By MARK PETTUS
mark.pettus@mystjohnssun.com
It may be a Carrabas. It may be a Chik-fil-A. It may even be a Starbucks. But it won’t be a storage facility.
So says the company that had planned to build an Atlantic Storage facility on land the firm owns along Flora Branch Boulevard in Julington Creek Plantation.
Ash Properties Inc. Project Manager Pamela Drury let St. Johns County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson know via e-mail Thursday that the company has decided not to proceed with the proposed site plan it had submitted to the county. That plan called for a three-story, air-conditioned self-storage facility with a facade that resembled a retail shopping center.
“We are revisiting the site plan to determine what other alternative uses might be feasible on the site,” wrote Drury in the e-mail, which she copied to My St. Johns Sun.
At a public meeting held in June, Ash Properties Vice President Randall Whitfield said other uses the site was currently zoned for included a boat and RV storage lot, an office building, a retail strip shopping center or an alcohol rehabilitation center. Many residents who attended the meeting said they preferred a shopping center or a restaurant to a storage facility, and one resident shouted his hope that the site would become a Carrabas Italian restaurant. One resident suggested putting a movie theater on the site. No one at the meeting supported building a storage facility there.
“We don’t want one in the middle of our residential community,” David Taus, president of the Julington Creek Property Owners Association, said of the storage facility.
Commissioner Stevenson asked the residents attending the meeting if they understood that all of the other potential uses for the site would cause more traffic, and received a resounding “Yes” in reply. Stevenson has said in the past that she would like to see a Chik-fil-A, a fast-food chicken restaurant that is one of her favorites, open somewhere in northwest St. Johns County.
After My St. Johns Sun published a story about the proposed facility on May 5, Stevenson and other county commissioners received hundreds of calls and e-mails opposing the facility. Later, Taus and the Julington Creek Plantation Property Owners’ Association board to send fliers opposing the facility to residents. Ash Properties cried foul over misinformation contained in the fliers. But even after the June meeting where Whitfield presented information he hoped would sway residents to support the facility, most remained opposed.
Drury promised in her e-mail to keep residents of Julington Creek Plantation informed about revised plans for the site as they develop.
“I would hope that the residences of Julington Creek would be pleased with this decision,” she wrote.
