JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In a county growing as fast as St Johns County there are areas that struggle to keep up.
But, that is starting to change for Hastings.
A community that is finally seeing millions of dollars in improvements.
The county recently completed construction on a new drainage system under East St. Johns Avenue and North Orange Street.
It's just one of several improvements totaling $30 million.
The project has reduced flooding in the area.
“The engineers really did their job," Hastings native, Chris Stanton, said.
“This road was an area that flooded quite a bit after storms, hurricanes.”
New construction happens every day in St. Johns County, but new drainage and paved roads are hard to find in Hastings.
“While the rest of St. Johns County was thriving, the town was struggling and any major infrastructure project they just didn't have the wherewithal to get it done," Stanton said.
Hastings is known as the potato capital of Florida.
Stanton said farming industry changes shrunk hastings population, while utilities also became expensive.
In 2018, people voted to dissolve the town and become an unincorporated part of St. Johns County.
“This is one of the first projects they started working on." Stanton said.
The $4.4 million project is one of several recently completed.
Including an upgraded wastewater treatment plant and sewer upgrades.
“There's been a lot of work done by the county, I mean that you can't see it's a lot of it's under the streets and they've definitely paid an interest in getting the infrastructure corrected," Stanton said.
"There's still some blight that needs to be taken care of. There's a group trying to improve Main Street."
Hastings Main Street Inc. is a non-profit trying to revitalize Hastings' Main Street community.
"Over the past two years, we've acquired several other buildings on Main Street that you're going to see across the street that are all being renovated," Hastings Main Street Chair, Jena Dennis, said.
Davis has purchased several buildings on Main Street and has plans to bring an event space, and new coffee shop to Main Street.
She said the infrastructure improvement are vital for the future of Hastings.
St. Johns County said it will also invest $700,000 on roads in Hastings.
The only sidewalks in the town are on Main Street.
The county also said major progress has been made towards a new Hastings Library and Community Center. Construction will begin in July 2024 and finish in August 2025.