‘Space Coast Town Center’ planned

WEST MELBOURNE — A Boston developer’s vision of building an ambitious “urban village” of housing, shopping and office complexes south of U.S. 192 evaporated a decade ago when the real estate market tanked.

Now, drawn by the Space Coast’s booming aerospace industry, a Miami development team has resurrected plans to convert cattle pastures into commercial properties and create the “Space Coast Town Center” west of Interstate 95.

Veteran developers Edgar Jones and Robert Gorlow are working on the American Dream Miami mega-mall/entertainment complex — touted as the largest in the nation. They plan to to construct 75 housing, retail and office buildings near the St. Johns Heritage Parkway in West Melbourne.

Space Coast Town Center final cost: $200 million to $300 million, Jones said. The development duo has 160 acres under contract, and they outlined the project last month at West Melbourne City Hall.

“We are creating an amenity-based, mixed-use environment which will include hospitality, office, multi-family (housing) and retail. It’s going to be a place where people can walk around the lake. We hope to have restaurants serving the people who live there, who work there, all within walking distance — not something where you have to hop in the car and go to the next interchange,” Jones said.

Space Coast Town Center would be bounded by U.S. 192 to the north, Simon Road to the west, an oak-lined Melbourne Tillman Water Control District canal to the south, and Byrd’s Western Store and a borrow-pit lake to the east. The property is bisected by the St. Johns Heritage Parkway, which opened here last November.

Jones hopes to start site work, utility extensions and road work by mid-2019. Afterward, individual parcels would be sold to other developers to construct buildings.