by Michele Gillis
Staff Writer
It’s on again.
RiverTown, the 4,170-acre master-planned community in St. Johns County that has been in the works since 2004, has come out of hibernation with changes to align the community with the current market conditions.
“Homes were getting built in 2007, which was right at the peak of the market,” said Stephen Power, project manager of RiverTown. “The company pulled back a little bit and waited to see what was going to happen.”
Everyone knows what happened.
“Now, we’ve actually seen some market data that has led us to start to move to project forward again. We see that St. Johns County specifically has really been performing well compared to the rest of the regions,” he said.
RiverTown was one of the big developments — Nocatee was another — that were planned in the glory days of the early part of this century. Its developer, The St. Joe Company, was flying high and RiverTown was envisioned as another Watercolor, the company’s unique community in the Panhandle.
Times took care of that. St. Joe put things on hold.
Today, RiverTown has the same footprint. The triangle-shaped property is a few miles south of Julington Creek and just north of the western end of SR 210. But it’s not what St. Joe originally expected, like almost every other development that was planned back then.
Over the last few years, the company has been focusing on infrastructure improvements and projects and repositioning the community in a reasonable price range for the market.
“The market has changed and we’ve had to adjust to the market,” said Power. “Our price points started off in the $400,000 to $600,000 range, but now they are from the $190’s to low $300’s. If you look at where the activity is St. Johns County and citywide, most of the volume of sales is in that price range.”
Most of the homes in the first phase are about 3,500 square feet and homes being built right now are more around 2,500 square feet. The range is from 1,400 square feet to 3,000 square feet.
“That was another adjustment to the market,” said Power. “The market right now is geared toward smaller homes for first-time home buyers or move-up buyers for our larger homes.”
The community opened models last month.
“We already have a pre-sale and already have a home under construction for a new family in our Lake section of RiverTown.” said Power. “Traffic has been pretty steady and we are just now setting out to engage on a marketing campaign as we head into next year.
“We are trying to leverage the river. We have about three miles of riverfront property out here, so we have very strong ties to the river.”
A riverfront park is substantially complete. It covers nearly 58 acres of natural areas and canopy trees on the St. Johns River, and has a fishing pier, waterfront overlook areas and a restroom pavilion.
“It’s our way of trying to leverage what we think make RiverTown unique and what our competitive advantage is over the competing communities,” said Power. “It’s a very competitive northern St. Johns County market.”
Construction is underway on the planned amenities complex, RiverHouse, which should be ready this spring.
The planned recreational amenities will feature a fitness/lap pool, a splash pool with slide, Har-Tru Hydrocourt tennis courts and stadium court and play fields.
A fitness center with more than 3,500 square feet will offer individual and group fitness areas, men and women’s locker rooms, pool accessibility and a poolside veranda. RiverHouse will be the community’s social club, providing space for gatherings and events with a club room, meeting rooms, outdoor palm court with bar area, kitchen and bathrooms.
“We have entitlements for an 18-hole golf course, but don’t have plans to build it immediately,” said Power.
Bartram Trail High School abut the property to the east. A middle school and an elementary school are just north. Commercial activity is bustling along SR 210.
There are currently 13 families living in RiverTown right now. There are two model homes complete and about a half a dozen or so homes under construction.
The plan for the community includes 4,500 homes with a 15-20 year build out.
The three active builders in the community are David Weekly Homes, Mattamy Homes and Dennis Homes. MasterCraft builders will be joining them shortly.
“We have a half a million square feet of commercial entitlements, so we certainly have the ability to build shopping complexes and grocery stores,” said Powers. “That commercial entitlement includes office space and light industrial, so all of that is in the plans. What we are waiting for right now really is the rooftops. You have to have enough people living out here before any of that stuff makes sense.”