A vacant auto dealership on Mason Avenue in Daytona Beach is about to become the new nerve center for Volusia County's emergency medical services. The Volusia County Council voted unanimously on Aug. 17 to move forward with construction on the 4.42-acre site at 1720 Mason Ave., clearing the way to centralize the department's administrative and operational divisions under one roof.
The project comes with a price tag far smaller than county officials originally feared. By renovating and expanding the former dealership instead of building a facility from scratch, Volusia County cut estimated construction costs from roughly $23 million down to $10.67 million, according to WFTV. As WKMG first reported, the new headquarters will bring together EMS fleet maintenance, administration, and training under a single site.
Nearly two-thirds of the renovation cost, about $6.8 million, is being covered by a federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery award, the station's report notes, sharply reducing what local taxpayers have to pay directly. Per the same account, the finished facility will feature a second-floor expansion, upgraded electrical and plumbing systems, and emergency standby power, with a target of being fully operational by fall or winter 2027.
A Decades-Old Station Reaches Its Breaking Point
The urgency behind the project traces back to the department's current home at Mason and Carswell avenues, a building constructed in 1960 that sits near the Holly Hill-Daytona Beach border. According to a statement from IAEP Local 77, the EMS union representing frontline staff, the 66-year-old facility suffers from severe space constraints, roof leaks, structural damage, and flood risk.
Union representatives also pointed out that three years passed between the county's purchase of the vacant dealership and the council's approval of construction plans this month. During that gap, crews continued working out of the aging Carswell Avenue building despite its documented problems, the union said.
A System Under Strain
Whatever frustration exists over the timeline, the scale of what Volusia EMS handles helps explain why officials say a centralized facility matters. The department covers 1,207 square miles across 16 municipalities, according to Volusia County Government, responding to roughly 80,000 calls for service and transporting more than 60,000 patients to area hospitals each year. That service area covers a permanent resident population along with more than 10 million annual visitors.
County data show average urban emergency response times in 2025 ranging between 6 minutes 28 seconds and 6 minutes 39 seconds, with an overall patient satisfaction rate of 98.3% recorded in June 2026. The department has gone through significant structural change over the decades, having operated as the nonprofit contracted provider EVAC Ambulance from 1981 until the county took over operations in 2011, later folding EMS into the newly created Department of Emergency Services in December 2022.
Payroll Troubles Still Loom Over the Workforce
The new headquarters announcement also arrives against the backdrop of a rocky year for the department's frontline staff. A forensic audit released earlier in 2026 revealed software timekeeping errors that misapplied pay codes for roughly 300 Volusia EMS employees dating back to mid-2023, a breakdown Hoodline previously reported left dozens of paramedics facing five-figure repayment demands. That controversy, stemming from integration glitches between the county's Kronos and CGI systems, created friction between management and paramedics months before the council signed off on the new facility.
For a workforce that has weathered both an outdated station and a payroll crisis, the Mason Avenue project represents a tangible, if long-delayed, upgrade. County officials have framed the renovation as a fiscally responsible path to modern infrastructure, while the union's public comments make clear that the three-year wait between purchase and construction has not been forgotten by the paramedics who kept responding to calls in the meantime.
