A rendering of Ocean Club, the mixed residential and shopping block that will remake the existing Bank of America building.
For almost four decades the structure that came to be known as the Bank of America building sat gloomily like a giant brick with mouseholes on some of Flagler Beach’s prime real estate, at South 3rd Street and South Ocean Shore Boulevard, its brutalist squareness at odds with the charms of the boardwalk across the street or the more modest businesses along A1A.
That’s finally about to change. Last week the Flagler Beach City Commission approved plans to make over the building into seven efficiency-apartment type vacation rentals upstairs and clothing and gift shops downstairs, what will be called Ocean Club.
Get ready for that familiar sight again as Boston Whaler will take over its sister Sea Ray’s plant, abandoned two and a half years ago. (Rusty Clark)
Two and a half years after the Sea Ray plant shut down off Colbert Lane, eliminating some 440 high-paying, manufacturing jobs, the plant will reopen very soon under the banner of Boston Whaler, a boat builder owned by Sea Ray’s parent, Brunswick Corp.
Boston Whaler will bring back 300 to 400 jobs within 24 months, Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland said this afternoon. The first boat is expected to roll off the assembly line in the second half of 2021. The city’s announcement caps a whirling six months of major economic-development victories for Palm Coast.