News

By Robert Alonso

Hometown News Volusia

The developer of the newest high-rise oceanfront luxury condominium building in Daytona Beach Shores is poised to add more local land to its portfolio.

By a 4-1 vote March 27, the City Council gave its initial blessing to Bayshore Capital Inc.’s $300,000 purchase of the vacant lot at 1906 S. Atlantic Ave., which sits on the other side of A1A from the company’s Max Daytona site near the Daytona Beach border.

The Canadian company got approval from elected city leaders in January to build Max Daytona, a 12-story, 136-foot high structure expected to have 72 two-bedroom condos with ocean views at 1901 S. Atlantic Ave., a mostly dirt and sand lot of just under 1.5 acres, which sold for $2.1 million in 2014. The only structure there now is Max Daytona’s sales office.

“I’m not in the habit of signing blank checks,” Councilman Bryan added after City Attorney Lonnie Groot said the section was meant to protect the city as a whole from errors made by staff, not specifically to protect staffers who make errors.

A second reading is needed before the 1906 S. Atlantic lot sale is official and that’s scheduled to happen when the council meets April 10. Should the ordinance pass again, the sale should happen by June 1, pending an environmental audit, according to Mr. Groot.

Bayshore has no set plans yet for the lot, which is just over half with nothing on it other than a city welcome sign next to the southbound side of A1A, but it may end up as the new location for the Max Daytona sales office, according to Chairman & CEO Henry Wolfond.

“The idea is to control the environment around here and to have a retail amenity or a restaurant/café amenity that will complement and be a benefit to the owners in Max Daytona and all of the residents in the local neighborhood,” Mr. Wolfond stated.

The welcome sign is expected to stay on the should Bayshore become the owner.

Construction on Max Daytona is scheduled to begin sometime this fall, but those who visit the sales office before then can see condo renderings and a replica model of the building as well as wooden stakes showing where the building and amenities, such as the pool, event lawn and pet walk areas, will be located. Many of those same renderings can be found at MaxDaytona.com.

Just over 20 percent of the units have already been reserved, according to Mr. Wolfond, with those units ranging in price from $500,000 to just over $1 million.

“It’s going quite well,” he said when asked about sales. “We’re really pleased with the rate of reservations. We continue to get steady traffic flow as we start to ramp up our marketing.”

Bayshore moved forward with Max Daytona after attempting for several years to build a hotel under the Hard Rock brand name on a vacant oceanfront lot south of International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona Beach.

The company pulled out from the Hard Rock project in 2016 after a request it made to ban vehicles from that stretch of beach was denied by Volusia County, generating a lot of opposition from beach driving advocates in the process.

Since then, the Hard Rock brand found a home at the site of the old Desert Inn in Daytona Beach, where the county did erect wooden poles on the beach recently to block cars from driving right in front of the property.

Mr. Wolfond admits he would prefer to have cars removed from the beach in front of Max Daytona for a variety of reasons – mainly environmental and safety – but it’s not something he plans to pursue because he doesn’t think it’ll get in the way of potential buyers like it did with the Hard Rock project.

“We really feel that there’s a market for a higher-end product here,” Mr. Wolfond noted. “We think that the features and amenities that this building offers are second to none in this market.”

The vacant lot has been owned by Daytona Beach Shores since 2013, when it was bought for $300,000, per county property records.

Shores City Manager Mike Booker said the city has actively attempted to sell the lot for the past few years, but there have been no serious buyers other than Bayshore.