Downtown Titusville

Downtown Titusville is the old riverfront business center around South Washington Avenue, and for city planning it sits inside the Titusville Community Redevelopment Area, a special district of approximately 300 acres.

The city says the CRA was established on October 12, 1982, by ordinance 66-1982, is dedicated to the revitalization of the historic downtown, and aims for a vibrant mixed use district that reflects the city's ecological and space heritage (City of Titusville Community Redevelopment Agency page). The CRA Urban Design Manual on the same page splits the area into five design districts: Uptown, Downtown, Civic Waterfront, Historic Residential and Midtown. A Redevelopment Plan update was adopted in October 2022, and the Redevelopment Planner answers questions at 321-567-3860.

The historic core is smaller. The National Register nomination for the Titusville Commercial District describes it as centered on the 300 block of South Washington Avenue, with a few structures on Main Street, Julia Street and the 200 block of South Washington Avenue, about 6 acres in all (National Register nomination, Titusville Commercial District). The City of Titusville's contact address is on the same avenue, at 555 S Washington Avenue (City of Titusville CRA projects page).

Downtown Titusville's commercial blocks are listed as a historic district because they hold the last remaining concentration of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings in Titusville, with a period of significance from 1890 to 1930.

The nomination counts twenty-four structures, of which twenty-one contribute to the district, and notes that while most are designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style of the 1920s, many date from the mid-1890s; buildings first built of brick were often stuccoed during the 1920s (National Register nomination, Titusville Commercial District). Two buildings stand out in the text: the Bank of Titusville and Trust Company Building at 300 South Washington Avenue, completed in 1925 in the Neo-Classical Revival style, and the three story Walker Apartment Building at 322 Washington Avenue, also completed in 1925 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style.

The town around those blocks is older. The city history page dates the founding of Titusville to 1867, records that Sand Point became Titusville in 1873, and lists incorporation in 1887 and the first railroad station in 1892, with the first bank, two newspapers and a fishing industry arriving in the 1880s and 1890s (City of Titusville history page). The same page says the city was deeply affected when the Florida Boom burst in the mid-1920s. The CRA counts its historic properties survey and the placement of the commercial district on the National Register among its completed items (City of Titusville CRA projects page).

The city calls the Titusville Welcome Center on Hopkins Avenue a great choice for a first stop, and Brevard County places Space View Park on the shore of the Indian River in downtown Titusville.

The Welcome Center hands out area guides, attraction brochures and children's activities, and its staff point visitors to kayak and boat launch areas, nature stops and special rocket launch viewing sites (Titusville Welcome Center page). Brevard County describes Space View Park as a riverfront park with artistic sculpture, historical monuments, a boardwalk and a sheltered pier, located less than 15 miles directly across from the Kennedy Space Center launch pads; the park and its restrooms stay open when a launch is scheduled after normal hours (Brevard County Space View Park page). The Space View Park guide covers the monuments in detail.

The city describes the Pritchard House as a Queen Anne house built in 1891, bought by Brevard County in 2005 and operated as a house museum, with tours by reservation at 321-607-0203 (City of Titusville Pritchard House page). This guide does not list private shops and restaurants.

Downtown Titusville projects are paid for mainly through tax increment financing, which sends increases in taxes inside the CRA beyond the base year, the year the CRA was established, into a redevelopment fund.

The city FAQ says tax increment financing provides most of the funding for the CRA and is not an additional tax to the property owner (City of Titusville FAQ on tax increment financing). In the FY2026 adopted budget, CRA fund 104 shows $370,000 of tax increment from Brevard County and $797,804 from the City of Titusville, for total property tax revenue of $1,167,804 (City of Titusville FY2026 Adopted Budget). The same table shows $1,141,063 for the FY2025 revised budget.

The money comes with rules. The FAQ adds that the CRA has design guidelines for new development and rehabilitation covering facade treatments, infrastructure, landscaping and site design, and that building improvements and site plans in Titusville's CRA are reviewed by the Community Development Department (City of Titusville FAQ). The CRA page also posts an approved building color palette (City of Titusville Community Redevelopment Agency page).

The downtown Titusville street project now in the capital plan is the CRA Broad Street parking and paving project, listed in the city's five year capital plan as project CR2501 Broad Street Parking.

For Broad Street the plan schedules $100,000 in FY2026, $75,000 in FY2027, $250,000 in FY2028, $75,000 in FY2029 and $320,000 in FY2030 (City of Titusville FY2026 Adopted Budget). Council actions on the Titusville budget amendments page track the work: on 09/09/25 the city reallocated CRA budget to fund Broad Street parking and paving improvements, and on 01/13/2026 it funded services for the CRA Broad Street paving project (City of Titusville budget amendments page). The CRA menu lists the FY 2025 CRA Broad Street Improvements Project as its own item (City of Titusville Community Redevelopment Agency page). The amendment pages do not give a completion date, so none is stated here.

The Titusville CRA runs three grant programs for the downtown district: a beautification grant for building exteriors, an interior renovation grant for older and historic buildings, and a permit and impact fee grant for new construction.

The city describes the Downtown Commercial Beautification Program as matching reimbursement grants for improvements to building facades, signage, landscaping and parking facilities on commercial structures inside the Downtown Titusville Community Redevelopment Area, with the aim of greater visual appeal and better occupancy (City of Titusville Beautification Grant page). The Commercial Interior Renovation Incentive Grant helps renovate the interiors of older and historic commercial and mixed use buildings in the downtown CRA district (City of Titusville CRA grant programs page).

The Permit and Impact Fee Incentive Grant Program offers matching reimbursement grants to developers and property owners for development fees, such as impact fees and building permit fees, on new construction in the downtown CRA district (City of Titusville Permit and Impact Fee Incentive Grant page). Each program page posts its own policies, procedures and application, and the Redevelopment Planner answers questions at 321-567-3860. The program pages do not state grant amounts, so none is quoted here.

The Titusville CRA's FY 2025 project list shows a long run of downtown upgrades, from street lighting and parking lots to the Welcome Center and Space View Park phases.

Items on the city list include the Downtown Welcome Center, Emma Parish Theater street lighting, an electric vehicle charging station at the Julia Parking Lot, pedestrian safety crossing improvements at Washington Avenue and Julia Street, the Titusville Commons plaza and parking, the Washington Avenue Streetscape, Spaceview Park Phases 1 and 2, the Gemini Segment of Spaceview Park with a seawall extension, and the historic properties survey that placed the commercial district on the National Register (City of Titusville CRA projects page). The list marks the Julia Street decorative pedestrian light pole replacement as under construction and a Spaceview Park observation and connecting pier plan as under development, and tags a few other items, such as Marina Park and Sand Point Park, as ongoing.

Last verified: October 21, 2026, against the Titusville CRA, grant and project pages, the budget amendments list, the FY2026 adopted budget CRA fund and capital plan, the city FAQ and history page, the Welcome Center and Pritchard House pages, Brevard County's Space View Park listing and the National Register nomination.