KnowYourOptions.com provides information in both English and Spanish. Features include:

• Interactive Options Finder helps homeowners identify options.

• Calculators help borrowers understand how many of the options would work in their situation, including calculations about refinance, repayment, forbearance, and modification.

• Videos feature real homeowners discussing how they received help; others feature housing counselors giving advice.

• Forms – including a financial checklist and contact log – to help borrowers prepare for a meeting with their mortgage company or housing counselor.

• Information on refinancing, repayment plans, forbearance, modifications and Deed-for-Lease.

• Out-of-the-box alternatives, including short sales and deeds-in-lieu for homeowners who recognize that they can no longer afford their mortgages, but want to avoid a foreclosure on their credit history

More info: www.KnowYourOptions.com.

© 2010 Florida Realtors®

St. Joe, which owns 577,000 acres in Florida, filed suit in a Delaware court seeking damages as the paper company-turned-developer seeks to recover losses brought on by the threat of oil soaked beaches. About 70 percent of St. Joe’s Florida holdings lie within 15 miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

“We believe that Halliburton was grossly negligent and bears full responsibility for this tragic accident,” William A. Brewer III, lead counsel for St. Joe, said in a statement. “We believe Halliburton’s participation in the cementing process – and the company’s willful disregard of important safety measures – make it liable for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and the catastrophic damages that it caused.”

The lawsuit claims Halliburton, one of the world’s largest cementing companies, committed numerous errors when pouring the casing for the BP Deepwater Horizon well. Among a litany of complaints, the suit says Halliburton opted for a faster, less expensive procedure to finish its work and did not use enough centralizers to secure the work.

The company reported that the explosion took place 20 hours after it had finished its work on the Deepwater rig. Cement used in the procedure usually sets within 18 to 24 hours.

“Halliburton has not seen this lawsuit yet,” said Halliburton spokeswoman Teresa Wong. “But from the information we have seen in the media so far, it appears to be without merit and we will vigorously defend it.”

Feds say most of the oil has been recovered

Also on Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report saying 74 percent of the 4.9 million gallon Deepwater spill had evaporated, been collected or dispersed. The remaining 26 percent is either on, or just below, the surface as residue and weathered tarballs, or it has washed ashore.

“Teams of scientists and experts have been carefully tracking the oil since day one of this spill, and based on the data from those efforts and their collective expertise, they have been able to provide these useful and educated estimates about the fate of the oil,” says Jane Lubchenco, a NOAA administrator. “Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn’t oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes aren’t still at risk.”

The estimates do not make assumptions on long-term impacts of oil on the Gulf, a process Lubchenco says will take time.

In other news, BP officials said Wednesday their “top kill” operation seems to have plugged the well that was temporarily capped late last month. The procedure involves injecting drilling mud into the borehole and using the weight of the mud to stop the leak. Cement is then typically added.

Source: News Service of Florida, Michael Peltier

Even suffering through the paperwork and stress of a short sale may seem too much for an overwhelmed borrower to handle.

But Florida homeowners should be aware of unique rules in the state that make the benefits of a short sale typically outweigh the ease of walking away in a foreclosure.

“I want to be very clear on this, short sales are a better solution than a foreclosure, even when all the options in a situation where you lose your house are not great,” said Mark Greene, owner and president of Short Sale Operations LLC in North Palm Beach.

The biggest difference between Florida and many other states when it comes to losing a home is the deficiency judgment.

While some states ban lenders from collecting the remainder owed on a loan after a foreclosure or short sale is completed, Florida law allows banks to go after borrowers for up to 20 years. That can lead to a garnishment of wages long after the home is gone.

In a short sale, where the bank agrees to take a lesser amount for the home than what is owed on a loan, lenders sometimes are willing to write off the deficiency on the front end.

Greene said in 90 percent of the cases he handles, the bank has waived its right to seek a deficiency.

That was the case with Jupiter resident Kathryn Lorello, who in 2008 found herself in a home she couldn’t afford.

Following a divorce, and with three children, Lorello bought a $408,000 home that she lived in comfortably for a year. But then she lost her job as a manager of a real estate company.

She remembers the day the bank served the notice of foreclosure.

“I cried my eyes out,” Lorello said. “That’s when I panicked because I really didn’t want it to happen.”

Lorello got advice from Greene on doing a short sale.

Her bank, Wells Fargo, waived its right to seek a deficiency even though it ended up taking $200,000 less than what was owed on the loan.

Also, if a bank refuses to waive the deficiency in a short sale, it still would have to go back to court to seek a judgment.

In a foreclosure, at the end of the proceeding, a deficiency judgment is automatically awarded by the courts and the bank is free to seek a claim.

“In the past, people just wanted to move from the property and get on with their lives and didn’t understand what the lenders’ rights were in terms of pursuing a deficiency claim,” said Paul Baltrun, director of loss mitigation at the LaBovick & La-Bovick law firm.

“I think people are more aware now about what can happen after the fact and that their nightmare can continue.”

Another consideration is the effect of a foreclosure or short sale on credit.

According to the Fair Isaac Corp., which developed the widely used measurement of credit risk called a FICO score, the negative effect of a foreclosure is only marginally worse than a short sale.

But in Florida, a deficiency judgment from a foreclosure is likely to have a much larger impact that will prohibit your ability to buy another home for many years.

Daniel Poulos, a mortgage broker with Elite Lending in North Palm Beach who has studied the effect of foreclosures and short sales on credit, said unless a borrower pays off the deficiency, it may be 20 years before someone is eligible for another mortgage.

“That’s the kind of information that’s not getting out in Florida,” Poulos said.

There are a few situations where some experts believe it is better for someone to go to foreclosure rather than do a short sale.

To do a short sale, a borrower must give all of his or her financial information to the bank before it will decide whether to allow the short sale. The idea is that if a person can afford to pay the mortgage, the short sale may be denied.

“Now the lender knows everything about your finances and they can better decide whether they will go after you or not,” said Jon Maddux, CEO of YouWalkAway.com, a company that advises people on strategic defaults.

If a lender doesn’t know your finances, Maddux argues, it reduces the chances it will go after you following a foreclosure.

“You might fly under the radar,” he said. “With the millions of people going through this, they are probably going to go after the low-hanging fruit.”

Copyright © 2010, The Palm Beach Post, Fla., Kimberly Miller. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

In a 15-page ruling, the nation’s highest court agreed with the state that beachfront owners are not severely harmed when renourishment efforts extend the distance their properties lie from the shoreline by, in essence, expanding the shoreline seaward.

The case stems from recovery efforts following Hurricane Opal, when Destin and Walton County began a process of pumping sand onto beaches, establishing a boundary line between public and private land to control future erosion.

Stop the Beach Renourishment, a not-for-profit group of six landowners, argued before the Supreme Court that these augmented beaches deprived them of direct beachfront access and should be considered a taking of their land. The First District Court of Appeal (DCA) agreed.

But the nation’s high court upheld the 2008 state Supreme Court opinion that overturned the earlier DCA decision. The state has a “constitutional duty to protect Florida’s beaches,” according to the Florida Supreme Court, and was within its rights by moving forward with renourishment.

Landowners’ rights were not violated, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, even if the extra sand increased the distance between the landowners’ property lines and the water.

“Regardless of whether an … event exposes land previously submerged or submerges land previously exposed, the boundary between (private) property and sovereign land does not change,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. “It remains (ordinarily) what was the mean high-water line before the event.”

Attorneys for the landowners said Thursday they we disappointed in the ruling, saying it further diminishes private property protections guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

“Private property rights are a legacy forged in the American Revolution by our Founding Fathers and passed on to us through the generations,” attorneys Kent Safriet and Richard Brightman of Hopping, Green & Sams wrote in a joint statement following the high court ruling. “They are a cornerstone of our society’s prosperity and freedom. Today’s ruling weakens those rights to the detriment of private property owners everywhere.”

Source: News Service of Florida, Michael Peltier

High-end Brazilian buyers prefer to be wooed more intimately – perhaps at a cocktail party or a small private dinner – but they are just as pumped.

Lured by rock-bottom prices, international buyers are now flocking to buy Florida properties. It’s especially true in countries where the currency is strong against the dollar.

“We’re telling Canadians this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – the perfect storm,” said Brian Ellis, who heads Toronto-based Florida Home Finders of Canada. “The prices are just incredible and the Canadian dollar has been so strong.”

At least three of five buyers in the Greater Downtown Miami condo market are coming from abroad, estimates Jenny Huertas, international sales director for Condo Vultures, a real estate advisory and research firm.

The stampede from overseas is “kind of like a foreign subsidy helping us resolve our real estate problems,” said Peter Zalewski, a Condo Vultures principal. “This time the assistance isn’t coming from Washington. It’s coming from Caracas, London, Milan, Bogota.”

The buying frenzy was set off by developers lowering prices on new units to below what it costs to build in today’s market, Huertas said.

“There were many people on the sidelines watching for the floor. In the last three or four months there’s the perception that we’re there,” said developer Edgardo Defortuna, president and chief executive of Fortune International.

Cash customers

Most of the foreigners are cash buyers like Leroy Jean Francois, who has snapped up 47 properties since January for the two real estate firms he works for in France and Switzerland. The plan, he said, is to buy, fix up if necessary, rent out for the next five years, then sell – for a profit.

The Frenchman has already made a paper profit on a unit he closed on in January at Marquis Residences, a 67-story luxury tower in downtown Miami where prices for a one-bedroom apartment start at $375,000. His unit cost $317 per square foot – “a great price, incredible,” he said.

A recent plunge in the euro – it’s now worth $1.23, down from its high of more than $1.60 in 2008 – could cool things off a little. To buy a $1 million condo, it now takes around 814,000 euros compared to 625,000 euros under the old exchange rate.

Meantime, prices at Marquis Residences also have strengthened to around $400 per square foot.

But even the declining euro has barely given Francois pause.

“I think the euro will weaken more. But even if the exchange rate is $1 to 1 euro, South Florida real estate is still a great bargain for us,” said Francois, who is president of The Bridge, a real estate fund consultancy.

Average Joes

Luxury condos are once again popular among Latin America buyers who purchase them as investments but also as a home base. While their children attend school here, they attend to business interests or escape strife at home.

But for his Canadian buyers, Ellis scours South Florida for condo units at around the $150,000 price point. “We’re basically the Wal-Mart. We’re for the average Joe.”

And these days average Joe Canadian can afford much more. For decades the U.S. dollar was worth more than the Canadian dollar and buying in the U.S. was always more expensive for Canadians. But in September 2007, the Canadian dollar reached parity with the greenback for the first time in 31 years. It fell back again, but now the Canadian loonie, which takes its name from the loon pictured on the one-dollar coin, is near parity at around 95 cents.

So Ellis has been offering his Florida real estate seminars to packed houses in Ontario and is thinking about taking the show on the road to Montreal. There was so much interest in the latest seminar that he had to schedule two sessions for 400 people each this Sunday.

Most of his Canadian buyers are what Ellis calls “end-vestors,” meaning they plan on renting a unit out for now with an eye toward using it themselves down the road.

Since Home Finders is licensed as a brokerage only in Canada, it works with Florida brokers who complete the sales and pay the Canadian firm referral fees. By year’s end, Ellis said he expects to have facilitated 500 Florida closings.

May 23rd Grand Opening Right on Schedule

Panama City, Florida – (May 11, 2010) – The Panama City Bay County Airport and Industrial District (Airport Authority) today announced that Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport has received its Part 139 Airport Operating Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. The new airport is scheduled to begin service Sunday, May 23.

“This is a significant milestone in the development of Northwest Florida’s newest airport,” said Airport Authority Chairman Joe Tannehill. “We want to thank our partners at the FAA in helping us to ensure that the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport meets all federal aviation safety requirements. This is indeed great news.”

As part of the certification process, FAA inspectors tested the new airport’s 10,000-foot runway, instrument landing equipment, navigational system, runway lighting and air traffic control tower. FAA air traffic controllers are now training in the control tower in preparation of the May 23rd opening.

Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport is still awaiting final approval from the Transportation Security Administration and a Certificate of Occupancy from Bay County for the 125,000-square-foot passenger terminal.

In other action today, the Airport Authority agreed to lease space at the new airport to Thrifty Car Rental. That brings to six the number of car rental companies that will be operating in the new airport. The others are: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz and National.

The $318-million Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport is the first commercial-service international airport built in the U.S. in the past 15 years. The new airport and its 10,000-foot runway are built on approximately 1,300 acres of a 4,000-acre site. The 125,000-square-foot passenger terminal features seven gates, two restaurants, two retail shops and six car rental ticketing counters.

Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines will offer daily nonstop service to Atlanta, Memphis, Orlando, Cincinnati, Houston, Baltimore and Nashville.

Contact:
Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport
Randy Curtis, Executive Director, 850-763-6751 ext. 203

“I think as far as Delta goes, and as far as Southwest goes, and as far as the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) goes, and as far as the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) goes, everything that needs to be done is in good hands,” Tannehill said Monday.

Jeff Dealy of KBR, program manager for the airport relocation project, said one decisive milestone will be a final TSA inspection next week of the fencing and badging (area-access) system. The TSA already has approved the facility’s $4 million baggage-handling system.

FAA officials were at the site Friday and the airport is expected to receive a crucial commercial service certification this week, Dealy said. That certification involves a check of employee training and documentation, aircraft rescue and firefighting procedures and a review of the airport’s emergency plans.

Tannehill said the ticket counters, security, rental car counters and other crucial components “will all be completed and ready for business” by the planned opening.

Airport Authority board members will gather this morning for their only meeting of the month, and there still are unresolved issues, such as the completion of the airport’s stormwater drainage system, particularly a fix to Pond C, Tannehill said.

“That is an ongoing issue that won’t affect the opening,” Tannehill said. “It won’t be a deal breaker as far as the opening of the airport. A lot of people are working very hard to do what needs to be done. I’m very confident.”

Crews have been racing to meet the May 23 deadline and complete the construction of the drainage filtration system, including Pond C, which airport board members recently discovered would need a $2 million “fix” to meet Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) specifications.

The DEP has said the airport faces daily fines if the filtration system, meant to clean stormwater before its release into the West Bay watershed, does not meet permit specifications.

Meanwhile, the Airport Authority has announced that a free shuttle service will assist travelers who park their cars and depart from the old Panama City-Bay County International Airport in Panama City, but don’t return until after the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport opens May 23 near West Bay.

The existing airport will be shut down May 22 and all airport operations transferred to the new airport. The shuttle will transport passengers and their luggage from the new airport to the old to retrieve their vehicles.

“We will continue to shuttle passengers back to the old airport until all the cars in the parking lot have been retrieved,” Tannehill said. “Rest assured that we won’t leave anyone stranded.”

A grand opening gala has been planned for the May 23 weekend, including the flight of two Southwest planes without passengers into the airport on Saturday, May 22, Tannehill said.

The Southwest planes will leave with passengers when the airport officially opens Sunday, May 23.

Free tickets are available for the May 22 community grand opening celebration of the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport.

Event coordinator Tammala Spencer said the day-long event will be free and open to the public, but tickets will be required. They will be available at several locations throughout Bay County, as well as one location in Walton County.

“We want to have as firm a count as we can of how many people will be coming,” Spencer said Thursday.

Spencer said the celebration, to be held at the new airport near West Bay just north of County 388, will include local and regional bands, including two local high school bands, food and drink vendors and tours of the new airport terminal building.

A grand opening ribbon-cutting will be held sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. that Saturday, Spencer said. The first plane will land on the new 10,000-runway, although Spencer would not say whether it would be Southwest Airlines or Delta Air Lines, the carriers that will operate from the new airport. Water cannons will be deployed as part of the celebration, she said.

The first day of routine passenger operations for the new $318 million airport is set for May 23, with the first flight — a Southwest flight to Orlando — scheduled to depart at 7:25 a.m., according to Southwest’s website.

“We hope everyone comes and helps us celebrate,” she said.

A free parking pass for May 22 can be downloaded from the Web site www.northwestfloridabeaches.com.

St. Joe itself is moving its headquarters to a site adjacent to the airport, relocating from its 75-year home in Jacksonville. The new headquarters, scheduled for completion by summer 2011, will also consolidate offices from Tallahassee, Port St. Joe and south Walton County.

Business leaders predict the airport eventually will form the nucleus of an entire new central business district. The facility also will help capture tourists from far outside the southeast market and lead to a surge in industrial development, they say. “It will be an airport city,” says airport director Randy Curtis.

“We’ll make it. The windows may not be washed, but we’ll make it,” he said.

They’d better. This is the first international airport built in the U.S. in 15 years, so it’s receiving a lot of attention.

“In my view, it’s not an option. It’s [May 23] a fixed date,” said Lisa Walters, a Panama City attorney who is the immediate past chairwoman of the Bay County Economic Development Alliance.

“The globe is watching us,” she said.

In particular, a group of executives who currently work in a Riverside Avenue office in Jacksonville are watching closely. Many economic development officials in the Panama City area are hoping the new airport will make the region more accessible and open up new opportunities. But no one will benefit more than The St. Joe Co., the Jacksonville-based company that owns 71,000 acres immediately surrounding the airport and 300,000 acres within 40 miles of the site.

“This is really the future of our company,” said Rod Wilson, president of the West Bay Sector for St. Joe. West Bay is the name given to the land adjacent to the airport that St. Joe intends to develop.
The new airport is in a remote area of Bay County surrounded by largely undeveloped land. But St. Joe and area economic officials envision practically a new city sprouting from the airport.

“We are creating a new central business district for the region,” said Kevin Johnson, St. Joe’s vice president of economic development who was brought in last fall to market West Bay.

“We have a greenfield opportunity,” Johnson said, referring to the vast area that is basically wide open for new and planned development.

“Greenfield opportunities are an anomaly.

“This is a very tide-changing opportunity for the state of Florida.”

The opportunity is so important to St. Joe that after being headquartered in Jacksonville for three-quarters of a century, the company will move its offices to a new building in West Bay next year so it can monitor development of the region more closely.

“To me, it’s about moving the company where the shareholders’ assets are,” said St. Joe Chief Executive Officer Britt Greene.

A brief history

St. Joe was formed after the death of Alfred I. duPont in 1935 as a holding company for duPont’s vast business assets. The businesses included a paper mill in Port St. Joe, which gave the company its name, but the corporate office was located in Jacksonville, where duPont lived. His brother-in-law who ran St. Joe after duPont’s death, Ed Ball, also lived in Jacksonville.

St. Joe’s diverse holdings included about 1 million acres of Florida real estate, much of that timberland in the Panhandle that duPont and Ball accumulated at discount prices in the 1920s.

The trust established by duPont’s estate controlled most of St. Joe’s stock. But after more shares were distributed to the general public in the 1990s, St. Joe came under pressure to increase profits by exploiting the development potential of its land holdings, which included prime beachfront locations along the Gulf of Mexico. St. Joe sold off its industrial properties and transformed into a real estate development company, bringing in Walt Disney Co. real estate executive Peter Rummell as CEO in 1997 to lead the transformation.

Over the next decade, St. Joe began creating new communities on the land it owned. Its signature development was WaterColor, a 499-acre residential community in Walton County that includes a resort hotel called the WaterColor Inn.

As the housing market slowed in the past few years, St. Joe again shifted its focus. In 2007, it announced a restructuring in which it transferred much of the development and management responsibilities of its properties to strategic partners. For example, while it still owns the WaterColor Inn, the hotel is operated by a third-party management company.

Rummell retired in 2008 and was succeeded by Greene at a time when home sales at St. Joe’s communities were drying up. St. Joe reported net losses in 2008 and 2009, but company officials have been largely unconcerned about short-term results, turning their attention instead to the opportunities presented by the opening of the Panama City airport. And they are looking at opportunities far into the future.

“This is not a five-year deal for us. This is not a 10-year deal. This is a 50- to 75-year deal for us,” said Johnson.

High hopes for airport

The new airport is being built on 4,000 acres donated by St. Joe. Although it gave up the land free, the deal created a big business opportunity for St. Joe because of all the land it owns surrounding the airport. But St. Joe did not initiate the project.

The relocation of the existing Panama City airport began in the mid-1990s when the Airport Authority was considering ways to extend its runway to bring in larger jets. The current airport can accommodate only regional carriers, which limits the flights that go in and out of Panama City.

“We have just a few places you could go,” said Tannehill. But with the 10,000-foot runway at the new airport, “we can land the 747s in here.”
After determining there was no room at the current location to extend the runway, the airport authority approached St. Joe in 1998 about using some of its land to build a new airport.

As the project proceeded, it faced opposition from environmental groups that were concerned about the impact of the airport construction. And it also faced opposition from local residents who didn’t see the need for a new airport. In fact, Bay County residents rejected the airport in a nonbinding referendum in 2004 by a vote of 54 percent to 46 percent. But the business community embraced the airport and the project continued.

“Panama City’s historically been a tough place to get to,” said Wayne Stubbs, executive director of the Port of Panama City.

“We’re all going to benefit from the accessibility.”

After fending off several legal challenges from environmental groups, ground was broken for the airport in 2007.

Already, the airport, aided by St. Joe, secured a deal with Southwest Airlines to begin service May 23 with eight daily flights in and out of Panama City. St. Joe showed its interest in bringing more flights to Panama City by agreeing to reimburse Southwest for any losses during its first three years of operation at the airport.

“My guess is it’s not going to be a large number,” said Greene.

The St. Joe CEO said he sees the Southwest deal as a marketing investment to make sure more people visit Panama City and see what the region has to offer.

“Once they’re there, we know we can win them over,” he said.

St. Joe had originally targeted people in the Southeastern U.S. to buy property in its residential communities as vacation or retirement homes, because those people can drive to the Panhandle. But Greene said the

Southwest flights open the market to people in Chicago and Northeastern cities who can now get to Panama City more easily.

“We can connect to areas of the country that were inaccessible,” he said.
Plans for West Bay

St. Joe’s development of the West Bay Sector, the 71,000 acres it owns surrounding the airport, begins with a three-phase plan totaling 1,000 acres. The first phase consists of 100 acres on the road leading to the airport that will be used for office space plus potential retail uses, such as an airport hotel and restaurants.

So far, the only project that’s actually been announced for the site is the office building St. Joe will construct for its headquarters. But Johnson expects interest to pick up as the airport opens.

“We’re at a stage now where we can really see that this is happening. There’s no mystery to this event any longer,” he said.

The plan includes 600 acres immediately accessible to the airport runway that can accommodate aerospace businesses.

But Johnson said the company is not limiting the type of businesses that can move into West Bay.

“We define it as a place where you can create virtually any type of opportunity that fits into our model,” he said.

The Panhandle region is already an aerospace center with a navy base and six aviation-related military bases, and 1,900 aerospace and defense-related businesses, according to Florida’s Great Northwest, an economic development organization for the region. So bringing in more aerospace companies is a natural fit for the airport.

“The low-hanging fruit is the aerospace industry,” said Wilson of St. Joe.

But Al Wenstrand, president of Florida’s Great Northwest, expects to see the region open to businesses such as health services, medical technologies and logistics and distribution.

Wenstrand sees the potential to create a new metropolitan area on the now vacant land around the airport.

“It has the opportunity to be done correctly,” he said. “This is an opportunity I didn’t see anywhere else.”

Walters of the Economic Development Alliance said it’s up to the community to take advantage of the opportunity.

“We have to make a great first impression. We have to continually market ourselves,” she said.

“Shame on us if we don’t take advantage of that opportunity.”

‘Aerotropolis’ concept

The notion of a new “city” sprouting from the Panama City airport is not far-fetched, according to John Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina.

Kasarda has developed the concept of an “aerotropolis” to describe new development of business and entertainment venues within a 15-minute drive of an airport.

“The key to the aerotropolis is time-cost accessibility,” said Kasarda. “What the aerotropolis does is lay out a plan for intelligent growth.”

He sees the Panama City airport as “the ideal proof of concept” for his theory.

“It’s basically a blank canvas,” he said. “There are so few greenfield airports.”

Kasarda thinks St. Joe has done a good job with its plans for the airport area.

“The West Bay Sector plan is an excellent aerotropolis plan,” he said.

But St. Joe is not getting unanimous support. John Hedrick, chairman of the Panhandle Citizens Coalition, a group that opposed the airport, is concerned about the pace of development in the region.

“Short of no airport, probably having as little development as possible” is his hope for the region.

Hedrick’s group is now trying to drum up support for Amendment 4, the Florida ballot measure that would allow the public to vote on comprehensive land-use changes.

“We’re hoping to minimize [the airport's] impact and we hope that things like Amendment 4 will help us do that. The citizens did not want this in the first place,” he said, referring to the 2004 vote.

But Greene said St. Joe acts responsibly in developing its properties, including environmental concerns.

“We believe there’s inherent value in protecting the environment around development. All our projects are environmentally tuned to the land,” he said.

Greene points specifically to the West Bay plan, which sets aside 39,000 of St. Joe’s 71,000 acres to be preserved for nature.

“It’s very rare for a company to set aside 39,000 acres around a new airport for environmental protection. I think that’s extraordinary,” he said.

First Coast still in play

The West Bay Sector is St. Joe’s immediate concern, but it also owns the 300,000 acres within 40 miles of the airport and 577,000 acres in total. Much of that is unplanned for development right now.

“There are probably going to be a number of opportunities that we’re not even thinking about yet,” said Greene.

One project in the Jacksonville area that remains is the 4,170-acre RiverTown residential community in northern St. Johns County, where home sales have stopped because of the recession. But Greene is still optimistic about that project when the economy improves.

“RiverTown is still a viable project,” he said.

St. Joe also has a joint venture with Regency Centers Corp. to build a mixed-use development including a Publix supermarket in the San Marco area of Jacksonville, but that has also been put on hold by the recession.

“We’re just waiting for the market to get right with that,” he said.

But for the most part, St. Joe will be getting less visible in the Jacksonville area as it prepares to move its headquarters to Panama City. St. Joe has only about 50 employees at its Jacksonville headquarters and the Jacksonville-based duPont trust, which controlled St. Joe for decades, sold off its shares in the company several years ago.

Greene said St. Joe’s announcement last month that it would move its headquarters to West Bay was important for its marketing efforts in that region. It demonstrates the viability of the project to companies that are thinking of moving there, he said.

“It’s very hard to ask them to make the move early in the development if we’re not there too,” he said.

And with the focus of St. Joe’s operations on West Bay and other property in the Panhandle, it will be much easier for Greene and the rest of his team if they relocate to the region.

“We’ve been doing it from afar,” he said. “But it’s going to be a lot more difficult as the pace of development accelerates.”