Malabar, Florida: Town Guide

Malabar is a small, largely rural town at the southern end of Brevard County that borders Palm Bay, with Town Hall, the fire station and the community park all on Malabar Road.

The Census Bureau's 2024 place gazetteer lists Malabar town with 10.711 square miles of land and 2.572 square miles of water (Census gazetteer), a large footprint for about three thousand people. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, quoted on the town's Trail Town page, describes Malabar as a small town at the southern end of Brevard County along Florida's east coast that is largely rural but borders a large population concentration in Palm Bay (Town of Malabar Trail Town page). The state's Office of Greenways and Trails story map adds that Malabar sits just across the Indian River from the East Coast Greenway (FDEP Malabar story map).

Malabar Road is the spine of the town. Town Hall, the Malabar Fire Department and Malabar Community Park all carry Malabar Road addresses (2725, 1840 and 1850 Malabar Road) (Malabar Fire Department). The Florida Department of Transportation studies the road as State Road 514 and lists the 3.6-mile stretch from Babcock Road to U.S. 1 as a Brevard County widening project (FDOT District 5 project 430136-1). Rocky Point Road runs along the shoreline, and the town contracted a restoration of four eroded shoreline sections there in 2024 to prevent further erosion and roadway collapse (Rocky Point Road Reconstruction page).

Malabar had an estimated 3,066 residents with a median age of 53.1 in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 2020-2024 5-year estimates (ACS 2024 DP05 table for Malabar).

In that same ACS 2020-2024 release, 19.2 percent of Malabar residents were 65 or older (ACS DP05, Malabar town). Median household income in Malabar was $128,698 (ACS 2024 DP03 table for Malabar), and Malabar workers 16 and over averaged a 25.9 minute trip to work (ACS DP03, Malabar town).

Malabar is almost entirely a town of owners. The ACS estimates 1,286 housing units in Malabar, 1,215 of them occupied, and 98.8 percent of the occupied homes were owner occupied, with a median owner-occupied value of $451,100 (ACS 2024 DP04 table for Malabar). The renter sample is so small that the Census table publishes no median gross rent for Malabar at all, a sign of how few rentals exist in town.

These Malabar numbers are five-year estimates for 2020 through 2024, and a town this size carries wide margins of error: the median age alone is plus or minus 8.2 years (ACS DP05 margins). The Malabar demographics section has a full census profile and a guide to housing growth and home values.

The Town of Malabar is run by a mayor and a five-member Town Council, with Mayor Steve Rivet serving a term that runs to 2028 and Town Manager Lisa Morrell handling daily operations from Town Hall at 2725 Malabar Road.

The Malabar Town Council meets the first and third Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in Town Hall (Mayor and Town Council page). Its five seats are elected by district: Marisa Acquaviva (District 1), Wayne Abare (District 2) and Cliff Dykes (District 3) have terms expiring in 2026, and Frederick Heiler (District 4) and Mary Hofmeister (District 5) have terms expiring in 2027. Town Hall's phone is 321-727-7764 (Town of Malabar), and the staff directory lists Lisa Morrell as Town Manager and Richard W. Kohler as Town Clerk (Malabar staff directory). Last verified: October 14, 2026, on the Town of Malabar website.

For anyone who cannot make a Monday night meeting, the Malabar FAQ page says the audio of Town Council, board and committee meetings is posted to the town's SoundCloud account the day after each meeting (Malabar FAQs). Requests to have a road graded and filled go to the same 321-727-7764 number or the Public Works service request form, and animal problems go to Brevard Animal Control at 321-633-2024 rather than to Town Hall. Waste Pro collects garbage in Malabar, and residents request bins and bulk pickups on the hauler's own website.

Malabar has its own fire department, led by Fire Chief Joseph Hooker and recruiting through a volunteer application, at 1840 Malabar Road, phone 321-725-1030 (Malabar Fire Department). Elections are run by the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections, and the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners sits at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way in Viera (Brevard County). The Malabar government section covers the town council and charter, elections, the budget, building permits, business tax receipts, code enforcement, zoning and rural residential rules, the comprehensive plan, land clearing permits and town roads.

Most visits to Malabar are about trails and preserves: the town was designated a Florida Trail Town in 2018, and the 577-acre Malabar Scrub Sanctuary is reached from Malabar Community Park on Malabar Road.

The state Office of Greenways and Trails says Malabar earned the Trail Town designation in 2018 for its work on walking, bicycling and paddling trails through local greenspaces and conservation lands (FDEP Malabar story map). The same story map describes the Cameron Preserve as 100 acres owned and maintained by the Town of Malabar, open to walkers, cyclists and equestrians. The Malabar Trail Town page credits the town's Trails and Greenways Committee with building a trail shelter and working to connect the system to neighboring towns (Town of Malabar).

Malabar Community Park at 1850 Malabar Road is open dawn to dusk and has a pavilion, a baseball and softball field, a soccer pitch, a basketball court, a tennis court, a playground, restrooms, a fitness park and a bridge over the lake (Malabar Community Park page). Next door, Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands program manages the 577-acre Malabar Scrub Sanctuary, a refuge for the Florida scrub-jay, gopher tortoise and Eastern indigo snake, with a listed address of 1501 Malabar Woods Boulevard and day-use hours seven days a week (Brevard County Malabar Scrub Sanctuary page). Pets are not allowed in the sanctuary, and its restrooms are at the adjacent Malabar Community Park.

The town's FAQ lists the parks Malabar itself owns: Malabar Community Park, the Malabar Disc Golf Sanctuary, the Cameron Preserve, the Sandhill Crane Trailhead and Eschenberg Memorial Park, with the Eagles Nest equestrian trailhead on South Marie Street still in development (Malabar FAQs). Brevard County owns the Malabar Scrub Sanctuary and the Jordan Scrub Sanctuary. The Malabar parks section has a guide to each preserve, and the recreation section covers the Florida Trail Town designation.

In Malabar, the near-term changes are a contested District 2 council race on November 3, 2026, the Malabar Fallfest on October 24, 2026, and a Malabar Road widening study that still has no construction money.

The Brevard County Supervisor of Elections lists the Town of Malabar District 1, 2 and 3 council seats among the races for the November 3, 2026 general election, with a municipal qualifying period of July 28 to August 11, 2026; Districts 1 and 3 each drew one qualified candidate, and District 2 is contested (Brevard Supervisor of Elections 2026 candidates). Early voting runs Monday, October 19 through Saturday, October 31, 2026, and Malabar voters may use any of Brevard's early voting sites (Brevard early voting page). The Town of Malabar home page calendar also lists a Regular Town Council Meeting on October 19 and the Malabar Fallfest on October 24, 2026 (Town of Malabar calendar).

On the road side, FDOT's project page for Malabar Road (S.R. 514) from Babcock Road to U.S. 1 shows a study of widening the road from two lanes to a four-lane divided roadway with better bicycle and pedestrian accommodations; the environmental report was completed May 18, 2018, and the project is currently not funded for design, right of way or construction (FDOT project 430136-1). The project remains a study, not a construction schedule.

One stale official page is worth flagging. The town's Rocky Point Road Reconstruction page still shows its 2024 project schedule, a shoreline restoration by Custom Built Marine Construction from April 1, 2024 to an estimated September 1, 2024, approved by the council on February 26, 2024 (Rocky Point Road Reconstruction page). As of October 14, 2026 the page had no newer update, so Town Hall is the place to confirm current Rocky Point Road conditions. The Malabar transportation guide follows the Rocky Point Road project in detail.

Evacuation orders and emergency alerts for Malabar reach residents through AlertBrevard, the system on the Brevard County Emergency Management page (1751 Huntington Lane, Rockledge, 321-637-6670), and the town itself tells residents to sign up for it.

The Malabar Emergency Preparedness page reminds residents that the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 and asks them to sign up for alerts on AlertBrevard (Malabar Emergency Preparedness page). Brevard County Emergency Management describes AlertBrevard as a system that sends notices about boil-water advisories, shelter-in-place or evacuation orders and other events to the phone numbers and email addresses a resident registers, based on the address provided (Brevard County Emergency Management). The town page also carries generator safety rules and a reminder to take hurricane shutters down after a storm so they do not block escape routes or firefighters' access.

Flood insurance works differently in Malabar than in Palm Bay. FEMA lists the Town of Malabar (community 120024) as a participant in the National Flood Insurance Program with flood maps effective January 29, 2021, but with no Community Rating System class, which means no town-wide CRS premium discount (FEMA NFIP community status for Malabar). FEMA dates Malabar's first flood insurance rate map to September 28, 1979. The Malabar safety section covers flood zones and floodplain rules, burn permits and the Malabar Fire Department, and the utilities section explains stormwater and drainage along the town's ditches and swales.

Each Malabar section named on this page goes deeper than this profile, and the table below matches common Malabar questions to the key fact and the section that answers it.

The town's mayors list records that on December 1, 1962, Malabar voters approved incorporation 108 to 11 and elected S.B. Brown as the first mayor, 63 votes to 22 (Town of Malabar mayors list). The Malabar history guide picks up the story from there.