Eau Gallie Arts District in Melbourne, Florida

The Eau Gallie Arts District, known as EGAD, is the old downtown of the former City of Eau Gallie in northern Melbourne, run since 2010 as a state designated Florida Main Street district with galleries, shops, restaurants and murals.

The Florida Department of State's 2018 release places Eau Gallie in the northern section of Melbourne and says residents still call the area Eau Gallie although it stopped being its own city when voters merged it with Melbourne in 1969. That release counted more than 100 businesses in the district, including galleries, retail shops and restaurants.

EGAD Main Street promotes the city's Olde Eau Gallie Riverfront Community Redevelopment Area, which the City of Melbourne CRA page says was established on May 22, 2001, covers 297.20 acres and includes the downtown that was once the City of Eau Gallie. The CRA uses tax increment financing on property values above the 2001 base level to pay for capital improvement projects and economic incentive programs. The state's 2024 release gives a different start year, dating the Eau Gallie Community Redevelopment Area to 2000 and a Waterfronts Florida Partnership designation to 2003; neither page reconciles the two dates.

EGAD Main Street, the program that promotes the district, lists its office at 540 Montreal Ave. Suite 206 in Melbourne on its own site.

The Eau Gallie Arts District is known for its public art, its galleries and restaurants in historic buildings, and its First Friday event.

The 2018 state release describes an Outdoor Museum of more than 30 murals lining the district's streets and says the museum attracts thousands of visitors (Florida Department of State). The 2024 release adds that EGAD has repurposed historic buildings into galleries, restaurants and studios, hosts public art projects such as the Anti-Gravity Mural Festival and the Sounds of the Lagoon Project, and keeps drawing visitors with First Friday. The Sounds of the Lagoon Project won the Secretary of State's Florida Main Street Sunshine Booster Award in 2024.

EGAD's event menu lists recurring series including First Fridays, EGAD Game Nights, the Oh, Mother! Market, Halloween in the District, a Tree Lighting and Deck the District, with an events calendar. On the waterfront, the City of Melbourne parks list names the Eau Gallie Pier as one of two city fishing piers open during park hours, and the CRA page records that the pier was reconstructed with redevelopment money.

Eau Gallie holds Melbourne's one locally designated historic district, and two Eau Gallie houses are on the National Register: the Rossetter House and the Gleason House.

Since 2006 the city has designated six historic resources and one historic district, according to the City of Melbourne historic preservation page. The Eau Gallie Historic District on that list takes in 1248, 1296 and 1320 Highland Avenue, six addresses on Houston Street from 1149 to 1296, and 555 Montreal Avenue. The Eau Gallie Yacht Club at 1149 Houston Street is also listed as a designated resource, and the city lists the Rossetter House at 1328 Houston Street and 1365 Highland Avenue.

The Rossetter House, listed in the National Park Service National Register record with a 2005 date, is open as a museum Wednesday through Saturday from 10am to 4pm, with tours at 10am, 12pm and 2pm for $15 per person; the museum requires a call or email to reserve a tour (Rossetter House Museum). The state's historical marker at 1736 Pineapple Avenue identifies the William H. Gleason House, built around 1884 by William Henry Gleason and his wife Sarah Griffin Gleason, as an outstanding example of Queen Anne style architecture listed on the National Register in 1997. The marker credits Gleason with persuading Henry Flagler in 1887 to extend his railroad to Eau Gallie by offering the right-of-way.

Official state sources give two different explanations of the name Eau Gallie, and they also disagree on when William Henry Gleason founded the settlement.

The Department of State's 2018 Main Street release says Gleason founded the city in 1860, bought 16,000 acres and named it after the coquina rocks along the Indian River Lagoon, calling Eau Gallie French for rocky water. The 2024 release repeats the rocky waters reading and says the area was first known as Arlington before Gleason renamed it in 1860.

The Division of Historical Resources marker for the Gleason House, from the same department, tells it differently: Gleason bought a 16,000-acre tract in Brevard County in 1870, took Eau from his hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, meaning water, and Gallie from a derivative of a Seminole word meaning rocky, and moved his family to Eau Gallie in 1882. Both readings end at rocky water, but the year differs by a decade between the two state sources: 1860 in the Main Street releases, 1870 on the marker.

The Eau Gallie Civic Center at 1551 Highland Avenue is a City of Melbourne facility in Eau Gallie with two reception rooms of up to 8,000 square feet and room for 600 to 700 people auditorium style.

The City of Melbourne civic center page lists a food warming kitchen and a gymnasium alongside the reception rooms, which can be divided. The building also hosts classes, athletics and special events, among them open gym and pickleball. The contact is 321-608-7400 or [email protected], with listed hours Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The city notes that its listed activity prices do not include tax.

Around the civic center, the CRA page lists the redevelopment work visitors will notice: Eau Gallie Square was built and improved, the Highland Avenue parking lot was purchased, a sidewalk was installed along Eau Gallie Boulevard, and benches and business wayfinding signs were added. Current priorities are Highland Avenue and Eau Gallie Square lighting, public parking, and crosswalks on Pineapple Avenue through a Complete Street project with the Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization. The same page records public hearings on October 28 and December 9, 2025 on a P3 unsolicited proposal from Melbourne Hospitality Holdings, LLC.

Exterior changes to commercial buildings and signs in the Olde Eau Gallie Riverfront CRA, which EGAD Main Street promotes, need approval from the city's Historic and Architectural Review Board before work starts.

The Olde Eau Gallie Riverfront CRA page sets that rule and adds that businesses in the CRA may be allowed outdoor display, an A-frame sign and outdoor seating if they meet eligibility requirements; the Community Development Department answers questions at 321-608-7500. The same page lists past CRA grants for facade improvements and Art Overlay Zone improvements.

The review board is a quasi-judicial body of nine members, seven regular and two alternates, and meets the third Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall. For properties inside the Eau Gallie Historic District or individually designated, the historic preservation rules require a Certificate of Appropriateness before a building permit is issued, at no cost to the applicant; ordinary maintenance that needs no permit needs no certificate.

The state credits the EGAD Main Street program, launched in 2010, with facilitating over $1.3 million in private investment and more than $2 million in public investment, 45 new businesses and over 300 jobs, according to the Florida Department of State.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the city's Eau Gallie CRA, historic preservation, review board, parks and civic center pages, the 2018 and 2024 Main Street releases, the Gleason House marker and the Rossetter House and EGAD sites.