DeLand, FL-Repairs are about to be done for the historic Holly Hill arch that was seriously damaged when a car crashed into a support column over a year ago. By unanimous vote during last Thursday’s meeting, the Volusia County Council agreed to set aside nearly $130,000 to fix the damage caused to that arch in an October 2014 accident, awarding the job to Saboungi Construction of Ormond Beach. Construction is expected to start within 30 days, with the work expected to take around 90 days to complete, according to Volusia County Public Works Director John Angiulli. Saboungi is only expected to do around $118,000 worth of fixes, with the rest of the money set aside for contingency purposes. Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen told the VCC that the $129,800 set aside for the project isn’t nearly enough money to do a full restoration for both of the neglected arches, but it should be enough to fix all the damage caused in the accident and maybe a little more than that. “[Angiulli], professionally, and his staff believe that we needed to go further than the [accident damage] because of the underlying conditions in the structure,” Dinneen added. “If it deteriorated or fell down because of age, everyone would [say] that we didn’t do it right. So we spent a little extra money so that this would not be an albatross around our neck.”
In an interview on WNDB’s Marc Bernier program last June, VCC District 4 Representative Doug Daniels said it would cost around $450,000 to renovate the arches. The county plans to do just enough repair work to keep the arches in roughly the same condition that they were in prior to the one-vehicle accident that saw it crash into the base of the arch on the south side of Calle Grande Street. Those arches – which bookend Calle Grande between the entrance to the Riviera Country Club and Golf Course and the Florida East Coast railroad tracks that run roughly parallel to most of US 1 in East Volusia – were built in the 1920’s and used to make up part of the now-defunct Riviera Hotel. County officials say the accident left the south arch in serious danger of crumbling all over the road, which is why engineers used stabilizing jacks to keep it upright until a plan was developed to fix it. The north arch wasn’t damaged at all in the accident. Steel posts have since been installed to stabilize the damaged arch and a concrete barrier has been put in place to prevent further damage from vehicles passing by.
Prior to the accident, Volusia County planned to transfer the arches to Holly Hill so that the city could work on a plan to restore and preserve them. But city leaders backed away from that plan after the accident, annexing only a small piece of land near the arches. Dinneen told the VCC last June that Holly Hill officials had no interest in putting up money to fix up the arches, even though there was a desire on the city’s part to keep them around and despite the county willing to consider ECHO funds for the project. Because the arches are close to Ormond Beach’s border, the county also approached city officials there to see if they would be interested in contributing to the renovation, but Dinneen said Ormond Beach refused to help. $100,000 of the money being used to fix the damaged arch comes from the insurance company of the driver who crashed into the arch, according to Dinneen. The rest is coming out of the county’s road and bridge budget.
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