Nearly $2 billion worth of new construction projects entered the tax rolls this year, which will help boost property tax revenue for Brevard County and its 16 municipalities.
Data compiled by the Brevard County Property Appraiser’s Office shows that the 11 properties with the highest new construction values were apartment and other residential rental projects, led by Eden Heritage Lakes, a rental community of villas and townhomes, on Heritage Lakes Boulevard in West Melbourne, with a listed value of $47.33 million.
Property Appraiser Dana Blickley said that, with the strong demand for housing as the county’s population grows, it is not surprising to see apartment projects dominate the list of the highest-valued new construction.
Among the other 10 top-valued apartment projects to enter the tax rolls, two each are in Rockledge, Viera and West Melbourne, with one each in Cocoa, Melbourne, Palm Bay and Titusville.
The highest-valued projects that weren’t apartment developments were the Element Melbourne Oceanfront hotel on State Road A1A in beachside Melbourne ($14.86 million); the First Baptist Church on Dairy Road in Melbourne ($11.31 million); the Melbourne Police Department headquarters on West NASA Boulevard ($11.30 million); and the Home Depot on Viera Boulevard in Viera ($8.15 million). They were ranked No. 12 through No. 15 on the list. The church and the police headquarters, however, will be exempt from paying property taxes.
The highest-valued new single-family home to enter the tax rolls in 2025 was a $2.07 million home on Tennyson Drive in the Adelaide luxury custom-home community in Viera, which was No. 44 on the overall list. That home just edged out a single-family home on Holman Road, just off the Banana River, in Cape Canaveral, which checked in at $1.99 million.
How construction impacts county budget
Under interim Brevard County Manager Jim Liesenfelt’s preliminary proposed county budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, property tax revenue will increase by $17.29 million, compared with the current 2024-25 fiscal year. Nearly half of the increase, or $8.48 million, will be generated by new construction.
For the county’s general fund alone, property tax revenue from new construction had a similar impact. It represented $5.65 million of the $11.46 million in increased property tax revenue.
New construction is especially critical for the county to help balance the budget. That’s because the Brevard County Charter has a voter-approved provision that caps the year-to-year increase in how much money can be raised through property taxes.
Under the charter, property tax revenues are limited to an increase that is the lesser of 3% or the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index, which is 2.95% for the 2025-26 budget. However, this limitation excludes property tax revenues associated with voter-approved tax rates and with new construction, so the new construction entering the tax rolls provides a strong boost to property tax revenues.
“It’s an important factor,” Brevard County Commission Chair Rob Feltner said.
In addition, projects like apartment complexes and retail stores have a greater potential for future growth in property tax revenue than single-family homes. That’s because a single-family, owner-occupied home whose owner has a homestead exemption on property taxes cannot have the taxable value of the property increase by more than 3% a year. For other types of properties, the cap is 10%.
Palm Bay has largest increase in new construction
Among Brevard’s 16 cities and towns, the biggest percentage increase in the taxable property value was in Palm Bay, where that figure was up 11.77%, boosted in large part by the addition of $618.67 million in new construction.
Other cities with more than $100 million in new construction entering the tax rolls in 2025 were Rockledge ($141.17 million), West Melbourne ($116.28 million), Titusville ($114.66 million) and Melbourne ($104.01 million).
Blickley said the unincorporated Viera/Suntree area also continued to show strong gains in construction.
There was a total of $1.97 billion countywide in new construction that entered the tax rolls in 2025, reflection construction activity that was completed in 2024. That’s slightly higher than the $1.90 billion in new construction that entered the tax rolls in 2024, reflecting construction activity in 2023.
“Brevard County has experienced significant surges in new construction for the past few years, particularly in apartments and other large-scale multifamily properties, hotels and new single-family homes,” Blickley said.
This was the fifth straight year of more than $1 billion in new construction in Brevard, with the numbers rising every year.
The total taxable value of properties in Brevard is now at $72.83 billion, which is up 7.19% from a year ago and up 55.64% from 2021.
Taxable value of properties by municipality
These are the percentage changes, from 2024 to 2025, in the total taxable value of properties in Brevard County’s 16 cities and towns:
- Cape Canaveral +2.84%
- Cocoa +6.10%
- Cocoa Beach +4.11%
- Grant-Valkaria +11.47%
- Indialantic +7.65%
- Indian Harbour Beach +4.32%
- Malabar +4.13%
- Melbourne +5.38%
- Melbourne Beach +5.60%
- Melbourne Village +7.18%
- Palm Bay +11.77%
- Palm Shores -0.29%
- Rockledge +8.99%
- Satellite Beach +5.37%
- Titusville +9.49%
- West Melbourne +8.10%
Highest-valued new properties on tax rolls
These are the 15 properties with the highest net new construction value to enter the tax rolls in 2025.
- Eden Heritage Lakes, West Melbourne (rental community) $47,327,660
- Addison Square, Viera (apartments) $39,827,060
- Discovery at Space Coast, Rockledge (apartments) $39,165,080
- Riverwalk Grand, Titusville (apartments) $33,228,700
- The Dahlia Luxury, West Melbourne (apartments) $30,959,840
- Rise, Viera (apartments) $28,441,330
- Madison Grove, Rockledge (apartments) $27,080,490
- The Pointe at Palm Bay, Palm Bay, (apartments) $26,502,040
- Avocet at Melbourne, Melbourne (apartments) $24,770,480
- Cirrus, Cocoa (apartments) $19,910,910
- Integra Heritage, West Melbourne (apartments) $18,857,680
- Element Melbourne Oceanfront, Melbourne (hotel) $14,863,430
- First Baptist Church of Melbourne, Melbourne $11,310,388
- Melbourne Police Department headquarters, Melbourne $11,298,500
- Home Depot, Viera $8,154,500
Dave Berman is business editor at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Berman at dberman@floridatoday.com, on X at @bydaveberman and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dave.berman.54
