DAYTONA BEACH — The home of the World’s Most Famous Beach is attracting more than tourists these days.
Here is a look at five projects showing how Daytona Beach is growing in its appeal to real estate developers, investors, major companies and national retail chains.
Daytona is finally getting a Trader Joe’s
Ten years after a “World Class Distribution” center here for Trader Joe’s opened in Daytona Beach, construction is underway on a grocery store for the upscale California-based chain.
A construction manager for the project told The Daytona Beach News-Journal that his crew is on track to complete the exterior of both a Trader Joe’s store as well as an adjoining Homesense home furnishing/home decor store in July at the Tomoka Town Center retail complex just east of Interstate 95 Exit 265.
The building will then be turned over to the two retail chains to build out the interiors and stock the shelves. If that construction schedule is met, it is quite likely that both stores could open this fall.
Construction is underway on a Trader Joe’s grocery store at Tomoka Town Center in Daytona Beach where the exterior walls were already up on April 28, 2025. Also going up next to it is a Homesense home furnishings store. Exterior construction on both stores is expected to be completed in July which makes it possible that both could open later this year. Tomoka Town Center is just east of Interstate 95 Exit 265 in Daytona Beach’s fast-growing LPGA area.
Sprouts Farmers Market is also coming
Construction has also begun on two Trader Joe’s competitors across the street from Tomoka Town Center: Sprouts Farmers Market and the Fresh Market.
Developer Harry Kay said he is on track to complete a standalone Sprouts grocery store in December at the Shoppes at Williamson Crossing, on the east side of Williamson Boulevard, just south of LPGA Boulevard.
Kay said his company will be constructing the interior as well as the exterior of the Sprouts store, which means it could conceivably open by the end of this year or in early 2026.
This is the exterior of a Sprouts Farmers Market store in Brooksville on April 26, 2025. Construction is currently underway on a Sprouts location in Daytona Beach at the Shoppes at Williamson Crossing on the east side of Williamson Boulevard, across the street from Tomoka Town Center. The upscale grocery store is expected to open in either late 2025 or early 2026. The one in Brooksville opened in August 2024.
Fresh Market, Hyatt House and Tesla also coming to LPGA area
Land is also being cleared for a new, separately-owned retail center called The Cays directly south of the Shoppes at Williamson Crossing. The Cays will include a Fresh Market grocery store as well as a Hyatt House hotel and a Tesla electric-car dealership. The latter will be on the northeast corner of Williamson and Mason Avenue.
Tesla dealerships are all owned by billionaire Elon Musk. While the company’s electric vehicles can only be ordered online, its dealerships have both a showroom, where prospective customers can check out the latest models in person, as well as a specialized Tesla vehicle service center.
Land is being cleared for a new retail center called The Cays on the northeast corner of Williamson Boulevard and Mason Avenue in Daytona Beach on Feb. 20, 2025. A Tesla electric-car dealership will be on the corner with a Fresh Market grocery store located north of it along with a Hyatt House hotel.
Amazon facility will include robots
E-commerce giant Amazon recently completed construction of a massive five-story, 2.8 million-square-foot robotic fulfillment center at 2510 Bellevue Ave. in Daytona Beach.
The company is expected to start training the more than 1,000 “Amazonians” it plans to employ there this summer to prepare it to open this fall in time for the start of the holiday shopping season.
The high-tech distribution center will include Amazon robots, which resemble large Roomba robot vacuum cleaners, but with an entirely different function. Amazon’s Kiva robots are used to quickly and efficiently move tall stacks of containers of goods, which are part of the company’s efforts to provide same- and next-day deliveries to customers on a greater number of items.
The Amazon robotic fulfillment center in Daytona Beach is located south of the iconic Daytona International Speedway. It will be the company’s fourth distribution facility in Volusia County. It also has a last-mile delivery station in Daytona Beach, as well as both “first-mile” and “pre-first-mile” fulfillment centers in Deltona.
A newly completed, but yet-to-open five-story 2.8 million-square-foot Amazon robotics fulfillment center at 2519 Bellevue Ave. in Daytona Beach is pictured on March 11, 2025. Training of the more than 1,000 “Amazonians” expected to be employed there is slated to begin this summer in preparation of the massive distribution center’s opening this fall in time for the start of the holiday shopping season. It is located directly south of Daytona International Speedway.
Boeing, Aura Aero prepare for landing at Embry-Riddle research park
Two new buildings at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University research park on Clyde Morris Boulevard in Daytona Beach on April 21, 2025. The Cici and Hyatt Brown Center for Aerospace Technology in the foreground will be a research facility for The Boeing Co. Behind it is a 10,000-square-foot hangar that Auro Aero of France plans to use to assemble two-seater airplanes for the North American market. Both are expected to create high-paying jobs when they open later this year.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s research park on Clyde Morris Boulevard, just east of Daytona Beach International Airport, is getting set to welcome two new tenants: The Boeing Company, which plans to open a research-and-development facility at the new Cici and Hyatt Brown Center for Aerospace Technology, and France’s Aura Aero is will be taking over a 10,000-square-foot hangar building behind it.
The French planemaker plans to use its facility to assemble two-seater planes for the North American market. It is also planning to build a 500,000-square-foot assembly plant on Bellevue Avenue at Daytona airport which will be used to produce both passenger and cargo versions of its eight-engine regional electric-hybrid aircraft.
This is the Trader Joe’s grocery store in Montgomery Village, Maryland, that Ormond Beach resident Jasmin Bedria visited in early 2012. That experience inspired her to start a petition on Facebook that year to lobby the California-based grocery chain to open a store in Volusia County. In February 2025, a spokeswoman for the chain finally confirmed plans to open one in Daytona Beach. Plans filed with the city show it will be at Tomoka Town Center.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: What’s the status of Trader Joe’s, Tesla, Sprouts and more in Daytona?