St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners prevailed in an an appeal by GRAND OAKS dodgy developer to escape its commitment to pay the County $60,000,000 for SR 16 road improvements:
St. Johns County Commissioners rightly rejected a devious developer's demand to escape from its legal obligation to pay for three miles of SR 16 road work.
Read U.S. Court of Appeals for 11th Circuit decision here:
https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2026/08/southeast-development-partners-llc-v-st.html
Read article from St. Johns Citizen:
Road Warriors: St. Johns County Wins $60 Million Showdown With Developer
- By Selim Algar
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An appeals court has largely upheld St. Johns County’s victory in its long-running clash with the developer of Grand Oaks, ruling that the company must pay the full cost of widening a stretch of State Road 16, The Citizen has learned.
In an Aug. 7 opinion, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that Southeast Development Partners breached an agreement with the county..
The ruling affirms nearly all of a 2024 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Grand Oaks is a 524-acre mixed-use development along SR 16 in the World Golf Village area that was approved for up to 999 homes, 100,000 square feet of commercial space and 50,000 square feet of offices.
Hundreds of homes have already been built and occupied in the still-unfinished development. Its builders have included Pulte Homes, Drees Homes and Toll Brothers, and its 55-plus Summer Bay neighborhood has sold out.
nder a 2018 agreement, Southeast Development, based in Ponte Vedra Beach, committed to completing improvements to three miles of SR 16 to address new traffic tied to the development.
The work was initially estimated to cost about $15 million.
But the developer learned in 2021 that the Florida Department of Transportation would require a complete redesign, pushing the projected cost to roughly $57 million.
More recent county estimates placed the cost above $60 million.
Southeast sought to limit its contribution to $15 million and have FDOT complete the work.
In February 2023, commissioners Christian Whitehurst, Sarah Arnold, Roy Alaimo, Krista Joseph and Henry Dean voted to reject that proposal and declare the developer in default after finding it had failed to acquire required drainage ponds or complete designs.
The decision allowed the county to block approval of additional plats and construction plans. Homes already built and occupied were not affected.
The developer sued the following month, arguing in part that the county’s demands violated the agreement. The county countersued.
The appeals court found that the deal required Southeast Development to pay “all costs” of the SR 16 work, not just costs up to the original estimate.
The agreement expressly identified the $15 million figure as an estimate and noted that actual expenses could change based on the final design and cost of materials, the court said.
Southeast argued that interpreting the agreement without a cap would produce an unreasonable result and that it would not have accepted such a potentially perilous obligation.
The court rejected that argument, finding that the language was unambiguous and could not be rewritten because the deal later proved too pricey.
“To be sure, this interpretation means the Agreement does not cap Southeast’s exposure,” the judges wrote.
The court also rejected the developer’s claim that emergency declarations involving hurricanes, the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic had extended its deadlines for completing the required work.
The ruling preserves the county’s authority to block additional plats and construction plans, retain roughly $5 million paid into escrow and obtain the road-design documents and permits.
The appeals court vacated one portion of the lower court’s decision involving Southeast Land Ventures, an affiliated company that received the development rights.
The judges found that Southeast Land Ventures had not expressly assumed the original developer’s contractual obligations and therefore could not itself be found in breach.
The Citizen has reached out to the developer’s appellate lawyer for comment.
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