St. Joe Co. looking to Star Avenue
The northern reaches of Panama City will receive a fair amount of attention during today’s commission meeting.
Panama City commissioners will consider various land-use changes, including rezoning, annexing and future land-use map amendments, to several parcels of St. Joe Co. land located along North Star Avenue, south of Nadine Road. Panama City annexed large portions of the area years ago by going up the Bay Line Railroad right of way.
Angela Bradley, St. Joe’s planning manager for Bay and Walton counties, said the requested changes boil down to timing.
“It’s logical, because that area is growing,” she said.
Currently zoned for timberland, the company is requesting changes to commercial, residential and multipleuse designations. The largest requested changes involve 115 acres off Nadine Road (multiple use) and 90 acres on the west side of North Star Avenue (general commercial).
The city originally began annexing in the area in the 1990s because of industry needs.
“Several years ago, a decision was made that there needs to be additional industrial property ‘created,’ for lack of a better word,” said Assistant City Manager Jeff Brown.
Since that time, the area has developed to a point that St. Joe feels it needs to deal with its holdings in the area.
“There’s a couple of schools up there, it’d be nice to have some residential,” Bradley said.
To request the land changes, the company went through the appropriate local and state channels. Bradley said the company’s plans were tweaked to satisfy some concerns from the state Department of Community Affairs.
“If you don’t put a cap on development, DCA looks at the worst-possible scenario,” she said.
The caps St. Joe put on its development in the area include 600 multi-family units, 100,000 square feet of retail space, 150,000 square feet of general office and 100,000 square feet of light industrial.
Bradley said the company had not determined if it would develop the land, or sell it for another party to do so.
“It’s so early in the process we don’t know — we keep our options open,” she said. “The land-use changes are at the beginning of this process. It could take a few years to develop.”
As the area grows, it will need increasingly more attention from Panama City. Though somewhat geographically removed, Brown said fire and police services should not pose a problem in the future.
“We’ve already got those plans,” Brown said, adding the city already has a building to be used as a fire station and police substation. “As that population grows, we do have the facilities in place.”
The Panama City City Commission meets at 5 p.m. today at City Hall.