by Michele Newbern Gillis
Where there’s growth, there will be services needed. And professionals — lawyers, doctors and the like — have moved in to provide services to the beaches area.
“Many individuals already live in the Beaches communities and previously they had driven into town to work,” said Joe Mitrick, chairman of the Beaches division of the Chamber of Commerce and administrator of Baptist Beaches Hospital. “I think they find it very attractive to be able to work close to where they live. The second issue is that because of the population growth, there is need for more and more services in the Beaches community. As a result of that, you see more and more businesses developing at the beach.”
Redevelopment of each of the beaches has prompted many business owners to snatch up dilapidated properties or to buy land and build a new office park.
Professional development in Jacksonville Beach in recent years have included office complexes, medical office buildings, an expansion of the Beaches Baptist Hospital, a new storage warehouse, an art gallery, law offices and two new hotels.
“We have far more medical buildings and the hospital [Baptist Beaches Hospital] is expanding,” said Bob Marsden, mayor of Jacksonville Beach. “It seems like we have more professional businesses including financial management, insurance, banks and shopping centers.”
A new 38,000-square foot commercial center and apartment development are planned as part of a continuing South Beach redevelopment plan.
“There are a lot of businesses that have moved here, especially to Jacksonville Beach,” said Jill Sprowell, executive director of the Beaches division of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.
An example, she said, is The Boardwalk Group, a marketing firm which bought a boarded up building in Jacksonville Beach, renovated it and moved in.
“Most of their staff lived out here and they wanted to be on the beach,” said Sprowell. “Also, there are two stories of professional businesses above the Atlantic (restaurant.) And there are two professional buildings that have gone up in the last year or so right behind Manatee Ray’s. What we have seen is a shift from the mom and pop type companies to more professional businesses.”
In addition to the rehabilitation of buildings and new construction, a lot of the strip malls in Jacksonville Beach have gotten a face lift as the overall area reacts to the growth.
It’s also that way in Atlantic Beach.
“We have several professional offices along Atlantic Boulevard,” said John Meserve, mayor of Atlantic Beach. “We have several lawyer’s offices, jewelry shops and doctor offices. They are small, though. We have these little corridors of commercial businesses. You cannot get to Atlantic Beach or enter the city to go home without going through one of our commercial corridors along Mayport Road or Atlantic Boulevard.
“We are encouraging beautification and growth. We have set in place new laws so when people develop property, there are landscaping requirements that are much more intense then they used to be back five or six years ago.”
The city also passed a rezoning ordinance which sets the tone for the future.
“We are not going to change everything tomorrow, but what you do through good zoning laws is that you set the course for the next 20 years,” said Meserve.
“We took the heat and said we are going to shape the future so we have a decent residential community where we won’t let the density go crazy.”
Neptune Beach has a lot of turnover in its commercial district, but not a lot of growth.
“We have our business district, but there is no desire to expand that area,” said Dick Brown, mayor of Neptune Beach. “They want selected businesses within that area and want to retain that quality of life that is here.”
One concern is the appropriate reuse of commercial properties on Atlantic Boulevard.
“The west end of the Winn-Dixie on Penman Road had a theatre and stores and they’ve closed down,” said Brown. “Obviously, we would be supportive of trying to encourage a developer or the owner of that property to find some new businesses to go in there. Also, the Kmart shopping center has an old boarded up A & P store. Our interest should be in trying to keep those shopping centers healthy in whatever way we can. We’d love to see new and viable businesses in place there.”
Neptune Beach, said Brown, is now out of commercial property: the last vacant lot is soon
to get a professional building.
“We have a pretty wide range of regular commercial offerings in the area,” said Brown. “It has a pretty good cross section of businesses. And the good thing about Neptune Beach is that if you don’t find what you want in Neptune Beach, there are great big shopping centers on the south end of the beach in Jacksonville Beach.”