If you live in Port St. Lucie but need to hop on I-95 or Florida’s Turnpike to get to work in the morning … welcome to the club.
You might have noticed the interchanges get a bit busy, the highways north and (especially) south can get jammed. So you won’t be surprised when I tell you some 40,000 people who live in the city work somewhere else, and this “outflow” of residents increased by 49{c25493dcd731343503a084f08c3848bd69f9f2f05db01633325a3fd40d9cc7a1} between 2007 and 2017, according to U.S. Census figures — meaning as the city’s population increased by leaps and bounds, jobs didn’t keep up.
And indeed, according to state and private sources, the city’s jobs-to-population ratio is just 0.24 — 24 jobs per 100 residents. That’s the lowest in the region, lower than St. Lucie County’s 29 jobs per 100; and well below Indian River County’s 38; Martin County’s, 46; and Palm Beach County’s 49.
So bottom line, Port St. Lucie may be a nice place to live. But you can’t really find a job there.
But might that soon change?
MORE: PSL Council to vote on Southern Grove Master Plan
MORE: FedEx to develop regional planning center in PSL’s Southern Grove
Earlier this month PSL’s City Council gave an initial thumb’s-up to a draft of the ambitious Southern Grove Master Plan, a detailed roadmap on how to turn 1,183 acres astride I-95 in the western part of the city into a source of pride and prosperity.
While the corridor may ultimately feature new housing and some retail, the focus is to be research, health care, commerce and industry — and the jobs they bring.
Consultant Kim Delaney of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council will go back before council in late January to talk about just how many jobs the plan might draw to the region. Southern Grove, she said, represents an “unparalleled opportunity” for Port St. Lucie, as nowhere else in the region is there so much available land along a major corridor controlled by a municipality ready to make a deal.
Port St. Lucie has owned Southern Grove since 2018, when the Tradition Land Co. dumped it in the city’s lap after deciding it was no longer interested in the acreage. The city took control — and found itself on the hook for taxes.
County records show that last month, on Nov. 30, the city paid $4.92 million in Southern Grove levies.
You could say city officials are eager to get out from under that obligation.
They’re banking on the Southern Grove Master Plan to help them do that — and more.
The proposal envisions three separate “districts” as you travel north to south. A “town center” district north of Tradition Parkway might feature shopping, recreation and housing.
South of Tradition Parkway is the proposed “bio/health district,” anchored by Cleveland Clinic and other health care providers and research facilities. Buildings could soar as high as 10 stories in this area, Delaney said during her Dec. 14 presentation to the council. The district would be “walkable,” with a high density of development.
But the bulk of Southern Grove would comprise the “workplace district,” warehouses and distribution centers, industrial and commercial construction. Think of the proposed 245,000-square-foot FedEx regional sorting center on 22 acres, where construction’s slated to begin in January.
“The market potential for industrial is very strong,” Delaney told the city council.
In an era of rising e-commerce, you can’t go wrong sitting aside I-95 in growing Florida, I guess.
In fact, Pete Tesch of the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County told me his group is now working with five companies “either seeking industrial property to start a new business campus or built commercial industrial warehousing facilities” in the region.
“There’s such a pent-up demand, not as much for manufacturing, but definitely in distribution, logistics and warehousing locations” to support online retailing, said Tesch.
“We’re going to be a recipient of that because of our location and property” available, he said. “And those jobs pay better than what we’re now seeing in average earnings per worker.”
So maybe you’d have more people coming into Port St. Lucie to work than leaving for the first time in over a decade.
To be sure, “there are many successful cities with a lower (jobs-to-population) number than Port St. Lucie; it’s just a planning metric,” Delaney told me last week. And one reason the Port St. Lucie’s figure is so low is because many of the people moving in are retirees and don’t really need jobs.
Still, as PSL Mayor Greg Oravec said during the Dec. 14 presentation, “One of the things this council is trying to do is make sure this city is more than a bedroom community.”
And if Port St. Lucie is to live up to its slogan, “A City for All Ages,” it’s got to be a place where all ages can live, play — and work.
Gil Smart is a TCPalm columnist and a member of the Editorial Board. His columns reflect his opinion. Gil can be reached at [email protected], by phone at (772) 223-4741 or via Twitter at @TCPalmGilSmart.
