included everything from improved lighting for safety to city leaders talking to legal and financial experts about ways to fund developments outlined in the plan.
Some of the more dramatic parts of the plan, such as creating 1,500 new hotel rooms and 150,000 square feet of retail and dining space, are not in full swing yet. But some people at the meeting have faith that will happen eventually, or at least some of it will.
"I think some can happen and other parts will probably change," Pat Drago, who lives on the beachside, said after the meeting. "Some of these things are not financially feasible."
In a discussion after the meeting, Berger talked about things happening in and around the e-zone that will give the area a shot at reinventing itself.
The city is about to buy a piece of property just south of Breakers Oceanfront Park, and hopes to buy another nearby soon, Berger said. That land could possibly become parking for the Joe's Crab Shack city leaders hope will open on the Daytona Beach Pier, he said.
The city is pouring more than $3 million into pier improvements, and has been negotiating with Joe's Crab Shack the past few months to try to get an agreement for the seafood restaurant to lease the historic building on the city-owned landmark.
For sale signs are popping up around the e-zone area, including one on a lot near the Halifax River that city leaders hope will become a hotel with a marina, and another in the parking lot on the east side of Peabody Auditorium that the plan suggests be used for green space and retail shops.
An aggressive code enforcement campaign dubbed Daytona Proud, which started on the beachside in March and will eventually go citywide, "has been very successful," Berger said.
"It's started to change the look of the e-zone area," he said.
Drago, who's chairwoman of the city's Historic Preservation Board, said there are "architectural gems" in the neighborhoods being targeted by the code sweep on either side of Main Street that need to be protected.
Berger said the city has started design work for streetscape improvements along International Speedway Boulevard east of the bridge.
"That'll finally change the look of that area," he said.
One woman at Wednesday's meeting, Helen Kostidakis, said those International Speedway Boulevard improvements are long overdue.
"I've been here 39 years and ISB looks worse than it ever has," said Kostidakis, whose family owns property on that section of the city's main entry corridor as well as along State Road A1A.
No matter how good the e-zone looks, it could be sabotaged if International Speedway Boulevard isn't improved, she said.
The city also can't forget the basics, such as helping existing businesses survive the protracted ailing economy with grants to fix up their buildings, she said.
Kristin Mixell, a South Daytona resident who said she has a master's degree in city planning, said implementing the e-zone master plan will be the hard part. But she said the city has "the political will and vision" for the first time in a long time.
Drago agrees the e-zone plan doesn't appear to be headed for the heap of other plans the city never did much with.
"There's a sea change in attitude," she said.
