A commercial development application for a more than 500-acre business park in unincorporated Clay County is scheduled to go before the county’s Development Review Committee on July 16.
By acreage, Peter’s Creek Business Park would be several times the size of the 141-acre Northeast Florida Industrial Center, though still smaller than the Port of Clay County’s 1,700-acre Reynolds Park, according to the Clay County Economic Development Corp.
VanTrust Real Estate LLC, through Ponte Vedra-based VTRE Development LLC, filed the application June 5 for Peter’s Creek Business Park on 520.50 acres north of Florida 16, east of the First Coast Expressway and west of Rosemary Hill Road. The property is owned by Reinhold Corp. and Klare Timber LLC.
According to its website, Reinhold Corp. has been on Clay County’s map since 1932, when founder and Foremost Dairies executive Paul E. Reinhold bought 120,000 acres from retailer J.C. Penney. Over the decades, the family-held company sold major tracts to establish Camp Blanding and local timber operations.
Today, it manages roughly 15,500 acres around Penney Farms, balancing active forestry and conservation with commercial development.
An existing PUD, but updated
The site is already zoned as a Planned Unit Development under a 2006 county ordinance that permits business park, light industrial and residential uses. VTRE’s application is seeking updates in permitted uses, setbacks, height limits, buffering, signage and parking.
A PUD allows uses, regulations and standards tailored to a property.
The request is paired with a land use amendment application that would redesignate a portion of the property from Rural Reserve to Business Park and modify the text of the business park future land use category itself.
Jacksonville-based civil engineering firm England-Thims & Miller is the project engineer. Rogers Towers attorneys M. Hayden Phillips and T.R. Hainline are representing the applicant.
Development scope
As proposed, the development would include up to 83% business park uses — light industrial, warehouse and distribution, offices, educational facilities and civic uses — with 15% open space and conservation and 2% right-of-way. Though permissible in the PUD, residential is not part of the plan.
The site plan does not encompass the entire mapped area uniformly; a parcel within the northern portion of the property is designated “Not a Part” and excluded from the development.
Access would come from Florida 16, Rosemary Hill Road and a future road identified in the application as Clay Dairy Parkway.
The July 16 DRC meeting is a preliminary step; any final approval would still require action from the Clay County Board of County Commissioners.