HAVENS; Beyond Fast Cars and Spring Break, a New Daytona Rises

The Ocean Villas
(units available)

This is the new Daytona Beach. For 10 miles on the Atlantic shore, the hurdy-gurdy vacation town is being transformed with buildings that defy beach condo clichés. Master bedrooms at Ocean Sands, for instance, come with whirlpool tubs and floor-to-ceiling windows framing the Atlantic. A golf course at Oceans Grand provides plenty of water views, and crown molding and granite countertops liven the spaces at DiMucci Twin Towers. Although many projects are in Daytona Beach Shores, south of Daytona Beach proper, several are within whistling distance of the famous Boardwalk, where T-shirt and tattoo shops still reign, and the stores on Main Street that deal in biker and race-car gear.

The Ocean Villas
(units available)

But Daytona's long-held carnival cachet is fast vanishing beneath developers' wrecking balls. Builders are snapping up mom-and-pop motels (34 of which took a triple licking last hurricane season) and replacing them with low- and high-rise residences.

Recently completed Towers Grande
(units available now)

At present, about 5,770 units in two dozen projects are proposed or under way on the beach, along the Halifax River and in gentrifying areas of town, said Jim McCroskey, vice president of development for the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce. Downtown along Beach Street, where Rolex and crystal boutiques are slipping in among old-fashioned citrus stands, nearly 600 condominiums have been proposed, with an average price of $375,000. The city has already approved a row of chic loft-style units within walking distance of a $26 million performing arts center being built beside the river.

Since early 2004, beachfront condominium prices have doubled and even tripled in some cases, as they have at the deluxe Ocean Villas.

That the area has become a veritable Wall Street of condominium sales and speculation is evidenced by investors like Ces Lawton, who formed a limited liability company for those eager for a piece of the Daytona Beach action. Mr. Lawton, a private political lobbyist and fourth-generation Orlando native, has contracts or reservations on 10 Daytona condos and units in owner resort buildings (condominium complexes run as a hotel).

Ground has not been broken for most, which is fine with Mr. Lawton, since ''the point is to get in early enough to turn it over at least once,'' he said. The strategy netted him $225,000 last summer, he said, when he sold two units at Ocean Walk Resort -- Daytona's only completed beachfront owner resort -- that he'd purchased three years earlier, before construction. The value of his unit at the 19-story Ocean Sands, which is yet to be built, has risen $300,000 in the last four months, he said.

The Villas and the Sands are the designs of the Devlin Group, a Jacksonville-based developer that promises ''highly amenitized'' condominiums across Daytona. In August, when Ocean Sands and Ocean Vistas (another Devlin project that has since changed hands) opened for preconstruction contracts, ''people started lining up and down Atlantic Avenue at 1 o'clock for a 5 p.m. release,'' Debra Riley, a Devlin spokeswoman, said. By 8 that night, buyers had secured nearly $200 million in real estate, Ms. Riley said. Today, buyers interested in the Sands have a choice of fewer than 20 units that start in the high $500,000's, up $200,000 from their August asking price.

Brad and Jaime Kernus, a couple from Leesburg, Va., bought a Villas unit overlooking Sunglow Pier and its Caribbean-flavored Crabby Joe's bar and grill. Where else, Mr. Kernus asked, can you relax in Asian-inspired gardens, then stroll barefoot to an overwater fish shack that stashes condiments in tackle boxes?

The couple said that they considered a second home on Tortola, a Caribbean island they visit frequently. But Daytona made the best investment sense all around, they said. ''It's an hour from Orlando airport, one of the nicest in the country,'' Mr. Kernus said, ''and an hour from Jacksonville and professional football games.''

MR. LAWTON said that he could not imagine spending beach time anywhere but at Daytona. ''For my money, as a Florida boy, being able to watch the space launch from your balcony is important,'' he said.

Artist rendering of Marina Grande on thw Halifax

Docking his boat is also a coup, which he and his wife, Sharon, could do at any of their five units at a planned complex called Marina Grande (where the Kernuses have also reserved a unit). The area's largest planned condominium community with a projected 972 units, Marina Grande's four 25-story buildings are scheduled to rise along the Halifax River north of downtown. The complex will be built by Swerdlow/Boca Developers of South Florida -- responsible for $6.5 billion of Florida waterfront development -- and could lend a sleek Miami-like sheen to Daytona. Each building will come with valet parking and a concierge, and cafes and sophisticated retail stores will fill a 16,600-square-foot emporium just outside the Grande's front gate.

The development is a far cry from traditional Daytona Beach. The early 1900's brought speed-obsessed automotive pioneers like Ransom Olds, Louis Chevrolet and Warren and James Packard, who tested their latest prototypes on the hard-packed sand of the wide beaches (500 yards at low tide) and helped make the town a gearhead Mecca. The National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing was founded in town in 1947, and 12 years later, the vast Daytona International Speedway opened across the Halifax River on the mainland, with the Daytona 500 race as the crown jewel of the Nascar circuit.

Then, in the 70's, college students bound for South Florida detoured to Daytona Beach for cheaper rooms and congregated along the beaches for spring break. In 1989, an MTV live telecast called Daytona Beach ''the nation's Spring Break Party Central,'' and that seemed to touch off the drunken, over-the-top revelry that for many embodies the image of Daytona today.

Now developers are aiming for sophistication. Swerdlow/Boca is trying to bring ethnic and cultural savvy to Daytona, which Norman Zoberman, sales manager on the site for Marina Grande, called a sleeping giant. The company has enlisted 200 brokers in South America and a dozen in Europe to help woo wealthy buyers to Marina Grande and other area projects.

Artist rendering of Marina Grande on thw Halifax

Hotel and resort development is also booming. The lavish Shores Resort & Spa is scheduled to open -- of all times -- this spring. Owned by Noble House Resorts (whose collection includes Little Palm Island in the Florida Keys), the Shores is a $20 million redo of the former landmark Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort that will feature the company's Indonesian-inspired SpaTerre, as well as a satellite of the swank Baleen restaurant in Miami. Three miles north on the Atlantic, Hilton Hotels is pouring $20 million of its own into the old Adam's Mark Hotel on the Boardwalk, transforming it into the 742-room Hilton Daytona Beach Resort, scheduled to open next month. Across the street, the area's convention center is tripling in size.

Supporters of Daytona's building boom say the city is merely reaching back to its early 1900's roots, when the gilded homes of tycoons dotted the coast. For now, though, Bike Week, Biketoberfest and Spring Break 2005 will keep the party going.

And that isn't necessarily a bad thing, Mr. Lawton said. ''I haven't missed a spring break in 32 years,'' he said.

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