#AskJAXTDY | What is St. Johns County planning for World Golf Village?

Q. For years, activities offered at World Golf Village in central St. Johns County have been in decline. 

Various proposals to revitalize the shuttered IMAX theater and the empty World Golf Hall of Fame building have come and gone.

Jacksonville Today reader Inge F. wants to know the latest news about the property and whether sound mitigation measures will be built for any construction planned in the area. 

“What is happening with the property St. Johns purchased?”

A. After public polls and repeated discussions, the St. Johns County Commission came close to purchasing a 37-acre portion of World Golf Village that is not already publicly owned. The hang-up came just before finalizing the more-than-$5 million transaction. That’s when county officials learned of a 30-year-old development restriction on the property.

Now, the fight to remove that restriction is playing out in the courts. 

World Golf Village was first envisioned as a mixed-use development with an IMAX Theatre, the World Golf Hall of Fame, a golf course and more.

It got its start in 1996 when a company now known as IT Land Developments sold 37 acres of land to the World Golf Foundation for just $100. The idea was that World Golf Village would be a nexus for golf and similar sports-related development in St. Johns County — and just that.

Thirty years later, the World Golf Foundation says the original vision is no more. The World Golf Hall of Fame has moved out, the IMAX theater is shut down and the PGA Tour moved its production facility to Ponte Vedra Beach. 

But when IT Land Development sold what would become World Golf Village to the foundation in the 1990s, the two parties agreed that the land would be used only for golf- and sports-related development for 50 years. That means, had St. Johns County purchased the property as it is, any development that wasn’t related to sports wouldn’t be allowed until 2046. 

That put a damper on several public-private partnerships the county was considering last year, and it tanked the World Golf Foundation’s sale of the property to the county.

Reader Inge wants to see the development at the heart of a growing part of St. Johns County become a community hub, something groups involved in the public-private partnership proposals said, too.

At one time, SJC Cultural Events Inc., the nonprofit organization that runs the St. Augustine Amphitheater and Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, even pitched taking over the now-closed IMAX to run it as a community theater and event space.

“It’s such a beautiful area. Shame to let it go,” Inge says. “The IMAX could be a place for school kids’ concerts and plays for the community to see.”

World Golf Village’s future on hold

What the World Golf Foundation wants is for a judge to agree that the restrictions on the property are no longer enforceable, but IT Land isn’t budging. 

The company’s legal team argues that “a lack of economic viability” is not a good enough reason to lift the restrictions, nor is it a judge’s responsibility to help the World Golf Foundation make money, the company says.

“It is not this Court’s role to relieve (World Golf Foundation) of the bargain it struck in 1996, regardless of how unreasonable Plaintiff now believes that bargain is,” a letter from IT Land Development reads.

With the two parties unable to come to an agreement — and the trial set to progress for the next months — Christine Valliere, St. Johns County’s head of economic development, says World Golf Village’s future is at a standstill. 

“I’m sure there’s a lot of interest, and, historically, the county sought input as to what types of uses would the community be interested in,” she says. “I think, for the county, the outcome is going to be another (public-private partnership), or perhaps the county will just sell the property.” 

“Either way,” Valliere adds, “that would be a public process.” 

Nearby development

Just because World Golf Village itself’s future is stalled does not mean the surrounding area is not continually growing. 

Although the busy area already boasts, among other things, a Buc-ee’s, a Costco and a Bass Pro Shops, there’s more coming. 

Construction is underway on a Walmart Supercenter about 2 miles west from the busy hub that includes the Buc-ee’s. Once built out, the Walmart plaza is currently planned to include a White Castle restaurant.

According to Dick D’Souza, the county’s assistant director of growth management, none of those developments or other future road plans would justify a sound barrier for nearby homes. 

Per D’Souza, the only noise wall currently planned by the Florida Department of Transportation is one along the northern boundary of the planned First Coast Expressway, a toll road that will eventually connect Interstate 10 in Duval County to Interstate 95 in St. Johns after running through Clay County.