The St. Joe Company (St. Joe) operates as a real estate development, asset management and operating company.
As of December 31, 2024, the company owned 167,000 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 originally 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 withi...
The St. Joe Company (St. Joe) operates as a real estate development, asset management and operating company.
As of December 31, 2024, the company owned 167,000 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 originally 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 87% of the company’s real estate is located in Florida’s Bay, Gulf, and Walton counties. Approximately 90% of the company’s real estate land holdings are located within fifteen miles of the Gulf of Mexico.
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. The company's core strategies are to expand the company's portfolio of income-producing commercial properties, develop long-term, scalable residential communities, and grow the company's hospitality offerings. This strategy is designed to provide opportunities to build recurring revenues and enterprise value for the foreseeable future.
Investments, which include investments in joint ventures (JVs), are funded with cash proceeds from completed projects, existing cash, owned-land, partner capital and financing arrangements. Actual investments may vary from planned capital investments for various reasons.
Segments
The company operates through three segments: Residential, Hospitality, and Commercial.
Residential
Residential segment typically 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 residential segment generates revenue from sales of homesites and other residential land and certain homesite residuals from homebuilder sales that provide the company a percentage of the sale price of the completed home if the home price exceeds a negotiated threshold. Revenue is recognized at the point in time when a sale is closed, and title and control has been transferred to the buyer. The residential segment also generates revenue from the sale of tap and impact fee credits, marketing fees and other fees on certain transactions. Certain homesite residuals and other revenue related to homebuilder homesite sales are recognized in revenue at the point in time of the closing of the sale. The residential segment incurs cost from direct costs (e.g., development and construction costs), selling costs and other indirect costs.
The company’s residential segment includes Watersound Origins, Watersound Origins West, Watersound Camp Creek, Breakfast Point East, Titus Park, Bayside at Ward Creek, Breakwater at Ward Creek, Salt Grass at Ward Creek, College Station, Park Place, Salt Creek at Mexico Beach, and WindMark Beach communities, which are large scale, multi-phase communities with 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 or permitting. Homesites in these communities will be developed based on market demand.
The SummerCamp Beach community has homesites available for sale and along with the RiverCamps and SouthWood communities, 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 its 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, 2024, the unconsolidated Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV has completed 1,663 home sale transactions of the total estimated 3,500 homes planned in the community and had 367 homes under contract.
In addition to the communities, the company has a number of other residential project concepts in various stages of planning and evaluation.
As of December 31, 2024, the company had twenty different homebuilders within its residential communities. As of December 31, 2024, the company had 1,074 residential homesites under contract. By comparison, as of December 31, 2023, the company had 1,486 residential homesites under contract, which were expected to result in revenue plus residuals. As of December 31, 2024, in addition to the 1,074 homesites under contract in other residential communities, the company’s unconsolidated Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV had 367 homes under contract, which together with the 1,074 homesites are expected to result in a sales value.
Hospitality
Hospitality 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. The hospitality segment generates revenue from membership sales, golf courses, lodging at its hotels, short-term vacation rentals, management of The Pearl Hotel, food and beverage operations, merchandise sales, marina operations (including boat slip rentals, boat storage fees and fuel sales), flight services, other resort and entertainment activities and beach clubs, which includes food and beverage operations of the WaterColor Beach Club. Hospitality revenue is generally recognized at the point in time services are provided and represent a single performance obligation with a fixed transaction price. Hospitality revenue recognized over time includes non-refundable club membership initiation fees, club membership dues, management fees and other membership fees. 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 access to the company's member facilities, which include the Watersound Beach Club, Camp Creek golf course and amenities, Shark’s Tooth golf course and tennis center, and The Third golf course, which opened in November 2024. In June 2024, the company opened The Sporting Preserve, a 12-stand sporting clays course. Watersound Club offers different types of club memberships, each with different access rights and associated fee structures. Watwrsound Club is focused on creating an outstanding membership experience combined with the luxurious aspects of a destination resort. Watersound Beach Club, located on Scenic Highway 30A with over one mile of Gulf of Mexico frontage, has two resort-style pools, two restaurants, three bars, a kid’s room, and a recreation area. Camp Creek includes an 18-hole golf course, a full clubhouse, a health and wellness center, three restaurants, a tennis and pickleball center, a resort-style pool complex with a separate adult pool, a golf teaching academy, a pro shop, and multi-sport fields. Shark’s Tooth includes an 18-hole golf course, a tennis center, a full clubhouse, a pro shop, as well as two food and beverage outlets. The Third includes an 18-hole golf course. Guests of some of the company's hotels also have access to certain Watersound Club amenities.
Watersound Origins amenities include a resort-style pool, fitness center, pickle ball courts and tennis courts located in the community. Access to these amenities is reserved to Watersound Origins and Watersound Origins West members consisting of the communities’ residents. In addition, an executive golf course located in the community is available to residents and for public play.
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); the Camp Creek Inn, the Hilton Garden Inn Panama City Airport, the Homewood Suites by Hilton Panama City Beach, the Hotel Indigo Panama City Marina, the Home2 Suites by Hilton Santa Rosa Beach, the Watersound Inn, and two gulf-front vacation rental houses. With its JV partners, the company owns and operates The Lodge 30A and the Embassy Suites by Hilton Panama City Beach Resort. The company also operates the WaterColor Beach Club, which includes food and beverage operations and other hospitality-related activities, such as beach chair rentals.
The company also owns and operates retail stores, two standalone restaurants and other entertainment assets. In addition to the properties, the company has a number of hospitality projects in various stages of planning.
Commercial
The company's commercial segment includes leasing of commercial property, multi-family, senior living, self-storage, and other assets. The commercial segment also oversees the planning, development, entitlement, management, and sale of the company's commercial and forestry 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, as well as other strategic partners in Northwest Florida.The company owns and manages retail shopping centers and develops commercial parcels. It is currently developing the Watersound Town Center in Walton County, Florida, and the Watersound West Bay Center in Bay County, Florida. These lifestyle centers are complementary to the Watersound Origins and Latitude Margaritaville Watersound residential communities. In conjunction with FSU and TMH, the company is in the process of developing an 87-acre medical campus in Panama City Beach, Florida, the first building of which opened in July 2024.
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. The company leases land for various other uses. The commercial segment also manages the company's timber holdings in Northwest Florida, which includes growing and selling pulpwood, sawtimber, and other products.
The commercial segment generates leasing revenue and incurs leasing expenses primarily from the maintenance and management of the company's properties, personnel costs, and asset holding costs. The company’s commercial segment 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.
The company’s leasing portfolio consists of approximately 1,182,000 square feet of leasable space for mixed-use, retail, industrial, office, self-storage and medical uses. Through separate unconsolidated JVs, other commercial properties that are operated by its JV partners include a 124-room TownePlace Suites by Marriott (Pier Park TPS JV), a 121-room Residence Inn (Pier Park RI JV), a Busy Bee branded fuel station and convenience store, which includes a Starbucks, (SJBB, LLC, the ‘Busy Bee JV’) and a golf cart sales and service facility (SJECC, LLC, the ‘Electric Cart Watersound JV’), all located in Bay County, Florida.
Investments in Joint Ventures
The company had determined that as of December 31, 2024, its unconsolidated LMWS, LLC JV (the Latitude Margaritaville Watersound JV) had met the conditions of a significant subsidiary under Rule 1-02(w) of Regulation S-X.
Seasonality and Market Variability
Hospitality revenues are typically higher in the second and third quarters (year ended December 2024) and vary depending on the timing of holidays and school breaks. Commercial real estate sales tend to be non-recurring. Projects depend on uncertain demand. Extraordinary events such as hurricanes or public health emergencies may dramatically change demand and pricing for products and services.
Regulations
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 1936.