Daytona Beach city leaders are "getting nervous" about the possibility of the USTA's Florida office leaving the market, as the organization only has five months left on its lease and its parent organization is "thinking about building a sprawling 100-court tennis complex in southeast Orlando," according to Eileen Zaffiro-Kean of the Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL. Despite the fact that 19 acres were donated for Daytona Beach's Florida Tennis Center in '01, construction "cost more than expected and the facility operated in the red until it started breaking even two years ago." The center also has "been hampered by sluggish home construction in the LPGA neighborhood that stifled new memberships, but home building is picking up now as are memberships, and the city hopes to hang on to USTA Florida and all the money it contributes" in local economic impact. The "cloud of uncertainty ... should lift by early June, when the USTA’s Florida and national organizations are expected to have held board meetings and announced their decisions" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 5/5).
