Downtown Melbourne Murals — Melbourne, Florida

The murals of Historic Downtown Melbourne are concentrated along East New Haven Avenue and the short cross streets that meet it between the Melbourne Causeway approach and South Harbor City Boulevard. The Downtown Melbourne mural page, maintained by Melbourne Main Street and updated in July 2026, states that there are 16 distinctive murals in Downtown Melbourne that line the outsides of shops, and it lists each one by artist and street. Most are painted on the side walls of storefront buildings, so they are visible from the sidewalk and from New Haven Avenue traffic.

The official list places murals on East New Haven Avenue, South Harbor City Boulevard, Municipal Lane, Grant Place and East Strawbridge Avenue. A few are indoors: Christopher Maslow has works listed in the Hotel Melby lobby and on the hotel's 11th floor rooftop, and other listings sit inside Sullivan's Jewelers on Waverly Place and at Renew Aesthetics on New Haven Avenue. Melbourne Main Street publishes a mural location map on the same page for a walking route through downtown Melbourne.

The program began with an open call. In its September 2015 issue, Space Coast Living reported that Melbourne Main Street had asked artists to submit designs for a mural contest and that nearly 40 artists submitted over 100 designs. The organization then paired designs with building owners. Properties signed up at that stage included Meg O'Malley's, Lou's Filling Station, Harry Goode's Outdoor Shop and Debauchery, and Melbourne Main Street said it was still accepting building walls within the Downtown Community Redevelopment Area for a second round in 2016. The same report said Melbourne Main Street had first expected to paint about 10 murals and finish, but growing artist interest turned the downtown Melbourne effort into an ongoing project, with donations collected through an online GoFundMe campaign.

By August 2016, Space Coast Living counted six murals facilitated by Melbourne Main Street since the 2015 kickoff. The list included a blue jay perched on a glass of orange juice, the Florida Tech panther on the side wall of The Baby Patch, and a snook going after a fly on Harry Goode's Outdoor Shop which the magazine called a welcoming view for visitors coming off the causeway into downtown Melbourne. The article credited Richard's Paint of Palm Bay as a key partner and named Christopher Maslow as curator.

The downtown effort is distinct from the mural program of the Eau Gallie Arts District in north Melbourne. The 2016 article describes both, noting that the EGAD walls were curated separately and that the two Main Street programs shared a goal of revitalization through art.

The most documented work downtown is Ad Astra, the Florida Tech panther. According to Florida Tech News, Ad Astra, painted by Christopher Maslow and unveiled in 2016, is the 90-foot-long mural on the western wall of the building at New Haven Avenue and Waverly Place. It takes its name from the university's motto, Ad Astra Per Scientiam, translated as to the stars through science, and shows the panther mascot crossing land, sea and stars. A 2017 Florida Tech feature says Maslow painted it during the summer of 2016 on a concrete block wall on the side of the Baby Patch, a wall he had noticed as a boy growing up in Melbourne.

The mural has been restored twice. In the summer of 2022 Maslow repaired a patch where the wall had fallen away, repainted sky and space areas, and added five new hidden references to the university: a plane for the aviation program, a globe for international students, the Apollo 11 rocket, the phrase Countdown College and an ROTC shield. WFIT carried the same August 16, 2022 announcement, which counted Ad Astra as one of 20 murals in downtown Melbourne and among the first painted after the 2015 campaign began. In February 2025, Florida Tech reported a second repair after construction work on the building damaged the paint.

The Downtown Melbourne mural gallery credits each wall to its artist. Names on the 2026 list include Mark Gilliam, Eric Wood, Jay REMOTE Bellicchi, the pair Sarah Painter and Cosby Hayes, Mike McCloskey, Reynaldo Gonzalez and Cody Monahan, with five separate listings for Christopher Maslow. The page identifies Maslow as the curator for the Melbourne Mural Project and highlights Monahan's Three Little Turtles mural.

A February 2020 Space Coast Living article fills in individual works. Maslow, as curator, chose the artist for each property and painted three murals himself: The Goliath Grouper and the Blue Crab on The Seafood Station, an explosion of flowers on Millefiori, and the Florida Tech panther. Mark Gilliam's blue jays and oranges, first drawn on paper early in 2015, became the first mural in Downtown Melbourne, on the wall of the restaurant Backwater, and took him three weeks to paint. Kimber Grobman's hibiscus mural on the Melbourne Regional Chamber building measures about 53 feet wide and eight feet tall, and the artist hid her name in one of the leaves.

The same article explains how the second wave was paid for. Florida Tech's commission of the panther drew attention to the program, and Melbourne Main Street then won a state grant, which it matched dollar for dollar to complete the remaining murals. The official Downtown Melbourne page also thanks Richard's Paint as the official paint sponsor of the Melbourne Main Street Murals project.

The count has changed with each report, and every figure is tied to its date. Florida Tech wrote in February 2017 that downtown Melbourne had six completed murals. Space Coast Living counted 12 murals on Melbourne Main Street buildings in February 2020. Florida Tech and WFIT put the number at 20 in August 2022, and Florida Tech described downtown Melbourne as home to more than one dozen murals in February 2025. The Melbourne Main Street page, updated July 29, 2026, gives 16 and lists 16 entries, including the indoor works at Hotel Melby.

The setting gives the murals their backdrop. The Downtown Melbourne history page recounts that a 1919 fire destroyed the commercial buildings on Front Street and that a new commercial district grew on New Haven Avenue in the 1920s. The mural walls sit in that rebuilt district, and Melbourne Main Street describes the downtown as a walkable footprint where the murals can be seen on foot between the Indian River Lagoon waterfront and Harbor City Boulevard.