BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
GREEN COVE SPRINGS— An officer with the Clay County Economic Development Corporation said Keystone Heights led Clay County in median housing price growth during 2021.
Interim President Laura J. Pavlus told Clay County commissioners that Keystone’s median price of $235,000 was an increase of 36.6% over the prior year.
Fleming Island, with a median house price of $400,000 and a 2021 growth rate of 25%, followed Keystone’s growth rate, as did Middleburg: with a median price of $290,000 and a growth rate of 25%, Green Cove Springs, with a price of $302,500 and a 24% rate and Orange Park with a median price of $278,600 and a 20.1% growth rate.
Pavlus said that even with the price gains, Clay County still lags Jacksonville and other U.S. metropolitan areas.
For a 2,500-square-foot home in Jacksonville, the median price was $357,000. That compares to $676,000 in the Washington D.C. area and $806,000 in Seattle, Washington.
New projects in Clay
Pavlus also summarized the EDC‘s projects during 2021 which she said resulted in 357 high-wage jobs created in Clay County and an additional $466 million in capital expansion.
Projects now under construction include:
Niagara Bottling in Middleburg: $100 million capital investment, 100 jobs;
Mobry Marine in Green Cove Springs, $12 million in capital investment and 12 jobs;
Coastal Spine and Pain center in Middleburg, $6 million and15 jobs;
Chemours at Camp Blanding; $93 million and 50 jobs;
Orange Park Regional Medical Center tower build out in Orange Park, $34 million and 80 jobs;
Health Peak in Orange Park, $18 million in capital investment and 40 jobs;
Project Rust in Orange Park: $3 million in capital investment and 50 jobs;
Two Florida Power and Light projects in Clay County, $200 million in capital investment, 255 temporary jobs and 12 permanent jobs.
Employment
Pavlus also said Clay County’s unemployment rate was better than rates in the area, state and nation. Clay County’s rate of 3.3% beat the Jacksonville area’s rate of 3.7%, Florida’s rate of 4.0% and the national rate of 4.3%.
She also said the Jacksonville area ranked as the seventh fastest growing population center for in-migration.
She added that the First Coast’s population grew by 14.6% between 2010 and 2020, which was double the average national growth rate.
“One of the trends we are seeing,“ she said, “is that now since everybody can work from home, they can live wherever they want, and Florida is sunny, and we also have great home prices.“
Pavlus highlighted current workforce trends, pointing out that 46% of small business owners have job openings that they cannot fill.
In addition, every day 10,000 people retire and around 2,000 people turn 16, making them eligible for employment.
The net loss of about 8,000 people a day or 3 million people a year in the U.S. is about 1% of the workforce.
“A lot of people think that what we are experiencing is directly related to COVID, and it’s not,“ Pavlus said. “We’ve been talking about it for a long time, and now that it’s happening, we just really want to make the point that we have a lot of people exiting the workforce every month.”
In response to a question from commissioner, Jim Renninger, Pavlus said that the top three incentives for companies to move into an area are site inventory, workforce and utilities infrastructure.
“When a company is looking at moving into your community, they do not expect to have to put in utility infrastructure,“ she said. “We have the workforce, but we really need to work harder on site development and having the utilities infrastructure to the sites to really be competitive and marketable.“
