How to get new restaurants in Deltona.
The Howland Job Zone, along with other new development, will create many new jobs, attracting your favorite restaurants.
COVID-19 UPDATES
The American Rescue Plan Act established the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) to provide funds to help restaurants and other eligible businesses keep their doors open.
SBA Announces Official Restaurant Revitalization Fund Application and Guidelines (RRF)
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
Medical Arts
Here in Deltona, we’ve had a lot of growth in the last couple of years. We’ve had a new hospital emergency room…and hospital tower open… and we are looking forward to the opening of a 55,000 square-foot medical office building. We recently had a freestanding emergency room open on Howland Boulevard. We have a very robust clinic preparing to open down on Deltona Boulevard. We have a large medical office building on Saxon Boulevard that opened just a few years ago. This is an awful lot of medical and health services coming into our city. Yes, you’re right! That is an awful lot of medical jobs coming into our city too.
Portland Industrial Park
We have Portland Industrial Park, which is 250 acres of logistic-based development just off Howland Boulevard at Interstate-4. The first business to develop in Portland industrial Park is Amazon, with 1,000,000 square-foot logistics center. You heard about that, right? Seriously, think about it…that’s 23 acres of concrete. That’s 500+ new jobs guaranteed. The rest of Portland Industrial Park is going to have more logistics. Plans include an additional 1-million square-foot logistics center building, another building at 198,000 square feet, and a third at 178,000 square feet. Then, we still have opportunity for additional light manufacturing concepts. That could easily be 2,000 or more new jobs.
Where’s my favorite restaurant?
Still, the main thing I hear is “Where is my favorite restaurant? Why do I have to drive to Orange city, or Sanford, to eat and my favorite restaurant?” Well, all right-y then, let’s talk about restaurants for a few moments. First, Deltona is a very mobile community. In the first quarter of 2020 we showed 45,000 people in our labor force. That’s great news. The not so great news is that almost 40,000 of these folks leave daily to go to work outside the city. This is called job leakage, and we have a firehose of job leakage! Until we can build up a solid core of jobs within the city, we cannot attract your favorite restaurant. Restaurants have very stringent criteria that they require before they will come to an area. One of the major things they look for is the lunch crowd. Restaurants look for patrons for either breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner. Very few restaurants would consider opening only for breakfast or for dinner. Most certainly your favorite restaurant wouldn’t!
Key Demographic Facts
| Population (5 miles) | 108,788 |
| Average Household Size | 2.85 |
| Median Age | 41.3 |
| Average Household Income | $68,497+ |
Employment Demographics
| White Collar | 59% |
| Blue Collar | 23% |
| Services | 18% |
| Unemployment Rate | 6.3% |
Job Leakage
| Labor Force | 45,000 |
| Commuting outside of Deltona | 40,000 |
Attracting new businesses and new jobs
So, how do we go about reconciling this issue? We have to attract businesses to the City of Deltona that will bring in large number of jobs. Okay, we’ve been working on this. Remember earlier, when I spoke about all the medical coming to Deltona, and I spoke about the development in Portland Industrial Park, and about Amazon coming to Deltona? This is thousands of new jobs within our city. This is the development of that lunch crowd.
Once the hospital is fully open, and Amazon is open, and the rest of Portland Industrial Park is in full development, restaurant developers and site selectors will see that development and the jobs created. Then we can attract your favorite restaurant.
It doesn’t just happen. It takes planning, hard work, spirit and dedication. But we’ve been working on it for a while and you can see the fruit of what’s happening as we plan the work and work the plan. Soon we will be starting a new restaurant recruiting campaign. I bet your favorite restaurant will be on that list.