Timing is everything.
In Nassau County, a place where the housing recovery so far has lagged, at least one builder is betting on a turning of the tide.
ICI Homes on April 15 will open an eight-court tournament-style tennis complex at Amelia National Golf & Country Club, a gated development in Fernandina Beach where the company is managing partner.
The builder also opened a model home March 5.
It’s a $250,000 investment in a community that has seen just a trickle of growth since 2006.
“We’ve started seeing traction to where we can say, ‘OK, it’s not a fluke,’” said Rosy Messina, vice president of Marketing for ICI Homes. “We felt it was time to invest with brand new product.”
When Amelia National first launched in 2005, the housing market was red hot.
Lots were getting pricy in Duval County and developers were looking to the perimeter for land, including north into Nassau County.
Amelia National, a golf community with 749 homes planned at build-out, opened in the spring and sold 50 homes almost immediately.
A year later the community unveiled an $8 million “rolling hills” golf course, designed by famed golf course architect Tom Fazio, followed by a $10 million clubhouse in the fall.
Then, the recession hit. The company hunkered down.
“We said, ‘Let’s make sure nothing slips and be ready when the market starts to show life again,’” said David Haas, ICI Homes’ chief development officer.
Home sales continued, slowly. So far, about 150 have been built.
As recovery took hold at the Beaches and in St. Johns and Clay counties, Nassau waited. Last year home construction starts in the county climbed to 400. But there are still nearly 3,000 vacant and developed lots on the ground — almost an eight-year supply, according to industry analyst Metrostudy.
ICI Homes saw something different in 2014.
“Our sales have crept up every year,” Messina said “But, it was this last spring that we said, ‘Aha, we see the light at the end of the tunnel, let’s get ready.’”
Their instincts proved right. In the last four months, sales were better than the previous 12 months.
A year ago, Joe Mattingly, a tennis pro and 30-year tennis instructor who’d operated clubs in other communities, approached ICI Homes. He’d noticed there was no top-class tennis facility at Amelia Island. He wanted to bring one to Amelia National.
The community already had three Har-Tru tennis courts for residents. Mattingly wanted eight, all with lights for evening play. Also, he wanted to operate the facility as a private club, where non-residents could be members and where tournaments between other clubs in the region could be held.
ICI Homes struck the deal and began construction. In addition to the courts, Amelia National Tennis Center will include a pro shop staffed by four tennis pros.
In terms of quality, the new facility will have peers in the market, for example the tennis center at the Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort.
The difference is it will be a true private tennis club, with no hotel guests, said Greg Brousse, Amelia National’s managing director. “This is for your tennis leagues and the members you go to play with,” he said.
The activity has already brought tennis players from South Georgia, Orange Park, Jacksonville Beach and Ponte Vedra.
Punctuating the tennis center’s construction, ICI Homes built and month opened a new model, the Egret II. It’s the company’s most popular home design.
“It’s all on one story and it lays out beautifully for entertaining,” Messina said.
Amelia National lies along Amelia Concourse, a corridor that claims the lion’s share of new home construction in Nassau County. The Amelia Walk, Timberlake, Amelia Concourse and North Hampton communities all share the neighborhood.
Until recent years, Amelia Concourse’s corner with Florida A1A had only a Murray’s Grill and gas stations. Today, Lowe’s and Home Depot have sprouted to the west and a Publix shopping center across the street is readying its second phase of development. Also, a new movie theater is under construction.
“It’s very much the happening corridor right now,” Haas said.
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