Mattamy Buys Jacksonville-Area Master-Planned Site for $43M

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor

St. Johns County, Fla.—Mattamy Homes has acquired the RiverTown property from the St. Joe Co. for $43.6 million. RiverTown is a master-planned community in greater Jacksonville, and so far in its early stages, with about 150 families living there. Ultimately, as many as 10,000 people could live there in single-family and multifamily properties, along with some commercial development.

RiverTown is on about 4,057 acres, and St. Joe—a major property owner in northern and northwestern Florida—began development in 2008, just as demand for new homes and other kinds of properties slumped. Besides the small number of houses, St. Joe put a number of amenities in place during its ownership, including sports fields, a pool, playgrounds, and a 58-acre park along the St. Johns River.

Mattamy plans to create a new entrance to the property on Long Leaf Pine Parkway, to make it more accessible to I-95. The company, which is Canadian, is no stranger to the Jacksonville market. It has had a presence there for more than 10 years, and currently operates 10 developments in the area. It has been one of the homebuilders active in RiverTown.

The new owner is now in the process of formalizing what home sites, styles and sizes will go where in the site. No specific plans for multifamily properties have been released, but Mattamy expects to include that kind of residential property. Sales and construction overall will begin late this year, and ultimately the build out may last as long as 15 years.

St. Joe, formerly headquartered in Jacksonville, moved in 2010 to WaterSound in the Florida panhandle, where most of its developments are. In previous decades it was a timber producer, but now the company now focuses on real estate development; among its more notable properties is WaterColor, a residential and resort development on the ocean neighboring the famed new urbanist town of Seaside, Fla.