After more than two hours of words for and against keeping a piece of history intact, the Orange City Council deferred making a quick decision on the future of the old shuffleboard property.  

Instead, the council called for more information about the costs of moving the clubhouse, or part of it, to another place, or even rehabilitating it for a meeting place open to the public. The Orange City Shuffleboard Club structures are thus safe for a while longer.

“We’re simply here to ask you what you would like to do,” City Manager Dale Arrington told the council Feb. 27.

Arrington presented to the City Council three choices:

— Move toward fulfilling plans to build new municipal facilities and rehabilitate and repurpose older ones, including the Town Hall, as well as replacing the shuffleboard structures and play area with expanded parking

— Work to preserve, raze or relocate the shuffleboard facilities, though the full cost of such a project is unknown 

— Postpone a decision for at least six months and seek information about the prices of moving and saving the clubhouse

The council ultimately chose the third option, that is, to wait a while longer before deciding what to do about the aging clubhouse and the game area in front of it.

“We need to get some more options and prices,” Council Member Kellianne Marks said.

Her colleagues agreed.

The future of the shuffleboard facilities has been a front-burner issue in Orange City for four months. The interest in the landmark escalated last fall, when Arrington recommended that the council proceed with tearing down the clubhouse and removing the hard-surface courts to make way for more parking behind the Town Hall. The extra parking is needed, city leaders say, as Orange City grows and with that growth come increasing demands for municipal services. 

If the City Council thought the Shuffleboard Club facilities would be quickly removed, those thoughts were dashed.

To achieve the goal of securing more parking, the City Council asked the Historic Preservation Board to issue a demolition permit for the Shuffleboard Club’s structures. To the surprise of city leaders, however, the board voted against granting such a permit, thus halting the drive to clear the Shuffleboard Club property.

Indeed, the demise of the shuffleboard structures has been part of the city’s planning for new municipal infrastructure, including a new and larger police station to be built along East Ohio Avenue, while closing the existing one and repurposing it for other city employees.

For now, however, the shuffleboard complex — though closed and posted with “Do Not Enter” signs — stands where it has been for 80 years.

Located within Orange City’s historic area, the Shuffleboard Club property is listed on the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places, as well as the Florida Department of State’s Master File. The Master File is an inventory of historic properties and sites within the Sunshine State. 

Part of the clubhouse is a 20-foot-by-20-foot building that once served as Orange City’s town hall, before the Town Hall now in use was completed and opened in 1928. The old town hall was once located across North Holly Avenue, across from where the shuffleboard facilities are now.

The sentiment in favor of saving the structures from wrecking crews is strong.

“We have over 200 signatures on petitions [to preserve the clubhouse property],” Historic Preservation Board Member Tom Eidel addressed the City Council. “I appreciate the community getting involved.”

“No reasonable effort was made to relocate or rehabilitate [the property],” Tom Hewitt, also a member of the Historic Preservation Board, said. 

Hewitt added the 80-year-old clubhouse and other structures on the site are casualties of “demolition by neglect.” Demolition by neglect, he noted, is defined as “a property owner’s failure to provide ordinary and necessary maintenance and repairs,” thus allowing the property to decay and perhaps eventually collapse upon itself.

The fate of the Orange City Shuffleboard Clubhouse has caught the attention of other game enthusiasts elsewhere. Christina Page is president of the St. Petersburg, Florida, Shuffleboard Club, and she drove to Orange City to join the appeal to save the endangered property.

“Shuffleboard is the quintessential Florida sport,” she said to the City Council and the audience. “It’s a game that everybody can play.”

Page added that shuffleboard “is the only sport where an 80-year-old woman can dominate over a 25-year-old man.” Page also said her St. Petersburg club has 2,700 members.

In any case, the Orange City Council voted 6-0 to gather more information on the possible costs of preserving the shuffleboard property, or demolishing it, or moving the clubhouse to another location, before it makes a final decision on what to do with the property. Vice Mayor Alex Tiamson was absent.

“You are the owner of the property and the City Council,” Arrington said to her bosses.

The city’s budget for the current fiscal year includes $75,000 for the proposed demolition of the shuffleboard complex and $75,000 for the design of the proposed enlarged parking lot on the north side of Town Hall.