Ocean Drive and Central Beach Shops — Vero Beach, Florida

Ocean Drive is the shopping and dining street of Central Beach, the commercial heart of the Vero Beach barrier island. By the mid-1960s, according to Vero Beach 32963, the Ocean Drive commercial district had grown to fill most of the north-south stretch it occupies today, from Beachland Boulevard south to Flamevine. Boutiques, galleries, cafes and small inns line the street a block from the Atlantic, while Cardinal Drive, one block west, carries much of the district's office space.

The City of Vero Beach treats the strip as its own planning area. Its Ocean Drive page posts the Ocean Drive-Cardinal Drive and Beachland Boulevard Master Plan Final Report of March 20, 2007, a development and building design standards brochure, and a Vero Beach Ocean Drive Retail Study. Humiston Park, the oceanfront city park at the center of the strip, and Sexton Plaza, home of the Ocean Grill, are the public reference points most visitors use.

Commerce on Central Beach began small. The Beach Shop opened in 1950, Vero Beach 32963 reported, at a time when the beachside had no shops and the Driftwood Inn and Sunny Cottages were the only island businesses. Over the next 16 years the street filled in with a post office, a drugstore, the Ocean Grill and a Holiday Inn. Sexton Plaza, the oceanfront plaza beside the Ocean Grill, honors Waldo Sexton; a July 2026 Vero News history note records that the city dedicated it on November 5, 1958, celebrated as Waldo Sexton Day.

The Driftwood still draws first-time visitors. A 2026 Vero News dining review called Waldo's, the bar and restaurant in the historic Driftwood Resort in Central Beach, one of the first places newcomers to Vero visit, noting it serves more tourists than locals and takes walk-ins only.

The skyline has stayed low with one exception. A November 2024 Vero News column noted that the Village Spires, a pair of 13-story towers built in 1967 along Ocean Drive in Vero Beach, went up under a city waiver of the five-story limit and now serve as a reminder of what residents do not want. Most Ocean Drive buildings remain one or two stories.

The oldest retailer is gone. The Beach Shop, half a block south of Sexton Plaza, moved across Ocean Drive in 1977 and added a second floor in 1993. After more than seven decades, the family that ran it closed it with a Grande Finale event on July 1, 2026, saying retail is very different today.

Space on the strip is scarce and expensive. A Central Beach commercial broker told Vero News in April 2026 that buyers were paying about $1,000 a square foot on Ocean Drive, against $300 to $500, at most $600, in 2021 through 2023. Lease rates had reached $75 a foot on Ocean Drive, roughly triple pre-pandemic levels, with ground floors on Cardinal Drive near $50 a foot and second floors near $40.

Supply barely moves. The same report said a handful of long-established Vero Beach families own much of the Central Beach business district and rarely sell, and that 50 to 60 percent of commercial sales there close off market. Demand comes from retailers, restaurants, financial advisors and law firms wanting to be near island clients. New space arrives at the margins: in April 2026 a three-story office building was going up on Bougainvillea Lane, a block west of Cardinal Drive.

Businesses feel costs in other ways too. When the Florida minimum wage rose to $14 an hour on October 1, 2025, managers at the Ocean Grill in Sexton Plaza and at Waldo's in the Historic Driftwood Resort described to Vero News reworking menus, prices and tip pools to absorb the increase.

Lodging on and near Ocean Drive ranges from luxury resorts to small inns. In September 2026 Vero News reported that the Kimpton Vero Beach Hotel and Spa had been sold out most of the summer, that Costa d'Este Beach Resort and Spa saw June occupancy rise 7.2 percent over 2025, and that the 17-room Islander Inn on Ocean Drive in the heart of Central Beach had its best summer, while smaller properties farther south reported slower months. Hotel managers credited new flights at Vero Beach Regional Airport for more out-of-state guests.

The 2025 season held up as well. Vero News reported in May 2025 that the Driftwood Resort's business rose 8 to 10 percent over the prior year even as Canadian visits fell, and that Indian River County tourist tax collections for February 2025 were up 22 percent, to $700,411. The same report said Vero Beach beach attendance in the first quarter of 2025 was down more than 30 percent, mostly because of the coldest January since 1985. On Cardinal Drive, The Tides restaurant dropped a plan to move to South Beach and chose in June 2026 to renovate its long-time Central Beach home instead, Vero News reported.

The biggest is the Humiston Beach Park boardwalk, lost to hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022. On August 25, 2026 the Vero Beach City Council approved a $1,767,109.77 contract with Ferreira Construction for a 427-foot walkway on concrete pilings with a pavilion at each end, Vero News reported, with work set to start November 1, 2026, after sea turtle nesting season. By October 2026, design, inspection, shipping and contingency costs had raised the total to $2,975,141, leaving the city about $460,000 short, according to Vero News.

Storm protection is next on the list. In April 2026 Vero Beach asked Congress for a $10 million earmark for a Conn Beach seawall to protect a stretch of Ocean Drive that storms have repeatedly washed out, plus $1.5 million toward the Humiston boardwalk, Vero News reported.

Private groups add the finishing touches. The Green Heart Tribe, a women's beautification committee, leases street corners from the City of Vero Beach and pays for the pots, flowers and upkeep; by June 2026 it had planted the corners from Flamevine Lane to Beachland Boulevard and planned a second phase on Cardinal Drive and in front of Humiston Park, Vero News reported. A third phase aimed at the A1A medians between Riomar and Quail Valley River Club would need approvals from the city, Indian River County and the Florida Department of Transportation. Each month from October through May, the Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce closes out the second Saturday with free Sunset Saturdays concerts on Ocean Drive by Humiston Park, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with the 2026-2027 season opening October 10, 2026, according to the Chamber's announcement.