New Smyrna Looking to Update Economic Development Plan

When it comes to economic development, New Smyrna Beach is more than just a cozy beach town. And to keep it that way, the city is working to update its comprehensive economic development strategic plan.

One of the early steps in the process recently took place at a meeting of the city’s Economic Development Advisory Board where representatives from consultant Kimley Horn briefed members on the latest plan revision.

“This plan was last updated in 2020,” said Eliza Harris Juliano, a community planner with Kimley Horn. “There is plenty of opportunity to update just on the passage of time.”

Juliano, along with Kimley Horn planner Emily Thomas, reviewed the city’s current plan and previewed proposed changes to the board and members of the public.

The revised goals presented by Juliano and Thomas include updating available data and strategies that are no longer relevant, streamlining the plan to make it easy to follow and implement, identifying effective incentive strategies and aligning the plan with the current Community Redevelopment Area master plan update.

Juliano said the four key areas of the updated plan are the vision statement, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis or SWOT, opportunity area strategies and measures of success.

On the vision statement, advisory board member Aaron Denys said he believes the current iteration is too long.

“You want to keep it as short as physically possible,” he said. “You want to inspire, you want to be short and sweet. One thing that we want to stick out in the plan is the small town charm of New Smyrna Beach.”

The discussion also included a look at branding the city’s business districts.

“This has been dome more for some areas than others,” Juliano said. “Some of the areas have organized business organizations.”

The strategic plan lists seven distinct business areas, including beachside, the Canal Street area, the Historic West Side, the U.S. 1 Corridor, the municipal airport, the State Road 44 Corridor and the Interstate 95/SR 44 area.

Juliano said Kimley Horn will take into consideration comments from the advisory board as well as public comments from the meeting.

“We’re trying to come up with a good story that is reflective of your values and your needs,” she said. “We will be taking this back, coming up hopefully with a full draft of the comprehensive economic development strategic plan and will bring it back to the appropriate bodies.”