Cruise along Indian River Drive in Sebastian and you’ll find seven lagoon-front, dining-and-cocktail options – from Mulligan’s Beach House Bar & Grill north to Capt’n Butcher’s Seafood Grill, Bar & Marina, including the wildly popular Capt. Hiram’s Resort.
Vero Beach has only one – and that’s on the island.
Drive along Fort Pierce’s waterfront and you’ll find Cobb’s Landing and 12A Buoy on the lagoon, Square Grouper Tiki Bar and On The Edge Bar & Grill on the inlet, and Bluewater Beach Grill and Hurricane Grill & Wings on the jetty.
Vero Beach has the Riverside Café.
Celebrated in song by our homegrown country music star, Jake Owen, who occasionally performs there when in town, Riverside is the city’s only lagoon-front, dining-and-drinking option.
That needs to change – and sooner rather than later.
With all due respect to the Keep Vero Vero folks, there’s no sense in keeping Vero Vero when we can make Vero better and still preserve what makes Vero special.
We can do exactly that at Centennial Place, the 35 acres of lagoon-front property currently containing Vero Beach’s shuttered power plant and its wastewater treatment plant, which is slated for removal.
And we should.
Once the power plant is removed and the wastewater treatment plant is relocated to the airport – which could happen within the next five years – Centennial Place should be thoughtfully developed into an on-the-lagoon public destination that becomes as much a part of the city’s fabric as downtown and the Central Beach business district.
In fact, as the county attracts more residential construction and an increasing number of newcomers flock to Ocean Drive, the development of Centennial Place could ease Central Beach’s parking shortage by providing a waterfront alternative on the mainland.
Such development also would provide an additional tax base Vero Beach sorely needs to replace the revenue stream lost when the city sold its electric utility to Florida Power & Light in December.
In addition, if Centennial Place becomes the destination it should be, there’s no doubt many of the Vero-area residents and visitors who now travel to Sebastian, Fort Pierce and other nearby coastal towns for their waterfront dining and nightlife will opt to stay closer to home.
We might even draw people from outside the Vero area, possibly from nearby counties, just as Sebastian and Fort Pierce do now.
“If we do this right,” Vero Beach City Councilman Harry Howle said, “we can create a lot of jobs, too.”
Converting that lagoon-front property into another non-revenue-producing city park does none of those things. Besides, we’ve already got a Riverside Park. We don’t need another one.
What we do need is a mainland gathering place with a boardwalk and series of pathways that provide access to waterfront dining, afternoon cocktails and nightlife, as well as a boutique hotel, marina, small-shop retail stores, picnic area and, perhaps, even a band shell for concerts.
All of this can be done in a park-like setting that complements the lagoon’s natural beauty, embraces the small-town charm that makes Vero Beach special and enhances our quality of life.
“We want kids who grew up here to want to stay here or, if they’ve gone away to school, to want to come back here,” said Vero Beach Mayor Val Zudans, who supports the development of Centennial Place. “For that to happen, we need a place for younger people to go and hang out.”
Yes, we do.
But those waterfront restaurants and bars along Indian River Drive in Sebastian – as well as similar establishments on the lagoon, inlet and jetty in Fort Pierce – attract plenty of middle-aged and older customers, too.
The same would happen in Vero Beach, if the city’s leaders and the citizens they represent are wise enough to seize this wonderful opportunity to make our seaside slice of heaven more glorious.
But are they?
“I don’t know what people are afraid of,” Howle said.
Nobody wants to see the Vero Beach area morph into another Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach or even Port St. Lucie, and local zoning restrictions are in place to prevent that kind of over-development, despite the residential and commercial growth we’ve been seeing.
If done correctly, developing that prime stretch of lagoon-front property into Centennial Place doesn’t move us closer to South Florida, and it won’t make Vero less Vero.
Still, there are those who want to proceed slowly – so slowly that it could be four years before a plan is approved and at least a decade before ground is broken, assuming Vero Beach citizens agree via referendum to amend the City Charter to allow commercial development of the property.
The City Council decided last month to hire an outside consultant to come up with a plan to develop the lagoon-front property, along with the adjacent 3-acre parcel on the southwest corner of the 17th Avenue-Indian River Boulevard intersection, site of the former postal annex.
With Howle announcing he will not seek re-election and Zudans currently uncommitted to another term, the next City Council will make the early decisions on the fate of Centennial Place.
So it’s fair to wonder: If voters elect a let’s-slam-on-the-brakes City Council majority, will Centennial Place vanish into the ether as the Keep Vero Vero crowd endlessly ponders the future of what soon could be Three Corners of Nothing?
Another 35-acre parcel – the former Dodgertown Golf Club property – sat idle and unproductive for 14 years before the city finally sold it to the county in February.
“I don’t think it (Centennial Place) will be developed right away,” City Councilwoman Laura Moss said, “but we do need to have an idea what to with it.”
Here’s one you should consider.