Daytona Beach officials update board on five brownfield sites, pace of state tax-credit cleanups

Michael Schnapps Tyler, an attorney with Cobb Cole, and Jessica Gallop, environmental counsel at Cobb Cole, told the City of Daytona Beach Economic Development Advisory Board on Thursday that five brownfield sites in the city are in active cleanup or redevelopment stages and described how state incentives are supporting the work. "We are now in the post injection sampling where we are just saying this is what happened as a result of the sampling events, and we are hoping to submit a closure plan to FDEP to get this 1 over the line to regulatory closure this year," Gallop said of the site at 645 North Atlantic. The presentation summarized work on three legacy sites already in the program and two properties added in late 2024. Projects discussed included: the 645 North Atlantic gas station across from the Marriott Renaissance, where a remedial action plan was approved in May 2022 and post‑injection sampling is under way; the 833 West International Speedway Boulevard site owned by Bethune‑Cookman University, for which the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) approved discontinuing groundwater monitoring and for which project counsel said they expect a no‑further‑action letter in 2025; and the 218 West International Speedway Boulevard property (variously referenced as the former First Baptist Church/Project Delta/Accent Daytona), where the community redevelopment agency (CRA) and the city commission recently approved a PD amendment and an incentive agreement obligating the developer to complete DEP cleanup work and providing 50 workforce housing units as part of a larger, roughly 300+‑unit project. The developer is preparing site‑plan work and, per the presentation, expects construction to start in the first quarter of 2025. The board was also briefed on two sites added to the program in December 2024: a Bay Street block (the so‑called Burgoyne Block), now owned by an affiliate of Brown & Brown, where consultants found soil impacts likely tied to historic oiling of alleys and where counsel said leaving existing impervious surfaces in place as a cover is a practical path to regulatory closure; and the Clyde Morris landfill area, where the city has been the responsible party for years and Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University recently agreed to join as a co‑responsible party. According to Tyler, a soil‑management plan for the landfill area has been submitted to FDEP that would guide excavation, testing and disposal options. "We think this is a good approach, a good business minded approach," Tyler said of using impervious surfaces as a containment strategy on the Bay Street block. Attorneys also reviewed how Florida’s brownfields incentives are used by local projects: annual site‑rehabilitation tax credits that can equal a share of cleanup expenses (the presenters said the state awards up to $35 million in transferable credits annually), an additional one‑time completion credit, expedited technical review by FDEP teams, and liability protections once parties follow the state rehabilitation agreement process. The attorneys noted nonprofit institutions such as Bethune‑Cookman University and Embry‑Riddle sell awarded credits to raise cash for cleanup. City staff added project updates. A staff member who worked on a nearby airport cleanup said debris removal was finished in 2024 and that test results are now below actionable levels; staff will submit a request for regulatory closure. Board members asked about disposal options for contaminated soil; counsel explained nonhazardous contaminated soil typically goes to permitted landfills in Florida and that truly hazardous wastes are sent to permitted out‑of‑state facilities when required. The presenters said brownfields redevelopment allows continued construction while remedial monitoring continues in the background, pointing to prior downtown projects that removed contamination, erected buildings and continued monitoring after construction. The attorneys and staff said they will return with further updates as FDEP reviews and tax‑credit applications advance.