By Carole Hawkins, Staff Writer
Ask Beth Clark to show off Clay County and it’s not a master-planned community’s amenity center that’s her first stop.
It’s the fairgrounds.
“This fair rates number one in the state of Florida,” said Clark, a Realtor for Coldwell Banker Premier Properties.
The agricultural exhibits are strong, she said, it contains a unique outdoor living history museum based on Clay’s timber and agricultural heritage, and it’s run almost entirely by volunteers.
It’s the kind of stuff home shoppers don’t always find when surfing for a value on Internet websites.
And Clay, the “other” county for finding a riverside home, is a value, Clark insists, despite that it often falls into the shadow of its more easterly neighbor, St. Johns.
“I wouldn’t say St. Johns County is better than Clay,” Clark said. “What happens is, when people come here, they immediately think ocean and sometimes they don’t even look at Clay.
“Our housing value is better and our schools are just as good. You can still drive to the ocean on the weekends.”
The same $240,000 home in St. Johns County will sell for $210,000 in Clay County, Clark said, about 15 percent less.
St. Johns schools are ranked number one in the state, but Clay County was also number one in the past, and has remained in the top 10 since that time.
“Out of 67 Florida counties, that’s pretty good,” Clark said. “We have wonderful teachers here.”
The commute to Downtown can be long in some cases, but to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, it’s often shorter.
On the east side of the St. Johns River are well-known master planned communities like Bartram Park, Durbin Crossing and Nocatee.
“And we’ve got Eagle Harbor, OakLeaf, and soon Lake Asbury,” Clark said.
It’s not that Clark won’t sell homes in St. Johns, she often does. It’s just that she’s a little partial to the county she calls home.
Clark was born in Jacksonville and grew up in both Riverside and St. Johns County, graduating at Robert E. Lee High School. When she returned to the area as an adult, she originally settled in San Marco, but moved to Orange Park in 1983 because she was raising a son and the schools were better.
“I could have gone to St. Johns, but there was the price difference,” she said. “And, at that time there wasn’t Julington Creek Plantation or a lot of what you see right now. So, it was also a bit of a drive to Jacksonville.”
Clark worked as a corporate accountant and later, ran her own firm, before switching 10 years ago to real estate. It was a job that allowed her to work outside an office.
“I enjoy being an ambassador for the community,” she said. “When people move to Northeast Florida because of a transfer, they are not always excited about where they have to live. I like getting them excited about being here.”
Her tenure in Northeast Florida has allowed her to see how home development progressed over the years, which, on the Westside, was often driven by military families.
When people who worked at the base left the area, instead of heading north into Riverside, they started moving south into Clay, where half-acre and full-acre lots are normal.
“I enjoy land,” Clark said. “And, I like giving people a choice between that and subdivisions with CDD fees, which can get old pretty quick.
“There are people out there who want the land, and we have it.”