Rebuilding
DuPont, who hired a planner to develop a model, died before his plan could make it off paper. His successor, brother-in-law Edward Ball, pushed the model town idea aside as too expensive. Instead, Ball opened the company's trademark paper mill at the town (the mill also was part of duPont's plan) and pressed full-steam ahead to make money, grow pine trees and assemble St. Joe Co.'s million-acre forested empire.
Today, St. Joe Co. has crafted a new-age plan in a venture with Smurfit-Stone, which owns the site of the former mill, which was recently razed. The $344-million blueprint for redeveloping the 126-acre former mill site and re-creating downtown includes a new City Hall and fire station, 598 residential units, a hotel, festival and entertainment area and some 325,000 square feet of office and retail space. The plan will make 4,100-population Port St. Joe "a great city, a beautiful area," says Frank Pate, the town's 37-year mayor.
"It's the emotional heart of the company," St. Joe Co. Vice President John Hendry says of Port St. Joe.
One key component of the recently drafted redevelopment plan will be to put a port back in Port St. Joe, the town that project manager John Hendry, St. Joe Co. vice president, calls the "emotional heart" of the company. St. Joe Co. owns 65% of the land in Gulf County.
The company's plans for the town are meant to dovetail with its plans for Windmark Beach, an upscale, 2,000-acre beachfront development two miles north, which will consist of 1,662 homes, with waterfront lots likely going for $1 million-plus. Port St. Joe will provide shopping and entertainment amenities for those residents, in line with what potential customers say they want, says Hendry -- "real places," not wealthy enclaves.
A possible spoiler could be failure to agree on the process for re-establishing a port, which the plan sites north of town, on the barge canal. Building a new port could take years with no guarantees, insists recently hired Port Authority Deputy Director Ken Karpinski. Port promoters want temporary use of the bulkhead and old shipping channel, which served the old port -- which in turn served only the mill. Redevelopment proponents fear that if shipping is renewed at that site, the relocation might be prolonged.
Marine-related jobs are an obvious choice for supporting residents, who'll provide taxes for town revenue, says Hendry. "The city will love to see this issue resolved, and so will we."