In search of Main Street’s future
Humphreys can tell you about the afternoon Liberace burst into her small jewelry store on a mission to buy a huge, ornate candelabra. The flamboyant pianist was in town to play at
Mr. Showmanship raised his hands up to his face in excitement as he gazed at the candelabra and exclaimed, "Oh, I have to have it!"
Then there was the time
"I was certain it was a kook calling," Humphreys recalled. "I was rather shocked to see him drive up on a big black Harley dressed in black leather with flags flying. He walked in the store and I said, 'Oh my gosh. You really are
Knievel wound up renting her vacant space for six years and became
Humphreys, 83, has been working on the beachside corridor for nearly 70 years, starting as a 15-year-old hostess at a restaurant so popular it had to expand two times.
Now, a growing number of locals -- everyone from beachside residents to
"We want it to be a place we can be proud of," Henry said.
"This is a defining moment for the community to decide on a vision," said
"There's a good argument that how
City Commissioner
"We'll need a major paradigm shift," said Delgado, an attorney whose law office and home are both on the beachside. "It can't just be
Recapturing solid year-round business will have to come from efforts of locals, not a deep-pocketed developer who gallops in on a white horse, Delgado said.
"We've been waiting for
'Sodom and Gomorrah'
Over the past 35 years, the city has poured
Those quandaries are being tackled by the new Beachside Redevelopment Committee and other local leaders, but there's not even a consensus on how
Humphreys, who also ran a bikini shop and men's clothing store on
"They dug up the street, placed barricades and just simply said, 'Closed,' " she said. "All the side streets, or most of them, suddenly became one way exiting
Humphreys rattled off the names of eight businesses she said went bankrupt or moved. She recalled one family that ran a beloved restaurant took out a second mortgage on their home to try to keep the business alive. It didn't work.
"It broke their hearts and it broke them," Humphreys said. "They ended up losing their house and their business."
As merchants went out of business, companies that profit mainly from Bike Week snatched up the empty buildings, she said. But she doesn't blame Bike Week and Biketoberfest for
"Main Street is like it is now because of Bike Week," Peters said. "Bike Week has created this."
He recalled one Main Street bar run off by the city in the early 1980s "was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah."
He said the annual biker party that draws hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists has driven up Main Street rents so high that most entrepreneurs who want to take a stab at diversifying the corridor can't afford it. Humphreys said she's seen renters charged "unbelievable amounts of money."
Peters thinks those rents are going to start sliding because the number of bikers coming every year has been dropping. The event used to draw 500,000 people every spring, but he doesn't think that many motorcycles have rolled into town for 15 years. Peters, 61, sees a lot more bald heads and gray hair than he did 20 years ago, and he predicts the event will die off with the Baby Boomers who seem to be the last generation that will embrace the wild street party.
He said bar owners, merchants and itinerant vendors are already telling him their profits have been falling over the past seven years or so. Peters predicts businesses are going to be forced to become year-round operations to survive, and he thinks that will happen soon.
"I believe the revitalization will happen of its own accord," he said. "It's an evolutionary thing."
The Bike Week debate
Peters predicts Bike Week will gravitate to
Grippa said it might be more appropriate for Bike Week to be happening at the Speedway, in downtown
"They're all good places and other areas that don't infringe upon neighborhoods," Grippa said. "It ought to be in places that can accommodate that type of festival."
His vision is for Main Street to become a more family-oriented place where people of all ages can find fun things to do day and night, year-round.
"Events there should reflect what everyone wants," Grippa said. "We shouldn't let those three weeks define us."
He added that Main Street in its current state is "killing the Ocean Center" because people who attend conferences and events there don't feel safe on Main Street.
"We've got to stop turning the core tourist district into a fair zone," said Zimmerman, who is also a member of the Beachside Redevelopment Committee. "Why do we do that? It benefits a couple of people on Main Street, and they're holding the rest of us hostage."
Zimmerman worked at Humphreys' men's store in the early 1960s, and he remembers a Main Street so busy "you couldn't find a parking place." He believes Spring Break and biker events slowly eroded Main Street beginning in the 1970s.
He said all the "unsavory activity" pushed out many homeowners on both sides of Main Street, and landlords subdivided those houses and turned them into low-rent apartments that have received little maintenance. Zimmerman, a school social worker, said he's seen kids who live in those beat-up beachside rental homes forced to clear out during special events so their landlords can make more money off tourists.
Nonetheless, he doesn't see the need to get rid of Bike Week and Biketoberfest. He just wants to see the events better managed, and he wants the city to spend less of its redevelopment dollars on fireworks and street parties and more on practical upgrades.
"If you look at Main Street now, it's in worse condition than when the community redevelopment area started" in 1982, Zimmerman said.
Some of the people most impacted by Bike Week and Biketoberfest, the ones who live a block or two away, say they don't want the event to die.
"How can two weeks out of a year pull down a neighborhood?" asked Pyle, a member of the city's Beachside Redevelopment Board. "Common sense would tell you it's more likely the other 50 weeks out of the year are the problem. With good planning, a festival-type event can be a boon to an area, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars of spending and showcasing the area to possible return visitors or even future residents."
"We all knew it was here when we moved in," Murdoch said. "We hear bikes, but you can't change the bones of a town. What makes anyone think it would be better without it? Do you think a magic street will pop up?"
She does think, though, that the buildings that rent out to temporary vendors should be required to have other commerce going on the rest of the year.
"They're just killing everybody the way they're doing business," said Murdoch, a retiree and artist who sells her creations at flea markets and festivals. "At least sublet those spaces out during the rest of the year."
Mayor Henry also wants to keep Bike Week.
"You don't change part of a region's heritage," Henry said. "It was part of Main Street when Main Street was successful. I'm very leery of making changes that impact people in business."
Henry does, however, want to re-examine the city rules that surround Bike Week and Biketoberfest.
Follow the money
A lot of the resistance to moving or changing Bike Week and Biketoberfest has to do with money. Many hotels, bars and restaurants make good money, and Main Street property owners have charged itinerant vendors as much as
The city and
Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
City officials said the cut they got from the chamber's Bike Week proceeds over the past three years ranged from
Everyone has different ideas to improve Main Street. Murdoch said residents need to patronize what's on the road now.
"We need to support those businesses, and bit by bit others will come," she said.
"We're one of the few open seven days per week," said Pepe, general manager of
Some businesses don't even keep regular hours, she said.
She likes an idea suggested by Delgado and Henry to have a Main Street czar, someone to keep an eye on the road and enforce the rules. Pepe would also like to see the business mix expand beyond motorcycle-related shops.
"Just a coffee shop would be good," she said.
But she concedes Main Street is a tough sell right now for new businesses.
"If you want people to come in and invest, you need a lot of money to fix up the buildings and it's not worth that now," she said.
Pepe said she's had trouble just getting nearby property owners to agree to get their buildings tented for termites so they can all be free of the problem.
"If we want to really revitalize Main Street, business owners have to be the first ones to say, 'I value my business and I'm willing to put some money into my property,' " she said.
She is not in favor of kicking Bike Week off of Main Street, which she said would seriously wound too many businesses. Destination Daytona, which her corporation owns, has everything a biker could want with hotels, shops, restaurants and a concert venue. But she said she still struggles to lure motorcyclists off Main Street.
"They just want to ride down a road, show off their bike and see other bikes," Pepe said. "I think it would lose its luster for people to go somewhere where they can't do that."
Delgado would like to see a walkable promenade along Main Street, brick on the road instead of pavement, places to sit outside and have a cup of coffee, boutiques, outdoor art shows, green space, water features, benches and shade trees.
"The government will have to help," he said. "It will take a leap of faith by someone like
Humphreys said she's been asking the city for years to put a kiosk at the corner of Main Street and
"Without parking it won't bloom," Anderson said. "It's just the key."
Housing's role
Many people argue that the businesses on Main Street will never thrive if the housing in the beachside neighborhoods surrounding the street doesn't improve.
So far, the 29-year-old owns four buildings near
"Main Street is going to keep developing," Jacobs said. "I want to get invested in
Jacobs said he has no interest in owning properties that are miserable to live in and look at.
"I want the best places so there's always demand," he said.
Many who think Main Street is underachieving haven't given up.
Grippa sees big opportunity with his former employer, insurance giant
"The only thing that will stop us is if we are afraid of change," Grippa said.
Humphreys would like to keep Bike Week on Main Street. But she's willing to talk to people with different views.
"We need to sit down and not point fingers," she said. "It's a problem to be solved, but to me it's people coming together and looking at the positives and the potential for what's there and making it look interesting."
___
(c)2017 The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla.
Visit The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla. at www.news-journalonline.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Flagler officials say don’t give up if FEMA claim is denied
A.M. Best to Attend 2017 Federation of Afro-Asian Insurers and Reinsurers Conference
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News