by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
The growth in St. Johns County has been slow, says the man in charge of speeding it up. But things are happening and results are forthcoming.
Nick Sacia, the executive director of the Economic Development Council of the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce, gave an economic update on St. Johns County to the St. Augustine Women’s Council of Realtors at its monthly luncheon held at Carrabba’s Italian Grill in St. Augustine.
Part of Sacia’s job is to coordinate business recruitment, business expansion and retention advisory groups.
“As far as economic growth in the county, it’s been kind of slow for the last year, year and a half,” said Sacia. “That’s mainly due to the lack of available property and inventory in the business sector. That’s because in 2004 and 2005 we had quite an exciting year and that ate up the available inventory.
“We are working on replenishing that. We have a few things coming online on SR 207 and I-95. Graham & Company just started work on a 200,000 square foot footprint flex warehouse space called First Coast Distribution Center which should give us a lot of momentum.”
Sacia said the 70 percent of the clients they work with and the leads that they get require existing space.
“The business model today is not like it was years ago when businesses had time to go through the land use process and permitting,” said Sacia. “They would work with you for years before finally opening their business in the area. Because of the global market and the fast-paced economy, they have to move right away when they decide to pull the trigger.”
Sacia said they used to have to wait about year and a half to know if they won a project, but now it’s typically six to eight months from the time they know about the project until they make an announcement.
“In economic development terms, that is a pretty rapid pace so existing buildings are important or at least shovel-ready sites where they don’t have to go through all the state permitting and only have to permit the building they are working on,” said Sacia.
Along with the 200,000 square feet that Graham & Company started, they have permits in hand for a a million square feet, so they can add more space if that fills in.
On SR 206 and I-95, there is a proposed development to add a million square feet of industrial space.
“As we look at where we want to grow business-wise, manufacturing and even office along the I-95 corridor is where businesses want to be, especially if they are involved in the transportation of goods and services,” said Sacia.
“When I moved to Florida from Texas eight years ago, I always found it odd that all these housing communities were along the business corridors of I-95. In a sense, that hurt Florida a little bit in their ability to attract businesses. But real estate was such a retail commodity in Florida. I think they depended on people driving down from up north to pull off the highway and buy their house. It was more of a retail business than an actual need for shelter business. It served Florida well for many years, but now we need to adjust our pattern and the way we develop things because we are also going to need jobs for those residents moving in.”
Sacia said Nocatee is coming along.
“They are starting work on the town center and we are working on a project that we should be able to announce in the next month or two,” he said. “We are on the short list. There are three other sites they are looking at right now. It has incredibly high wage, high impact, and high technology jobs for the area. We are very excited about that. It might help the real estate and Nocatee pick up a little more.”
A project he discussed was the Esplanade of St. Johns, an open air mall along International Golf Parkway near I-95 that has gone before the planning and zoning board and is now getting ready to go before the county commission for a million square feet of retail.
Sacia said that a problem the World Golf Village area faced was the lack of amenities and it’s tough to convince businesses of a larger size to go out where their employees can’t go to lunch, go to the bank, go to the dry cleaners or to run their errands.
“We think with the addition of Esplanade of St. Johns, which has a million square feet of retail and 800,000 square feet of office, it will draw that (companies) to the area,” said Sacia. “We look forward to seeing that.”
The Economic Development Council of the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce is also talking to another company who is looking to relocate its headquarters.
“We have a lot of things going on which is kind of unusual. As a region, the leads, prospects and projects have slowed down,” he said. “We are used to working on 70-80 projects at a time and we are down to about 50. So, the impact of what is going on in the economy has caused businesses to step back. A lot of the projects we were working on pulled back on their decision.”
Sacia said overall that it really comes down to making the community business-friendly so businesses want to move there.
“As Realtors, you need to promote the good things going on in St. Johns County, because businesses pay more attention to local newspapers and news,” said Sacia. “They will go into local restaurants and stores and talk to people. That’s where they get their information. It’s a community’s job to make a business successful and that’s what makes us business-friendly.”
He said they are doing a study now to make sure they preserve industrial, commercial and business sites for the future.
“It was especially important a few years ago when housing was taking over all of the prime business sites,” said Sacia. “We want make sure now that it has slowed down that those sites are preserved so when things pick back up that those are still available and still attractive.”