During last night’s Fort Walton Beach City Council meeting, the major development order for phase 3 of the Freedom Beacon Tech Park in Fort Walton Beach was unanimously approved by council.
Freedom Beacon Tech Park is a 50-acre mixed-use development, master-planned by The Jay Odom Group under a long-term land lease with the US Air Force. The Jay Odom Group broke ground beginning the installation of the infrastructure for Freedom Beacon in 2021.
- This project boasts 1,500± linear feet of frontage along Lewis Turner Blvd and hopes to transform the north side of Fort Walton Beach into a bustling commerce center, bringing jobs, housing, hotel and meeting space accommodations, restaurants, Class A office space and a 4-acre recreational park to the local community.
Phase 3 is for the addition of a Hilton Home2 Suites hotel that will be situated at the front of the property, closer to Lewis Turner Blvd. The 5-story, 126 room hotel includes all the amenities you would expect at a hotel such as a swimming pool, fitness center and 5,000 square feet of conference space.
Developer Jay Odom told the council last night they they are anticipating a significant amount of conference business, from both the local area and from the military.
Additionally, Odom says they have also been awarded another hotel, a Holiday Inn Express, that will be directly across the street from the Home2 Suites.
- “We’ll end up with two nice hotels and we are working with several restaurants for out front,” said Odom.
As you can see in the rendering above, Freedom Beacon will have a very large flag pole onsite. Odom confirmed to the council last night that the flag pole will be 200-feet tall and will be the tallest in Florida.
- This should not come as a surprise to longtime residents of Fort Walton Beach. Odom is responsible for the 170-foot flag pole at Uptown Station.
The tech park also includes a 312 luxury apartment that was approved for Phase 2 and is already in talks with tech companies to setup shop in the park.
4 Responses
I want to know is there going to be a road added that comes from Denton blvd to Lewis turner that will come out in front of this tech park
There were tons of negative comments on the site Nextdoor – don’t know why. This is a great addition to the area. Not too big not too small. No highrises either.
This is just another example of a rich property developer that has already been involved in atleast 1/2 dozen projects in okaloosa county including the uptown station project, which 1/2 of is vacant btw and several other local projects as well. I’m sure we will need to expand Denton blvd through the golf course and turn Lewis Turner into a 6 lane with a overpass.
Why is the city council approving more places to stay when the roads infrastructure doesn’t adequately handle more cars???