Let's not forget Seaside itself was created by developers, Robert Davis and some others I think... DPZ Development rings a bell. In other words it's not a town with a charter than goes back hundreds of years like most towns people are familiar with. So it does not surprise me that one devloper's creation will be modified by yet another developer. Like an earlier poster suggested, suits sitting in high rise offices like to pretend they know what the public wants.
Take Rosemary Beach for instance. Hello? Quakerville? I don't vacation on the Emerald Coast to feel like I'm up east on the Atlantic in search of my jacket. Rosemary Beach feels almost like a ghost town everytime I drive through it.
The only consistency 30-A has is sand from one end to the other. From Dune Allen to Inlet Beach... where's the consistency? Gulf Place and its retail area I call Tiny Town at 30-A and 393, to the Brick Yard beach-slum in Blue Mountain, to the quaintness of Grayton Beach, to the eclectic turd that is Watercolor, to the charm of Seaside, then to the Plymouth Rock known as Rosemary Beach... it's all chopped up! Seems all those developers know what people want.
Vacationers are creatures of habit. They like to return to places they remember because priceless memories are attached to their destination location. I remember blowing a gasket when I heard the Ramada Inn in Ft. Walton was bought out a long time ago. Now I think it's back to being the Ramada Inn. That's where I spent many a vacations as a teen back in the 70's. The same goes for Seaside with it's Modica Market, Perspicasity(?) and Bud & Alley's. Vacationers have a right to be concerned about change in Seaside. With every change comes a lost tangible place they can see smell and hear along with a distant memory.
I hold out hope that as long as there's a 40ft building restriction, and some agents have corrected me and told me it's 52ft, that large commercial condo developments will stay out of South Walton because they can't make a decent return on a three story building. When/if that restriction goes away, so will go the charm of 30-A. It's no accident the mondo-condo development stopped at Tops'l on the west and Bay County on the East.
Eli