- April 26, 2024
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County staff expect dozens, perhaps hundreds, of supporters and opponents of a plan to build a 198-room resort on the site of the old Hammock Beach golf lodge to attend the 5:30 p.m. Feb. 2 hearing at which the County Commission will vote on the proposal.
A group called Save The Hammock, which opposes the proposal, has instructed members to show up wearing light blue shirts. The Flagler County Chamber supports the proposal and has asked members to show up wearing white shirts.
County staff plan to open up additional space in the commission chamber room for the hearing, county spokesman Carl Laundrie said, and if needed, will direct attendees to overflow space on the second floor. If that's not enough, staff will open more space on the third floor, where attendees could watch the meeting on a 60-inch television screen. All together, that would allow the building to accomodate about 300 meeting attendees. If there are more, they will be directed to yet more overflow space in the nearby Emergency Operations Center.
The hearing on the Salamander proposal had originally been scheduled for Monday, Jan. 12, but the commission postponed it to Feb. 2 because Commissioner Charlie Ericksen had to miss the Jan. 12 meeting for medical reasons, and because the resort company, Salamander, sent the county a revised site plan Friday, Jan. 9, leaving county staff insufficient time to review the proposed changes before the Monday meeting.
Deputy County Administrator Sally Sherman said after the Jan. 12 meeting that the revised site plan eliminates some parking on the south side of 16th Road and shifts the entire building an additional 15 feet away from the ocean. The amended site plan is posted on the county website at flaglercounty.org.
County Planning Director and a representative from Salamander will both give presentations at the Feb. 2 meeting, and there will be opportunities for public comment.
Ericksen said on WNZF Friday, Jan. 30 that he went into the hospital Jan. 27 for brain surgery and is not sure if he will be able to attend the Feb. 2 meeting, but has asked the county whether he could participate by phone. He said he has not yet received a reply. If Ericksen is unable to participate in the meeting, there would be just four commissioners on the board for the vote, and the measure would fail if the board splits 2-2.
Salamander creates promotional video in Chinese; some locals concerned
Sylvia Whitehouse, an organizer for Save The Hammock, said members are concerned not only about the proposal itself, but also about a Salamander promotional video for the proposed Hammock Beach Resort (as well as the company’s Reunion Resort, in Orlando) that is produced in Chinese.
What appears to be an English version of the same video calls the properties “two extraordinary investment opportunities.”
“A lot of golf courses have been purchased recently by foreign investors,” Whitehouse said. “But this is Palm Coast. Its not Daytona Beach, it’s not Palm Beach. We don’t want it to become a Mecca of hotel development. It’s a nice, quiet area. There’s not one traffic signal.”
The video, viewable at http://bit.ly/1z8rHJF, has been passed around the Hammock community, she said. County Planning Director Adam Mengel said residents had sent screenshots of it to county planning staff.
Salamander President Prem Devadas said the video, which comes from the developer’s website and hasn’t yet been released promotionally, was created to spur the investment that would help the company begin construction quickly.
“We will raise investment in order to move forward and do the project under Salamander’s management,” he said. “So we will not be selling the golf course to anybody, let alone Chinese investors. … Should we gain the approvals on Monday night, we will immediately go out and start promoting, not only to U.S. investors but around the world. The Chinese (video) is one that’s been developed for investors in China. We’ll have the same videos that will be translated for other countries. It’s part of what we do in order to bring the project to fruition.”
Local real estate expert Toby Tobin, of gotoby.com, noted that companies seeking investors look at the U.S. and China “because that’s where the money is.”
“I wouldn’t be particularly concerned if there were Chinese investors anyway; you literally cannot find out who is behind a lot of these corporations,” he said. “It’s clear to me that Salamander would remain as the operator; it’s exactly the kind of property that is in their portfolio.”
Tobin supports the Salamander proposal.
“I think it’s a tremendous opportunity for our county,” he said. He noted that Salamander recently took on a run-down condo hotel — the Innisbrook Resort, near Tampa, which had some of the same problems as the Hammock Beach Resort — and turned it around.
“I’m impressed with Salamander,” he said. “I just really think that if we were to go out and ask, ‘What is the best kind of operator we could have here?’ I think you would describe Salamander. I think they’ve done a good job of stemming the blood flow, and now we’re ready to go on to the next level.”
The hearing on the proposed resort will take place at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at the Flagler County Government Services Building at 1769 East Moody Blvd. in Bunnell.
