The Daytona Beach Planning Board on Thursday “unanimously approved a rezoning measure that's needed for Daytona International Speedway and its parent company to push ahead with plans to dramatically improve the track facilities and add new hotels, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and nightclubs,” according to Eileen Zaffiro-Kean of the Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL. With the vote, DIS' proposed sports and entertainment complex project that includes 483 acres “cleared another key hurdle.” The board's approval "comes just a few weeks after board members OK'd a similar measure for 180 acres of International Speedway Corporation land just north of the track on the other side of International Speedway Boulevard.” If city commissioners “agree in a series of meetings this fall with the requests to rezone the full 663 acres on both sides of the bustling thoroughfare from major sports district to planned master development, the Speedway will be able to chase its dream for the sprawling complex.” The planned master development rezoning for both properties “would allow the Speedway to build up to 2 million square feet of shops, restaurants and nightclubs; up to 1,785 hotel rooms; movie theaters with a combined maximum 5,000 seats; up to 1,600 multi-family residential units and 950,000 square feet of industrial uses.” The Speedway also “wants to add casino gambling on the two sites straddling International Speedway Boulevard” if gambling is legalized in the state of Florida (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 8/24).
