DAYTONA BEACH — After almost a year away, the famed Jantzen Girl is home.

Crews worked Friday morning to set up the larger-than-life statue in her new home at the center of One Daytona, so residents and tourists can see the beloved mannequin at any time.

She joins several other public art projects at One Daytona, and general manager Roxanne Ribakoff said making a place for this "member of the community" just made sense.

"We knew a segment of the population was really anxious to have her back after she left," Ribakoff said. "We tried to answer that call."

Occasionally, people approached the place where the Jantzen Diving Girl was suspended in mid-air on Friday with their faces turned up to meet her gaze and their arms outstretched to take a photo on their phone. She's used to all the attention.

Her journey back to Daytona includes hundreds if not thousands of supporters and spans the better part of a year — really, more than half a century.

[READ MORE: Jantzen Diving Girl will return to Daytona Beach]

[OUR VIEW: Local icon on her way back to Daytona Beach]

[LANE: The diving girl sign, Boardwalk landmark since 1960s, is gone!]

[OUR VIEW: Help bring our girl home]

[YOUR VIEW: Her rightful home]

The icon in a bathing cap first made its way to Daytona Beach in the 1960s, suspended high above Ocean Avenue on Stamie’s Smart Beachwear shop. Frozen mid-dive and in perfect form, she watched over beachgoers and bikers. She watched tourists and locals alike enjoy the most famous beach. She watched decades of history unfold.

After all that, on one hazy morning last April she was gone. The swimwear shop closed, and Jantzen wanted its girl back — she is one of only four fiberglass mannequins still in existence. So she was carted to Washington state.

But her departure drew a backlash from a community that fell in love with the beautiful, 16-foot behemoth.

“Please bring her back and save a piece of history and my youth,” Martha Massfeller wrote in a letter to The News-Journal.

“It would be a crying shame for the ‘Jantzen Girl’ not to return. She has touched the hearts of every sandy foot that walked on our beach,” wrote Pamela Andrews.

And from Tiffany Davis: “Get her back.”

Perry Ellis International, the company that owns Jantzen now, noticed the outcry. They wanted to know that Daytona Beach and Volusia County would have an appropriate, safe place for her to come back to, after a restoration.

That’s when International Speedway Corp. stepped up and offered a permanent home near the splash park at One Daytona.

And just like that, the city’s beloved diver in red was coming home on a six-day, cross-country drive.

She’ll be perched high above visitors at One Daytona and ready as ever for photo-ops and admiration from her fans.

At 8 p.m. on Monday, the city will celebrate her return at One Daytona’s New Year’s Eve event by illuminating the statue for the first time. Attendees will get free red bathing caps.

Lesa France Kennedy, International Speedway Corp. CEO, said in September when the company announced the Jantzen girl's return that the display is "synonymous with Daytona Beach."



“She is a brand icon and we look forward to celebrating her return in a big way at One Daytona,” Kennedy said.



The Jantzen Diving Girl is another addition to One Daytona’s public art program, which includes a mixed-media sculpture created by local artist Libby Ware that was incorporated into the splash fountain, along with several other mosaics, murals and displays spread around the entertainment complex.

The mannequin, modeled from a 1920s Jantzen logo design, will keep watch while water and lighting displays dance in time to electronic music emanating from loudspeakers. The contrast will be stark — a relic of days gone by set among elements of modern art.