Thread: Daytona businesses must sell property

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Daytona businesses must sell property

Ludmilla Lelis | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted August 20, 2005


DAYTONA BEACH -- City leaders can finally realize a decades-long dream of replacing the beachside Boardwalk's aging arcades, restaurants and gift shops with a new retail complex to lure more upscale tourism.

A court ruling Friday allows Daytona Beach to force the sale of three Boardwalk businesses to make way for a $120 million redevelopment project that would be the last major piece in the city's remake of its historic oceanside.

Circuit Judge John W. Watson III gave the city approval to seize the three businesses in a ruling that echoes a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave cities the right to condemn private property in favor of other private development.

Watson ruled that Daytona Beach can force the sale of the holdout businesses because the redevelopment serves a public purpose by getting rid of crime and deteriorating buildings in a blighted neighborhood.

Scott Cichon, the attorney representing the city, said the ruling will help make Daytona Beach a better place.

"The progress of the city can move forward," he said.

But one Boardwalk businessman is upset about the ruling, saying that having government taking private land and giving it to a private developer is un-American.

"You don't own anything any more," said Darrell Hunter, whose business, Capt. Darrell's Oyster Bar and Restaurant, has been condemned. "The government owns it and can do whatever they want with it.

"I feel very damn bitter. I don't think it's right."

According to the judge's order, Daytona Beach can officially take title to the properties with an $8.85 million down payment. Cichon said that transfer would happen within the next 20 days.

It will be up to a 12-person jury at a future trial to decide the final sale price for Capt. Darrell's bar, the Midway Fun Center and the Fun Fair go-cart track. H. Adams Weaver, Alex Ford and Mark Natirboff, attorneys for those Boardwalk businesses, said they are considering an appeal.

Daytona Beach isn't the only place in Central Florida where such battles are being fought. In the small Orange County enclave of Home Acres west of Winter Park, homeowners have held out against a developer's efforts to build a town center with retail stores, residences, offices and parks. The developer has lobbied for Winter Park to annex the area and for Orange County to create a community-redevelopment agency, which could have the power to condemn holdout properties for a redevelopment.

The three Daytona Beach businesses in Friday's condemnation order are the last parcels needed for the massive redevelopment planned by California developer Bill Geary of Carlsberg Management Co.

Geary plans to build a pair of 23-story hotel-condominium towers, new retail stores and restaurants to replace the 60-year-old Boardwalk and its line of outdated arcades and fast-food joints.

The developer has already bought, or has long-term leases, for the other land needed for the project. To help him complete the redevelopment, city officials agreed to use Daytona Beach's condemnation power to force the sale of the three holdouts.

At a six-day trial in June, those businesses tried to argue against a 24-year-old blight study that Daytona Beach used to justify the condemnation.

That 1981 study found that the Main Street area has deteriorating buildings, high crime, antiquated utilities, outdated fire hydrants and property tax values that lag behind the rest of the city. Armed with that study, the City Commission agreed to redevelop the Main Street district, which stretches from International Speedway Boulevard to Oakridge Boulevard and includes the Boardwalk.

Since then, that area has seen the construction and expansion of what is now a Hilton resort, numerous beautification projects, and construction of the Ocean Center convention arena and the Ocean Walk Shoppes and condominium complex.

The judge wrote that the city can still rely on the blight study for the current Boardwalk condemnation. "The fact that the original blight study in the instant case is 24 years old does not convince the court that its findings are outdated," Watson wrote. "The City must be allowed a significant period of time to eliminate the blighted conditions on a gradual, systematic basis."

The judge also noted, as the high court did in its landmark decision, that government has already used its power of eminent domain beyond the traditional uses of condemning private land for roads, schools or other public uses.

Cichon said the Supreme Court ruling did affect the Daytona Beach case by reaffirming that what the city wants to do is constitutional.

"The public has to trust that government entities will make the right decision for the overall city," Cichon said. "Government entities don't make these decisions easily."

Ludmilla Lelis can be reached at llelis@orlandosentinel.com or 386-253-0964.

here we go . . . the American Revolution III is off to a good start

According to the judge's order, Daytona Beach can officially take title to the properties with an $8.85 million down payment. Cichon said that transfer would happen within the next 20 days

maybe they need to take part of that money and purchase the judges property for the "public good" . . .

I would do the same Mamie.