- January 31, 2025
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In recent years, our Palm Coast City Council has started to pave the way for our area, planning in a way that is smart, sustainable and greatly needed to keep our community thriving.
The blueprint for this smart and sustainable growth comes in the form of Imagine 2050, a thorough update to its comprehensive plan that includes a new sports complex on the west side of Palm Coast.
This new complex, along with other components of Imagine 2050, will bring positive economic benefits that will not only benefit those who live here by helping to alleviate the tax burden on residents, but it will be an advantageous project for years to come.
The sports complex will also attract new businesses to support its success, such as hotels, restaurants, and supporting retail to name a few, to the area, fostering a vibrant community and increasing the city’s tax revenue, which, in turn, will reduce the city’s reliance on residential taxes, which currently accounts for over 90% of the city's tax income. This is a great thing for residents and those of us who want to continue to see the area thrive and prosper!
Even more, this complex is expected to draw visitors to the area, who will spend money while in the area on things like lodging, dining, entertainment and gas — all while contributing to the local economy by doing so. Fortunately, the city has been planning for this possibility and has received state grants to build a road system to funnel traffic westward.
According to the Sports Complex Assessment performed by national sports consulting firm Synergy Sports, the economic impact of the complex in the first year after its completion is projected to be close to $80 million. This figure is expected to increase each year with the economic impact in its 10th year of operation estimated to be over $154 million. We should also consider that the positive economic impact will likely start during its construction, and additional commercial development to support the complex will also generate more in economic impact.
This is the time for our city to be pursuing something like this, before it is needed, which allows us to do it in a way that is smart, planned out and thoughtful for how we want our community to look like in the short- and long-term. If the city waits and kicks the can on a project like this, we may find ourselves in a situation in where rushed and unplanned development could take place. No one wants to look back 10, 20 or even 30 years from now and wonder where we went wrong in planning the development of our community.
The bottom line is that the Imagine 2050 plan, including the sports complex, is something that will help us keep this area young and thriving — the reason why we love to call it our home — for many years to come.
While we have some new faces on our City Council, I am hopeful, like many in our community, that they will continue to support this needed effort and move it forward so that Palm Coast will grow in a way that is needed while also being smart.
Donald O’Brien is a long-time area business owner and insurance agency executive. He served his community on the Flagler County Commission from 2016-2024 and has lived in the area for 35 years.
