Hey, taxpayers of Daytona Beach – welcome to the restaurant business!
According to a report this week by Eileen Zaffiro-Kean writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, Mexican-based Grupo Anderson’s – the venerated international hospitality consortium with over 50 business units and a portfolio of 15 brands operating in four countries – will be partnering with the citizens of Daytona Beach to bring Señor Frog’s to a publicly owned beachfront lot in the city’s core tourist area.
What? You don’t know anything about running a bar and nightclub?
No worries, Grupo Anderson’s will be doing the heavy lifting.
According to the News-Journal, “Señor Frog’s has agreed to lease the city-owned property just north of Harvey Avenue for the next 50 years, and the city will give the project a boost by covering $500,000 of its construction costs. The city will also pay a broker’s commission subsidy of $61,625.”
What’s the return on investment for Daytona Beach taxpayers?
Well, the City of Daytona Beach will serve as the eatery’s landlord – collecting monthly rent of $10,000 – doubling to $20,000 per month by the sixth year of operation – with a 3% annual increase beginning in year seven.
In addition, “The city will also charge Señor Frog’s percentage rent, collecting 3% of annual restaurant revenue that exceeds $5 million. The 3% payment on all sales over $5 million can provide an additional $30,000 per $1 million in sales.
The city is also getting a $9 million development on the .75-acre parcel between the beach and Ocean Avenue that’s been empty for decades and only used for parking in recent years.”
To help grease the skids, in addition to approving the $500K contribution and 50-year lease – concessions were granted “…that includes land development code waivers to allow the bar use and to reduce the minimum number of parking spaces required.”
I’m just curious, but which department at City Hall will be responsible for auditing the books at Grupo Anderson’s to ensure the accuracy of reported revenues?
Or will our new business partner be on the honor system?
So, how’s things at your mom-and-pop shop?
Anyone at City Hall bending over backwards to help cover your construction costs, run interference for permitting hurdles, or offer flexible operating hours in exchange for a slice of the pie when (and if) you become successful?
No?
According to a report by Charles Guarria who covered the announcement for Hometown News Volusia, to her credit, when the City Commission voted as the Community Redevelopment Agency – Commissioner Stacy Cantu cast the lone “No” vote for gifting Grupo Anderson’s the $500,000 buildout spiff and brokerage fee.
“I don’t believe our CRA should be giving them a $500,000 buildout,” she commented the next day in a phone interview. Commissioner Cantu has nothing against Señor Frog’s opening in Daytona Beach. However, the $500,000 and $61,625 amounts didn’t sit well with her. Commissioner Cantu would have preferred to use the money for already established bars and restaurants.”
As I see it, therein lies the problem of a municipality using tax dollars like a private hedge fund…
It doesn’t matter if taxpayers would prefer that public funds be used to repair potholes, provide water and sewer utilities, fund police and fire protection, and provide for the common good – residents of Daytona Beach are now part of a pooled investment fund with diversified interests in real estate, hospitality, office space, and multi-family housing.
I’m not sure that’s how any of this is supposed to work in a free, fair, and open marketplace – but after decades of dissuading entrepreneurial investment, penalizing existing businesses, and erecting so many hurdles that many new enterprises have established themselves in neighboring communities – it’s one way of stopping malignant blight and igniting interest in redevelopment.
In a June 22, 2023, article in the News-Journal, “Daytona Beach hopes buying $2 million of mostly blighted land will help start a renaissance,” we learned:
“Within the course of four hours Wednesday night, city commissioners took a series of votes that maybe someday will be remembered as the spark that ignited the redevelopment desperately needed east of Clyde Morris Boulevard.
Commissioners agreed to spend nearly $2 million buying privately owned property in Midtown and on the beachside that’s hoped to become the site of a new hotel, restaurant, shops, a movie theater, office space, multi-family housing, and an African-American museum.
Commissioners also voted to donate 10 city-owned lots, some of which are in the impoverished Midtown neighborhood, to two agencies that will use the land to build affordable housing.”
Look, no one likes a rum drink by the beach more than I do – and I am the first to scream and kick that something must change in the Halifax area. In my view, a destination like Señor Frog’s is a wonderful addition to Daytona Beach and has the potential to serve as a catalyst for good things in our down-at-the-heels core tourist area.
Now that the spark has been struck with public investment in for-profit interests – perhaps it is time for government to get out of the marketplace – and work to make the permitting and approval process easier for private businesses to open and thrive without the need for “creative” (and risky) public subsidies and corporate welfare schemes…
Barker's View 
good post Barker-
we live in a dumpy area, poor schools standards, ugly beach side and mid town.
Unsafe community.
Fraud non profits, sub standard college in town.
Yet the county is so quick to close people’s condos and evacuate along the beach during minor storms last year.
FYI…not one building wich was by force evacuated has been condemeded by the storms. And yet chitwood and his people has the arrogance to go door by door, forceably removing people from their condo towers homes.
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Minor storms last year ?
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Marc no one can tell how bad a hurricane can hit as we see in S.Daytona not ready for another one.We in Ormond near I95 did not get that damage
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So when do the rich suckers stop fooling the rank and file in the Daytona Chamber and city into making everyone think they know best and have the best interest of the average joe at heart? When does big money stop being the thing that runs (ruins) our county? And why won’t Brower speak out against this deal being financed with OUR money??? Answer: Never
Daytona and New smyrna keep building nice houses for people with big bucks to move here and forget the slums that still exist, blindly letting the slide continue.
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the sooner folks wake up, the better. if not, the scams and sweetheart deals will continue ad nauseam. always on the public dime. the nonsense never ends.
fifty locations and these f***ers need a hand with the money.
i best find that line and get on it.
in the meantime, someone set the alarm for the serta crowd.
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This one is not an easy call, it has the potential to do exactly what they say. It could revitalize that area greatly. Then again it could just be another pig in the poke, only time will tell. I’m just hoping that those of us here in Volusia County can realize some actual benefit to this or on the other hand, will we be relegated to standing with her kilt together around our hips bracing ourselves in the immortal words of Phil Collins I can feel it.
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The Señor Frogs deal is not a whole lot different than Joe’s on the pier, ya? The city is Joe’s landlord as well—and I seem to recall hearing that Joe’s also agreed to that sort of tax on excess revenue. So we have a blueprint for how this should go. And I think the Hometown Volusia article also mentioned that Señor Frogs would be paying back the $500k over the course of a few years.
But yeah, point absolutely taken about how bigger asses get kissed and smaller ones kicked. Standard bully behavior.
The city doesn’t mind allowing less parking because the overflow will go to their adjacent paid lot (with broken machines guarded by aggressive panhandlers, but that’s a different rant).
Does the end-of-year opening goal seem ambitious to anybody else? Especially now, with a tight labor market (particularly the immigrants who work construction, ahem) and the still-borked supply chain?
_”Commissioners agreed to spend nearly $2 million buying privately owned property”_
now _there’s_ a problem…
and it circles back to the bullying
The big asses they kiss only want the prime beachfront spots. The smaller asses they kick might otherwise be willing to come fill those gaps at their own expense, if they knew they wouldn’t get their asses kicked in the process!
But hey, TPTB have figured out how to use taxpayer dollars to make blighted areas more attractive to the asses they kiss—win-win, amirite? 🙄
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Another hot mess the commission stepped into and I’m glad Commissioner Cantu spoke up; although she’s fighting a losing battle. I want to say the Senor Frogs I was at was in Mexico but I could be mistaken – it’s been years – but I seem to recall they’d be able to foot their own bill. Business as usual though – as you say – small business owners don’t get any assistance. When I worked for a sole practitioner in town during COVID I remember him getting PO’d that Morgan and Newlin received the government stimulus and he didn’t the first time; no idea on the second but WHY would either one get any? SSDD as this scenario! And where are those funds going now….
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Corporate handouts from CRA funds are an example of why CRAs in Florida will soon be outlawed at the state level.
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The one thing left out that DBNJ said was the title to the building which is a lease will be held for 50 years by Grupo until the lease is up.Looked up Grupo with 14 different restautaurants names across the world did not need the 500K .I want to know who is getting the brokers comission.Too many politicians in this county hooked up to the real-estate business as their primary job and don’t trust any of them.We only give the big money to Nascar and Amazon not the little guy trying to make a living plus that money goes to Grupo does not stay here it goes to Mexico
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In order to get in front of these boards you need Rob Merrel money.’
Mom and pop don’t have that reach
Soon the help will need id cards to get across the bridge.Pick a bale of cotton.
do da
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