Nocatee has plans for PGA Tour parking

The Nocatee developers want to use 540 acres they own near the Palm Valley Bridge to set up a buffer between the development and the nearby Dee Dot Ranch and to open up space to the west for construction of parking spaces for the PGA Tour.

They also want to build single-family homes there.

The new plans would call for St. Johns County modifying its comprehensive plan to allow building a half-mile closer to the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Davis family, which sold the 540 acres northwest of the bridge, has had a close relationship with the PGA Tour and wanted to help them out by providing more parking for The Players tournament, which draws fans from across the world, said Greg Barbour, a partner of the Parc Group developers.

The parking spaces would double as ball fields that will be used during the other 51 weeks of the year, when The Players tournament is not going on. The parking spaces would not be built on the 540 acres that would be added to Nocatee, but on a site to the west. Barbour said it would be more cost-effective to build the parking spaces on the western land, which is closer to County Road 210.

"The Parc Group has asked for approval to have 7,500 event parking spaces within the community to help the tour meet its parking needs for the Players tournament," Barbour said.

Of the 540 acres, about 130 acres could be developed; the rest are wetlands.

On the north side of the 540-acre parcel, the developers would extend Nocatee's greenway system, a 300-foot-wide boundary of preserved land between the Nocatee development and the Dee Dot Ranch, which is also owned by the Davis family.

"The Davis family doesn't want development in the Dee Dot Ranch," Barbour said. "The [greenway] easement will be granted to the state."

The boundary would prevent any roads from being constructed into the ranch in the future.

Nocatee is a 14,000-home development being constructed in northeast St. Johns County and southeast Duval County. The development will have 150 acres of parks, 9,000 acres of conserved lands, 4 million square feet of office space and 1 million square feet of commercial space.

Barbour said low-density, single-family homes would be built on the 130 developable acres. He said the homes would not be built in one continuous line along the waterway because swaths of wetlands cut through the west side of the waterway.

Jason Cleghorn, a county planner, said staff is reviewing the request to add the 540 acres to Nocatee and that the County Commission will ultimately decide.

The Parc Group is also asking to add 18.5 acres just south of U.S. 1 and County Road 210 to Nocatee.

The developer has also asked for approval to impact 88 acres of wetlands and offset the impacts by preserving 1,000 other acres.

A Parc Group official will give a presentation about the requests at a Palm Valley Community Association meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11, at the Palm Valley Community Center at 148 Canal Blvd.