NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — A new master-planned community in Nassau County broke ground Friday afternoon, as developers and county officials with shovels in hand posed for pictures in front of what will become a new park.
The Tributary development will take shape west of Interstate-95 on a 1,500-acre parcel of land, with around 3,200 homes planned for the community.
"I think we'll have a mix of everyone," said Grady Miars, President of GreenPointe Developers LLC. "There will be room for families and a lot of people that will commute to Jacksonville, and also the 'empty-nesters' and some age-restricted people."
As part of the new "mixed-use" community, GreenPointe will develop Tributary Park. The 40-acre regional park will be about a mile south of A1A along Edwards Road, with the first phase anticipated to be completed in early 2021.
"It's really just part of the expansion of what's going on in Nassau County," Miars said. "There's just unbelievable opportunities, and then our access to the river is really unparalleled. It's going to give us great recreational amenities for our residents."
Tributary Park will feature baseball and multi-use fields, concessions, a multi-purpose trail and a future dog park. The residential community will include a trail system, parks on the river, as well as commercial and office space.
GreenPointe is also donating to the county land near Tributary for the future construction of a school in the area.
The Changing Face of Nassau County
During Friday's groundbreaking, multiple members of the Nassau County Board of County Commissioners (Nassau County BoCC), along with county department heads, joined developers and the former landowners.
"It's all about the future planning, and how we're planning now for tomorrow," said Commissioner Justin Taylor, whose district encompasses Tributary. "We need and value the developers who want to be truly good neighbors."
With its location about 1.6 miles west of Interstate-95 on A1A, Tributary is in an area of Nassau County that has remained largely undeveloped until recently.
Commissioners said they expect the "mixed-use" aspect of Tributary, including Tributary Park and the site donated for future school construction, to be the model for development in the county in the coming years.
"I think with the vision that we've laid out among county staff and with developers, this should be the future of Nassau County," said Commissioner Daniel Leeper.
In recent years, Nassau County residents have voiced concerns about increased traffic on A1A. On Your Side spoke with Adrienne Burke, Planning Director for Nassau County.
"Some of the six-land widenings is supposed to alleviate those traffic concerns," Burke said. "Traffic is something we have to take into account during development review and approval. It's something we certainly have to be concerned about, but we're working with ways to accommodate it."
Burke said road improvements in the area can be expected, and that the park and future school would mean residents would not have to travel down A1A for those resources.
On Your Side also spoke to Burke about development in Nassau County broadly, and what the future looks like.
"Population projections for Nassau County are projected, at the high end, to functionally double over the next 20 years," Burke said. "We know a lot of that growth is not just east of I-95, so there are going to be developments and changes west of I-95."
Western Nassau: Is Development Inevitable?
In December 2019, Nassau County's Department of Planning and Economic Opportunity released a "Vision Book" laying out plans for the entirety of the county west of I-95.
The first line of the report reads, "While development is knocking at Western Nassau’s door, there is time to get ahead of the curve and follow a plan that contains development to appropriate areas while maintaining the character in others."
Throughout the county west of I-95, which makes up around 80 percent of Nassau's total area, the land around the communities of Callahan and Hilliard remains mostly rural and undeveloped.
"There are a lot of newer residents who have moved here because of the rural lifestyle," Burke said. "So they're very concerned because they just got here and they want to help protect that."
The report, adopted by the Nassau County BoCC, was originally commissioned in 2007 to establish a 25-year vision for the future of the county.
Estimates listed in the report place Nassau County's population at 114,000 by 2030, making it the ninth-fastest growing county in Florida.
Through round-table discussions between the county, community groups and other organizations, as well as research by consultants, the report notes that there is strong interest in the western portions of Nassau to preserve a rural lifestyle and the natural habitat areas.
"That's going to be the challenge going forward," Burke said. "How do we keep that rural sense of character that people are here for? They've been here either for decades or are new, but that's what they're here for."
Burke said managing development while preserving small-town characteristics is going to be one of the major planning challenges for the county going forward.
We asked Burke a question with a difficult answer: at what point does development stop moving west?
"If you don't have a proactive policy, and make some hard decisions about where things start and stop, it could easily become sprawl," Burke said. "The vision book will hopefully help our elected officials with some of those decisions because ultimately you do have to put in clear structure about where certain things can go and where they can't go."
Conserving Natural Habitats
Recently, First Coast News reported on two Florida Panther kittens that have found a new home at White Oak Conservation. More than 17,000 acres of hardwood hammocks, pine forest and tidal wetlands along the St. Mary's River make up the conserve.
But White Oak is unique in Nassau County and stands as an example of land conservation through private finances. Land conservation through public funds, like Florida Forever, is a different area.
According to the report, Nassau County currently ranks 57th out of 67 Florida counties in terms of land set aside for conservation. Only 7 percent of Nassau's lands are protected, in comparison to an average of 29.5 percent in the top 54 counties.
December's report suggests the creation of a Conservation Land Acquisition and Management Program (CLAM), which could be used for "conserving environmentally sensitive lands and wildlife habitat, preserving working agricultural lands, and ensuring natural systems, such as wetlands and floodplains, remain functional."
"We have a lot of wetlands and floodplains in Nassau County, so we don't want to drive growth into areas that are vulnerable," Burke said.
The report suggests the BoCC could move forward with a referendum to establish a CLAM program in Nassau County. Other suggestions include rural conservation boundaries, conservation easements and purchase/transfer of development rights.
Burke said a decision on a major step forward in land conservation by the county will face voters in November 2020.
"There will be a ballot question about a conservation lands bond for Nassau County," Burke said. "It's 30 million dollars over 30 years, so helping to look for and acquire land in conservation."
A New Kind of Development
Grady Miars is confident that Tributary is the future of development in Nassau County, and that the new construction will result in a community, rather than just another neighborhood.
Burke said the new development is a starting point for rethinking how development happens.
"We're trying to get away from past development patterns where we put a lot of subdivisions on one road, kind of leading to one place where all the cars dump out on the same road," she said. "This type of model is a better way to do it."
It still remains to be seen just how far into the western portions of the county that development reaches. Burke said it is a reality that even Callahan is in the cross-hairs, as an increasing number of people look for homes within commuting distance to Jacksonville.
With GreenPointe's donation of land for the future construction of a school, which would have to be funded by the county, Burke hopes Tributary is a model for a more localized form of development.
"That's one of the ways we're hoping to alleviate some of those traffic concerns especially on 200," she said. "By focusing more needs around neighborhoods."
At high estimates, more than 30 million people are expected to live in Florida by 2045. High estimates by the Bureau of Economics and Business Research put Nassau County's population around 144,000 by 2045.
Putting it bluntly, there is an incredibly large amount of growth expected statewide. The impacts of that growth have yet to be seen.
"People are coming, that's not going to change," Burke said. "We have to be prepared to accommodate them in a way that's smart for Nassau County."