Off the Island

Drive a few miles north of the Jacksonville" target="_blank">Duval County line on I-95 and take any exit. Within seconds you're likely to find yourself on a country lane flanked by thick pine forests growing dark and cool. Scattered mailboxes or secluded gravel-covered drives disappearing into the brush suggest a few secluded homesteads.

But looks can be deceiving. Pull off the road, turn off your engine and listen a minute. You're likely to hear the sounds of growth: the beep, beep, beep of a backhoe moving into position, the roar of a chainsaw, the whine of a drill.

You're in Nassau County, one of the fastest-growing counties in Florida. From July 2002 to July 2003, more than 6,000 new homes in 36 developments were approved for construction, mostly in the Yulee area. And the trend has only accelerated over the past year.

Today, the county's population is still mostly clustered on 13.5-mile-long Amelia Island, Florida's northernmost barrier island and home to pristine protected beaches, rolling dunes, manicured golf courses and some of the priciest real estate in the region.

At the island's southern end is Amelia Island Plantation, a 3,500-acre country club community that set the standard for environmentally friendly development when it debuted in 1973. At the island's northern end is funky Fernandina, a historic, picture-postcard city and site of the raucous Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival.

But as Amelia Island approaches buildout, most of Nassau County's growth is moving west, to once overlooked inland communities such as Yulee, Hilliard, Callahan and Bryceville-but especially Yulee, the county's largest unincorporated area.

"There's no question that our little country hamlet has been discovered," says Norman Bray, executive vice-president of Amelia Island Plantation. "Development on the island has just about been completed, so people who want the Nassau County lifestyle have nowhere to go but onto the mainland."

Not that building on Amelia Island has come to a halt. There are a handful of infill projects within existing communities and several intriguing niche neighborhoods where new homes are still available.

The Plantation, for example, has 75 condominium units left to build before the development will be complete. Prices in the last new projects, Dunes Club Villas and Spyglass, will range from $400,000 to more than $2.5 million.

Bray says that 2003 was the first year in the past seven years that new home sales in the Plantation didn't break a record-but that's just because there were fewer new homes to sell. Resales more than took up the slack, topping $73 million.

Smaller island developments such as Summer Beach-which boasts the internationally renowned Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island within its borders-also have some new patio homes and villas. Patio homes in Summer Beach West are priced from the high $300s and villas in The Villas at Summer Beach are priced from the high $200s.

Single-family homes, courtyard homes, townhomes and "garden cottages" are available in Amelia Park, a traditional neighborhood development with historically themed homes built along narrow streets with public squares and a pedestrian-friendly town center.

The 421-home community, located near the Fernandina Historic District, is being developed by Joel Embry and Michael Antonopoulus. Brian Lendry of Brylen Homes is the builder.

Prices in Amelia Park range from the $170s for cottages, which range in size from 1,200 to 1,300 square feet, to more than $270,000 for single-family homes. With the single-family homes, buyers have the option of adding square footage over the garage for so-called "granny flats."

Unquestionably, everyone loves Amelia Island. But buyers are discovering that the "other" Nassau County-the mainland portion-has its own charms.

Clyde Goodbread, executive vice president of the Amelia Island/Nassau County Association of Realtors and son of a Yulee farmer, says it's the laid-back ambience of the county's western frontier that makes it so attractive.

"We don't have the hustle-bustle of a Jacksonville or an Orlando," Goodbread says. "There's a relaxed atmosphere, and so far, the development we've had has complemented the natural surroundings."

But the pace is picking up.

The residential boom around Yulee, especially in the vicinity of S.R. A1A and Chester Road/Amelia Island Concourse, has already sparked plans for a 150,000-square-foot expansion of Trevett Construction Group's Lofton Square shopping center. The expansion will be anchored by the county's first multi-screen movie theater.

Facilitating more growth is a planned extension of Amelia Concourse from its current terminus at LandMar's successful North Hampton subdivision to C.R. 107. Several new subdivisions are slated along that 3.5-mile, four-lane corridor, including Montgomery Land Company's 750-lot Amelia National.

In fact, county planners estimate that of 10,000 new homes to be built in Nassau County over the next 20 years, 7,000 of them will be in and around Yulee.

And where new homes are built, new shopping centers are sure to follow. For example, Kimco Development Company's Shops at Amelia Concourse, slated for the northwest corner of A1A and Chester Road, will include 450,000 square feet of retail space and 15 outparcels.

The Yulee area even has a new Loew's Home Improvement and a Super Wal-Mart-proof positive that the community's days as a sleepy rural outpost have officially ended.

Goodbread and others say there's concern that overdevelopment could affect the rural charm of mainland Nassau, turning it into another ubiquitous Jacksonville suburb. "People are saying, 'let's take it slow and do it right,'" notes Goodbread. "High on our wish list would be to maintain our unique charm."

Fortunately, state and federally protected wetlands make up huge tracts of Nassau County, a happenstance that helps ensure room between developments. Commercial pine forests buffer the towns of Hilliard and Callahan in western Nassau, where working family farms still dot the landscape.

Judi Raczynski, sales manager for Coldwell Banker in Fernandina Beach, says one reason for Yulee's popularity is price and variety. "There are homes in the $120s up to a half-million or more," notes Raczynski. "It covers the spectrum."

Among the Yulee-area developments already under way is North Hampton, a 600-lot country club community built around an 18-hole Arnold Palmer-designed golf course. Homes are priced from the $200s to the $400s.

Other hot sellers include Cartesian Pointe, a 220-lot development with single-family homes priced from the low- to mid-$100s, and Oyster Bay Harbors, a boating community with a marina, tennis courts, a pool and clubhouse. Oyster Bay Harbor homes are priced at $400,000 and up.

Small developments with half-acre or larger lots include Chester Road and Arnold Ridge, each offering homes priced at less than $250,000, and Harrison Cove, a gated community where homes are priced from the $300s to the $400s.

The developers of Amelia Island Plantation are also looking westward. Just across from Amelia Island on the Intracoastal Waterway, the Amelia Island Company is planning Brady Point Preserve, a high-end community of 76 single-family homes on lots sized at one acre or larger. Marshfront and lakefront homes will likely top $2 million.

Another upscale mainland project, Lighthouse Pointe, will be a gated, walled traditional neighborhood development with 143 homes built to replicate the architecture of historic Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans. The 72-acre site will include a five-acre lake, a five-acre park and a deepwater yacht club.

"No two floorplans will be the same," says developer Strictland Holloway, who adds that Lighthouse Pointe lots will be priced from $85,000 to $550,000 for a parcel overlooking the Bells River.

Mark Major, senior planner for Nassau County, says the county is, for better or worse, the right place at the right time.

"Nassau County in general and Yulee in particular is at the apex of two growth pressures," Major says. "The first is from Amelia Island, which is getting built out, and the second is from Greater Jacksonville."

The challenge, residents say, is to avoid getting squeezed to death between the two. Local officials are choosing to be proactive. Growth is being controlled through a county-sponsored Development of Regional Impact study incorporating 58 square miles of land from I-95 to C.R. 17.

"Are we afraid of losing our rural atmosphere? Sure we are," says Major. "But we're working hard to keep Nassau County the kind of place people will want to be part of."