| As ribon-cutings go, the one at Port St. Joe Marina was more than a grand opening. It was a symbol of new life for the city of Port St. Joe and Florida's Gulf County. The July 24 festivities at the $3.2 million 199-slip marina on St. Joseph Bay in the Florida Panhandle brought out movers and shakers: U.S. Rep Allen Boyd, State Reps. Beverly Kilmer and Allan Bense, Port St. Joe Mayor Frank Pate and Peter S. Rummell, chairman and chief executive officer of the St. Joe Co., owner of 85 percent of the land in Gulf County. "I believe this is the beginning... of great things coming to Port St. Joe and Gulf County," says Pate, the retired owner of a local service station and mayor of Port St. Joe for all but two of the past 30 years. The Florida Coast Paper Co., Gulf County's biggest employer, closed in August 1998 after 62 years, idling 550 workers. The impact on other economic sectors in this rural county of 14,000 was devastation. The railroad that served the mill announced layoffs, as did small chemical plants that relied on mill byproduct to operate. The layoffs came on top of job losses associated with Florida's ban on large-scale commercial netting. The workforce at Raffield Fisheries, which once employed as many as 300 in Port St. Joe, has shrunk to fewer that 50, according to Pate. Gulf County's jobless rate soared to more than 20 percent in the last quarter of 1998. "We've had everything hit us bet a real bad hurricane," the mayor says. |
The marina is seen as the start of a new era in this town of 5,000 people, one closely tied to the fortunes of the St. Joe Co., owner of more than 1 million acres in northwest Florida. Once a big lumber and paper milling company, it has become a giant real estate developer. It is selling off vast tracts while keeping for itself the best of them - many along the Gulf coast - to develop into resort, retirement and residential communities. "St. Joe, Gulf County and Franklin County probably have some of the most undeveloped sectors of the state," says Chris Hine, vice president of commercial development for the St. Joe Co. He describes the area as an undiscovered paradise with lake, river, bay and Gulf waters for boating and fishing. He says Gulf County isn't ready for large-scale residential development, but the company is trying to attract clean industry in an effort to establish a new job base. In the vicinity of the marina, Hine says he foresees a grocery store, hotel and a restaurant being built to support the marina and its guests. "We see the marina as a recreational venue for [future residents of] our nearby land holdings," Hine says. In the meantime, the marina is drawing boats whose owners live in upscale communities nearby Cape San Blas, St. Georges Island and Mexico Beach or more distant Tallahassee and Jacksonville, Fla; Atlanta; and Birmingham, Ala. The marina has 120 wet slips, about half of them covered, and 79 dry slips, diesel and gasoline fuel docks, a ship's |
