TSW’s 4,000+ Acre Mixed-use Project RiverTown Breaks Ground

Commercial Property News ran a story on RiverTown, a large mixed-use project just south of Jacksonville, Florida. TSW was responsible for the RiverTown Master Development Plan. View project cut sheets for the project:Overview (167 K) and Renderings (615 K).

4,170-Acre Mixed-Use Breaks Ground in Jacksonville
June 07, 2006
By Tonie Auer, Southwest Correspondent

After years of waiting to start, officials from the St. Joe Co. and St. Johns County in Jacksonville, Fla., finally broke ground on RiverTown, its 4,170-acre mixed-use project.

The two-phase, master-planned community is bounded by Greenbriar Road to the north, County Road 210 to the southeast and the St. Johns River to the west and southwest. RiverTown is just south of Jacksonville and approximately 20 miles from the beaches of Northeast Florida. The land along the east bank of the St. Johns River has been held by St. Joe since 1930 and was historically used for timber production.

St. Joe received development approval in February 2004 for the project, which will have 1,125 acres of wetlands, 3.5 miles of riverfront and a 58-acre public park on the St. Johns. Access to RiverTown will be primarily from RiverTown Parkway, which will be extended past Bartram Trail High School, Greenbriar Road and State Road 13.

St. Joe plans to begin sales later this year and expects the first closings in 2007. The development will have seven distinct neighborhoods connected to a central square. It will include 4,500 single- and multifamily homes, 100,000 square feet of office space, 300,000 square feet of retail and commercial service space, 100,000 square feet of light industrial space and an 18-hole golf course. St. Joe has proposed a built-out date of 2016 for the RiverTown community.

St. Joe worked with design firm Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh & Associates of Atlanta to create the RiverTown Master Development Plan. Town center architects are Looney Ricks Kiss of Memphis; and golf course architect will be Hurdzan-Fry of Columbus.

Sales of RiverTown sites are expected to begin in the fourth quarter with a limited number of closings expected before the end of the fiscal year, according to the company’s first quarter 2006 reports. No financial information on the project was disclosed.