A Region Realizing Its Promise

To fully appreciate where Northwest Florida is today and its potential for the future, a look back is the best place to start.

As a precursor to much of the development ongoing in the region today, the duPont family and later The St. Joe Company acquired huge tracts of forest land from Jacksonville west to Pensacola. Edward Ball was made responsible for managing those investments.

While Florida’s Atlantic Coast was being developed, the coastal region of Northwest Florida remained pristine except for the town of Port St. Joe. The St. Joe Company built a paper mill there and shipped materials north by rail.

Ball developed SouthWood, a hunting plantation just outside of Tallahassee that he would call home for part of the year. He was known as a “curmudgeon” and ruled with an iron fist. He figures in a story told by St. Joe people today about a lost opportunity that could have changed the trajectory of Northwest Florida’s growth forever.

During the early 1960s, a California developer sought a meeting with Ball. After numerous calls, an appointment was made, and he traveled cross country intending to make a presentation at St. Joe’s corporate offices in Jacksonville.

The developer arrived for his 9 a.m. meeting on time but was left to sit all day without getting a chance to propose buying 5,000 acres north of Panama City adjacent to the planned interstate to be called I-10. At closing time, Ball had his secretary deliver a note to the visitor letting him know that he had no interest in meeting with a carnival guy.

The visitor was Walt Disney, who moved his project south near Orlando.

There are three major landowners in North Florida: the federal government, the State of Florida and St. Joe. The first two will never sell their land. In the mid-1990s, however, St. Joe strategically pivoted to become a development company and sold off rural inland properties. In 2013, it sold 383,834 acres in Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty and Wakulla counties to AgReserves, a private company owned by the Mormon church.

As a developer, The St. Joe Company is changing the face of Northwest Florida. It was a key player in bringing about the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport in Bay County and an emerging medical campus that will include Panama City Beach’s first hospital.

The company’s state-approved Bay and Walton counties sector plan envisions the creation of a new population center. In introducing its plan, St. Joe told local officials that in 40–50 years, it will have brought about a city to rival any in Florida. Today, that bold forecast is coming out of the ground in the form of Latitude Margaritaville Watersound and related developments.

St. Joe, of course, does not operate in a vacuum. It conducts business in a region that is rich in assets that include …

■ Eight military bases and the private military contractors that support them.

■  The Florida Capitol.

■ Florida State University, the University of West Florida, FSU Panama City, Florida A&M University, Northwest Florida State College, Tallahassee Community College and other institutions of higher learning.

■ Three deep-water ports in Pensacola, Panama City and Port St. Joe.

■ Two heavy rail lines emanating from Port Panama City and Port St. Joe.

■ The best beaches anywhere.

■ The world’s most powerful magnet at Tallahassee’s Innovation Park, a center of pioneering research.

■ A U.S. Customs facilities project in progress in Tallahassee.

■ A new Amazon distribution center in Tallahassee and a FedEx Ground facility in Bay County.

■ And, an inviting lifestyle built on relationships, trust, faith and hard work.

The future of our region is bright.

Stay positive,

Brian Rowland, Publisher
browland@rowlandpublishing.com