- February 18, 2026
Five years ago, Ormond Beach began plans to install new sidewalks with decorative banding in the downtown.
The $2 million project never came to fruition, as city officials encountered hurdles in the process — materials became unavailable leading to three years of looking at alternatives. So instead, the city is now exploring an alternate option: regular concrete sidewalks, ones built to the specifications laid out by the Florida Department of Transportation.
"The recent project on Granada Boulevard brought to light that the most important thing that we need is some safe sidewalks in the downtown — some clean sidewalks in the downtown," Assistant City Manager Shawn Finley said.
The need to repair the sidewalks in the downtown — on Granada Boulevard from North Orchard Street to A1A — was identified in the 2016-2017 fiscal year. Sidewalks with decorative banding was one of the first capital projects completed in 1991 within the Community Redevelopment Agency. The new sidewalks would be constructed using CRA dollars.
By building sidewalks that meet FDOT standards and specifications, the city would also be handing off the maintenance and liability to the state department.
Finley, the city's former public works director, said having safer sidewalks that are not a liability to the city are the biggest positives of heading in this direction.
"This is going to sound like me as a public works guy — good, clean concrete is kind of pretty too," Finley said.
Commissioners were on board with proceeding with concrete sidewalks.
"We like the decorative stuff, but also, we have to think about safety," Mayor Jason Leslie said.
The sidewalk banding was nice, but as the years passed and the concrete settled, the pavers became a tripping hazard and hindered wheelchair users, Commissioner Harold Briley said.
"We had [sidewalk banding] to attract people to the downtown," he said. "We don't need pretty sidewalks to attract people downtown anymore, because we actually have a destination in our downtown."
City staff will present bid documents and plans to the commission at a later date. The commission will also review an agreement with FDOT to transfer the maintenance responsibility back to the state.
