Laurence ReismanTreasure Coast Newspapers
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When he looks at the 1950s picture of his father’s new real estate business on an unpaved Ocean Drive, Alex “Buzz” MacWilliam III is reminded of how far Vero Beach has come.
And how the great brand it has become is jeopardized by a lack of investment.
As city officials spend so much time and money on work and studies of their wastewater and stormwater facilities, downtown master plan, the Twin Pairs, redeveloping the Three Corners and renovating their long-neglected marina, they’ve lacked attention to the kind of basic details that made the city attractive to tourists, newcomers and old-timers.
Residents have complained about declining maintenance of city parks and downtown and oceanside streets. In some cases, private groups have volunteered to plant flowers, pressure-clean sidewalks and otherwise beautify certain areas.
MacWilliam, who grew up a few blocks from Humiston Park and has worked across the street for four decades, fondly remembers it as a place to play ball, rent canvas rafts to ride the waves, snorkel and learn to surf.
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He knows just how much the park — and a boardwalk built in the 1930s as an attraction ― means to the city.
“Humiston Park is probably Vero Beach’s most prominent park,” MacWilliam said, a thought echoed by several people I spoke with this past week. “It’s in the heart of the city’s beach business district.”
As such, it’s been the place where visitors to nearby stores or hotels go to stroll and enjoy the outdoors, basking on the boardwalk’s benches or the park’s picnic tables.
It’s where people get their first impressions of the city before heading to places like MacWilliam’s office to consider investing here.
For decades, visitors also have headed to nearby pizza joints.
Like Pattric’s or, later, Crusty’s, which sat at the southern end of the boardwalk for decades until their wooden building was demolished. Since then, Nino’s, which David Decker bought earlier this year, has been the place to go at Humiston Plaza.
Maintaining a Vero Beach destination attraction
“(Humiston) needs to be a destination,” said Decker, a Realtor who worked at Nino’s for 16 years and has been going to the area since his father played music at Pattric’s in the early 1980s.
Like others, including Tom Corr, who owns the big building across Ocean Drive, Decker thinks the park looks awful.
It’s been especially bad since 2022, when Hurricane Nicole undermined the boardwalk, leading to its demolition. And for nearly six months, part of the playground has been closed, waiting for replacement parts expected in any day, according to Jim O'Connell, the city's recreation director.
Unlike many others I spoke with, Decker doesn’t think replacing the boardwalk is essential. But just a $709,000 sidewalk, as Vero Beach City Council proposed June 11, probably doesn’t cut it, either.
That day, the council spent only 30 minutes at a 9:30 a.m. weekday meeting before voting for that least-expensive alternative.
When word got out the council would not replace the boardwalk, at a cost of $1.5 million to $2 million, there was significant pushback.
So much so that on Tuesday, Councilman Taylor Dingle proposed asking City Manager Monte Falls to seek assistance from Indian River County. Falls said he’d already reached out to John Titkanich, county administrator.
Indian River County support likely?
Getting financial assistance from the county makes sense. Florida statutes permit counties to use revenue from tourist taxes charged on overnight stays for “beach park facilities.”
County commissioners Laura Moss, who as Vero Beach mayor in 2018 tried unsuccessfully to get the county to fund lifeguard facilities at the park, and Joe Earman, who grew up going to the park, told me they’d like the county to help. After all, the boardwalk has been a tourist attraction for nearly a century.
Earman, the commission’s liaison to its Beach and Shore Preservation Advisory Committee, said he discussed rebuilding a boardwalk with the county’s coastal engineers. Setting it back a bit east of the dune and elevating it, so folks can see the beach and enjoy the sea breeze, would be appropriate.
As the city and county start preparing their budgets, no funding decision is imminent. Thus, the city ought to delay plans to build a sidewalk until other boardwalk funding options are reviewed.
Corr, who helped a nonprofit buy the park’s playground equipment in 2015, said he’s willing to step up again. If a private fundraising effort to help restore the boardwalk begins, the Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce likely could help, according to its chairman, Bob McCabe, a former city councilman.
“We’re not in favor of what they did at all,” he said. “I think it’s very shortsighted.”
Buck Vocelle, a chamber board member, whose grandfather helped to form Indian River County in 1925, was more outspoken.
“I think it’s a shame … we’re spending so much money on everything else,” he said of the council’s decision to eliminate the boardwalk. “It’s part of the fabric of what makes Vero Beach Vero Beach.”
While change and progress are essential, preserving the fabric of Vero Beach — the things that attracted us to it ― is critical.
Losing the boardwalk would be one more city amenity and landmark gone.
Vero Beach not growing, Indian River County is
Like the now-private fishing pier at the Sea Quay condominiums north of Jaycee Park. Press Journal archives show the city proposed building a public fishing pier as a Works Progress Administration project in the 1930s.
By 1956, the city had acquired 2.5 acres and leased it for 99 years to Clark Rice, who in 1953 built and operated the 500-foot public pier, the only one between Juno and Daytona beaches, according to Press Journal files.
By 1964, the City Council had sold the property. In 1976, Press Journal fishing columnist Bob Miller, citing the rapidly disappearing public oceanfront for anglers, hoped the city would re-acquire and repair the pier.
Like Humiston and every other city park, the pier was used by tourists and residents of the entire county. Vocelle, fondly remembers fishing at the pier as a child.
While the city’s population has been about 17,000 for more than 30 years, the county’s has nearly doubled to more than 170,000 during that time. Many of those residents use Vero Beach amenities.
It's only fair they join tourists in helping pay for the privilege.
What’s the best way to do that? Add that critical question to the discussions the city and county must have.
While the city hopes to expand its tax base with the Three Corners and downtown development, Lord only knows when and if those projects will come to fruition.
Until then, our community must find a way to keep Vero Beach from falling apart, one bench, picnic table, sidewalk, park pavilion or boardwalk at a time.
Otherwise, before you know it, what we loved about our charming little city will be gone.
This column reflects the opinion of Laurence Reisman. Contact him via email at larry.reisman@tcpalm.com, phone at 772-978-2223, Facebook.com/larryreisman or Twitter @LaurenceReisman.
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