Ron Uhland

Palm Bay

Palm Bay is a growing community of approximately 100,000 that sits just south of Melbourne and in the Southeast portion of Brevard County or , “The Space Coast.” It includes large tracts of land both east and west of I-95, some frontage on the Indian River Lagoon (which is the ICW or Intracoastal Waterway), and on the east shades into adjoining (and currently more rural) residential areas of Malabar, Grant, and Micco extending south to Sebastian.

The whole area is basically new and is growing at a rapid pace. It’s a young city with an average age of 37 and an average household income over $40,000. New home construction at affordable prices is popping up everywhere. As of August 2005 there are some new homes and condos for under $200,000.

Palm Bay represents not just good real Estate value for prospective homeowners, but also other opportunities which those of you considering relocating to Florida may find attractive. For example, the City of Palm Bay is looking for commercial and industrial development to help balance the residential development that has already occurred within the City.

Finally, for information on employment opportunities please see the Melbourne, Brevard County employment page.
As a place to work and live, Palm Bay has a lot going for it. If you are thinking about relocating here, consider:

Palm Bay and its adjoining areas enjoy some 72 miles of pristine Atlantic coastline, all of it dotted with various public beaches accessible north of Palm Bay from causeway bridges at Melbourne and Eau Gallie or south at the smaller SR510 bridge across the Indian River Aquatic Reserve at about the point of the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge. This is a beautiful area.

Palm Bay has quite an incredible range of both indoor and outdoor recreational opportunities in addition to these big Atlantic beaches, including sailing, water-skiing, fishing, biking and tennis, golf, hiking, horseback riding and surfing, walking and birding.

With 169 parks, 23 golf courses, and 30 marinas throughout the Area, and not to mention several colleges and universities located nearby and offering diverse educational opportunities, you won’t be bored.

Oh, and one more thing. A quirky and quite wonderful distinction that sets Palm Bay apart from a lot of the Space Coast is its seemingly infinite variety of ethnic foods.

If dining out is something you like to do, restaurant choices range from Middle Eastern to Jamaican to Italian and French and much more. And if that’s not enough, there’s still other choices available in historic downtown Melbourne, a few minutes drive away.

Last but not least, if you (for some reason) need a big city fix, well, Orlando is just under an hour away. For access to the rest of the country and the world, Melbourne International Airport is about 20 minutes away.

For more stats on Palm Bay, please go to http://www.city-data.com/city/Palm-Bay-Florida.html
For more stats countywide (Brevard) go to the Melbourne general info links on this Website.
For Real Estate information and related businesses see the Real Estate section on this Website.

“Think about the possibilities of living in an area where most people go for vacation.”

Viera

Situated on former Duda Ranch and scrub forest land, Viera is a master planned community in Brevard County, Florida, located in the Space Coast region. It is unincorporated.[1] Viera is home to many of the county's government buildings. It also contains the Space Coast Stadium, home field for the Brevard County Manatees, former spring training home to the Florida Marlins, and now training home to the Washington Nationals. The population of Viera (as of 2000) is approximately 19,083. Viera represents the perfect lifestyle, featuring nature trails meandering between neighborhoods and the best of tropical Florida within an easy drive.
The Brevard Zoo is just south of Wickham Road and concerts and entertainment events are ten minutes away at the Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts.
A day at the beach is just fifteen minutes away and easy day trips reveal the best of old Florida glories alongside exciting entertainment venues that are second to none.
Nearby, discover fishing, boating, wind surfing, sailing, golf, tennis, biking, hiking, bird watching and shuttle viewing...it's all possible here.

Cocoa Beach

Cocoa Florida is really two areas, a beach town and a mainland town separated by yet a third town. And geographic terminology can be somewhat confusing too. Let’s try to sort it out for you!Cocoa Beach is a town on the barrier island located between the Atlantic Ocean and the Banana River Lagoon on Florida's Central East Coast, just south of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.

The city of Cocoa is on the western (mainland) side of the Indian River. Merritt Island, a long pointed piece of land and town parsing inland bay or lagoon waters into the Indian (Westside) and Banana (Eastside) “rivers” separates Cocoa from Cocoa Beach. Got that?

Cocoa Beach
This beach town has made it to the radar screen of most Americans with any knowledge of Florida. Like many of the towns in the area, it was more or less a service town for NASA and a nearby air force base, but has now really found its identity as Orlando’s beach, a popular resort town, and a main center of Space Coast night life.

Just six miles long and mostly less than one mile wide, Cocoa Beach is really an adventure in diversity. You can swim, surf, cruise out to sea on a gambling boat, catch a cruise to the Bahamas, enjoy the 800’ long Cocoa Beach Pier, choose fine dining or a beach joint, listen to music, find an art gallery or fly a kite. The place is laid back.

Other options here range from watching a space launch from the beach with hundreds if not thousands of folks from all over the world, to the intensely personal solitude of watching/photographing marine and bird life in their natural habitats. And then there’s good golf, boating, and fishing too.

When thinking about real Estate here, it helps to remember that Cocoa Beach is both a residential community and a tourist destination. The base population is just over 13.000 but it grows to as high as 30,000 during the tourist high season (January through March) and on many weekends.

The City of Cocoa
Located west of Merritt Island, this small multicultural city has a population of just over 17,000 and fronts 4 miles of the Indian River. The city was long a bedroom community for various NASA facilities and Patrick Air Force Base, but it’s in the process of reinventing itself. It’s still that, but it’s also a destination, a great place to live, and you can even commute to Orlando if you want to live here and work there. It’s got its own great shopping and other good shopping varieties at nearby Viera on the mainland side or Cocoa Beach or Merritt Island.
Recreational opportunities abound too: They include boating, fresh water fishing on the nearby St. Johns River and salt water fishing in the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean, golf, and minor league and major league baseball spring training. Because of its mainland location, Cocoa also has great access to Canaveral National Seashore (north of the Cape), to the NASA space complex at Cape Canaveral, and to nearby wilderness areas.

Cocoa has a unique downtown historic area which is referred to as Cocoa Village. Over 60 restaurants, art galleries, clubs, theater and unique shops in a great atmosphere make this an enjoyable place to spend a day or an evening for residents as well as tourists. Most weekends in Cocoa Village there are street celebrations, art exhibits, parties and fund-raisers.

All this and Orlando is a straight shot (about 45 minutes) on the Beeline expressway-highway 528. This proximity means that you have easy access to the smorgasbord of entertainment that a major metropolitan center can offer, including concerts, dining, sports, and other entertainment activities. Orlando’s major international airport is only about 30 minutes away; Melbourne’s, easier to use because it’s smaller, is about the same distance.

Cocoa really lets you have your cake and eat it too. World famous beaches, fishing, entertainment and shopping are right here or nearby. You can work locally, or easily commute to Melbourne or Orlando. This plus a quality lifestyle in a small town atmosphere makes Cocoa a stand out community. To top it all off, real Estate here still offers a good range of options and prices.

For more stats countywide (Brevard) go to the Melbourne general info links.
For Real Estate information and related businesses see the Real Estate section.“Think about the possibilities of living in an area where most people go for vacation.”

Merritt Island

Merritt Island was originally an island and is still referred to as one. Because of the construction of the Crawlerway for the NASA Space Shuttle to move to the launch pad over the Banana Creek in the north, it has been connected to a mainland peninsula. To the west and south it is separated by the Indian River Lagoon and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The east side of Merritt Island splits and is divided by Syke's Creek and New Found Harbour. They, in turn, are separated by the Banana River Lagoon from Cocoa Beach, Florida.

To the north, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, along with a narrow barrier island that make up Canaveral National Seashore, are an unpopulated protected buffer area for the space shuttle launching site of Kennedy Space Center. The area is a wildlife magnet drawing huge sums of migratory birds and more resident wildlife including, alligators, manatees, dolphins, sea turtles, bald eagles, ospreys, bobcats, and the rumor of the elusive Florida panther.

To its south and east, the Island is linked by the Merritt Island Causeway and the NASA Causeway to the beaches of the barrier island that run from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station opposite the southside of the Kennedy Space Center, past the cruise ship docks at Port Canaveral onward to Cocoa Beach, Florida and Indian Harbour Beach, Florida. To the west, the island connects to mainland Brevard County by the Max A. Brewer Causeway to Titusville, Florida and by the Emory L. Bennett Causeway and Merritt Island Causeway to Cocoa, Florida, and Pineda Causeway, just north of Melbourne, Florida.

Merritt Island's recent history dates back into the mid-1800s and centers around the growth of citrus, stressing the cultivation of pineapples and oranges. The famous Indian River oranges and grapefruits come from this sandy area. The Island became a huge draw in the 1950s and '60s as the Space Race took off and NASA expanded. The construction of a barge canal to the Intracoastal Waterway from the Atlantic Ocean cut off the northern half of the Island for many years and to this day remains slightly rural with cattle pastures still holding on to some land. Now though a 4-lane highway connects to the Space Center, moving workers rapidly from the more densly populated central and southern sections of the Island. The small towns of Merritt Island vanished with the coming of the Space Age, towns like Georgiana, Courtney, Tropic, Fairyland, Orsino, Angel City, Wilson and Indianola now only live on in the names of streets and historic churches. The area now belongs to no official city, however the central part of Merritt Island is home to the majority of the population and includes the local high school, library, and shopping district.

With the lack of a municipal government Merritt Island is subject to the care of Brevard County and the double-edged sword that it provides. There are no city taxes and only minimal county police coverage. However, without a local governing body developers have transformed much of the character of the wetlands, coastal marshes, and orange groves that were so dominant even just 15 years ago. Today there is a lack of local parks, public space, and road infrastructure and improvements are far behind schedule for an area of this size.

With Merritt Island's central location within Brevard County the region is a commercial economic hub with the crowded Beaches to the east and the older mainland cities of Rockledge and Cocoa to the west.

To its south and east. Merritt Island is linked by bridges and causeways to the beaches of the barrier island that run from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station opposite the south side of the Kennedy Space Center. past the cruise ship docks at Port Canaveral onward to Cocoa Beach and Indian Harbor Beach. To the west. the island connects to mainland Brevard County by a series of causeways. to Titusville. Cocoa and just north of Melbourne. Merritt Island is also Just 45 minutes from major Orlando attractions, Merritt Island offers its own attractions. Providing the closest accommodations to a launch from Kennedy Space Center or a trip to the KSC visitor's complex to view the space shuttle, see a rocket, and learn the history of space flight -- Merritt Island is the best place to stay. For more Island fun you can visit the local parks and recreation areas, including Kiwanis's Island, and many boat launch locations. If you want to just relax and enjoy the sights and sounds of the Island, local entertainment and restaurants provide for every taste from ethnic to a more classical fare.

Local shopping is very convenient with areas that include the outdoor Grove Street Shopping District; the indoor air conditioned comfort of the Merritt Square Mall, and numerous major retail chain stores, including Circuit City, Home Depot, Office Depot, Toys R Us, Target, Wal-Mart and others.

Information from Wilkepedia