The St. Joe Profile
The St. Joe Company operates as a real estate development, asset management and operating company in Northwest Florida.
The company owns 169,000 acres of land in Northwest Florida. A portion of the company’s land is within The Bay-Walton Sector Plan (Sector Plan), that entitles, or gives legal rights, for it to develop over 170,000 residential dwelling units, over 22 million square feet of retail, commercial and industrial space and over 3,000 hotel rooms on lands within Florida’s Bay and Walton counties. The company also has additional entitlements, or legal rights, to develop acreage outside of the Sector Plan. Approximately 86% of the company’s real estate is located in Florida’s Bay, Gulf, and Walton counties. Approximately 90% of its real estate land holdings are located within fifteen miles of the Gulf of Mexico.
As of December 31, 2022, the company’s unconsolidated Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV had completed 363 home sale transactions of the total estimated 3,500 homes in the community and had 677 homes under contract. This represents 1,040 home contracts in the first nineteen months of the JV’s sales.
Segments
The company operates through three segments: Residential, Hospitality, and Commercial.
Residential
This segment plans and develops residential communities of various sizes across a wide range of price points and sells homesites to homebuilders or retail consumers. The company’s residential segment also evaluates opportunities to enter into JV agreements for specific communities, such as Latitude Margaritaville Watersound.
The company’s residential segment includes the Watersound Origins, Watersound Origins West, Watersound Camp Creek, Breakfast Point East, Titus Park, Ward Creek, College Station, Park Place, Salt Creek at Mexico Beach, WindMark Beach and SouthWood communities, which are large scale, multi-phase communities with current development activity, sales activity or future phases. Homesites in these communities are developed based on market demand and sold primarily to homebuilders and on a limited basis to retail customers.
The East Lake Creek, East Lake Powell, Lake Powell, Teachee, West Bay Creek and West Laird communities have phases of homesites in preliminary planning. Homesites in these communities will be developed based on market demand and sold primarily to homebuilders and on a limited basis to retail customers.
The SummerCamp Beach community has homesites available for sale and along with the RiverCamps community, both have additional lands for future development.
The Latitude Margaritaville Watersound community is a planned 55+ active adult residential community in Bay County, Florida. The community is located near the Intracoastal Waterway with convenient access to the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport. The community is being developed through the company’s unconsolidated Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV with its partner Minto Communities USA, a homebuilder and community developer, and is estimated to include approximately 3,500 residential homes, which will be developed in smaller increments of discrete neighborhoods. As of December 31, 2022, the unconsolidated Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV had 677 homes under contract.
As of December 31, 2022, the company had 2,197 residential homesites under contract, plus residuals, at closing of the homesites over the next several years. As of December 31, 2022, in addition to the 2,197 homesites under contract in other residential communities, its unconsolidated Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV had 677 homes under contract.
Hospitality
This segment features a private membership club (the ‘Watersound Club’), hotel operations, food and beverage operations, golf courses, beach clubs, retail outlets, gulf-front vacation rentals, management services, marinas and other entertainment assets. This segment generates revenue and incurs costs from membership sales, membership reservations, golf courses, lodging at the company’s hotels, short-term vacation rentals, management of The Pearl Hotel (prior to acquisition in December 2022), food and beverage operations, merchandise sales, marina operations, charter flights, other resort and entertainment activities and beach clubs, which includes operation of the WaterColor Beach Club. From time to time, the company may explore the sale of certain hospitality properties, the development of new hospitality properties, as well as new entertainment and management opportunities.
Watersound Club provides club members and guests in some of the company’s hotels access to its member facilities, which include Camp Creek, Shark’s Tooth golf course, WaterSound Beach Club and a Pilatus PC-12 NG aircraft (N850J). Watersound Club offers different types of club memberships, each with different access rights and associated fee structures. Watersound Club is focused on creating an outstanding membership experience combined with the luxurious aspects of a destination resort. Club operations include the company’s golf courses, beach club and facilities that generate revenue from membership sales, membership reservations, daily play at the golf courses, merchandise sales, charter flights and food and beverage sales. Watersound Origins includes an executive golf course, resort-style pool, fitness center, two tennis courts and a private dock located in the community. Access to amenities is reserved to Watersound Origins members consisting of the community residents. The golf course is available for public play.
Watersound Club has a private beach club located on Scenic Highway 30A, which includes over one mile of Gulf of Mexico frontage, two resort-style pools, two restaurants, three bars, kid’s room and a recreation area. Shark’s Tooth includes an 18-hole golf course, a full club house, a pro shop, tennis center with four har-tru courts, as well as two food and beverage outlets. Camp Creek is an 18-hole golf course and soon will feature several new amenities. These amenities include a health and wellness center, restaurants, a tennis and pickle ball center, a resort-style pool complex with separate adult pool, a golf teaching academy, pro shop and multi-sport fields.
The company owns and operates the award-winning WaterColor Inn, (which includes the Fish Out of Water restaurant) and The Pearl Hotel (which includes the Havana Beach Bar & Grill restaurant), as well as the Hilton Garden Inn Panama City Airport, the Homewood Suites by Hilton Panama City Beach, the WaterSound Inn and two gulf-front vacation rental houses. It also operates the WaterColor Beach Club, which includes food and beverage operations and other hospitality related activities, such as beach chair rentals. Revenue is generated from lodging at the company’s hotels, operation of the WaterColor Beach Club, management of The Pearl Hotel (prior to December 2022), short-term vacation rentals, food and beverage operations and merchandise sales. Lodging at the company’s hotels and operation of the WaterColor Beach Club generate revenue from service and/or daily rental fees. Revenue generated from the company’s management services include management fees. The company’s food and beverage operations generate revenue from food and beverage sales. Its retail outlets generate revenue from merchandise sales.
The company is in the process of constructing an Embassy Suites by Hilton hotel, with its JV partner, in the Pier Park area of Panama City Beach, Florida; the waterfront Hotel Indigo in Panama City, Florida’s downtown waterfront district; a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida; The Lodge 30A, with its JV partner, a boutique hotel on Scenic Highway 30A in Seagrove Beach, Florida; and an upscale boutique inn located adjacent to the Camp Creek golf course near the highly desirable Scenic Highway 30A corridor. Once complete, the company intends to manage the day-to-day operations of these hotels. The company is also in the process of constructing a Residence Inn by Marriott, with its JV partner, in Panama City Beach, Florida. Once complete, the hotel will be operated by its JV partner.
The company owns and operates two marinas, the Point South Marina Bay Point in Bay County, Florida and Point South Marina Port St. Joe in Gulf County, Florida. It is planning new marinas along the Intracoastal Waterway. The company’s marinas generate revenue from boat slip rentals, boat storage fees and fuel sales. The Point South Marina Bay Point fully reopened in the third quarter of 2022 and the Point South Marina Port St. Joe reopened in the fourth quarter of 2022 after completion of reconstruction due to damage from Hurricane Michael.
The company also owns and operates retail stores, two standalone restaurants and other entertainment assets. These assets generate revenue from merchandise sales, food and beverage sales and other service fees which are recognized at the point of sale.
Commercial
This segment includes leasing of commercial property, multi-family, senior living, self-storage and other assets. The segment also oversees the planning, development, entitlement, management and sale of the company’s commercial and rural land holdings for a variety of uses, including a broad range of retail, office, hotel, senior living, multi-family, self-storage and industrial properties. The company provides development opportunities for national, regional and local retailers and other strategic partners in Northwest Florida. It owns and manage retail shopping centers and develop commercial parcels. The company is developing the Watersound Town Center in Walton County, Florida and Watersound West Bay Center in Bay County, Florida. These lifestyle centers are complementary to its Watersound Origins and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound residential communities. In conjunction with FSU and TMH, the company is also in the process of developing an 87-acre medical campus in Bay County, Florida. The company has large land holdings near the Pier Park retail center, adjacent to the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, near or within business districts in the region and along major roadways. It also leases land for various other uses.
This segment also manages the company’s timber holdings in Northwest Florida which includes growing and selling pulpwood, sawtimber and other products. As of December 31, 2022, the company had an estimated 1.9 million tons of marketable pulpwood and 3.0 million tons of marketable sawlogs on approximately 64,000 acres. Based on its annual harvest plan, the company anticipated harvesting approximately 260,000 tons of pulpwood and sawlogs during 2023.
This segment generates leasing revenue and incurs leasing expenses primarily from maintenance and management of the company’s properties, personnel costs and asset holding costs. It also generates revenue from the sale of developed and undeveloped land, timber holdings or land with limited development and/or entitlements and the sale of commercial operating properties. This segment generates timber revenue primarily from open market the sale of timber on site without the associated delivery costs.
This segment’s portfolio of leasable properties continues to expand and diversify. Through wholly-owned subsidiaries and consolidated and unconsolidated JVs, the company is in the process of constructing 371 multi-family units and 148 senior living units, in addition to the 757 multi-family units and 107 senior living units that have been completed.
Pier Park Crossings (the ‘Pier Park Crossings JV’), which was developed in two phases, includes 360 completed apartment units in Panama City Beach, Florida. Watersound Origins Crossings includes 217 completed apartment units adjacent to the Watersound Town Center. Sea Sound, the company’s unconsolidated Sea Sound JV, included 300 completed apartment units in Panama City Beach, Florida near the Breakfast Point residential community, prior to being sold by the JV in November 2022. The WindMark Beach community includes 12 completed long-term rental units and 19 units in the process of being converted from short-term to long-term rental units in Port St. Joe, Florida. Watercrest includes 107 completed senior living units in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. In addition, the company has three multi-family communities and one senior living community under construction. North Bay Landing, planned for 240 apartment units, with 120 units completed as of December 31, 2022, is located in Panama City, Florida. Mexico Beach Crossings, planned for 216 apartment units, is located in Mexico Beach, Florida. Origins Crossings Townhomes, planned for 64 units, with 48 units completed as of December 31, 2022, is located near the Watersound Town Center. Watersound Fountains, an unconsolidated JV (WOSL, LLC, the ‘Watersound Fountains Independent Living JV’), planned for 148 independent living units, is located near the Watersound Origins residential community. The company has additional multi-family communities in various stages of planning.
The company’s leasing portfolio consists of approximately 1,034,000 square feet of leasable space for mixed-use, retail, industrial, office, self-storage and medical uses. This includes its consolidated Pier Park North JV. Through separate unconsolidated JVs, other commercial properties include a 124-room TownePlace Suites by Marriott operated by the company’s JV partner (Pier Park TPS, LLC, the ‘Pier Park TPS JV’), a Busy Bee branded fuel station and convenience store operated by the company’s JV partner (SJBB, LLC, the ‘Busy Bee JV’) and a golf cart sales and service facility, which is under construction (SJECC, LLC, the ‘Electric Cart Watersound JV’), all located in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Strategy
The company’s long-term, owner-oriented capital and management allows it to optimize the value of Northwest Florida real estate by developing residential, hospitality, and commercial projects that meet growing market demands. This strategy is designed to provide opportunities to build recurring revenues and enterprise value for the foreseeable future.
As part of the company’s core business strategy, it has created a meaningful portion of its business through joint ventures (JVs) and limited partnerships over the past several years. The company enters into these arrangements for the purposes of developing real estate and other business activities, which allows it to complement its growth strategy, leverage industry expertise and diversify its business.
Acquisitions
In December 2022, the company acquired The Pearl Hotel, located on Scenic Highway 30A, which was previously operated by its hospitality segment.
In November 2022, the company purchased an additional 30.0% ownership interest in the consolidated Pier Park North JV.
Dispositions
In November 2022, the company’s unconsolidated JV, FDSJ Eventide, LLC, (the ‘Sea Sound JV’), sold its assets to a third party.
Regulation
The company’s operations are subject to federal, state and local government laws and regulations that affect every aspect of its business, including environmental and land use laws relating to, among other things, water, air, solid waste, hazardous substances, zoning, construction permits or entitlements, building codes and the requirements of the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Act and comparable state statutes relating to the health and safety of its employees.
History
The St. Joe Company was founded in 1936. The company was incorporated in the state of Florida in 1936.
