It has been a long time, some say as far back as Hurricane Ivan in 2004, since a high rise condominium has been constructed on Navarre Beach.
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Four more high rise condominium buildings and a hotel are being planned for Navarre Beach. |
A look at Santa Rosa County Property
Appraiser records does show that Port Navarre's three towers
will not be the first erected since Hurricane Ivan in 2004,
but only one of seven island condominiums standing 10
stories high or higher to have gone up since that storm
unleashed its fury. Beach Colony Resort, completed in 2009,
stands today as the sole high-rise condominium built since
2004.
Port Navarre will be the first high-rise condominium complex
built on the Santa Rosa sound side of Navarre Beach.
While no time frame has been established for when
construction will begin on either project, once completed
both are sure to add to traffic congestion and wear and tear
on existing infrastructure, including the "fundamentally
obsolete" Navarre Beach Bridge that ties the island to U.S.
Highway 98 and the mainland.
County commissioners say they are not happy about seeing so
much population density being added to the beach community,
but they are powerless to stop it. The building plans for
both entities fall within the terms of their existing
Navarre Beach leaseholder agreements and therefore
development decisions on either parcel do not come under the
purview of the Santa Rosa County Commission.
"Do I like it? No," said Commissioner Ray Eddington, whose
district includes Navarre Beach. "Is there anything I can do
about it? No."
Christopher Ferrara, based in Louisiana, is the owner of the
23 acres upon which Port Navarre will be developed. He
bought the property in 1997 for $3.2 million.
He turned around and sold the parcel to an Atlanta
development firm for $12 million a couple of months ahead of
Hurricane Ivan's devastating 2004 visit to the island,
according to reports from the time, but used $6 million of
the sale to maintain a minority interest in the company,
which hatched the idea for Port Navarre.
The original concept, "a $300 million city-within-a-city,
with 700 condo units and 100 hotel rooms," according to a
2006 report from the Pensacola News Journal, blew up when
Ferrara sued his business partners for "fraudulent
inducement" over who rightfully owned the land.
Court records indicate Ferrara emerged $10.8 million richer
from a settlement reached in December of 2007. He also
retained possession of the property.
More than a decade later, Ferrara switched course and
requested the county grant him an amendment to his lease
that would allow for construction of an RV Park on his 23
acres. He argued that the "high end" park that would support
approximately 150 visitors would bring value to Navarre
Beach and prove to be less impactful than condominiums,
which he was already approved under his lease to develop.
"There's going to be development on this property," he told
the County Commission. "We can put up to 700 units at that
site. If you do the math that's adding about 2,000 cars if
we're fully occupied."
Ferrara took his RV Park plan to the County Commission in
July of 2021, where it was greeted with full-throated
contempt by a packed house of South Santa Rosa residents and
members of the powerful Navarre Beach Leaseholders and
Residents Association.
The idea of campgrounds and "trailer parks" on Navarre Beach
was "kind of appalling" one community association manager
told commissioners. It was argued the development would
bring down island property values, increase crime and prove
a disaster waiting to happen when mobile homes blew into the
Sound during a tropical storm.
Under pressure from the community, county commissioners
voted 4-1 in 2021 to reject Ferrara's request for the lease
amendment. Commissioner Colten Wright, now the commission
chairman, was the single vote in favor of granting the RV
Park request.
In September of 2022, after Ferrara had filed a lawsuit, the
county again considered the request for the change to the
lease agreement. This time the vote was 3-2 against allowing
the amendment, with then-Commissioner Bob Cole joining
Wright in support.
Wright reiterated Thursday the argument he'd made in support
of the RV Park.
"I have a hard time understanding how a high end RV Park is
not a better use, a less intensive use, than a condominium
building with 700 units," he said last year as some in the
packed room heckled him.
Now, he said, Navarre Beach residents are going to have to
live with the consequences of their opposition.
"It's one of those situations where people are against
something because they don't like change," he said. "Now
those people (who protested the RV Park) are going to get
what they wanted."
Dave Piech, Navarre Beach's representative on the Board of
County Commissioners in 2021 and 2022, opposed the RV Park
proposal. Eddington, his successor, said Thursday that he
would have supported it for many of the same reasons Wright
had given.
"I'd rather have the RV's than the condos, because the
condos are going to block the view," he said.
Eddington said he recalled being in attendance at the Santa
Rosa County Commission meeting at which Ferrara said he'd
build condominiums if his idea for an RV Park failed. He
said he hasn't heard any rumblings in opposition to the new
planned Navarre Beach developments yet, but he's pretty
confident that he will.
"People have got to be careful what they ask for," he said.
Jim Sutton, the president of the Navarre Beach Leaseholders
and Residents Association, said the association had opposed
the RV Park for the same reasons it would oppose any
proposed lease amendment.
"We're opposed only when they ask for variances for uses
that do not conform to what is allowed," he said.
He said the Leaseholders and Residents Association opposed
the RV Park "very vigorously" because the proposed
development did not conform to its lease or existing zoning.
"Right now if he (Ferrera) wants to build a 660-unit
condominium we have no issue with that. As long as he stays
in the footprint, we have no problem with that," Sutton
said.
The association had also stood in opposition this year to a
request from the Navarre Beach Hotels LLC, the group
building the 200 unit hotel and 34 unit condominiums, when
they asked for a variance to lower the setback distance
between their construction project and a neighboring
building.
The group, which Sutton said wanted the variance to improve
Gulf views of its tenants, ultimately dropped its variance
request.
Sutton said he realizes that with the increase in the number
of island visitors, residents and vehicles that
infrastructure conditions on Navarre Beach are going to
worsen. The pending developments points out the urgent need,
he said, for the county to take serious steps toward
replacing the Navarre Beach Bridge and improving Gulf
Boulevard, which runs through the heart of the island's
residential and commercial development.
"It is important for the County Commission to really hunker
down and address long term planning for the southern end of
the county," he said.