Space Coast could see a doubleheader SpaceX Falcon 9 launch on Saturday evening.

Eau Gallie public-private parking garage pursued for nine-story Unscripted hotel project

Rick Neale
Florida Today

Melbourne officials will pursue funding and construction of a five-story public-private parking garage next to the Eau Gallie Civic Center as part of an ambitious nine-story luxury hotel project.

Northboro Builders, which is under contract to buy the Foosaner Art Museum, wants to replace that building with a 180-room hotel featuring a rooftop restaurant, pool and bar, along with 7,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The brand: Unscripted, a boutique urban brand offered by Dream Hotel Group of New York, said Larry Jarnes, Northboro Builders president and CEO.

An Orlando developer hopes to build an Eau Gallie nine-story hotel at the Foosaner Art Museum site on Highland Avenue.

“We now have seven or eight restaurants and bars right in downtown Eau Gallie, with more coming. We’re 2.5 miles from the airport. This’ll be a facility that people will literally come and vacation to, and make Eau Gallie a destination, for both business and pleasure," Jarnes told the Melbourne City Council on Tuesday.

"And then you can leave the hotel, drive right over the bridge and dead-end at the beach. So it’s got the best of both worlds,” he said.

This artist's rendering depicts the commercial complex an Orlando developer hopes to build in downtown Eau Gallie.

More:Eau Gallie 9-story hotel, 6-story parking garage plans unveiled for Foosaner museum site

More:Downtown Melbourne six-story apartment complex proposed for Orange Court Apartments site

To accommodate the hotel — and combat Eau Gallie parking congestion — the City Council agreed to conceptually pursue construction of the garage. This facility may house 250 to 300 parking spaces for the public and roughly 250 spaces for the adjacent hotel, said Doug Dombroski, economic development manager.

The developer would build the parking garage concurrently with the hotel atop city-owned land. 

City Manager Shannon Lewis said negotiations will ensue with Brevard County officials on funding incentives via Eau Gallie's Community Redevelopment Agency. Many development details remain unresolved, and no decisions have been finalized.

Jarnes said the hotel would bring 200 to 300 new people daily to downtown Eau Gallie.

“We have a lot of the business-type hotels on Wickham (Road) and (off Interstate) 95 and those areas. And then we have the beachfront hotels, all on A1A — which (is) a completely non-walkable-type area," Jarnes told council members.

“Right now, when you walk around Eau Gallie on a Friday or Saturday — even Thursday — night, there’s not one parking spot. And Pineapples hasn’t even opened yet. Intracoastal’s expanding. There’s some other food and beverage stuff happening," he said.

Hiring is underway at Pineapples, a multi-level dining-entertainment venue next to Shark Toof's shark mural on the old Dr. Joe’s Intra-Coastal building. Two blocks to the west, Intracoastal Brewing Co. is building a two-story expansion project.

"So we’re already maxed out at capacity. And the last thing we want to do is turn people off from coming down there because it’s just too uncomfortable to park and navigate through,” Jarnes said.

An Orlando developer hopes to build an Eau Gallie nine-story hotel at the Foosaner Art Museum site on Highland Avenue.

Citing the need to attract future business investment, council members decided in December 2019 to research constructing a three-level, 250- to 300-space parking garage in the Eau Gallie Civic Center parking lot at 1551 Highland Ave. Estimated price tag: $6.3 million to $7 million.

The project's potential scope rapidly grew. In April 2020, Northboro Builders entered a contract to buy the Foosaner Art Museum and adjoining Renee Foosaner Education Center from the Florida Institute of Technology. Purchase details were not disclosed, but the buildings had been listed for $3 million.

Jarnes met with City Hall staffers in June 2020, and discussed the conceptual nine-story hotel project, Dombroski said.

“I look at this, and I’m in kind of awe," Mayor Paul Alfrey said, referring to an artist's rendering of the hotel displayed on television monitors inside council chambers.

"This is something you don’t see in Melbourne or Eau Gallie. Really, you have to go to downtown Orlando to see something this magnificent. It’s a beautiful structure," Alfrey said.

An Orlando developer hopes to build an Eau Gallie nine-story hotel at the Foosaner Art Museum site on Highland Avenue.

Council Member Tim Thomas said the city needed this type of development 10 years ago. 

In spring 2022, travel conglomerate TUI is projected to start flying 156,000 annual tourists from nine cities in England and Scotland into Orlando Melbourne International Airport. 

“The Melby hotel, the Eau Gallie hotel that we’re hoping to build — I mean, that’s going to be prime real estate that will be greatly utilized, no doubt,” Thomas said.

After hosting Robot Love V, the Foosaner will reopen March 20 with a final exhibition, "Abstraction: Retrospective Memories." The museum will close on June 30.

Jarnes said he also bought the boarded-up eyesore gas station at U.S. 1 and St. Clair Street in Eau Gallie, with plans to develop a “gas station-food concept.” 

Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1. To subscribe: https://cm.floridatoday.com/specialoffer/