Palm Shores, Florida: Town Guide

Palm Shores is a small incorporated town in Brevard County with 0.6 square miles of land and no water area in the Census Bureau's 2024 place gazetteer, which lists it as Palm Shores town (2024 Census gazetteer, Florida places).

Brevard County describes itself as home to 16 municipalities on Florida's central east coast, stretching 72 miles from north to south, and the county government primarily serves the unincorporated areas outside municipal boundaries (About Brevard County). The Census Bureau's building permits file places the Town of Palm Shores (place code 54425) in ZIP code 32940, with metropolitan area code 37340 (Census Building Permits Survey, 2025 place file). That is the same ZIP code that the county lists for the Suntree/Viera Public Library at 902 Jordan Blass Drive (Suntree/Viera Public Library).

The name is easy to confuse with Palm Beach Shores, a different town that the same gazetteer lists separately with 0.293 square miles of land (Census gazetteer, Palm Beach Shores row). FEMA files the Brevard town's flood record under the name Palm Shores, Town of, in Brevard County (FEMA community record).

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 2020-2024 5-year estimates count 1,458 residents in Palm Shores, with a median age of 44.9 (ACS DP05, Palm Shores town).

In the same Palm Shores release, 21.0 percent of residents were 65 or older (DP05). Median household income was $77,500, and Palm Shores workers averaged 25.0 minutes to work (ACS DP03, Palm Shores town). The ACS counts 657 housing units in Palm Shores, 588 of them occupied; 87.8 percent of occupied homes were owner occupied and 12.2 percent renter occupied, and the median owner-occupied value was $351,600 (ACS DP04, Palm Shores town).

The Palm Shores rent line is blank for a reason: the Census Bureau suppresses the median gross rent for Palm Shores in table DP04, so there is no official median rent to quote (ACS DP04, Palm Shores rent row). By year built, the ACS puts 35.9 percent of Palm Shores housing units in 1990 to 1999, 19.6 percent in 2000 to 2009, 18.7 percent in 2010 to 2019 and 2.6 percent in 2020 or later (ACS DP04, year structure built).

Palm Shores has its own Mayor and Town Council under a town charter that the Supervisor of Elections ballot language describes as a strong Mayor form of government (Brevard Supervisor of Elections, 2026 referenda).

The Brevard County Tax Collector lists the Town of Palm Shores at (321) 242-4555 as the contact for its fire service assessment, among the non-ad valorem assessment contacts on county tax bills (Brevard County Tax Collector, non-ad valorem assessments). Palm Shores charter questions appear on ballots run by the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections, whose offices sit in Titusville, Viera, Melbourne and Palm Bay; the Viera office is at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way and the elections line is 321-290-VOTE (8683) (Brevard Supervisor of Elections).

County government covers what a small town does not. Brevard County lists countywide services including 9-1-1 and emergency medical services, emergency management, mosquito control, library services and parks and recreation, and the Board of County Commissioners is elected from five districts (About Brevard County). The Brevard County government section covers property taxes, permits and records step by step.

The City of Melbourne supplies Palm Shores with drinking water, Brevard County Fire Rescue provides fire protection paid through a county assessment, and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office polices the town (City of Melbourne Water Treatment and Distribution; Tax Collector; Sheriff precincts).

Melbourne's utility names Palm Shores among the places it serves with drinking water, alongside Melbourne, Melbourne Beach, Indialantic, Indian Harbour Beach, Satellite Beach, Melbourne Village and unincorporated Brevard County south of the Pineda Causeway, and it treats water from Lake Washington at the John A. Buckley Surface Water Treatment Plant (City of Melbourne water page). The Melbourne utilities section covers water service, rates and boil-water notices for the Melbourne system.

On the tax bill, the Brevard County Tax Collector explains that the Fire Services Special Assessment, implemented in 2006, pays for fire protection by Brevard County Fire Rescue and is charged to property owners in unincorporated Brevard, West Melbourne, Melbourne Village, Palm Shores and Grant-Valkaria, with rates based on the property use code and the base square footage of structures; questions go to Brevard County Fire Rescue at (321) 633-2056 (Tax Collector, Fire Services Special Assessment). For law enforcement, the Sheriff's Office says its five precincts are based on the unincorporated areas of the county and the cities of Cape Canaveral and Palm Shores, each supervised by a Precinct Major (Brevard County Sheriff precincts).

Palm Shores voters decide ten charter amendments on the November 3, 2026 General Election ballot, led by a question that would replace the strong Mayor form of government with a council form and add an appointed Town Manager (Brevard Supervisor of Elections, Palm Shores referenda).

The Supervisor of Elections notes that early voting for the 2026 General Election runs through Saturday, October 31, at any early voting site (Brevard Supervisor of Elections early voting notice).

Building is slow in a town this size. The Census Bureau's 2025 building permits file records Palm Shores reporting all 12 months, with 1 new single-family building and 1 housing unit permitted, valued at $626,900 (Census Building Permits Survey, 2025). Last verified: October 21, 2026, when the Palm Shores Census tables, the FEMA community record, the 2025 permits row, the ballot questions and the water, tax and sheriff pages were each re-read for this town.

Two Brevard County facilities listed under the 32940 ZIP code that the Census permits file gives for Palm Shores are the Suntree/Viera Public Library and Viera Regional Park (Suntree/Viera Public Library).

The Suntree/Viera Public Library, 902 Jordan Blass Drive, Melbourne 32940, phone (321) 255-4404, is open Monday and Tuesday 9 AM to 8 PM, Wednesday and Thursday 9 AM to 6 PM, Friday and Saturday 9 AM to 5 PM and closed Sunday (Brevard County library branch page). The Suntree/Viera library guide covers its rooms and services.

Viera Regional Park at 2300 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera 32940, is a 117.62-acre county park with lighted fields, tennis and pickleball courts, playgrounds and an 18,000 square foot community center, phone (321) 433-4891 (Viera Regional Park). The Viera Regional Park guide lists center hours and pavilion rentals, and the Viera and Suntree community guide covers the wider area.

Palm Shores takes part in the National Flood Insurance Program as its own community, number 120612, and FEMA lists its currently effective flood map as dated 01/29/21 (FEMA NFIP Community Status Book, Palm Shores).

FEMA's Palm Shores record traces the town's flood mapping from an initial flood hazard boundary map dated August 31, 1979 and a first flood insurance rate map dated April 3, 1989, to entry into the regular program on 03/27/95 (FEMA community record 120612). The same record shows no Community Rating System class and no CRS discount for Palm Shores (FEMA record, CRS fields).

For storms, Brevard County Emergency Management at 1751 Huntington Lane, Rockledge, phone (321) 637-6670, runs AlertBrevard, which sends notices about boil-water orders, shelter-in-place or evacuation orders and other emergencies to the addresses a resident registers (Brevard County Emergency Management). The Brevard County safety section covers emergency management, AlertBrevard emergency alerts, hurricane shelters and the special needs registry, and sandbags.