DeLand, FL – Volusia County’s Manager wants to borrow nearly $9 million dollars to get all of the properties the county bought along the beach recently ready to go for parking.
Jim Dinneen floated that idea to the Volusia County Council during its mini-budget workshop meeting on setting tax rates during the morning session of Thursday’s meeting.
Dinneen told the VCC the county’s current debt service could handle that sort of loan and he felt it was vital to get these properties done immediately, especially with beach driving and parking being impacted by ongoing soft sand issues.
“I think we would get a lot of criticism – especially when we have [soft sand] issues – if the parking’s not available when we own the property,” Dinneen added.
Volusia has bought 7 parcels of land along State Road A1A for off-beach parking since last October, spending around $11 million dollars along the way.
Of those parcels, only one – a grassy area adjacent to the existing parking lot near the State Road A1A and Hiles Boulevard intersection in New Smyrna Beach – has funding set aside this fiscal year to begin design and development. The VCC bought that area last year for $370,000.
County staff expects all that land to create roughly 600 parking spaces once it’s all designed and developed, but that’s a process that Dinneen said can’t move forward without money and he doesn’t see any other way he can raise the money without it taking at least several years.
Some of those properties are basically grass and dirt lots that just need to be designed, developed and built. Others have buildings on them – primarily motels – and those have to be torn down first on the county’s dime.
Public Works Director John Angiulli told the VCC during the meeting that he would want to save time by lumping some the properties together so they can find developers to do the work without having to bid out each property.
Council members didn’t vote on Dinneen’s proposal during the meeting, but he does plan to bring it forward again in more detail at a future meeting.
District 4 Representative Doug Daniels told Dinneen he doesn’t want any loan to get in the way of buying more land for off-beach parking.
“Prices are still down,” Daniels said. “It’s still cheap. We just gotta get it while it’s cheap. We can’t miss this opportunity. If we miss this opportunity, we’ll have a problem down the road.”
The VCC made its latest purchase last month, spending $2.7 million for the Sun & Surf Motel between the beach approaches at Riverview and Glenview boulevards in Daytona Beach.
Last year, the VCC spent $1.25 million for the Argosy Motel in Ormond-by-the-sea and $1.4 million dollars for the Jasmin Motel in Daytona Beach Shores.
County Council members also shelled out $1.8 million last April for a vacant shopping center on the west side of A1A near the Cardinal Drive beach approach in Ormond Beach and $2.95 million earlier this year to buy a vacant 1.6 acre lot just south of Frank Rendon Park in Daytona Beach Shores.
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.