by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Finally after seven years of planning, Nocatee, a large master planned community, is ready to come out of the ground.
Greg Barbour of The Parc Group gave Northeast Florida Association of Realtors’ Ponte Vedra Council an overview of what the future holds for Nocatee to the 150 attendees at the breakfast meeting last month at the Sawgrass Beach Club.
“We went through the approval process in both counties [Duval and St. Johns] and the development was approved in 2001,” said Barbour. “We went through some legal troubles which took about two and a half years. When those were cleared up, we started the permitting and design process and broke ground last September.”
Nocatee is 15,000 acres (35 square miles) with 15 percent of the community in Duval County and 85 percent in St. Johns County.
“Of those 15,000 acres, a little over 5,000 will be developed. The balance will be put in some form of preservation or conservation,” he said. “The most sensitive land within Nocatee actually sits on the Intracoastal Waterway. It is actually about 3.5 miles along the waterway and that land was set up in the very beginning to given to the county as a nature preserve. It was transferred about three weeks ago.”
Barbour said they are working closely with the county to set up the land like a state park where the public has access to it.
If you’ve driven down CR 210 lately, you can see the $80 million dollar road construction starting.
“All the core infrastructure and utilities are being brought in,” he said. “The road construction is two components. One is the East West Parkway, which will run from Intracoastal bridge all the way to U.S. 1. It’s a brand new road and it will replace the existing two-lane CR 210. That road is slated to be complete summer of 2007. The other roads that are under construction will open up the first villages for development. Those roads will be finished the end of this year.”
As a master planned community, Nocatee will sell off parcels of land to developers to create their own unique communities.
“There is no uniform architectural style for the town,” said Barbour, “just like Ponte Vedra Beach is a community or town in itself with different communities within it. Each community will have its own identity.”
Nocatee will consist of 14,200 single family and multi-family dwellings. There will be one million feet of retail/commercial to serve the residents and 4.2 million square feet of office space.
The builders and developers will have product and models by the end of the year that the public and Realtors can get access to.
“I know those builders are relying on the Realtor community here at the beach in a great way,” said Barbour.
Two parcels have been sold so far, one to Toll Brothers and the other to Del Webb/Pulte Homes.
Coastal Oaks by Toll Brothers will be a high-end gated community with homes starting around $400,000 and going up to $1 million.
Riverwood by Del Webb/Pulte Homes will be an active adult community.
“There will probably be a mixture of single family and multi-family and the prices range from the $200,000’s to $500,000,” he said. “Both of those builders are working on their plans and product and will come out this summer with more information.”
Barbour said they will both builders have sales offices located in the general area soon.
The Parc Group is developing a community in Nocatee named Austin Park. The builder of the single family homes will be Cornerstone Homes and those prices will range from $300,000’s to $500,000. Pulte Homes is building a condominium community, Tidewater Condominiums, that should be priced starting in the $200,000’s.
“The development of these communities should start in the next 30 days and builders should have product and take reservations towards the summer,” said Barbour. “The houses should start coming out of the ground by the beginning of next year and the first family should move in before next summer.”
Included in the first stage of development is a 75-acre community park, a 30,000-square foot community center, aquatic park, public school and ballpark.
Retail follows rooftops, so Barbour said the commercial development will begin depending on the amount of people who move into Nocatee and the need.
“Our projections right now are that a grocery store and a drug store would be first,” he said. “I would think that the first shopping center would be built within the first two or three years. There is a lot of existing market out there with Waldon Chase and the south end of Ponte Vedra Beach that would be tapped.”
Since Nocatee will be its own town with its own postal zip code, they are donating additional land for two fire stations, one library, two sheriff/police substations, one county annex, one high school, two middle schools and six elementary schools. One of the elementary schools will be in Duval County.
There will be 175 acres of active recreation parks and 125 acres of neighborhood parks within Nocatee. The Nocatee Greenway will be 5,000 acres of preservation with a trail system linking residential villages with the Town Center. There will also be 50 acres of affordable housing within Nocatee.
“Our marketing strategy is to offer a wide variety of product mix consisting of condominiums, townhouses and single family in all different price ranges,” said Barbour. “We are also only working with the highest quality of builders and developers that we can find out in the marketplace.”
Barbour said he projects build out to be between 15 and 35 years.