Ocean Walk. News From The Grapevine.

The most expensive luxurious condo resort in the area, and the only condo-resort in the area that was built as a resort from scratch, and not converted to condominiums from a hotel is Ocean Walk, an impressive project encompassing a 19-story South Tower and 25-story North Tower. They are part of a larger ocean Walk Village project, which includes Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort, Wyndham Ocean Walk, Ocean Walk Shoppes and the Ocean Center, a 6-story Parking Garage....

Pre-construction sales started, I think, in 1999, and at that time $139K price tag for a 683-sf oceanfront one-bedroom sounded exorbitant. At that time you could buy a residential 2 bdr/2 baths unit in Oceanfront building. these times are gone.

We are in the worst crisis now according to the media, and though the prices plummeted after reaching $425K, and the least expensive unit today is $199,900 and all the way to $325K, but even the least expensive today is still 50% higher than in 2001.

George Anderson and his partner Tom Staed were behind this project, which broke the stagnation curse for Daytona Beach and proved they had both money, vision, business sense and decency, which do not always mingle well. By the time the first tower was completed, Faifield came and started doing sales for 139 units, which were set for time shares. 179 were condo-hotel, or whole owner unit, as they call it, where the owners own it all 52 weeks. Fairfield was fascinated with the opportunity and offered Anderson/Staed to buy them out. I assume it was tempting, and the second tower was built by the successor developer.

The north tower, which stands 25-story tall, has 60 two-bedroom units and 2 one-bedroom units as condos, and the rest are timeshares. A couple of years ago Fairfield sold the management company and the commercial space to Wyndham Resorts. At that time people who knew the insides of the operations, thought it was a positive change.

Not now. The Board is suing Wyndham Vacation Resort and Wyndham Vacation Management, and the Management Company is suing the Board. The experience shows that when people are so involved in litigation, little has been done. Wyndham was very protective and the 5-member board used to have 3 members from Wyndham and only two representing so called whole owners. Last election the Board effectively disqualified 2 candidates from the election and ended with 4 members from the owners and 1 member from Wyndham, who also soon was replaced, though I do not have a clue why and how it happened.

Wyndham is not happy with that, claims that the Board could not do that. So, they have elected their own Board. Therefore now there are two Boards, and the only thing they agree upon is that they do not recognize each other.

A 50 count complaint was filed December 9 in Volusia County by attorney Mark Bogen against Wyndham Vacation Resorts and Wyndham Vacation Management on behalf of Ocean Walk Resort Condominium Association. This is the largest civil action filed in the State of Florida.

So, what is going to happen with Ocean Walk Resort? Nobody knows. The issue is compounded by the arrangement where there are both timeshare units and whole owners, who have a deed like in any other condo. Towers have separate associations, and North Tower is mostly timeshare. Wyndham owns the commercial space, and, of course the Front Desk. The association fired them as their Association Manager, and though Wyndham fights that, there is little chance they can force the association to marry the management company. However, how they can arrange rentals, of the frond desk is unavailable.

It would be a disaster watching the best resort in Daytona going down.

I will try to keep you posted on the events in Ocean Walk. I wish I could be bringing better news, bit I am not making the news. So, let's hope that both sides will find the solutions to their own crisis. We, however, learn one important lesson.

Timeshares and condos do not mingle very well. The interests of the parties are different. You can't actually talk about parties, as on the one hand you have the condo owners (whole owners), while on the other you have the management company. We all understand that though timeshare owners have the same legal rights, and everything like with a regular condo ... just 1/52 of it... no timeshare owner in their sound mind gets involved in any condo association matters. Timeshare condos do not form anything. It is difficult even for whole owners as these are their investments, not primary residences, and there is little place in the hearts of the owners for them.

It is something that people buy and hope not to be bothered. I have yet to see a single timeshare owner who wants to get involved and wants to get bothered with their investment, which some of those owners never go to, and use exchanges instead.

However, the timeshare management company has a lot of clout in the affairs of the timeshare. So, in the arrangement where some units belong to whole owners and some to timeshares, whole owners will be stepchildren... with absentee parents.

If you are looking for anything condo-otels in the area, contact us, the condo-hotel gurus in Daytona Beach area

Jon Zolsky, your Daytona beach condo-hotels guru.
www.DaytonaCondoHotel.com