Ready or not, here comes the St. Joe Co.

July 4, 1999

By BILL KACZOR

Associated Press Writer

PANAMA CITY BEACH - For the better part of the century, Florida's largest private land owner, the St. Joe Co., has been content to do little more than grow pine trees on its 1.1 million acres.

This sleeping giant, however, is awakening, and nowhere will its impact be greater than in Northwest Florida.  The region has lagged behind the rest of the state in growth and development, but that may be changing.  The reason: 80 percent of St. Joe's acreage is in Northwest Florida.

The former paper company and its real estate subsidiary, Arvida, plan to turn up to 90,000 of those Northwest Florida acres, including pine forests and pristine beaches, into sites for homes, businesses, an airport, golf courses and other amenities.

That has Celeste Cobina and many of her neighbors worried.  Nine years ago, she and her husband, Ted, moved from New Orleans to Dune Allen, a secluded beach community in Walton County.

"There's a small town sense here", she said.  "A guy who lives in a trailer can stand on the beach next to the guy in the million-dollar home, fish and chat."

She is afraid that idyllic lifestyle is going to end.  Not to worry, insists St. Joe Chairman and CEO Peter Rummell.

"We own a lot of land, but we don't own enough land that we're going to change the character of west Florida," he said in a recent interview from St. Joe's Jacksonville headquarters.  "It is what it is.  One of the reasons why people like to come there is because it is laid back, and it is eclectic."

Rummell said not to expect high-rises or another Miami Beach.  Instead, St. Joe wants to emulate Seaside, a tiny planned community of pastel-painted homes with metal roofs, cupolas, gazebos, front porches and picket fences.

Seaside, also in Walton County, was the location for the hit move "The Truman Show," cast as the Utopian set for a true-life television program.  Seaside also is one of the most acclaimed examples of "New Urbanism," actually a throwback to small-town America where people can live, work and shop with everything in walking distance.

St. Joe is embracing that concept for its own planned communities, said Chris Corr, Arvida's vice president for new ventures in west Florida.  It will begin at WaterColor, where ground is expected to be broken later this month, bordering Seaside on the north and west.

WaterColor, however, will be bigger.  Much bigger.  Seaside encompasses about 80 acres.  WaterColor will cover 500 acres and include 1,100 homes and a town center with restaurants, shops and a park, but only a sliver of beach.

Ground breaking is expected next year at Camp Creek, about 5 miles east of Seaside, for another planned community on 260 acres with 1.5 miles of beach.

Even bigger projects are planned elsewhere across Northwest Florida, starting with Southwood in Tallahassee.  Construction is expected to begin this fall and continue for 20 years.  St. Joe expects to build 4,700 homes there as well as a 250-acre industrial park and 2.2 million square feet of office space.

Plans for up to 4,400 acres at Lake Powell just west of Panama City Beach in Bay County are incomplete, but Corr said the concept is for an active-adult community, with golf courses and other recreational amenities.  St. Joe is reserving some of its biggest plans for one of the state's most economically depressed area, Gulf County, where the company once operated a paper mill at Port St. Joe, its namesake.

The company owns more than half the county, about 40 miles east of Panama City, but development would focus on 3.7 miles of beachfront.  The conceptual plan is to dove-tail development with hunting, fishing, hiking, horseback riding and other outdoor activities, said Arvida's Corr.  St. Joe sold the mill in 1996 and it closed last year, causing the county's unemployment rate to hit 20 percent.  The new owners are trying to reorganize under bankruptcy protection, but St. Joe may offer economic salvation regardless of whether the mill reopens.