A Growing Region

The future of Northwest Florida is looking brighter every day

One of the most challenging decisions we had to make for this issue was selecting six realtors to profile in our feature story.

Real estate is one of the largest industries throughout Northwest Florida, and there were so many professionals to choose from; however, we managed to narrow the list down to a small group of commercial realtors with unique regional market perspectives — Stewart Proctor, J.R. Long, Justin Beck, DeeDee Davis, William Brock and Slaton Murray — and they graciously shared their ingredients for success and chatted with us about current market conditions and industry trends. We hope you’ll find this story as illuminating as we do.

Also in this issue, we do a deep dive into the rapidly growing economy of Bay County and the efforts of leadership to find balance in the military and tourism sectors, which are currently the main foundation pillars of the economy. As is often said in finance, a balanced portfolio is critical to long-term financial success and stability. The St. Joe Company has reacted to the creation of the new city of WaterSound by constructing a platform capable of sustaining an increasing population in well-planned residential sectors. This growth model will require collaborative efforts from visionaries and leaders in the 850 region to lay the groundwork for Northwest Florida’s future, and more businesses will be called on to support the growing community’s needs.

The uncontrolled growth of Central and South Florida has caused immense pain to the region’s infrastructure and overall quality of life. Though some growing pains are inexorable, I believe we have the right development companies in place, like St. Joe, to minimize disruptions to our community during the expansion phase. By looking at our growth with a long eye, as far into the future as 2050, we are transforming Northwest Florida into a touchstone for our growing nation.

It’s going to take a whole lot of concrete to build the region — SRM Concrete is making a $30 million investment in Bay County today by transforming the decommissioned West Rock Paper Mill on deep water channels into part of the largest ready-mix concrete supplier in the country, so we have the ingredients from around the world to make the mud that hardens the concrete. The region is in good hands, and our economic future is very bright.

Take care,