Port Orange chooses Bristol Development Group to lead the 'Riverwalk' project

PORT ORANGE — “It’s not just a place where you can rent an apartment and have a beautiful view of the river. It needs to be more. It needs to be something the people of Port Orange say, ‘I’m proud of this.’”

That is what Port Orange resident and real estate broker Scott Steger told the Port Orange City Council on Tuesday night as they prepared to hear and then choose one of five project ideas for the 10-acre Riverwalk property on the corner of Ridgewood and Dunlawton Avenue.

In the end, the City Council used a numeric system to select the Tennessee-based Bristol Development group, which offered $8.25 million for the property on the Halifax River at the northwest corner of the Dunlawton Bridge. The developer plans to spend $80-to-$90 million developing the property.

The 25-year promise of a new destination for the city means the Riverwalk property can be back on tax rolls. Once developed, it will also be a unique destination in Port Orange for residents and tourists alike.

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Each development group was given 20 minutes to make their presentation, followed by a 30-minute Q&A with councilmembers. Using a ranking system, councilmembers then listed the ideas from 1 to 5 in order of their preference.

The Bristol Development Group's proposal was ranked first by three of Port Orange's five councilmembers. The Tennessee-based developers hope to transform the riverfront property into a residential and commercial center, with a five-story building containing up to 270 multi-family units, and up to 28,000 square feet of retail space that will include restaurants.

Riverwalk seen as center of connectivity

Charles Carlisle, CEO and Principal of Bristol Development Group, said that one of the principles behind their project was keeping “the public point of view in mind for every element of the plan.”

“What the public sees from the perimeter as they drive down Dunlawton or Ridgewood (avenues), what they experience when they come into the site, what they feel when they come into the site,” Carlisle said. “Every element has taken that into account.”

The main strategy for accomplishing that was to create “connectivity” within the site. In order to achieve that, keeping Halifax Drive and Herbert Street open to drivers was crucial. Herbert Street cuts through the north end of the property from west to east. Halifax Drive runs north to south along the Halifax River on the property's east border.

“We wanted to have something that was walkable,” he added. “We wanted to have something that was an appropriate scale.”

Those goals, Carlisle said, led to the decision of weave both public and residential parking spaces within the design of the project instead of sectioning throughout the property, making it a unique aspect of Bristol's project idea among the other four.

The overall plan is to create interior streets where visitors can drive in and park as they pass by the retail stores, which Carlisle said could include restaurants, coffee shops, yoga and fitness studios, taprooms and brewpubs, and possibly even a dog training studio.

The project will include 296 public parking spaces spread all around the property, making it easy for visitors to park closer to where they want to go. Of the total parking spaces, 90 will be available on the first level of a residential parking garage, which will be tucked inside the five-story apartment building.

The decision to place the apartment building on the southeastern part of the property will make that the first thing drivers on Dunlawton and Ridgewood first see at the intersection, rather than a less “elegant” open surface parking space area.

Keeping Halifax Drive open could also increase opportunities for local festivals and other types of events, Carlisle said.

He said that the timeline for the project, once all the permitting process is worked out with City staff, would be from 21 to 24 months.

Carlisle emphasized that going forward, the group wants to establish a collaborative relationship with the city as the final details of the project are worked on.

None of the five presentations spent time discussing what kind of tax rebate assistance they would ask from the city. In their proposal, Bristol said that it “anticipates public incentives will be needed to achieve the return on cost needed to finance the project. Those incentives can take the form of direct assistance, reductions for certain public fees or a sharing in tax increment value.”

Founder and Principal with Bristol, Ashlyn Meneguzzi, helped Carlisle answer questions from the City Council after their presentation and said that “the real work starts now.”

“We think we have a great vision,” Meneguzzi said. “We look forward to getting input from the public and the city. This is a beautiful piece of property.”

'A decision 25 years in the making'

Originally, the city received six proposals for the property, with investment ranging from $60 million up to $95 million. But one of the developers, Landmark Companies, did not make a presentation at the meeting. The other developers who made presentations included BLD Group, Falcone & Associates, Harbour Retail Partners, and The Cornerstone Group.

After each group made their presentations, councilmembers made their final comments before filling out their preference ballots. Vice Mayor Scott Stiltner echoed his colleagues’ opinion that all five designs would have been good choices for the project, making the decision especially difficult.

“This is a decision 25 years in the making,” Stiltner said. “I think it’s really good for us to take a moment and reflect what this vision was supposed to be all along. I don’t know that we are going to get exactly to it, but I think we should try to get as close as possible.”

Stiltner added that the real work “starts tomorrow,” part of which must consist of working with the developers to make sure the final project can have a lasting impact on the community.

“It’s really important to me that we select somebody that we feel really embraces the overall vision and that will work tirelessly to try to get as close to that 25-year vision as we can,” he added.

Port Orange Mayor Don Burnette said he feels that “in many ways, we’ve come full circle.”

“We’ve heard drugstores being proposed for this corner eight or nine years ago, we heard an apartment complex for the whole area,” he said. “The markets changed, changed again and again, but this Council, like many before it, have stuck to that vision.”

Burnette remembered other developments on Riverwalk, such as the upcoming Fysh Bar & Grill, promising to be one of the largest restaurants in Volusia County, to highlight the importance of the location to the city.

“Now we have this to look forward to,” he said.

Falcone & Associates and Harbour Retail Partners came in at second and third place respectively. The Cornerstone Group and BLD Group were fourth and fifth.

The city will now work out a purchase agreement with Bristol and could tentatively come back before the City Council for consideration in early Spring 2022.

“This is not just money. It is really the future of our community,” Steger said.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Port Orange's Riverwalk project given to Bristol Development Group