Editor's Note: Nearly a year has passed since the City Commission voted to spend $417,000 to purchase the former Dunn Lumber, yet nothing to date has been done to improve the site. The arsenic-tainted soil even has not been remediated and the deteriorated building stands vacant, recently vandalized with someone breaking a large plate-glass window facing U.S. 1 that is now covered over with plywood.
NSBNEWS.net video by Sera King. The City Commission voted in January to authorize the Community Redevelopment Agency to spend $417,000 to purchase the former Dunn Lumber property at the intersection of West Canal Street and U.S. 1.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The City Commission offered $417,000 Tuesday night to purchase the former Dunn Lumber property at West Canal and U.S. 1, the key intersection that is seen as the gateway to the city's tourism route: Historic Canal Street and the Indian River to the east, along with tourist-trendy Flagler Avenue and the Atlantic Ocean, and to the west, State Road 44 corridor shopping and rural charm.
Though he voted for the purchase, Commissioner Randy Richenberg earlier in the meeting asked, "Excuse me if I'm ignorant, is there some kind of constraint on this?"
There was no hard and fast answer from anyone. And though Commissioner Jim Hathaway questioned the need to pay so much, Mayor Sally Mackay was adamant her colleagues not "quibble" over the cost.
"It's the heart of our city," the mayor said. That is the center of New Smyrna Beach. It's where you live. It's where I live... I don't think we should quibble... The city needs to claim the center of this town."