January 28, 2006
Parc Group donates 2,400 acres for preserve
Nocatee developer hands land over to commission
By Christina Abel, Shorelines staff writer
The Parc Group, developer of the massive Nocatee development planned southwest of Ponte Vedra Beach, donated a 2,400-acre preserve to St. Johns County commissioners Tuesday. As part of the development order for the 15,000-home, 15,000-acre community, the Parc Group agreed to donate several land sites for nine public schools, two fire stations and the preserve, which has 3 1/2 miles of frontage along the Intracoastal Waterway. The land also provides a buffer that will be a mile to 1 1/2 miles wide between the waterway and the future developments in Nocatee's commercial and residential areas.
Besides single- and multi-family homes, the community will have 4 million square feet of office space and 1 million square feet of commercial space. These various parts of the community will be developed in five-year phases over the next quarter-century. Construction on three neighborhoods has begun. Also, in September, developers started clearing land along County Road 210 to construct the new Nocatee Parkway, which will replace 210 as the main east-west roadway from Palm Valley to Jacksonville.
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A new engineer's map of the Nocatee development shows villages, a preserve, roads, parking spaces and other features of the community planned southwest of Ponte Vedra Beach.
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At Tuesday's meeting, Greg Barbour, one of the partners of Parc Group, gave an update about the development, which is moving steadily, and gave a presentation about the nature preserve.
He said that the Davis family, who owns the land, wanted the most environmentally sensitive land to be preserved.
"Preserving this beautiful 3 1/2 miles of riverfront land on the Intracoastal is important for the county, its residents and our environment," Barbour said Tuesday. "It's a beautiful nature area."
Barbour said the preserve will connect to the community's 4,900-acre greenway system. Those acres are distributed throughout the community as parks, nature trails and bike and walking paths, in and around the seven planned residential villages. The Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve is on the east side of the Intracoastal, across from the preserve.
"The preserve will provide additional protection to the northern Tolomato River basin," Barbour said.
"This really does give us a nice overview and picture ... [of] what the preserve will actually have and what it is and how important it is for the county," Commissioner Karen Stern said. On Tuesday, the commissioners approved Nocatee's plans for a new residential area, Town Center South, which will have about 540 homes. The board also approved developers' plans to improve Race Track Road, which currently ends at U.S. 1 just north of 210. The improvement will include building an extension that will link it with the new parkway. They will also build a flyover above the four lanes of U.S. 1 for those who want to get onto the Nocatee Parkway heading east.
January 27, 2006
Picture perfect
A developer's donation of 1,630 acres of pristine marshes and forested watersheds will ensure Nocatee's natural beauty will be preserved there even as thousands of houses are built around it. It's a move that officials hope catches on.
By TERRY BROWN, St. Johns Sun
The ground almost feels as though it's moving underfoot as hundreds of hermit crabs clamor for a hole in the sandy beach near the lapping waters of the Tolomato River.
Not far from the idyllic scene is one of the most extensive tree clearing and earth moving projects ever known to the northern part of St. Johns County. But the home of the hermit crabs -- known as the Nocatee Preserve -- should forever remain an oasis thanks to a developer's gift to the county.
On Tuesday, The PARC Group, master developer for the massive 15,000-home Nocatee community, finalized the donation of 1,630 acres comprising estuarine marshes and forested watersheds along 3 miles of pristine waterfront to St. Johns County. The donation marks the largest transfer of private, Intracoastal land in the county's history. It will be several years, however, until environmental requirements are satisfied to allow public access.
The Nocatee Preserve is directly across from the Guana Tolomato Matanzas Reserve, providing additional protection and preservation on both sides of the river.
The pros and cons for such a massive development like Nocatee, which is basically the size of a small town, will no doubt be argued for many years to come. But the preserve and its donation to the county is being lauded by critics and proponents alike.
no bulldozers allowed
Gregory Barbour, a partner in the PARC Group, gingerly guided his SUV along the primitive trails that snaked through the preserve Monday, serving as tour guide for some visitors. First stop was a wide expanse of cord grass, estuarine waterways and panoramic vistas known as Harry's Pond.
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Gregory Barbour (left) and Chris Pilinko of The PARC Group discuss the Nocatee Preserve with District 1 County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson. The developers of Nocatee intend to deed the Nocatee Preserve to the county for all residents to eventually enjoy.
--Terry Brown/St. Johns Sun
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"Preserving this beautiful stretch of land on the Intracoastal Waterway is important for the county and all of its residents, as well as the environment," Barbour said. "When you look at the whole of Nocatee, there are more than 9,000 acres set aside for conservation or for greenways."
According to Wally Esser, a regulatory scientist with the St. Johns River Water Management District, the preserve was made possible as part of the permit mitigating the realignment of County Road 210. Esser said the permit and management plan went through many iterations, but he believes the present plan was a win for everyone.
"This a great preserve area along the Tolomato, and the developer gave up some very valuable real estate in order to preserve the area and eventually make it available for the public," Esser said.
The district scientist said the preserve will consist of a north and south trailhead with many smaller loops off of the main trailway.
The management plan calls for several observation towers along the way to provide panoramic views of the estuarine marshes and the river. The plan also calls for the construction of an environmental education center and provides for a canoe and kayak launch at Spanish Landing, the southernmost portion of the preserve.
Barbour said the preserve will act as a natural buffer protecting the water quality of the saltwater marsh habitats from the Nocatee communities built farther inland. The preserve will be made accessible to the public on some level within three to four years, he said. The restoration of old pine plantations to wetland areas and improvements to the trails, some of which run through swamp areas, are some of the mitigation requirements that must be satisfied before the county can allow public access.
long-term payoff
For some, harvesting so much land for man-made structures simply demands an environmental payback.
It's easy to be hypnotized by vast beauty of this natural area before one recalls the nearby stampede of progress rumbling on in its early stages.
As impressive as the Nocatee Preserve is, the sight of so many trees being taken out along the County Road 210 corridor is disturbing, said Cyndi Stevenson, county commissioner
. "There is a visceral reaction when seeing this many trees and the area torn up," Stevenson said while surveying the County Road 210 realignment on Monday. "This is the hard part."
The opportunity to save areas such as the Nocatee Preserve, however, will be worth it in the long run, the commissioner said.
Former county commissioner Mary Kohnke said she applauds the developers for keeping the preservation area. Kohnke was instrumental in many of the early negotiations surrounding Nocatee.
"They didn't have to do it," Kohnke said. "They could have built on those acres, and they would have been pricey to say the least. The very fact the developers did this was a huge conservation gift, especially to the area that serve as fish hatcheries in the preserve."
Kohnke was concerned, however, that wildlife would be driven out of the thousands of acres of woodlands and wetlands comprising the mega development that straddles Duval and St. Johns counties. She said she hoped the wildlife would be able to find refuge in the preserve.
more opportunities?
The move to provide growing and considerable conservation areas within many of the large developments proposed for St. Johns County is a trend most hope will continue.
The upcoming developments have complied with plans for open spaces, but time will tell if they, too, are handed over or remain semi-private.
RiverTown, a community comprising 4,170 acres and 4,500 proposed homes near the St. Johns River, has set aside 1,369 acres in recreational and open space land. SilverLeaf, another proposed mega development comprising 7,285 acres and more than 10,500 homes, is set to designate more than 3,500 acres to green and open space.
Finding the balance between development and conservation is a tough charter, especially to environmentalists who strongly feel St. Johns County's environment is under attack by the massive development under way.
Tom Reece, a lawyer who works on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation, said the vast majority of the developments are missing the boat when it comes to conservation. He said Nocatee has the opportunity to lead the rest of the development communities in the right direction.
"It is an absolute shame what has happened in the northwest part of the county," Reece said. "But, if one can be done right, Nocatee has a good opportunity. The greenways, the wildlife corridors and especially the Nocatee Preserve being given to the county as public land is a step in the right direction."
Looking out across the expanse of the Tolomato at Spanish Landing, Stevenson was clearly impressed with the view and what it will mean for the county.
"I am just really excited about the preserve and what it means for us all," Stevenson said.
January 25, 2006
Plans for Nocatee receive approval
They include fire station site, road work
By Christina Abel, Shorelines staff writer
With roads and neighborhoods already being built for the planned Nocatee development, St. Johns County officials are surging ahead with plans for a fire station site, a 540-home community and Race Track Road improvementsThe Planning and Zoning Agency Thursday unanimously approved the three plans for the 15,000-acre development.
Construction of the 540 homes is scheduled to begin in the next several months. But the Race Track Road improvements won't begin for 18 months because the Nocatee developers must first finish the new reconfigured County Road 210, or Nocatee Parkway.
Already, acres of land north and south of County Road 210 have been cleared to make way for the new four-lane parkway, which will be constructed over the next year. Developers will start the improvements on Race Track Road within six months of finishing the parkway, which will replace the existing 210. The Race Track improvements are projected to take about two years.
Nocatee developers will also donate two sites for fire stations to the county. They designated the land for one of those Thursday -- in the middle of the Nocatee community.
Meanwhile, developers plan to build the 540 homes in the southern part of Nocatee, or the Town Center South village, in conjunction with two other residential developments that home builders have already purchased. A builder for the Town Center South has not yet been selected.
The other two villages' builders, Toll Brothers of Horsham, Pa., and Pulte Del Webb of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., plan to build about 3,000 single- and multi-family homes, condos and town homes on the land they purchased in early November.
Each of the eventual seven villages of Nocatee will have a master plan that must go before the Planning and Zoning Agency then the county commissioners for approval, County Planner Lindsay Haga said.
Greg Barbour, one of the partners of the Parc Group, said Town Center South will have 379 single-family and 160 multi-family homes on about 330 acres.
The improvements to Race Track Road, which currently ends at U.S. 1 just north of County Road 210, will include an extension that will link it with the new parkway. They will also build a flyover above the four lanes of U.S. 1 for those who want to get onto the Nocatee Parkway heading east.
Because the construction of the Nocatee Parkway began in early October and is expected to take another year, the developers won't start construction on the extension for about 18 months. Once construction begins, it will take about two years to finish, said Doug Miller, chief executive officer of the England, Thims and Miller engineering and land planning firm.
Barbour said the Race Track Road extension will be the last regional road that Nocatee has to improve as part of its development order. The other road construction projects are for roads within the community.
But Barbour said that if the county eventually gets the right of way on 210 east of the Palm Valley Bridge, the developers will also four-lane that portion of road to the Mickler Road roundabout, helping Nocatee's traffic flow.
January 18, 2006
Construction moves ahead for Nocatee development
By Christina Abel, Shorelines staff writer
The roadway and pond clearing for the massive Nocatee development that will bring about 15,000 homes to the area southwest of Ponte Vedra Beach is about 80 percent complete, developers said Friday.
Greg Barbour, one the of the partners of the Parc Group, developers of Nocatee, said that construction is progressing on schedule.
This clearing will make way for the construction of the new reconfigured St. Johns County Road 210, or Nocatee Parkway, which will replace 210 as the main east-west route between the Intracoastal Waterway and U.S. 1.
Construction of the $80 million, four-lane parkway began just north of the current 210 in October. The parkway will follow 210 westward from the Palm Valley Bridge, then run northwest of its present route into Duval County for roughly 1.5 miles, then southwest to U.S. 1.
Only short portions of the original 210, on the far east and far west, will remain intact, Barbour said.
In addition to the new roadway, there will be several north/south interchanges to take people into and around the seven villages of the community. The contractors have begun driving bridge pilings for those interchanges, Barbour said.
The 55 mph speed limit on 210 has been reduced to 45 mph from the Palm Valley Bridge to U.S. 1. There are signs to remind drivers of the speed limit change and signs indicating where contractors need to make their deliveries.
In about six weeks, traffic on 210 will be diverted near the intersection of Twenty Mile Road, near Davis Park, and 210. Traffic will be redirected for a few hundred yards, Barbour said, to allow work on one of the community's major intersections to begin.
Developers plan to build a road running north to south through the community, intersecting with Nocatee Parkway and portions of the original 210. It will be much like the intersection of Butler Boulevard and Gate Parkway in Jacksonville. This north-south route will be constructed in conjunction with the parkway, but will be completed about five months earlier.
Meanwhile, two of nation's largest home builders have purchased about 1,500 acres in the planned Nocatee area to build all-inclusive residential communities.
The builders, Toll Brothers of Horsham, Pa., and Pulte Del Webb of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., plan to build about 3,000 single- and multi-family homes, condos and town homes on the land they purchased in early November.
Plans for one of the Nocatee town centers and two fire stations will go before the St. Johns County Planning and Zoning Agency at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The agency will consider a master development plan for a 589-home residential community and the donation of two fire station sites. The meeting will be at the county auditorium at 4020 Lewis Speedway in St. Augustine.
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