Avalon Park, a 10,000-home development planned for Daytona, seeks $75 million for roads

Article Courtesy of  The Daytona News-Journal

By Clayton Park

Published April 28, 2020

  

DAYTONA BEACH — An Orlando developer is seeking Daytona Beach and Volusia County’s help in issuing a $75 million bond for road improvements to support a massive development that will include 10,000 homes and more than a million square feet of shops, restaurants and offices.

The improvements would include building a four-lane Interstate-95 overpass that would allow extend Hand Avenue to connect to the developer’s planned Avalon Park Daytona Beach project. The developer’s suggested bond issue would be paid back using impact fees and property taxes that result from the new homes and businesses.

 

Avalon Park Group/sitEX USA hopes to break ground on its massive 2,600-acre development in the first quarter of 2021.

Developer Beat Kahli is proceeding full-speed ahead with his project despite the coronavirus pandemic that has shut down most of the U.S. economy.

“By the time the first residents move in, in either late 2021 or early 2020, we’re not going to be in the pandemic,” said Ross Halle, senior vice president for Avalon Park Group/sitEX.

Halle said his company has been in talks for the past several months with both the City of Daytona Beach and Volusia County.

Other proposed improvements for the development include extending the south section of Tymber Creek Road so that it can run from LPGA Boulevard north to State Road 40/Granada Boulevard.

The project would be built in an area already struggling with traffic congestion thanks to an explosion in growth. The road improvements would mitigate the congestion.

Developments under construction in the I-95/LPGA area include the fast-growing Latitude Margaritaville and Mosaic communities, and several apartment complexes and shopping centers.

Also going up on the northeast side of the I-95/LPGA interchange is a 120-pump Buc-ee’s gas station/travel convenience center. It will be the largest gas station in the state when it opens in mid-2021.

This map shows the 1,064 acre and 1,618 acre parcels that Orlando developer Avalon Park Group on Dec.9, 2019 announced plans to purchase. Uts proposed Avalon Par Daytona would bring more than 10,000 residents as well as businessesto the area north of Latitude Margarit, west of Interstate 95.


 

Upfront money for the infrastructure improvements would come from a $75 million bond taken out by Avalon Park Group/sitEX.

“The goal is not to say ‘Hey taxpayers, give us money for roads,’” said Halle. “SitEX (an investment firm led by Kahli) will actually place the bond. We need the City and County to sign on the bond to assure that the bond would be paid back from the impact fees and property taxes generated by Avalon Park Daytona Beach.”

Volusia County Chair Ed Kelley said extending Hand Avenue west over I-95 “should have been done 10-15 years ago.”

“It’s really an essential step that would provide an additional emergency evacuation route and help alleviate a lot of the traffic on Williamson (Boulevard) and Granada (east of the interstate),” he said.

“It’s a needed project,” Kelley said of the proposed road improvements. “I just don’t think it (the bond) would pass if it were presented to voters for approval. It would be an uphill battle.”

Halle said his company wants to issue the bond without requiring a vote by Volusia County residents.

Daytona Beach City Manager Jim Chisholm said the developers’ bond proposal is “an interesting challenge. We’ve got to work through all the issues. We have not completed our review.

“There’s a way to do it if the bond is paid for by the development itself,” he said. “They need to be willing to make the (road) improvements upfront. That’s going to be the key.”

Ormond Beach City Manager Joyce Shanahan said she has “serious concerns” regarding the Avalon Park Daytona Beach development.

“They’re talking about adding 20,000 residents which would be nearly 50% of the population of Ormond Beach,” said Shanahan.

“We’ve had one meeting with Avalon,” she said. “They seemed nice enough. They had a lot of passion. But I need to know that their project is not going to negatively impact the residents of Ormond Beach.”

The Avalon Park Daytona Beach development site is located just outside the Ormond Beach city limits.

Maryam Ghyabi, a transportation consultant for the City of Ormond Beach, said the Avalon Park Daytona Beach project could create more traffic congestion in the area despite its proposed road improvements.

“I’ve seen their transportation analysis study and I believe it’s flawed,” Ghyabi said. “They took 40% of the projected traffic out saying this is going to be internal traffic (within the Avalon Park Daytona Beach community.”

Ghyabi warned that the project likely would generate more traffic on the surrounding roads than projected in the developers’ transportation study.

“They need to do a true traffic study,” Ghyabi said. “A project like this should also require an environmental impact study.”

The development site for Avalon Park Daytona Beach stretches along the south side of State Road 40/Granada Boulevard from Tiger Bay State Forest east to where the north section of Tymber Creek Road currently ends just south of Granada.

The development would be built out over 10 to 15 years.

It would include a downtown-like town center along State Road 40/Granada. The town center would have 730,000 square feet of retail space — roughly twice the size of the Daytona Beach Tanger Outlets mall — and 270,000 square feet of office space.

Avalon Park Daytona Beach would also have 5,000 single-family homes and 5,000 “high density” multifamily residential units such as townhouses, condominiums and apartments, said Halle.

The project would include a large amenities center that would include a clubhouse, recreational facilities and bicycle and walking trails. The community would also have several neighborhood pocket parks.

Plans call for 1,000 acres on the southwest side of the development to be set aside as wetlands and open space conservation land.

The developers also plan to donate two acres to the Daytona Beach Fire Department for the creation of a fire station, Halle said.

“We’d like to see a K-12 school here as well,” he said.

“Building a town of this magnitude allows us to build in a compact and contiguous manner that discourages urban sprawl and has a much lighter environmental impact than typical suburban development,” said Beat Kahli, the CEO of Avalon Park Group/sitEX, in a late March press release.

Kahli was not available for an interview this past week.

Volusia County Traffic Engineering Director Jon Cheney said the county has been “supportive of the development team’s proposed traditional neighborhood design with inner-connected streets and mixed land uses to reduce congestion on state and county roads.

“We’re setting up a meeting to discuss details of their financial road improvement proposal, road projects suggested for financing and the financial risk to the County and City.”

Chisholm said he visited Avalon Park Downtown East Orlando and came away impressed.

“It’s really a nice development, the kind that we’d like to see in Daytona Beach,” Chisholm said.

Halle said Avalon Park Daytona Beach would be similar to his company’s now nearly fully-built out Orlando development.

“They (Avalon Park Group) came in with answers as opposed to asking us to do something for them,” Chisholm said. “That’s not normally what happens. They’re the kind of partner you’d want to have.”

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