Flagler Beach’s long-debated, long-awaited $2.6 million Beachwalk project–a reconstruction and luxurious expansion of its pier’s A-Frame and surrounding amenities into a “Promenade”–is dead.
Flagler Beach has returned a $745,000 tourism grant it won two years ago. The grant in April will almost certainly be shifted to a $650,000 field lights project at the Indian Trails Sports Complex. The city has also spent $154,190 so far just to design the project. (See the bills here.)
Flagler Beach will shelve Beachwalk–and absorb the money lost on design costs–and instead seek to redesign and refurbish only the A-frame structure and its bathrooms, staying within the current footprint. There is a faint chance that Beachwalk could be revived. If so, it would not be for many years. Even two years ago, when Flagler Beach got the tourism grant, it knew then that the project might not happen.
Yet the grant award for those two years prevented Flagler County and Palm Coast, which each had projects of their own, from taking advantage of the money.
Flagler Beach meanwhile had significantly and with difficulty advanced its design of Beachwalk even as it gave its commissioners heartburn, because the costs kept going up. The pivot now gives the commission a way out of something for which it no longer had much heart anyway.
An environmental requirement proved to be the deciding factor, enabling commissioners to seem all but blameless for the shift.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is prohibiting the city from moving forward with the Beachwalk design because Beachwalk would supplant an area of dunes that has not been built up to the kind of standards that would allow for the new construction.
“What FDEP told us was that they were not going to approve the CCCL permit for the current Beachwalk project,” Gabriel Perdomo of Moffat and Nichol, the firm designing Beachwalk and the new Flagler Beach pier, said, referring to the Coastal Construction Control Line permit by its acronym. DEP would not do so “until a new dune is designed, permitted, constructed, vegetated and established for a 12-month period.”
The new dune will have to be identical in size and volume to the dunes reconstructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the beach renourishment project of 2024, even though about half that sand has washed out (though it’s eligible for replenishment at the Corps’ expense). The county did renourish that section of beach, but not at Army Corps standards. The new dune would require 3,000 cubic yards of sand and cost $270,000, Perdomo said–or $1 million, if the project is extended to South 7th Street.
“That is terrible news,” Flagler Beach Commissioner Scott Spradley said. “We do need to stop and look at this. This is a big change in plan, and it just seems like, as much as I would like to go forward with these designs, we have to stop. We have to figure out what we’re going to do from the bottom up.”
The city could choose to rebuild Beachwalk with the existing footprint, merely renovating the A-frame structure as it stands. That would not require a new dune. (The third phase of the project is the reconstruction of the boardwalk, which adds another $1.3 million to the cost, for a total of $3.9 million. The city does not have that kind of money.)
“I think we need to pivot,” Commissioner Eric Cooley told his colleagues at a meeting two weeks ago. “We need to probably be redoing the building footprint and Beachwalk, and I think it just needs put on hold for the time being.” He said the original design for Beachwalk was “really starting to spiral as far as costs,” doubling and tripling. “Now we have this on top of it. I mean, you’re talking four to five times what we originally approved. I say, walk away from it for now. We have drawings, we have plans, we have all that stuff. But this is not something that we can tackle at this point in time.”
At most, he said the city should focus on refurbishing the A-frame and its “deplorable” bathrooms, staying within the existing footprint.
Commission Chair James Sherman said businesses along State Road A1A have been burdened enough by the pier construction that adding another construction project that could stretch for years, between the dune renourishment and Beachwalk, would be unfair. “Let’s be real with ourselves here,” Sherman said. “There’s nor’easters, there’s hurricanes, there’s different events that could even maybe derail this even longer,” pushing the end date to 2035.
Commissioners John Cunningham and Rick Belhumeur concurred, agreeing that the focus should be on gutting and refurbishing the A-frame, even if it meant dislodging the pier contractor from there.
City Manager Dale Martin offered an elaborate scenario that could shift federal leftover pier dollars to the Beachwalk project, reducing costs. But that could take years, too. The proposal may yet be discussed, but what money would be available would have to await the end of pier construction.
“I would make the recommendation that we withdraw that grant application,” Martin said of the TDC grant, “because we’re not going to meet their timeline, and I don’t think it’s fair” to others in the county vying for the money. He heard no objections. He had already had discussions along those lines with County Tourism Director Amy Lukasik.
Flagler Beach city commissioners learned of the new DEP obstacle and pivoted two weeks ago. The Tourist Development Council learned of it last week, when Cooley, who represents Flagler Beach on the council, told the panel that the $745,000 should be returned, so others can benefit from it.
Palm Coast City Council member Theresa Pontieri immediately asked that the money be shifted to Palm Coast for a $650,000 installation of field lights at the Indian Trails Sports Complex. The money could be eligible for a match from the city’s parks impact fees, lowering the total that would be required from TDC. She and her colleagues had been somewhat dismayed in January when they approved a parking lot expansion at the complex but wished for more field lights.
TDC Chair Andy Dance said if the lights project is similar to the one that lost out to Flagler Beach two years ago, the shift would be simple enough. If it’s a new project, it would have to be presented to the board in April. (The project is, in fact, similar to the one Palm Coast submitted two years ago.)
TDC has never disbursed the money. It’s a reimbursement grant. So the money is still in its hands.
The council was ready to vote to shift the money to Palm Coast. Cooley requested that even though he approves of the shift, the item should be on the April agenda, for transparency’s sake. Pontieri had no objections. The council voted accordingly.
joe El says
Surprise…Surprise. City gets money donated and then doesn’t spend it. Sound familiar? Well guess TDC shouldn’t even consider Flagler Beach. You couldn’t have the money for something? Disgusted with this administration.
S.myr says
More wasted. 154k just to draw up plans for somthing that’s not happening. I’d love to see where all the property tax money actually goes. How much of that is wasted?
JimboXYZ says
From the current pier rebuild photo, the rendering of the beach walk. Anyone else see that the temporary pier like structure is easily 90% of the base structure of what the beach walk rendering would be for the beach walk platform without the pavillion style roofing over the beach walk ? Is it just me, but that much of the beach walk should’ve been the same project as the pier rebuild ? The old pier next to it is the rebuild what we’re seeing is a 2nd pier for rebuilding the original. Build 2 piers to end up with one ? The stupidity behind that is just amazing & astonishing to me ? The design is a modular approach for a concept. It’s almost as simple as adding a back yard deck to an existing property, only that this involves a pier & beach walk that is nothing more than additional decking to the pier’s existing deck ?
Lance Carroll says
Please explain how you would build a new pair…not just redecking the old pier?
The contractor is building a new pier outside the mean tide line. Maybe you missed that part?
Should the contractor float the new concrete pilings to 800′ from the shoreline?
We are all ears…
Let’s hear how you would build a new pier 800′ into the ocean?
Villein says
it seems already like the cost of hardening infrastructure and, in this case, constantly rebuilding, may finally be too much to ignore. Local governments are poor and that’s going to affect livability everywhere in Florida, but especially on the coast.
FedUp says
County and city officials will not be satisfied until they completely build out every unused inch of coastal property. Quite frankly, I’m glad they’re not building a “promenade” at the pier. The pier will be enough for people to enjoy for decades to come without adding to the traffic and parking chaos already in place.
Laurel says
Fed up: And I agree with you here, too!
More waste says
At least now there will be money to buy more sand to dump into the ocean
Mort says
Well you just added another third to the size of Flagler Beach in the Veranda Bay project. Is there any forecast in the amount of tax money that will produce? You don’t want any growth to Flagler Beach, which has been limiting tax dollars needed for infrastructure repairs to the point of bankrupting the city.
Now you have it. Wasn’t this why?
Laurel says
Keep Flagler Beach a small, home town!
BIG Neighbor says
Wouldn’t that be ideal Laurel if we could make time stand still? No, sands of the hourglass shifts beneath our feet. And now the challenge is to think about new environmental concerns with weighing conservation, infrastructure and sustainability. I wonder how hard we’ve looked at other beach developments across the globe to consider alternatives that never occurred to us? The challenge of storms and beach nourishment are here to stay.
Laurel says
It’s not “time standing still” when there are politicians, like Rick Scott, who advertise up north, for people to relocate to the “Free State of Florida.” Real estate people, developers, investors and politicians keep telling us that we need more people, and advertise for it, to come here and increase our tax base, for our own good, and that *relief* never really happens.
My home town of Ft. Lauderdale is so built out that it now builds up. But, guess what? Investors have come in and bought up those high rise offices, and sit on them. Empty square footage. How does that help?
As for beach re-nourishment, it’s interesting that when you drive north to the inlet, the bridges before it has sand migrating inland! Under one bridge, the sand was so high that the boat docks were buried, and no water access. It was dredged out a couple years ago, but the sand is back again. Why can’t someone figure this out? No, instead, our so called representatives, who only really represent the people who fund their campaigns, proclaim the re-nourishment should be funded from those of us whose properties are on the west side of the island, and get no Direct Benefit from the Special Assessment!
Yeah, Florida does not need to house the whole world. People up north just like to brag to their friends that “we’re moving to Florida!” without any further thought of where else to go, and when they land directly on the beach, they want someone else to pay for it, giving the beach front owners the deal of their lives.
Look at Santa Rosa Beach, in the Panhandle. It was beautiful, natural, white sand beaches. Now, it’s new residents screaming at locals to “Get off our beach” which they don’t own. People are pit against each other in all out brawls.
Now our beautiful state is blacktopped and called “Floriduh.”
“Fins up!”
Isaiah Enword says
What’s the deal with the new pier? It’s so ugly and industrial looking. It’s now even centered where The old one use to be
FlaglerLive says
There is no new pier yet. You’re looking at the construction trestle.
Isaiah Enword says
No I’m no, that’s the new pier.
Lev Goodman says
I agree, what they did to Our Pier is wrong.
Nancy says
I agree. Why couldn’t they just fix the damage like before. Daytona Beach has a wooded supported pier. All they have done is waste money and left us without our pier for a long time. They are letting the property owners pay for most of it and taking away our parking to boot which the Compass Motel takes up alot of it.
That Pier has history that people come to see. Not a new design. We just want it rebuilt and stop wasting our money
Nancy
Dr. Lev Goodman says
I have a feeling some trumpublican is behind the damage to the pier.
aurelL says
Trump alone can fix it.