By Glenn Rolfe

DAGSBORO — Flex-space business development is in the conceptual stage for property on Clayton Street in the town’s center district.

In its first in-person public session in nearly a year-and-a-half Monday, Dagsboro’s mayor and Town Council heard a presentation from Kyle Gulbronson, the town’s AECOM consultant, about a developmental concept for Seabreeze Business Park.

Frankford resident Brian Florek, who has run his family’s Metal Awards Rack in Rehoboth Beach for 11 years, is pursuing the Seabreeze LLC endeavor in Dagsboro.

“I have been running facilities my whole life, and I just wanted to build a facility myself, for my company,” Mr. Florek said at the hearing at the Bethel Center. “Seabreeze kind of came for that. I was like, ‘I need to buy a piece (of) property, so I can put up a pole building that I can run my company out of … .’ Let me do additional units and rent it out to other companies that are doing the exact same thing I am — that need space.”

Plans are for six buildings to be developed in phases. Some may include apartment space above.

“They are saying they’d probably build two buildings to start, then expand into the property as business increases,” Mr. Gulbronson said.

The submitted proposal met all town codes in terms of building sizes, setbacks and parking.
Mr. Florek said he has received interest from prospective businesses, including contacts at Indian River High School, where he is a track-and-field coach.

“I am trying to have a nice facility, something that the town respects — just trying to get businesses in the area that need space the space that they can use,” he said.

Mr. Gulbronson brought up one concern.

“One of the issues that we do have is that, since this is basically tenant space, they are not exactly sure what types of businesses are going in there,” he said. “We told them that as long as it is a business that is allowed in the town center district, that would be OK.”

The potential development, planned on a 9-acre site on the south side of Clayton Street, across from Southern States, has spurred a review of the regulations for the town center district, which will be tackled by the town’s Planning Commission.

“It has been a long (time) since the town center district regulations were written. (The Planning Commission) are going through and looking at all the permitted uses that we allow in that district. And they are going to come back the next meeting and go through those to see if there are any that shouldn’t be there at all or if there are any additions that need to be added. We’re going to come back with some recommendations on updates to the town center permitted-use regulations,” Mr. Gulbronson said.

In addition, Mr. Florek’s plans may include a recreation component, such as an indoor facility that could be turfed.

Several other business possibilities for Seabreeze were also given at the meeting with Mr. Florek, Mr. Gulbronson said.

“They are conceptual, I know, but are (the businesses) all within the universe of our town center?” asked Councilman William Chandler III.

Mr. Gulbronson said that most interested sites met the town center criteria.

“One we had issue with — he had talked about auto restoration — and currently, auto restoration is not allowed in the town center district. That is one of the reasons we’re going through the list to see what clarifications we need and what the town wants there, what they don’t want to see there,” he said.

A proposed foundry would be a small-scale, artisan-type establishment, nothing on an intensive level, he added.

“We looked at some of the other surrounding towns that have a town center district. Crafters and artisans was something that almost all the towns had, and we really didn’t mention that in our regulations,” he said. “So I think that is something you need to look at and possibly add.”

Mayor Brian Baull noted that the list included indoor boat and RV storage.

“I think what that would entail is someone who lives in Florida, and they take the RV to Florida in the wintertime — and they come back, and they need someplace to store it,” Mr. Gulbronson said.

“The conceptual plan was just that. There is still a lot of missing pieces,” he said. “So these folks will be back at some point, and hopefully, by then, we’ll have our ducks in a row with our town center uses. So we’ll have our list.”