Vacant land south of Daytona's Cornerstone Office Park is about to fill with businesses

Eileen Zaffiro-Kean, Daytona Beach News-Journal
·3 min read

DAYTONA BEACH — The already packed southwest corner of LPGA and Williamson boulevards is poised to get even more new development next year.

Choice Hotels is under contract to purchase property just south of the Cornerstone Office Park, and ABC Liquors has already bought a piece of land next to the hotel site.

Restaurants and other types of businesses could also soon be moving onto what is now a mostly vacant expanse of grass that already has a Twin Peaks restaurant, said Haluk "Luke" Kilic, director of engineering at Ormond Beach-based Zev Cohen and Associates.

The mirror-image twin buildings at the Cornerstone Office Park in Daytona Beach on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022.
The mirror-image twin buildings at the Cornerstone Office Park in Daytona Beach on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022.

Those updates for the land just northeast of Tanger Outlets and Tomoka Town Center were provided at a public meeting Monday night at the Holiday Inn LPGA. The city required the meeting to be held since the owners of the property are seeking a rezoning that could make redevelopment easier.

The full 22.7-acre site that includes the open land and Cornerstone Office Park currently has two separate planned district agreements that were put in place when previous owners held the property. The current owners are attempting to secure a rezoning that would combine those two planned district agreements into one overall master development program and create commercial outparcels within the site.

The rezoning request won't go before the city's Planning Board and City Commission until at least early spring, said Jessica Gow, an attorney with the Cobb Cole law firm who is representing the owners of the nine parcels within the Cornerstone site.

The site has multiple property owners from Orange and Pasco counties in Florida, as well as New Jersey, and they've all signed forms authorizing the rezoning attempt.

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All of the proposed changes won't impact the two-building Cornerstone office complex, which will continue to be used as business office space.

The office complex has been on the property for nearly 20 years. The 95,000-square-foot office park opened in 2004 and has been bought and sold several times.

One previous owner intended to expand Cornerstone Office Park by adding two more identical two-story buildings on the 12 acres immediately to its south.

Before the Great Recession of 2007-2009, developers were considering building a row of eight office buildings and four or five flex buildings.

One of the signs for Tomoka Town Center along the east side of Cornerstone Boulevard, across from the north entrance to the neighboring Tanger Outlets mall across the street, on Tuesday, May 16, 2023.
One of the signs for Tomoka Town Center along the east side of Cornerstone Boulevard, across from the north entrance to the neighboring Tanger Outlets mall across the street, on Tuesday, May 16, 2023.

Before Tanger Outlets opened in 2016, the area south of LPGA Boulevard and west of Williamson Boulevard was a sprawling field where cows grazed. The pair of white Cornerstone buildings were some of the only structures in the immediate area.

Now the swath of land east of Interstate 95 between LPGA Boulevard and Mason Avenue is covered with apartment complexes and an array of shops and restaurants.

A long list of business uses are already permitted on the 22.7-acre site that's targeted for a rezoning. Those existing uses include travel agencies, bars, microbreweries, restaurants with drive-in or drive-through service, professional services offices, art galleries, banks, convenience stores, pharmacies, florists, gas stations, movie theaters and veterinary clinics.

"The rezoning does not really expand the pool of allowable uses on the site, although there may be a few new retail uses listed that were not formerly contemplated," Gow said. "The main intent is to recombine the Cornerstone Office Park and Cornerstone Exchange Planned Districts into one master-planned development."

The single planned development makes things more clear for potential users of the property, she said.

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Since the property already has zoning entitlements that allow for a range of uses, it's possible that construction could start on some parcels before the rezoning request is voted on next year, Gow said. All infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines, is already in place.

Construction on the ABC Liquors building and hotel could start next summer. The hotel could span about 20,000 square feet and include about 145 rooms.

You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: New hotel and liquor store coming to Daytona Beach commercial hub.