MARK LANE: Rebuilding Volusia’s downtown Daytona complex can’t happen soon enough
The offices were destroyed in the flooding that attended Hurricane Irma's visit here a year ago next week. The new plan is to tear down the building down and construct a new one on the same lot. The project will be paid for with
The vote was 6-1 with
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Actually, the building was due for replacement even before the hurricane hit.
It had the dented-at-the-corners, painted-over-wall-patches esthetic of your average portable classroom. Outside, it looked like the kind of place that might be a widget factory out by the interstate instead of a prime downtown location next to a park.
Depressing surroundings if you had to spend a half hour sitting on hard pews at the auto tag office waiting for your number to be called. But at least you could find most what you might be looking for there.
Not like now when county offices are spread in pop-up spots all over town. The tag office, for instance, is in temporary digs at the Ocean Center. Just park there and wander around following the signs until someone points you to the office.
The now dark and plywooded building was constructed in 1955. It was originally a gleaming, glassed-in, big-box Sears store complete with a big neon "Sears" sign on the roof.
It was a modern building that went up during downtown's peak. Before shopping centers and malls stole its local commercial primacy. (Bonus rock 'n' roll history factoid: It was the store where
The county took over the vacant building and rebuilt it, bricking up the glass. This wasn't an elegant transformation, but it kept some life in that part of downtown. The city and remaining downtown businesses were relieved to see it happen.
For years, you could tell which people were really a local because they would refer to the place as "the
And really, why did nobody ever give that building a real name? Was it too ugly to name it after somebody and still have that be considered a compliment?
Regardless, it was a central, convenient place to do most any bureaucratic errand that needed doing. From voter registration to getting car license plate, property tax information, even traffic court. After it was boarded up for a while, I felt surprised at missing the place.
So good for the county for offering us the possibility of one-stop errands again. At not having to look online to see where the county offices are this month.
The new building will be set back farther on the lot, be better elevated, and without much trying at all, be a more attractive feature of downtown. It can't happen soon enough.
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