A luxury apartment community is being proposed for downtown Daytona Beach on a former church site near the Halifax River, adding to a wave of residential construction reshaping the area's skyline. The project is planned as a 304-unit community that would include coworking space and other amenities, according to early reporting on the proposal.
The plans come from a report by Orlando Business Journal, which placed the project on the former church property and described it as part of downtown Daytona Beach's ongoing evolution. Westplan Investors is planning the proposed 304-unit Accent Daytona community. Its exact address and construction timeline are details to watch as the proposal develops. It's the latest sign of how much residential development is converging on downtown Daytona Beach at once, even as the city's overall rental market has been cooling.
A Nearby Project Is Already Rising on Beach Street
Just blocks away, a different and further-along development offers a preview of what large-scale downtown apartment living could look like. The 400 Beach Apartments is a 294-unit, six-story complex under construction on North Beach Street, according to the Miami Herald. The $110 million project is expected to mostly finish in late December, with an additional 24 units slated for completion by February, and residents are expected to begin moving in on January 4, 2027.
The Herald's report lays out pricing for that complex in detail: one-bedroom apartments are expected to start between $1,900 and $2,300 per month, while studios begin at about $1,800. The building will offer studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts, along with an amenity list that reads like a boutique hotel's — a speakeasy lounge, a dog spa, a sauna, a chiropractor, a hydro water massager, a game room, and a private courtyard with a pool. The same account notes the complex will include a 500-space parking garage.
Westplan Investors' proposed 304-unit Accent Daytona and Framework Group's 294-unit 400 Beach are separate projects. A separate report from The Daytona Beach News-Journal describes a six-story building with at least 290 units downtown. Unit counts across these projects range from at least 290 to 304, and the final approved figures for any given project would need to be confirmed through city records.
Public Incentives Tied to the Riverfront Development
Public money has already played a role in bringing development to the area. In 2021, the Daytona Beach City Commission approved a $7.5 million property-tax incentive for Framework Group, according to the Herald's reporting. Under that arrangement, Framework Group will annually be reimbursed 80% of the property taxes generated by the riverfront development through 2036.
Framework Group's residential complex is planned for the southwest corner of Beach Street and Michigan Avenue, directly west of Riverfront Park and the Halifax River. The Herald describes the broader development as part of a push to revitalize downtown, a framing that fits a city actively courting new residential construction even as its single-family permitting slowed — the city reported 918 new single-family home permits issued in 2024.
Softening Rents Add Context to the Building Boom
All this new supply is arriving at a moment when Daytona Beach rents have been trending downward rather than up. As of October, the median rent in the city stood at $1,268, up 0.6% from the previous month but down 3.9% year over year, according to Apartment List. Nine months into the year, rents in Daytona Beach had fallen 0.4% overall. Over the past year, rent growth was -1.2% statewide and -0.4% nationally.
That backdrop makes the luxury positioning of these new downtown projects notable: developers are betting on premium units and hospitality-style amenities even as the broader local rental market cools. Whether the newly proposed 304-unit project near the Halifax River becomes downtown's next landmark complex, or turns out to be another name for the 400 Beach development already under construction, is a detail that future reporting will need to sort out.
