The destiny of Daytona Beach‘s East International Speedway Boulevard and a beachside final attention.
Consider this your invitation to join The News-Journal to plead East International Speedway Boulevard and Daytona Beach‘s core beachside neighborhood. The coffee is on us.
Enrique Zahn has courteously concluded to concede us to accommodate during his restaurant, Henry‘s Pizza, located during 336 East ISB. Enrique has even concluded to open his doors progressing than usual, and to have a large pot of clever coffee prepared for everyone.
We‘ll accumulate from 7:30-to-9 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 25. If we get a good crowd, a seating will be a small tight. But that’s OK. The destiny of East ISB and a beachside final attention.
Last week, News-Journal contributor Jim Abbott reported a latest muted statistics from a Lodging Hospitality Association of Volusia County. Occupancy of hotel beds in a area during Dec were about 10% next a same month a year earlier.
Predictably, someone blamed a weather. This time, a available law-breaker was Hurricane Dorian, that brushed a area in early Sep 2019.
“The final several months have harm us,” pronounced Evelyn Fine, boss of Mid-Florida Marketing Research, a organisation that has been explaining a Daytona Beach area‘s malnutritioned tourism numbers for decades. “We were coping with Hurricane Dorian and a issue and during some of those times, it was special eventuality times.”
Certainly, Dorian busted Labor Day weekend. But that was in September. The genuine doubt is: Why is it that Daytona Beach always seems to loiter behind a rest of Florida?
Through October, Daytona Beach‘s hotel occupancy rate averaged 64.4%. The state, meanwhile, averaged a 72.7% occupancy rate.
Dorian impacted tourism on a whole easterly seashore of a state. But as common Daytona Beach brought adult a rear. During a initial 10 months of 2019 Daytona Beach was down 2.1%, compared with 0.9% for Brevard County, 0.3% for St. Augustine, and 1.8% for Jacksonville.
At a Halifax Area Advertising Authority‘s assembly in January, house members questioned either a management should change a promotional debate built around a slogan: “Wide. Open. Fun.” Message to a board: You might be on to something.
But a best aphorism in a universe isn‘t going to repair a injured product. A most bigger problem is a core beachside area that repels rather than attracts both tourists and area residents. The hotels on a beach are copiousness nice. The problem is a grieving area on a west side of State Road A1A.
The area is bordered by a Atlantic Ocean on a east, a Halifax River to a west, Seabreeze Boulevard to a north, and East ISB to a south. It ought to be a valuables of a area where people wish to live and businesses wish to plant roots. It ought to be an mercantile engine that generates poignant skill taxes that could advantage Daytona Beach and Volusia County. It ought to be a area that creates tourists wish to come back, that offers them something to do when they need a mangle from a World‘s Most Famous Beach.
But a ubiquitous condition of a core beachside drives both tourists and locals away.
I expostulate by some partial of a core beachside scarcely each day. It has some good homes, a few abounding businesses, a really good Ocean Center entertainment complex, and implausible potential. (It‘s between a pleasing beach and a beautiful river!)
But it‘s also home to a lot of outline housing, too most crime, and a Main Street that generally underneath performs.
And that brings us to East ISB, that might be a ugliest entryway to a beach on a whole East Coast of a United States.
The Florida Department of Transportation has appropriation to urge East ISB, though construction expected won‘t start until 2023 or 2024. If we have a business on a street, that’s a prolonged time to wait.
Many people, including romantic residents, have focused courtesy on a core beachside. More than a year ago, a Beachside Redevelopment Committee generated a news with countless ideas to urge a area. It is already entertainment dust.
The miss of swell is discouraging. But things won‘t change but discourse and ideas.
Come join us for coffee during Henry‘s Pizza. We’re meddlesome in what we have to contend about East ISB and a beachside.
Rice is The News-Journal‘s editor. His email is Pat.Rice@news-jrnl.com.