Pueblo Arcade, Royal Park Arcade and the Maher Building in Vero Beach, Florida

Three small commercial buildings in downtown Vero Beach are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Maher Building on 20th Street was completed in 1920. The Pueblo Arcade on 14th Avenue and the Royal Park Arcade on 21st Street, also known as Parkway Plaza, both date to 1926. The City of Vero Beach National Register page lists all three among the thirteen National Register properties within the city.

Each represents a different storefront type. The Maher Building is a Masonry Vernacular store building of one and two stories. The Pueblo Arcade is a two-story masonry building in the Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival style. The Royal Park Arcade is a two-story wood frame Mediterranean Revival building with shops opening onto an arcaded loggia and apartments above. The Florida Division of Historical Resources survey of Indian River County places lists all three as private properties.

Last verified: October 15, 2026, against the state survey of Indian River County historic places, three National Park Service NPGallery records, the Pueblo Arcade nomination and three City of Vero Beach historic preservation pages.

Downtown Vero grew on land platted in 1913.

The City of Vero Beach history page records that the Indian River Farms Company bought 44,000 acres in present-day Indian River County in 1912 and that the final plat of the original Town of Vero was adopted in 1913. The Maher Building stands inside that 1913 plat, according to the state survey.

A fire in 1919 reset the commercial blocks. The state survey says that in 1917 William J. and Katie Maher built a dry goods store that burned down in late 1919, and that the Pueblo Arcade was constructed in the city's commercial center as part of the rapid development that took place following the fire of 1919. The National Register nomination for the Pueblo Arcade says the fire destroyed a number of commercial buildings in the emerging commercial district of Vero Beach, centered around 14th and 15th Avenues and 20th Street, and that new buildings were constructed in that area during the 1920s. The city history page records that the City of Vero was incorporated in 1919, the same year as the fire.

The three listed storefronts belong to a wider Vero building wave that the same state survey documents. The Palmetto Hotel on Old Dixie Highway dates to 1921 and was enlarged in 1926, the same year the Royal Park Arcade and the Pueblo Arcade were built, and the Vero Theatre on 14th Avenue dates to 1924. In 1925, the city history page notes, Vero became the seat of the new Indian River County and was renamed Vero Beach. National Register listing came decades later: the Maher Building was listed in 1994, the Pueblo Arcade in 1997 and the Royal Park Arcade in 1998.

The Maher Building is the masonry store building that followed the Mahers' burned dry goods store.

The state survey records that the existing masonry structure was completed in 1920 and served as a grocery, a drug store and a rooming house. It is Masonry Vernacular, one and two stories, and one of the few remaining commercial buildings in Vero Beach from the 1920s Florida Land Boom era.

The 2007 Florida Heritage catalog record for the Maher Building went further, stating that when it was built the property was one of many similar commercial buildings in the hub of what was then downtown Vero Beach, and that the Maher Building is the only remaining example of those original commercial buildings. The two state descriptions differ: the survey calls it one of the few remaining Land Boom commercial buildings, while the catalog calls it the only remaining original one. The National Park Service NPGallery record for the Maher Building, published October 28, 1994, lists commerce as its area of significance, 1920 as its significant year and the architect as unknown, and gives its location on 20th Street in Vero Beach.

The state survey calls the Pueblo Arcade the only local example of a commercial arcade in Vero Beach.

Built in 1926 by the local contractors Blackford and Davis, it is two stories of masonry construction in the Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival style. The survey places it in a decade when the number of visitors and residents to Vero Beach increased as the area became a nationally renowned citrus growing region.

The National Register nomination locates the Pueblo Arcade on 14th Avenue in downtown Vero Beach and describes its plan: the first floor of the interior consists of an arcade with a series of interior store fronts, and the second floor contains office space. The building faces west onto 14th Avenue, and its open entrance foyer keeps a small panel of historic hexagonal tile containing the words Pueblo Arcade. The nomination notes that the Farmer's Bank and the Vero Theater, both constructed in 1924, are adjacent to the arcade on the south.

The NPGallery record for the Pueblo Arcade lists architecture and commerce as areas of significance, Blackford and Davis as architects and 1926 as the significant year, with the listing published on March 8, 1997. The state survey and the NPGallery record print the street as 14th Street, while the nomination itself places the building on 14th Avenue, the street it faces.

The Royal Park Arcade on 21st Street was designed by the architects Hatcher and Funke for the Vero Beach Construction Company, the building's original owners, according to the state survey.

The survey gives their full names as William W. Hatcher and Lawrence S. Funke, who worked on a number of projects for the Vero Beach Construction Company. The first floor is divided into commercial units with storefronts, the majority of which open onto the arcaded loggia, while the second floor consists of apartments. The same survey identifies Hatcher and Funke as Fort Pierce architects and credits them with the 1926 design of the Sebastian Grammar and Junior High School, now Sebastian City Hall.

The second name dates to 1938, when Parkway, Inc. of Vero Beach acquired the building and renamed it the Parkway Hotel, from which the current name, Parkway Plaza, was derived. The NPGallery record for the Royal Park Arcade, published July 31, 1998, lists Hatcher and Funke with the Vero Beach Construction Co., community planning and development and architecture as areas of significance, and 1926 and 1939 as significant years.

Parkway Plaza, the Royal Park Arcade, is the only one of the three that the City of Vero Beach lists by name on its Local Register of Historic Places.

The City of Vero Beach Local Register page explains that Ordinance 2008-08, the historic preservation ordinance, automatically placed existing National Register properties on the city's Local Register of Historic Places unless the property owner declined, and it lists Parkway Plaza under that ordinance with the date July 15, 2008. The Maher Building and the Pueblo Arcade do not appear by name on that Local Register list. The Historic Preservation Commission maintains the Local Register and reviews National Register nominations within Vero Beach.

Other downtown properties on the city's National Register list include the Vero Theatre, the Indian River County Courthouse and the Vero Beach Diesel Power Plant. The state survey describes all three storefront buildings as private, and the 2007 heritage catalog lists the Maher Building as private with restricted access.