City of Daytona Beach staff and advisory-board members discussed a proposed multi-phase sports complex, current permitting and development activity, and workforce-housing considerations tied to recent aerospace and manufacturing job announcements.

Jeff (city staff) opened the development portion of the meeting with a permitting and development update: building-permit totals and an end-of-year construction-value figure were presented (a figure reported verbally in the meeting was $560,000,000 in value of construction for the prior year), and staff said early 2025 shows increased project activity. Staff emphasized that the Technical Review Team (TRT) remains the city’s first-step pre-application discussion forum for prospective developers and that TRT frequency has returned to a regular weekly schedule to accommodate more inquiries.

On the sports-complex concept, staff described a tournament-capable indoor field-house and synthetic outdoor fields on roughly 600 acres the city owns behind the sports complex. Presenters said the consultant study reviewed an indoor multi-sport field house, 16 synthetic outdoor fields and a potential future replacement of Municipal Stadium at a location with better access. The project team said the facility is being designed to complement — not compete with — the Ocean Center by enabling larger tournament combinations that can include both venues. Staff said the preferred approach includes synthetic turf fields to allow quick conversion among sports, reduce weather-related cancellations and maximize weekday community use. The team also described exploring naming-rights revenue and phased delivery tied to available financing.

Board members and staff tied the sports-complex discussion to the city’s broader economic-development goals. Staff emphasized that Daytona Beach is attracting higher-wage engineering and manufacturing jobs from regional aerospace investments (Boeing and other employers cited) and that the community should plan housing options attractive to employees earning at those levels while also preserving housing that frontline service workers can afford. City staff said the goal is to retain new hires locally rather than lose talent to nearby Orlando-area job markets.

Board members asked for follow-up reports on financing options, facility programming to ensure weekday usage and how the complex would work alongside Ocean Center events. There was no formal vote; the conversation was described as a staff-level briefing and planning discussion.