Indialantic Boardwalk and Nance Park

Indialantic's boardwalk runs along Wavecrest Avenue where Fifth Avenue reaches the beach, next to Nance Park, and every parking, permit and park booking question there goes to the Town of Indialantic.

The town keeps six parks on its list, from Douglas Park and Lily Park to Nance Park, Orlando Park, Sunrise Park and Ernest Kouwen-Hoven Riverside Park, on a strip of land with the Atlantic on one side and the Indian River Lagoon on the other (Town of Indialantic parks page). Beach permits are sold and ticket payments taken at Town Hall, 216 Fifth Ave., (321) 723-2242 (town parking permits and tickets page).

The town's own project page is candid that, apart from a short run of boardwalk, the Wavecrest oceanfront is mostly paved parking, and that Nance Park largely serves the same use (Indialantic Boardwalk Reimagination Project). That parking is also what pays for the beach: the town says upkeep of Nance Park, Wavecrest, Sunrise Park and the Tampa Ave. beach access comes entirely from parking revenue, with no property tax money spent on it, which is why Indialantic residents pay to park there too.

A year of beach parking in Indialantic costs $50, or $40 for a permit issued on or after June 1, and the sticker replaces app payments at the town's permit spaces.

Permit spaces sit at five locations: Sixth Avenue, Tampa Avenue, Watson Drive, Wave Crest Avenue and the James H. Nance Park lot (Indialantic parking permits). Every permit expires December 31, whatever month it was bought. At the Town Hall counter the buyer shows a current registration for the car; the sticker belongs to that car alone, cannot move to another vehicle, and goes on the outside rear. Indialantic takes cash and checks, and cards carry an extra processing charge.

The June price runs only to the same December 31 end date as the full-year permit (town permit terms). The sticker does not override the signs. Indialantic states that every posted rule, restriction and parking hour still binds permit holders (town parking regulations).

Indialantic tickets are paid by mail, at the Town Hall counter on Fifth Avenue or online, and each listed fine rises once 30 calendar days pass with no response.

Mailed payments go by check or money order made out to the Town of Indialantic, never cash, with the plate or ticket number on them so the payment is credited (Indialantic ticket payments). At day 30 with no response, the registered owner is mailed a delinquency notice, a $50 ticket becomes $100, a $60 ticket $120 and a $125 ticket $250, and anything still unpaid can go to collection.

A driver who wants to fight an Indialantic ticket takes the citation to Town Hall inside 10 days and is given a hearing before a county judge, who rules on whether a violation happened (town court appearance rule). Under Section 316.1967 of the Florida Statutes, quoted on the town page, choosing that hearing gives up the option of paying the fine, and the judge can set a fine as high as $100.00 plus court costs.

No full-time county lifeguard tower stands at the Indialantic Boardwalk; the one Brevard County lists for the town is at Paradise/Futch Park in North Indialantic.

County Ocean Rescue staffs its full-time towers every day from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at four Cocoa Beach sites (the pier, Shepard Park, Lori Wilson Park and the Minutemen Causeway) and at Paradise/Futch Park (Brevard County Ocean Rescue Services). Extra seasonal towers open on weekends from the final week of May, go daily after Memorial Day into early August, then drop back to weekends until Labor Day. The page names no seasonal locations, so it cannot confirm a summer guard at the Indialantic Boardwalk.

Staffing is roughly 90 part-time and 26 full-time ocean lifeguards plus 3 full-time supervisors, all certified by the United States Lifesaving Association, and the division frames its mission around designated swimming areas in the unincorporated parts of Brevard (Ocean Rescue program description). For the surf at Indialantic on a given day, the county sends beachgoers to the state emergency management agency's rip current map, which is the live source.

Nance Park, next to the Indialantic Boardwalk, has the beach lot, the Mikey Goodwin Playground, a restroom building and a pavilion for rent, on land the Indialantic Casino once filled.

Pavilion bookings use the Nance Park Pavilion Rental Application, posted among the town's forms next to a beach fire permit, a special event permit and a banner permit (Town of Indialantic forms and permits). The playground and the restroom building both appear in the town's notes on the Nance Park concept (boardwalk concept notes), which also say the old casino stood on the park.

A state marker dated 2012 stands at 201 North Miramar Avenue. Per the marker, the casino went up in 1923, a two-story building in the Mediterranean Revival style, and opened December 22, 1923; inside were shops, a saltwater pool of Olympic size, a tall diving tower and wading pools (Indialantic Casino marker). It staged the 1925 Miss Melbourne and Miss Florida pageants, rented ocean-view rooms in 1924 for $20 a week single and $35 double with board, and during World War II military personnel from the Banana River Naval Station trained in its pool.

The marker records a major renovation in 1942, a change of ownership and of name to the Bahama Beach Club in 1944, use as an exclusive private club from 1949, purchase by the Town of Indialantic in 1967 and, after a period of decline, demolition in 1970 (state marker text).

The Indialantic rebuild is a Land Design concept rather than a funded project, and the town says no source of construction money has been identified.

Land Design won the work through a request for proposals; the first public open house was held in August and Land Design presented vision boards at a December open house, and minutes from a workshop dated 08-27-2025 are posted (Indialantic Boardwalk Reimagination Project). Parking money paid for this design phase. The project page calls the boards a concept and not the final drawings, and says major changes would come only if the Council or residents choose another direction.

At Nance Park the concept gathers the parking into a smaller footprint, which opens room for 2 sport courts (type not yet chosen), a pavilion on a paved walking plaza and an event lawn. The Mikey Goodwin Playground stays as it is, and a community center with public restrooms and a small rentable room takes the place of the existing restroom building; the pictured building is a placeholder, and the town says an architect would design one honoring the old Indialantic casino.

On Wavecrest, the concept turns the stretch beside the oceanfront shops into a plaza with seating and removable bollards, so the street could close for market-style events, swaps asphalt for pavers in parking spots to let stormwater soak in, and adds entry plazas at the end of 5th Ave. and at the side streets off A1A. A new raised walkway would follow Wavecrest end to end, curving around the sea grape dune and lifted so nesting turtles can crawl under it.

Sand on the Indialantic beach follows a separate federal and county schedule. In the county's description of the federal shore protection project, the 7.6 mile Mid Reach ends at Flug Avenue, Indialantic, and the 3.8 mile South Reach begins there and runs to Spessard Holland Park North (Brevard County Beach Management Program). The county reports Mid Reach restoration completed in 2024-2025 with no work expected there in 2026, and says South Reach nourishment missed its December 2025 to April 2026 contract window because of equipment problems; the county page carries the revised schedule and a progress map.

Brevard County, which includes Indialantic, counts sea turtle nesting season as March 1 to October 31 and asks beachfront homes and businesses to switch off lights during it.

The county ranks its beaches among the most important sea turtle nesting beaches in the world and says beach lights confuse both nesting females and hatchlings (Brevard County local animals and wildlife). Guidance from the state wildlife commission reduces beachfront lighting near Indialantic to three tests: mount it low, use long wavelength bulbs of 560 nm or more in amber, orange or red, and shield it so it aims down (FWC sea turtle lighting guidelines). The agency says purely decorative lights should not come back on until the season closes October 31, and shields should hide the bulb from every part of the beach, not only the patch in front.

The proposed Indialantic boardwalk was drawn around the nests: the Sea Turtle Preservation Society backed the raised design, and the town says it would keep consulting the group, the state Department of Environmental Protection and its own Sustainability Board if the plan proceeds (boardwalk project notes). Last verified: October 21, 2026, after re-reading the town's parking, parks, forms and boardwalk pages, three Brevard County pages on lifeguards, beaches and wildlife, and the state casino marker.