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NEWS
YOU CAN USE
Development to boost
Beach population
Sunday, August 12
(By Ed Offley News
Herald Writer)
PANAMA
CITY BEACH
Without fanfare or
ceremony, the St. Joe
Company has initiated
the largest mixed-use
residential community in
city history that, upon
completion in 2018, will
boost the current
full-time population by
65 percent.
The
Jacksonville-based land
development company on
July 20 quietly
submitted a formal
development application
to the city for the
Breakfast Point
community, which will be
built on a 1,414-acre
tract of land north of
Back Beach Road, between
Alf Coleman Road on the
west and Wildwood Road
on the east. All but 247
acres of the site are in
unincorporated Bay
County, so the project
includes a request for
annexation and rezoning
by the city of the other
1,167 acres.
As planned,
Breakfast Point upon
“buildout” in 2018 will
have a mix of 1,550
single-family homes and
1,550 multifamily units,
as well as 335,000
square feet of office
space and 300,000 square
feet of retail space.
The development document
indicates the company
will release land for
development of 141
singlefamily homes and
141 multifamily units
each year until the
project is complete.
Other features will
include a 200-bed
assisted-living
facility, a 125-room
hotel, and a number of
civic uses such as a
church or library
branch. An unspecified
number of other
facilities, such as
restaurants, fitness
centers and community
swimming pools, are
anticipated.
The company’s
request for approval of
the mixed-use community
shows that when fully
developed, Breakfast
Point will have a
year-round population of
6,555 residents — a
65-percent increase over
the current city
population of 10,005 —
and a seasonal
population of 1,090.
This includes a
school-age population of
1,088 children in grades
K-12. The Bay County
School Board earlier
this year began
constructing the $29.7
million Breakfast Point
Academy, a K-8 school
located within the
development site on land
St. Joe donated to the
district.
Commercial
activities at the site
will employ 1,673
people, including 560 in
retail, 857 in offices,
56 in the planned hotel
and 200 in the planned
assisted-living
facility, the
application states.
A company spokesman
said Breakfast Point
will be renowned for the
amount of open space,
hiking trails and other
natural features that
will remain intact.
“This is going to be
a very green community,
strongly connected to
the region,” St. Joe
Vice President Jerry Ray
said Friday. “It is a
community in a natural
setting, nature-based
living with this
extensive trail system
we will build.”
The company already
has announced that it
plans to retain more
than 4,000 acres lying
north of the site in a
natural conservation
district and will extend
the trail system from
the community north to
the West Bay shoreline,
where an Audubon Society
Nature Center already is
under development.
About 424 acres —
nearly one-third of the
tract — will remain
undeveloped, Ray said.
“This is a place for
people to live and raise
their children,” Ray
said.
Under state law,
construction projects
exceeding 1,000 units
must obtain local,
regional and state
approval as a
“Development of Regional
Impact,” or DRI. In
submitting its
application to Panama
City Beach, the company
has begun a bureaucratic
trek through multiple
government agencies that
could take anywhere from
one to two years before
it wins final approval,
said city Planning
Director Mel Leonard.
Breakfast Point is
the third — and by far
largest — DRI project
the city has considered,
Leonard said.
“Only Seahaven and
Pier Park were found to
have a regional impact,
and this is bigger than
either of them,” Leonard
added. Seahaven plans to
develop 2,952 units,
albeit on a much
smaller, 52-acre site
along Front Beach Road.
Among the agencies
that will review and
assess the planned
community are the West
Florida Regional
Planning Council, the
state Department of
Community Affairs, state
Departments of
Transportation and
Environmental
Protection, U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency and U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers.
Final approval will come
from the City Council
after the application
passes through the other
agencies for review.
However, St. Joe
already has received
permission from the city
to begin developing a
180-lot subdivision on
part of the 247-acre
parcel that is located
in the city. Under the
DRI regulations, a
developer may begin
actual work as long as
it does not pass the
1,000-unit threshold
before all of the
approvals and hearings
are complete.
Ray said his
company’s economists and
planners assess that,
despite cooling real
estate market conditions
elsewhere in the state
and nation, there will
be no shortage of
families wanting to
build and live in the
new community.
“The market will
tell us what to do,” Ray
said. “Right today, what
we think is going to
happen is that there
will be demand aplenty.” |
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