Surf’s Up At Ocean Park

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If you’re new in town it would be hard to imagine what the Easter Lily, Flamevine and Humiston Park area looked like until three years ago. In place of Ocean Park, the impressive British Colonial residential-retail structure, stood a decades-old, downtrodden building where small beachside shops and a restaurant had mainly catered to tourists. What time hadn’t diminished, the ’04 hurricanes severely damaged.

“It was an eyesore, a disgrace to Vero Beach,” says Steve Mulvey, not mincing words. ”What had been a bunch of small trinket shops and Crusty’s, which back in the ’60s was a great little place to stop and have a beer and oysters, had become a downtrodden, rat-infested building. The before and after photos are breathtaking – to see what was there before and what it looks like today is amazing.”

Mulvey, Quail Valley CEO and co-managing partner of Ocean Park of Vero Beach/Flamevine Partners should know. He, along with other community-minded investors Kevin Given, Tom Corr, Dale Sorensen, Ken Puttick, Gary Frazier, Patrick Welsh and Bill Becker are the ones to thank for the transformation that includes enhancements to Humiston Park. Their original concept included Corey’s Pharmacy and the shops along Ocean Drive. That didn’t happen. As Mulvey explains, “We were actually going to revamp the entire area and tie in the whole corner, but Mrs. Corey was adamant about not selling, so we moved on.

Read the entire article in the March 2011 issue

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