A typewriter was an auction item at the 75th annual East Middleboro 4-H Fair on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026.
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In an interview talking about what makes his private motorsports club so successful, Brad Oleshansky, developer of Tampa’s Motor Enclave and the man who brought the private motorsports model to the U.S., put it bluntly: “You can’t be in a rural area.”
Walton County is unquestionably a rural community. Florida law even says so. Yet Emerald Coast Motor Club’s (ECMC) developers propose to build a private club on nearly four times the acreage of the Motor Enclave in DeFuniak Springs. Hillsborough County, where The Motor Enclave operates, has nearly 17 times Walton’s population and nearly 13 times its employer establishments.
Oleshansky says garage presales and installment payments helped finance $130 million of Tampa’s $150 million construction cost, while corporate events sustain profitability. Can ECMC sell enough luxury garages to finance construction that an illustrative scenario puts at $200 million, then attract enough corporate clients to sustain operations? That figure is an estimate, not a developer-released budget.
Oleshansky says he chose Tampa after studying customer profiles, wealth, growth and vehicle registrations. He described buyers who want a club “20 minutes away,” close enough to enjoy it regularly and be home for dinner. Walton’s beach visitors are not automatically year-round garage buyers in DeFuniak Springs.
The corporate market matters, too. “You’ve got to be close to where the corporate clients are because that’s the business end of it,” Oleshansky said. Vacation traffic alone does not establish demand for recurring corporate events.
Shouldn’t prospective investors be asking the same location question? A larger development does not automatically create a larger customer base. Before committing capital, investors should ask for evidence that this smaller market can support the proposed scale of this massive project.
ECMC has not publicly released a detailed construction budget, financing plan or garage sales figures. The project’s projected county revenue does not answer those questions.
County approval cannot produce garage buyers or corporate bookings. If the project begins and stalls, what would be left for the surrounding community? Read the full analysis at: scrapthetrackindefuniak.org/emerald-coast-motor-club-location-problem/
Kimberly Falconer lives in DeFuniak Springs
This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Does the proposed Emerald Coast Motor Club have a location problem? | Guest column
Reporting by Kimberly Falconer, For the Daily News / Northwest Florida Daily News
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This story was originally published October 11, 2026 at 5:09 AM.