A Hastings Investors Guide: Be Here Now - St Johns River-to-Sea ...

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         A Hastings Investors Guide:
                Be Here Now
Companion to the Hastings Investors Workshop, May 31, 2018, The Lord’s
Temple City of Refuge, Hastings, FL 32145, and in anticipation of the
opening of the Palatka-to-St. Augustine State Trail through Hastings,
November 2018, pursuant to a Competitive Florida Grant awarded to the
Town of Hastings, adopted May 1, 2018 by the St. Johns County Board of
County Commissioners.

                       Rates are dropping
                    Services are improving
                    A trail is coming through

Table of Contents
I  Introduction and historical overview of Hastings
   and rural southwest St. Johns County
II Impressions of Hastings
    Alan Gray
    Christopher Coleman
    Chris Stanton
    Emily Fox
    Jody Bateman
    Kenny DeFord
    Lorain Vinson
    Nancy Quatrano
    Pastor Thomas Cave
    Sheldon Morrison
    Pastor Steffanie Jones
    Roundtable discussion group participants
III Resources
     St. Johns County Government
      Government services of particular interest to Hastings
        > St. Johns County Utility – Town of Hastings Utility
        > Public Works Department
        > Land Management Services Department
        > Economic Development
        > St. Johns County Tourist Development Council
        > Agriculture
    St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop Alliance
         > Alliance website
         > Alliance masterplan and maps
         > Trail food and lodging expenditures report

                            *****

I    Introduction and historical overview of Hastings and
rural southwest St. Johns County
Hastings is a small community located in the southwest portion of St. Johns
County settled in 1890 and incorporated in 1909. It was founded as a one-
mile-square agricultural hub with a rail connection to St. Augustine that
supplied fresh food for Henry Flagler’s hotels. Still today surrounded by
farms, Hasting centers a state-designated Tri-County Agricultural Area that
demonstrates its continuing importance for Florida food security.

Chief crops have been potatoes and cabbage, with sod today accounting
for about 10 percent of production. Some farms raise beef cattle, while
aquaponics together with the introduction of organics and of specialty crops
-- of heirloom tomatoes, of new varieties of sweet potatoes, cauliflower and
of Asian vegetables – newly contribute to diversity.

Diversity has become vital as the consolidation of markets has left the
region’s small farms less able to compete.

As of 2015, Hastings had a town population of 604 residents and was
governed by a five-member town council under a town charter form of
government. But the accumulating impacts of disasters and social change

-- fires, freezes, the disruption caused by school integration and the closing
of in-town schools -- combined with dwindling numbers of family farms and
of farm acreage overall, led to bottom. Farm mechanization and
consequent labor reduction added to burdens too great for the town
administration to bear.

In November 2017, voters overwhelming chose to give up their town
charter. On March 1, 2018, the former town became administered as part
of unincorporated St. Johns County.

Now comes promise

• Rates and fees are dropping and services are improving.
• Although no longer a formally designated town, the community has grown
more resilient. The large population surrounding the formal town had had
no say in its affairs. Today, a far larger population speaks for Hastings.

• State-sponsored advances in food production and processing have
resulted in irrigation technology that lowers annual water costs for
participating farmers while helping clean farm runoff before it flows into the
St. Johns River. Next in prospect is a First Coast Fresh Food Innovation
Center at the East Palatka State Farmers Market that will generate value
added local food processing and cooling facilities. Farmers of the Tri-
County Agricultural Area (TCAA) will gain new market influence.
• In November 2018, a 3.4-mile section of the Palatka-to-St. Augustine
State Trail (PSAST) will open through downtown. This will connect an
existing 8.4-mile section between Vermont Heights and Spuds and another
existing 9.1 section from west of Hastings with Palatka. PSAST will grow to
a total of 20.9 miles in each direction.

The trail is a portion of the five-county 260-mile St. Johns River-to-Sea
Loop and the 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway, both under construction.
The trail is also part of a TCAA agritourism strategy that will generate a
new regional destination for recreation and tourism, especially valued for
relieving visitor congestion in St. Augustine.

According to the superintendent of the Palatka-to-St. Augustine State Trail,
even while the trail remains split between its two sections it already draws
between 50,000 and 60,000 users a year. According to an email of March
16 this year, “The visitation for 2015/2016 was 58,583. The visitation for
2016/2017 was 51,065.” In the latter period the trail was closed several
weeks due to reconstruction of its surface and low-priority clean-up after
Hurricane Matthew.

Those numbers will likely double with the 20.9 miles in place. PSAST will
become a destination trail for not just residents of St. Augustine and
Palatka but for touring cyclists, many of whom will choose to overnight at
either end (for cyclists from Palatka and beyond entailing some road riding
or a designated driver between Vermont Heights and St. Augustine, then
back). As many as 2,000 bicyclists on an average week could newly enter
Hastings. Today there’s almost nothing to make them stop awhile.

They will come looking for hospitality; for attractive one-of-a-kind stores,
especially for heart healthy food at food trucks, sidewalk cafes and
restaurants, for beer on tap, bike repairs, helpful signage, art, information
about the area, about housing, work force, community values and
resources, law enforcement. Some will want rooms for the night or a safe
place to camp. Some will want to invest as the community rises.

The St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop today is almost three-quarters the way
built, in construction or in planning. It’s completely mapped and master-
planned. It has Amtrak and SunRail connections. Cyclists already come
from far to ride it for up to 10 days at a time. (For details about their
spending as well as maps and the master plan, see below at Report: Trail
cyclist expenditures for food and lodgings, and other data and anecdotal
information pertinent to investment in Hastings.)

Natalia Fernandez and Herb Hiller on the unfinished trail

The trail is also part of a Tri-County Agritourism Corridor that’s connected
by back roads and extends for miles north and south of SR 207. Farms,
produce stands and down-home stores welcome visitors. Farm lunches
take place. Coming in fall, afternoon barn jams and chef dinners. Flagler
College operates tours, and story maps will be ready before the trail opens
through Hastings for DIY touring by car. The Alliance seeks to turn corridor

visits into consumer awareness of corridor food sourcing by regional
restaurants and groceries and thereby brand local farm produce for added
value. The strategy draws on the farm-to-table and “slow food” movements
and the high level of food awareness that characterizes urban Florida and
visitors to the region. (See below at Golden Sun Strategic Marketing Plan.)

Hastings Potato Exchange

A revived Hastings will center the trail. It’s up to townspeople to welcome
those who show up. Odds are, they will know little about Hastings, but if
they hear in advance about activities expected to commence with the trail
opening, they will be curious and will welcome the chance to stop awhile –
in time, to spend the night. This has already been the case with trails that
have opened through Dunedin, through Clermont and Winter Garden,
through Titusville, and starting to happen now through Palatka. (See below
at Bike Florida’s 2017 Gullah Geechee Spring Tour Economic Impact
Report with particular reference to the Sea [Spuds, Elkton, Armstrong]
Community Help Resource Center and at Report: Trail cyclist expenditures

for food and lodgings, and other data and anecdotal information pertinent to
investment in Hastings.)

Trail-based renewal doesn’t happen by accident. It takes the 3 P’s:
planning, perseverance and performance. Planning has been constant.
Perseverance has been shown. Performance is on the line.

It’s up to people from Hastings and others to make their moves. This
Hastings Investors Guide supplies information and resources to get started.
Otherwise, to keep informed about the trail and the agritourism corridor,
check the frequently updated website of the St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop
Alliance and Facebook page: www.sjr2c.org. Also consider joining the
Hastings Rotary Club and Team Up Hastings.

II   Impressions of Hastings
Interviews with:
• Alan Gray, Realtor
• Christopher Coleman, Coleman’s Mortuary
• Chris Stanton, retired businessman, resident
• Emily Fox, Hastings Branch Library
• Former Hastings Mayor Jody Bateman
• Kenny DeFord, DeFord’s Fuel & Oil Inc. (St. Augustine), resident
• Lorain Vinson, St. Johns County Council on Aging, former resident
• Rotary Club of Hastings President Nancy Quatrano
• Sheldon Morrison, Morrison’s Heirloom Tomatoes, Flagler Estates
• Pastor Steffanie Jones, AME Church, Hastings
• Pastor Thomas Cave, The Lord’s Temple City of Refuge
• A group interview with six undisclosed participants

                                  *****

As a kid, Alan Gray remembers loading potatoes and cabbages into box
cars along side tracks through town. Back in ’48 he could watch Roy
Rogers and get himself an ice cream next door to the movie theater. He
remembers three groceries and three hardware stores.

These days Alan is the only real estate agent in town. You can usually find
him in his office in a storefront on the east side of North Main, one in a long
row of mostly one-story commercial buildings, half of them empty. It was
the east side of Main that the fire of ‘85 tore through. The west side still
goes mostly to two stories, including one that upstairs housed offices of the
Florida Planters Inc. Warehouse (where Alan sat on the board till early in
the century). The warehouse shut down for lack of business. One of the
groceries and hardwares rented downstairs, where Alan has a For Sale
sign. It’s been up for a year or two. “Interest has picked up since the county
took over. Water bills have dropped by a third,” and he hears taxes next.

“It’s not that there isn’t money in town,” says Alan. “It’s that people don’t
know what’s coming next. I’ve heard good things about the trail, though
some say it won’t do a thing. But people here have long memories or have
heard others talk about how things used to be before freezes, fires and
storms turned everything upside down overnight.”

Most recently that happened in 2016, when Hurricane Matthew wiped out
the Anguilla Fish Farm in Federal Point north of town. Water flooded the

ponds. All the fish escaped into Deep Creek, not far from where the new
trail bridge crosses.

North Main Street, Hastings

Alan himself was doing well farming cabbage till Christmas of 1983 when a
freeze killed a $300,000 crop “just like that. The forecast called for 28
degrees. The freeze bottomed at 11. In ’85 there was another just like it. A
whole bunch quit at the same time.”

That’s the year that Alan opened his office on SR 207. The highway was
only two lanes and people didn’t just speed through except for the one light.
After 30 years, he moved onto North Main across from the bank. “I like
working where I know everybody,” Alan says, “though there aren’t so many
anymore.

“What in the world does Hastings need the most?”

Like everyone, Alan says town needs a grocery store. He’d put in a Crystal
on 207 ”where, weekends, every student from Gainesville passes on their

way to the beach. Somebody’ll do it, and everybody else will say I should
have done that.

“We need a whole lot more but can you make money from it? That’s the
whole idea.”

                                    *****

Christopher Coleman in the prime of life is a vital force for Hastings
improvement. He takes on community challenges across two counties even
while running a full-time business and providing for a family of six. He has
been the town funeral director since 1996. He opened Coleman’s Mortuary
soon after graduating from Gupton-Jones Mortuary College in Decatur.

Chris meets a lot of people, often in grief. “Our families are very close. It’s
deeply spiritual when they come to me.” His counseling extends like a
mission. You ask yourself, where do people – leaders – like this come
from? He says “it’s how my mom and dad raised me, to become socially
involved in my community. It’s God’s will.”

Hope Pavilion

He sees change for the better happening in Hastings. He’s experienced in
change.

Thirteen years ago in a house next to the old elementary school (today’s
Harris Community Center) he started Hope Pavilion, a foster home for
boys. It’s largely funded by referrals from the Florida Department of
Children and Families. Eight years later, the home relocated to a
handsome vernacular house alongside the trail. Today Hope Pavilion looks
after 13 boys, who attend school, work from a computer lab after school,
and perform community service. A sister-in-law is CEO and Chris serves as
director of operations.

Last year, Chris led the start of Brother’s Keeper Academy in Palatka, a
school that prepares boys for high school. He chose Palatka because the
need was there and it was too costly to bring a site he had in mind for
Hastings up to code. He teaches science there.

“Institutions, recreation, pastors – they can have great beneficial impact.
While there aren’t yet enough activities for youth in town, and recreation is
mostly basketball,” he looks for the trail to get kids on bikes, expand their
individuality, and get out in nature.

Chris was among those who voted for giving up town government. “Just
getting new water pipes has caused people to feel a little better. Town
Council always stopped us from going forward.

“One of the biggest things is to build a spirit of motivation: more clean-up
days, more coming together. Help owners get rid of crack houses that need
to be torn down.”

What kinds of businesses does he want to see? “Probably a source of fresh
food, fresh meat, an ice cream sandwich shop, a nice dress store.”

He finds black-white relations “a whole lot better. We need new homes
built, more shared areas. Transportation every six hours isn’t good
enough.”

                                   *****

For four generations, Stanton family business helped anchor downtown.
Everybody bought cars from Stanton Ford. Yet even though the family sold
the dealership and it shut down soon after, today it’s Chris Stanton who
more than anyone has primed Hastings for comeback. As Chris will tell
you, “That hasn’t necessarily made me popular.”

The dealership led Chris to a globe-trotting automotive career that gave
him rare perspective on the town when in 2010 he came back to retire.

Chris had been consolidating a global Ford distribution system that no
longer functioned with “a dealership on every corner.” He saw Hastings in a
way that others didn’t. Consolidation that hadn’t yet run its course had
already reduced hundreds of family farms to maybe 50. Mechanization had
sharply cut payrolls. Community schools were consolidating in regional
hubs. SR 207 had become a trunk highway that made the big Publix
shopping plaza at SR 312 only a 15-minute drive away and the bigger
regional malls of southside Jacksonville less than an hour. Hastings’ tax
base could no longer support town services. Rates had gone through the
roof. Town Hall had no solutions.

It was Chris who proposed and then led the consolidation end game. He
pushed for the vote that last year showed that, sentiment aside, just about
everybody else also saw the writing on the wall. Voters chose by a lopsided
82-to-18 percent to give up their town charter. Hastings became
consolidated with St. Johns County. But just in case the vote wasn’t going
to favor consolidation, Chris on the same ballot ran a first-time campaign
for election to the town council. He lost.

From left to right: Chris Stanton, Johnny Barnes, Christopher Coleman and Ronald Jones. (St.
Augustine Record photo)

Hastings: biting the bullet, hoping for better times -- still a community even
if no longer signed as a town.

The county has shown its commitment, says Chris. “A lot of staff hours
have right away been invested. They’re trying to do it right.”

Since administrative takeover March 1, the county has started on a $3.2
million upgrade of the town water and wastewater systems as part of a six-
year capital improvement plan. Water and sewer rates have dropped by 60
percent not just for the 400-some town users but also for those in adjacent
areas previously served by the town.

But Chris and others see the county having prioritized industrial expansion
around the St. Augustine Airport north of the city along US 1. Can Hastings
get what it needs?

Chris sees that opening of the trail through town could be an anchor facility
for renewal. He has studied how trails have turned around sections of
Chattanooga and Atlanta. But he’s concerned that there’s a “chop shop”
along the trail, and in May there was a break-in two doors from his house,

also close to the trail. “We need the sheriff to step up as the Board of
County Commissioners has done, and put some resources in Hastings.

“Everybody agrees that we need a grocery stop again. But there’s not
enough base here to support retail as the town is now. That makes it tough
to write a business plan. The Dollar General handles basics. We need
unique businesses that don’t exist in Palatka, St. Augustine or Jacksonville.
Yet any business that might want to come in will look around at the blight,
and ask who’s going to spruce up the town.

“And as for saving the old civic center [the WPA ruins], it would be one
thing if there was some way to make it pay for itself were it renewed. It was
the town offices, the fire department; I grew up going to that building. But
every news story shows the building as the blight it is. There’s no purpose
for it and taxpayers are footing the bill.

Chris understands that a business that specializes in groceries for food
deserts might be interested in Hastings. The WPA site could be an ideal
location. Would the post office be interested in relocating there?

“We need an incubator, a WalMart distribution center. Many jobs that pay
well. A logistics company, warehousing. There’s an employable labor force,
and others would come because while the average home sale in St. Johns
County now tops $300,000, Hastings remains one of the last affordable
bastions.”

                                    *****

Hastings librarian Emily Fox, in mid-life, has lived in Hastings for 12 years.
She moved here because it was conveniently between St. Augustine,
where she grew up, and Palm Coast, where her husband works. She knew
people who had grown up in town, and rural living appealed to her. She
walks to work.

For Emily the library is a place that “gives back” to residents. “It’s very
much a community center, where people come for services.”

Health and Human Services comes three days a week to help with social
services, food stamps, housing; the Department of Children and Families
once a week. The Wildflower Clinic in St. Augustine provides free medical
and dental services with an outreach nurse each Wednesday and a dental
bus that comes twice a month and provides “almost full service dentistry.
You can get dentures if needed.”

Recently the library has hosted voter registration, The First Coast
Leadership Foundation out of Jacksonville works to inspire better fathers
and families; it works with disadvantaged youth and assists men and
women to re-enter society after serving time in prison. First Coast
Technical College sends a job recruitment specialist.

The Pilot Flying J Truck Stop in DuPont Center lately held a two-day job fair
at the library, and is “getting quality people.”

Residents can pay utility bills at the library.

“We’re a little outpost. Our six employees know our patrons, what they
learn including how to read. We give back and feel rewarded by work. It’s
important to give back. We lead by example.

“The buzz I hear is about economic revival, affordable housing, the ability
to get quality education. Many have dropped out.

“People all the time face filling out job applications online. We’re hoping for
a program in educational literacy for kids and adults. It might be online for
those capable, but maybe also in-class adult learning at nearby South
Woods Elementary with child care.”

The most important shop for downtown? “A grocery store beyond frozen
processed food. Can be a hole in the wall packed with fresh foods.
Otherwise anything viable, an artist colony, bistro, coffee shop, bike shop.
This once was a very vibrant community. It’s now sometimes sad.”

                                    *****

“Hastings needs a spark plug to ignite things again,” says former Hastings
Mayor Jody Bateman. “We need people to get up and do things.

“When I first got on the town council as a young man in the ‘70s, the big
need was parking. The town was packed, and everybody was making a
good living.”

Jody was farming potatoes at a time when “it was nothing for us to ship 400
or more truck and train loads a week. The town was so popular that the
ladies came from St. Augustine to the high-end dress shop my first wife
ran.

“It was the country way of life. You didn’t have to grow. We all knew each
other. The grocery stores still made home deliveries. We ran tabs in the
stores. If somebody didn’t have enough money at the end of the month –
well, you’d be okay for another week.

“Things had been good for so long that nobody much changed what they
were doing. Demand for potatoes was dropping but we kept growing ‘em
anyway. Yet change was happening all around.”

By the time Jody got elected mayor in the mid ‘80s, he knew the town was
slipping away. One issue the town didn’t adapt well to was integration. “It
was about race, of course, but it was also a caste thing – about kids in the
same school where everybody knew that ‘your daddy works for my daddy.’”
Many moved away, while many who remained and had worked the fields
no longer had jobs.

The fire of ’85 was the death knell. Spirits sank. The town didn’t re-build.
Now finished with politics and having sustained a huge loss farming
cabbage, Jody retired with his second wife to Satsuma.

But Hastings still pulls him. Partly it’s the change that has started to
happen. Hurricanes and weather extremes have diversified what farmers
grow. Many have shifted to sod that doesn’t have the short harvest window
for row crops, and as suburbs expand into farm fields, the market is
assured. In a new career, Jody now brokers sod to Jacksonville markets.

He and his wife are also renovating houses in Hastings and Palatka.
“There’s this growing demand for affordable housing. A woman who can’t
afford St. Augustine can afford Palatka and drive to work there. It’s a rising
tide that lifts all boats.”

Jody himself drives Highway 207 almost every day. He’s seen the
trailheads get built in Hastings and Vermont Heights. He does see more
and more bicyclists out.

He also sees that the trail could be the spark plug that Hastings needs,
especially if the 2,000 cyclists a week that advocates forecast show up.

But he says that so far “the general consensus of people in Hastings is,
‘Why are they doing this? We work hard. We get all the exercise we need.’
They don’t think of bicycles as exercise. They don’t see the cyclists as
what’s going to bring the town back. They’d rather have a road repaved.”

                                   *****

Kenny DeFord in late middle age lives on a few acres a mile south from
the red light in town. Two houses, one for him, one for family. He’s there
among the trees for the quiet. He’s also close by some downtown property,
where he used to have a gas station till FDOT bought him out to 4-lane
207. Still has that lot and a few others.

People have lately called about building houses on his lots, “but they want
to steal them from me.”

Doesn’t bother Kenny, except that he’s all the time having to clean up the
highway lot after people dump trash around. He’s thought about putting up
a Popeye’s or a Dairy Queen, “but I better stick with what I know.”

Kenny had already retired – “growing crazy sitting on the couch, planting
flowers” -- till boredom got him to buy a business in West Augustine that’s
now DeFord’s Fuel & Oil Inc. Mainly he sells bulk diesel to farms – probably
75 percent of them in St. Johns, Putnam and Flagler counties.

He says it doesn’t pay to deliver after 2:30. “Rush hour is taking more and
more of the day.” Says that when he quits for the day it takes as long to
get the few miles to reach 207 as it does to drive on home.

Meanwhile Hastings hasn’t grown in 50 years, he says. “There’s no decent
restaurant, no drugstore. We need some strip malls with something in
them. A good-sized grocery store would do more than anything else.”

What Kenny does see happening is that “we’re gonna get houses built all
around us. They’ll take up the farms one by one and leave us with nothing
in the middle.”

He says that the more that farms mechanized, the less labor it took. “It took
a lot of people to rake potatoes in a basket. Now one guy on a harvester
can do four rows at a time. That’s not a bad thing, just that it cost us a lot of
jobs.

“We need some kind of industry, and that’s not always a good thing.”

                                     *****

Lorain Vinson laments the loss of Hastings community but sees better
ahead. She was born in Palatka but lived most of her life in Hastings until
three years ago when she and her husband moved to San Mateo, “where
it’s high and dry” and she likes the quiet.

Lorain went into teaching when, as she says, girls in the 1970s still had to
choose between teaching and nursing. She drove back and forth to schools
in St. Augustine, at one time in a special ed school that included mentally
handicapped as well as gifted students.

Now retired and into a second career, Lorain works for the Council on
Aging in Hastings. COA provides seniors with transportation, social
services, health care. They can count on three meals a day three days a
week and the socializing that’s part of sitting down together at The Lord’s
Temple Community Hall. That socializing has gone on even after the fire
that knocked the town back.

One by one after integration the community schools consolidated along SR
206. “We knew that with the loss of town schools, we lost something;
something was taken away from us. You used to walk to school to see
about your children. Parents always knew the teacher generationally.

Grocery shopping, at school: you met all the same people. Now people are
in their homes, their niches. We have to go St. Augustine or Palatka for
work. The older need to be driven. The Dollar General, the pizza place at
the gas station: that’s not enough for what we need.

“What else could re-establish community? What do we have outside of
family and church? Yes, we do have the library and there’s a new
restaurant coming.”

Lorain sees the need for an influx of younger people. “If we had more good
housing, a lot of people would come. Housing is less expensive than St.
Augustine. New housing tends to get occupied quickly. But ever since Irma,
there’s been a great shortage.”

Lorain thinks that the garage out back of the restored Hastings Potato
Exchange building would be good for a bike shop, “though I don’t know that
we have anyone to do that.”

And while Lorain cites “a definite racial division that has existed in Hastings
over the years, churches will invite the other to have fellowship with them.
Kids have gone together at school, and they see each other that way.
Some of the community has started to integrate somewhat. There’s no
overt animosity.”

                                    *****

Nancy Quatrano has been the president of the 91-year-old Hastings
Rotary for three terms. Although she and her husband live out SR 13 in
Flagler Estates, she’s passionate about Hastings. A writer by profession,
she networks, she writes grants. She talks to power.

“A high priority for Rotary is to overcome the down-and-out perception of
town,” Nancy says. “There are good people living here. Hastings, like so
many other once-booming towns, was left by the wayside when the railroad
pulled out in the ‘80s. To make things worse, a fire burned nearly 50
percent of the town. The heart just went out of the people here.

Though the longtime Hastings Cabbage & Potato Festival shut down three
years ago, the 5-K Spud Run remains. And, Rotary, Friends of the Hastings
Library, Team Up Hastings, and other collaborators keep trying new things.

“Since 2017, Main Street has hosted community events like the now-annual
Boulevard Car show which pulled maybe 1,000 people with two bands and
food vendors. Early 2018 saw the inaugural Great Hastings Mow Down and
300 visitors showed up for the three mowers and tractors that went through
their drills; food vendors did well.”

The Mow Down will return on March 9, 2019. The annual Hastings Area
Christmas Parade has grown into a regional event with floats, music, and
plenty of participation.

“Rotary is dreaming and working big. It’s looking to get inside the doors of
large Atlanta corporations to invest.” Nancy beats the drums with county
administrators to save the Historic Landmark WPA building from
demolition, “its ruins a virtual Hastings Acropolis that, stabilized and inside
the windowless Art Deco walls, could feature an income-producing music
and arts venue, an open-air market, and a small day park complete with
historic plaques telling the history of the region.”

In 2015, Rotary surveyed the town. As folks stopped for a hot dog and a
soda, about 39 completed the survey. “The residents of Hastings have
dreams. They want businesses and their children back; they want their
grandchildren to grow up with small-town values and have places to work
and play safely. In a nutshell, they want the same things that every
American wants for their family and community.

“The infra-structure, the history, and a strong culture are already in place.
Hastings is worth investing in; for the residents, the county, and the state of
Florida. “

                                    *****

Pastor Thomas Cave in late middle age has led his congregation for 30
years. His landmark church, The Lord’s Temple City of Refuge, is a
testament to faith. He says, “We used a whole lot of faith to create a whole
lot, but you know, it’s not just a church, it’s people. Any person of any
culture, seniors, the indigent – we welcome everyone.”

Hastings has been Pastor Cave’s home for all his life but for schooling and
vacations. He can remember the trains still running when he was 10 or 11.
Greyhound and Trailways came through. Town had a couple “5 & dimes,”
Causey’s Drug Store, Lovett’s Grocery, a Western Auto. His parents ran
the last dry cleaner in town. “They had worked for both previous owners, it
was in the little building next to Coleman’s [Mortuary].”

He gets his hair trimmed at the shop where he recalls “the 10-cent store
was. I go into Gator Supplies, pick up what I need. Three or four guys will
be sitting around there, we shake hands, we have conversations.” A
favorite stop is at the bank, where his mother was once janitor. He’s now a
small investor.

Pastor Cave has become reflective about family and town history. He and
his classmates have started a collection of pictures and class recollections
back to 1951. “We can expand on what we have, and in time this could go
to the library.

“We have active people in their 70s and mid-70s. This was a very
productive town. But how much do kids know about this? That’s the million-
dollar question. It probably comes out in conversation. They overhear us

talking about our history, but I doubt if anything about Hastings is included
in their education”

The church helps fill in what’s missing for kids. A Wednesday evening
Youth Night also brings out families. They pray and then eat, socialize and
get moral and spiritual instruction.

“You walk out your love, your relationships,” says Pastor Cave. “It’s how we
worked out the disruption of integration and how we’ve come to find
common ground in the dissolution of town government. We often met in
each other’s homes about this. We’re a small place looking at a bigger
picture now. We need to walk things through. Our common concern can
only be what’s best for all of us.

“The community is digesting its new beginning, and the trail is part of the
bigger picture, hopefully for getting people to invest while at the same time
maintaining our village character. There’s minimum traffic. We could use a
few nice eating places without congesting the place.”

                                   *****

Sheldon Morrison’s first impression of Hastings in 2013 was as a
rundown Mayberry. He tried to imagine the town in its heyday. It was 50
years since he had left the family farm in Downey, Idaho for a varied career
that in 1994 saw him retire as first class machinist’s mate at Jacksonville
Navy Base.

“I had traveled enough to have seen the fall of hundreds of small farms and
their communities as they’d been absorbed by ‘big ag,’” says Sheldon.
“They had become ghost towns surrounded by decaying houses and barns
with their fields of cattle crops a stark reminder of better times. The trains
no longer stop in those once bustling close-knit communities.”

The rails are gone now in Hastings, too, and while the highway is always
busy, Sheldon notices like everyone else, “that until now there’s been no
reason to stop.”

Sheldon and his wife of five years, Wanda, have acted on a vision of how
specialty farmers might help revive Hastings.

Soon after they discovered the town and saw its potential for renewal, they
chose a retirement home down CR 13 in affordable Flagler Estates, They
began raising tomatoes on two and a half acres for high-end clientele in St.
Augustine. Today Morrison’s Heirloom Tomatoes are sourced by the
ancient city’s independent restaurants and prestigiously named on menus.

“Hastings is worth reviving and again becoming the epicenter of regional
food production,” Sheldon says. “It’s in my power to affect change and
growth. The need and want for fresh local produce is huge. I feel the
resurgence of small specialty farms is the answer. I can’t do it all, but i can
lead by example.”

Sheldon was among the first growers of any size to engage with the SJR2C
Loop Alliance. He shared Alliance thinking that visits to family farms could,
with sound branding, translate into in-restaurant and in-market awareness
that these same farms, first enjoyably visited at leisure, could predispose
consumer selection of local menu and in-market choices.

Yet Sheldon feels that “the Alliance has pursued the support of large
struggling old family farms while doing little to promote the small specialty

farms and help remove some of the barriers we face. Neither of these types
of farms need to fail.”

Sheldon’s tomato patch is situated in an OR zoned area which “greatly
limits my ability to compete on a level playing field as the rest of the farms.
We are classified as a cottage food industry; I cannot place signage in my
yard, I cannot hire employees to help on the farm, I cannot have an onsite
store just to name some of the major limiting factors.”

Different from open field planting in a zoned agricultural area, success of
his product calls for “just the right amount of shade/sun combination and
the advantage of natural pest control and pollinators.

“A one size fits all plan does not work for my plans. We cannot host farm
tours without special permitting.

“We are literally a ‘mom and pop’ operation. I deliver in a little Ford Fiesta
with a lotta ‘maters in it. To grow, we need less restrictions and more
support.”

Pastor Steffanie Jones is educated, eager, successful in business, and
she’s the new pastor at the AME Church in Hastings. She lives in Orange
Park, from where she looks after an assisted living facility and an insurance
company that she owns in Jacksonville. Since taking on her pastorship, she
has lived part-time in the church parsonage.

Now she’s house hunting.

Pastor Steffanie epitomizes her wish for Hastings youth: get educated, get
a job, buy a house, live a life.

She had never heard of Hastings while pastoring in Atlantic Beach, and she
showed up just when Hastings voters gave up their town charter. “Lord,”
Steffanie asked, “how am I going to help or hinder these people?”

The people answered.

Though her congregation includes only 50 worshippers, everyone
welcomed her. “Hastings isn’t like where I’ve been living, not the crime, the
high traffic.

“It has the feeling of where I grew up in DeLand.” Her parents are both
educators.

“Everybody knows each other. I’m greeted everywhere I go -- at the Dollar
General, the gas station, at County Line [Produce]. I’m not a stranger. I’ll
talk to somebody on a porch. People are more receptive here. That really
weighs in when you’re just looking to serve people. Not proselytizing, but
just bringing service to the community.”

She ticks off the needs – the services that parishioners tell her about: Job
training, “a major issue. No jobs, no training. How can you prosper if you’re
just working on somebody’s car? So maybe a computer lab, a regular

clinic, better Internet, more reliable mail delivery, quicker fire service, better
transportation.

“The other day it took fire service 20 minutes to get to a house on fire. The
neighbors had to put the fire out, but the house burned down.

“The community is here,” Steffanie says. “We have to work from that
strength. I see this trail coming through. We need to be working with these
people. When the trail comes into Hastings, we want to welcome them,
make them feel at home. They might want to live here, invest here. We
have to seize the opportunities given us.”

                                     *****

Roundtable discussion group participants

Property owner #1
Property owner #2
Property owner #3
An insurance agent
A banker
A farmer

Property Owner 1

Concerned about blight. Some will take care of itself. Need jobs. Diversify
economy. A lot of hanging out. Would hate for something bad to happen on
the trail.

Need to shed light on opportunities here. Real estate’s here and available,
but retail is not economic development, We need a Wal Mart distribution
center. A boon for the town of Douglas, GA when distribution center moved
in. Hastings perfect for that. Would allow people to build homes. Affordable,
not just low income. We don’t want Section 8.

Concerned about over-selling.

Everything is for sale, but in-town investors aren’t here yet.

Relocate the old train station back on the trail. Tear down the WPA building
ruins. An eyesore. Though if someone fixes it up and it’s rentable, that’s
different. Town could become a classic artist colony.

Property Owner 2

SR 207 is like an Interstate without a Hastings exit. Town administration
had kept its thumb on everything that could happen. Fixed-up WPA could
be a place of assembling. The school (former town hall) is another anchor.
DeLand, Gainesville, St Augustine our catchment area. Hastings has the
raw materials and the horizontals, but we have no fiber.

Hastings needs a Facebook page. There’s an audience out there in the
crowd.

Property Owner 3

If people ever turn up Main Street from the light they see mainly empty
storefronts and blight. They don’t see the community that’s here but for so
long brought down that nobody wants to risk what they hold onto. All we’ve
needed is some new light shined on us, some encouragement from outside
ourselves. I believe that St. Johns County in charge now will make that
difference.

The trail can add to it. In a way the two bikers we know best are the town
drunk, who rides around town, and the fellow with Downs Syndrome.
They’re part of the community, too, and they both get looked after. It might
seem a little odd to say so, but those bikers who we hope come through
when the trail opens will get looked after too. They might discover a real-
thing community, not one of those gated places, that they never knew
existed. Yes, shining a light.

The Insurance Agent

St. Johns County is focused on the airport. The action place.

Visited DeBary awhile back. Has made itself a trail-to-trrain stop. It’s just a
timing thing. When will the numbers work? We’re positioned within a 300-
400-mile radius.

We can show what‘s here today but need a master plan of potential square
footage. We need a master building plan that uses the assets we have,
then go out and market it. It’s all about financing. We don’t have what
Dunedin had (on the Pinellas Trail). No momentum yet. We should be
talking on the internet about what’s “coming soon.”

We need people who live here and work in Palatka and St. Augustine, even
Jacksonville. In a two-adult family, one can commute one way, the other
the other way.

The Banker

We’ve got the charm. Tells about Sioux Falls that has re-positioned itself
for bicyclists and seasonally outdoor places that serve the healthy food
they crave.

The Farmer

He remembers Hastings with an A&P, drug stores, a hotel, two tractor
dealers, everything all lined up and where everybody came. We had a
school, a high-end ladies dress shop, three big potato co-ops. You could
look down onto the street and see who’s parked outside of Elmo’s.

He can see Hastings as Fernandina Beach or Micanopy; can see the
shops. And now you’re telling me about Ttiusville.

About tearing down the civic center (by which he means the WPA ruins)?
We used to hold the Potato Ball there. Housed the library, and Rotary was
there.

                                   *****

III   Resources
      • St. Johns County
      • St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop Alliance

                  St. Johns County Government

For a complete listing of St. Johns County Departments: http://www.co.st-
johns.fl.us/.
For a complete listing of St. Johns County Services, including Fire Rescue:
http://www.co.st-johns.fl.us/county/menulists/services.aspx.
For a complete listing of St. Johns County Information sources:
http://www.co.st-johns.fl.us/county/menulists/info.aspx
For the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office: http://www.sjso.org/ (for Hastings
area crime data and countywide bicycle crash statistics, call SJSO at 904-
209-2210)

St. Johns County Education
       *St. Johns County School District: http://www.stjohns.k12.fl.us/.
       *School Attendance Zone Maps: http://www.co.st-
johns.fl.us/GIS/SchoolMaps.aspx
       *First Coast Technical College: http://fctc.edu/
       *Hastings Campus, Bethune-Cookman Univerrsity, Spuds
       Campus:
       http://www.cookman.edu/academics/schools/COPS/professionalstudi
es/hastings.html
       *St. Johns River State College, St. Augustine Campus:
http://sjrstate.edu/campussac.html
       *Flagler College: http://www.flagler.edu/

For full-service medical care: Flagler Hospital,
http://www.flaglerhospital.org/
For St. Johns County Council on Aging,
http://www.coasjc.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwi6TYBRAYEiwAOeH7GSHLwNOcr
G2T5JBt7D8D5LNu4cJPn1lujfZ4wMv7gPFL03vuLkO8VhoCum0QAvD_Bw
E
St. Johns County Property Appraiser: https://www.sjcpa.us/. For a real
property search:
https://qpublic.schneidercorp.com/Application.aspx?AppID=960&LayerID=2
1179&PageTypeID=2&PageID=9062
St. Johns County Tax Collector: http://www.sjctax.us/

   Government services of particular interest to Hastings
Code Enforcement is complaint driven. A typical report:

1800915 – 105 E. Ashland – Unsafe Building. 2nd Notice of Violation sent
to property owner, first one lost in transit by USPS.

1800924 – 316 N. Main St – Unsafe Building. Notice of Violation mailed
and received by Property owner. Property Owner living in California
however he has a crew working on the structure now .

1800926 – 100 Park Ave. – Unsafe Building. Notice of Violation mailed
and received by new Property owner. Property owner in Permit center to
start permitting process for repair.

1800937 – 401 N. Main St. (SJC Asset) – Unsafe Building. Possible buyer,
in hands of Land Management.

WPA ruins

1801060 – 107 Park Ave. – Inspection revealed no violation as this time.

1801063 – 8761 E. Church St. – Unsafe Building. Notice of Violation
mailed and received by Property owner. Property owner advise he will be
working on compliance.

1801095 – 106 W. Lattin St – Over grown weeds, trash, fence in disrepair
& vehicles that haven’t moved for extended time. Scheduled for inspection.

1801096 – 6141 S. Main St. – Unsafe Building – chained up animals &
offensive smells. Owner made contact with St Johns Housing Partnership
(CONFIRMED) Property surveyed plans being drawn up, existing structure
to be demolished and new one built. Follow up inspection scheduled.

1801097 – N. 301 Main St – Unsafe Building. Commercial property.
Property owner visited Permit center and is working on compliance.

1801098 – E. 312 St Johns Ave – Junk vehicles. This property is currently
being used for what its Use classification is for. Auto sales, repair, service
and storage. Although it looks ugly there are no County Code Violations.
Any trespass issues would need to be reported to the Sheriff’s Office.

1801126 – W. 210 Fox St. – Junk vehicles & running a scrap metal
business. Alert of Violation left at property for owner to make contact with
Code Enforcement.

1801172 – E. 201 Carter St. – Unsafe Building. Inspection scheduled. No
Violation found on structure from an unsafe building abatement stance.

1801213 – 217 Park Ave – Haven for unwanted animals. Inspection
revealed no violation as this time.

1801434 - 00 Hastings general area – Repair sidewalk & maintained
ROW - Referred to Road & Bridge

1801435 – 200 Park Ave. – Grass has not been cut in several months – No
mowing ordinance

1801437 – 138 N. Main Street (SJC Asset)– Rusty roof & pot holes in front
of the building – Referred to R&B for potholes; rusty roof not a violation.

1801656 - 220 Park Ave – Unregistered vehicle that hasn’t moved in a few
years & an old No Trespassing sign on the tree. Inspection scheduled.

1801969 – 217 Park Ave – Car in back yard behind privacy fence, pool not
maintained. Inspection scheduled.

1801971 – 107 Park Ave – Screen Missing from window. Inspection
scheduled.

St. Johns County Utility – Town of Hastings Utility

St. Johns County Capital Improvement Plan Updated FY 2017
http://www.sjcfl.us/OMB/media/Budget2017/FY17CapitalImprovementPlan.
pdf

Per Hastings: Overall, the physical condition of the Hastings utility
infrastructure was found to be fair to adequate, with primary treatment
facilities in good shape, while individual components, such as electrical
panels, in need of attention. In order to improve and enhance the utility’s
abilities to serve its customers at a high level, and assure infrastructure
reliability, a 6-Year Capital Improvement Plan was developed. This 6-year
plan projects $0.5 million expenditures in year 1, with a 6-year total of $3.2
million.

Public Works Department

Several measures mark expanded staffing and improvements in the DPW
South Zone since assumption of governance by St. Johns County on
March 1.

• New investment of $1.8 million on sewer replacement.
• Assignment of a full crew and supervisor newly dedicated.
• Stepped-up infrastructure activity:

Elements of an early report for the South Zone since St Johns County
assumption of Hastings governance.

Road & Bridge Division
Cleaned a total of 52 catch basins, cross drains and side drains.
Cleaned 1,000 linear feet of stormwater pipe.
Cut back 693 linear feet of brush.
Filled 18 potholes.
Swept 8.27 roadway miles.
Trimmed 219 trees.

Traffic Operations
Installed a total of 209 signs which consisted of STOP, street name, speed
limit, and warning signs. In addition, has contacted FDOT to ensure that
street lights (about 53 total) on SR 207 are transferred to the county for
maintenance. FPL is assigning local street lighting to DPW.

Most of this work is ongoing but some of it is one time, such as replacing
signs and street lights.

              Land Management Services Department

• http://www.sjcfl.us/LandManagement/index.aspx. In particular visit the
GIS Map Mart and Data Depot.

                        Economic Development

Email interview pertinent to rural southwest St. Johns County with
Economic Development Director Melissa S. Glasgow

Does the county have short and/or long term economic and community
development plans? What studies, reports and recommendations support
the realization of these planning goals?

Comprehensive Plan –
http://www.sjcfl.us/LongRangePlanning/media/CPA2025/2Adopted2025.pdf

Does the county have a plan for the development and implementation of
economic change through retention, expansion, attraction of commerce
and industry and the creation of incentive zone/programs?

Comprehensive Plan – Section A.1.21 Economic Development
http://www.sjcfl.us/LongRangePlanning/media/CPA2025/2Adopted2025.pdf

Is there a current department work plan for the region?

(1) Part of JAXUSA Regional Economic Development. Completed NEFL
Regional Economic Development Strategy
http://innovatenortheastflorida.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/07/Innovate_NEFL_Executive_Summary_4-19-
12.pdf
(2) http://innovatenortheastflorida.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/08/Innovate-Four-Year-Accomplishments-
Overview.pdf
(3) New NEFL Regional Economic Development Strategy underway
https://www.elevatenefl.com/

What county analyses exist of existing economic situations relative to
business attraction and expansion and their application to the region?

(1) Florida Department of Opportunity (DEO) statistics reflect 18,000 new
jobs created and 1,200 new establishments opened in St. Johns County
since 2011.
(2) The most recent data available is here.
http://freida.labormarketinfo.com/vosnet/lmi/area/areasummary.aspx?sectio
n=inddata&session=areadetail&geo=1204000109
(3) SJC Economic Development Activity Update 2017
http://www.sjcfl.us/EconomicDevelopment/media/2017_ED_Activity_Report
.pdf

(4) SJC Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) 2016: page 8-12
https://www.sjccoc.us/Financial/pdf/2016/FINANCIAL%20SECTION.pdf

What grants or incentives for new development and redevelopment does
the county make available? Anything pertinent to regional recovery from
Hurricanes Matthew and Irma?

(1) County Business Incentive Ordinance 2014-30
https://www.sjccoc.us/minrec/OrdinanceBooks/2014/ORD2014-30.pdf
(2) Efforts underway to obtain CDBG DR funding for impacted areas within
the county.

What are the millage rates for the region?

2017 Millages:
http://sjctax.us/media/MILLAGESHEET.pdf

What is the condition of infrastructure, including plans for improvement?

St. Johns County Capital Improvement Plan Updated FY 2017
http://www.sjcfl.us/OMB/media/Budget2017/FY17CapitalImprovementPlan.
pdf

Are there any overlay or special taxing districts in place?

No taxing or special incentive districts or Enterprise Zones located in St.
Johns County.

What if any of the following are in place: industrial parks, shell buildings,
utilities, transportation, etc., that support business growth and expansion?

Developer-controlled business park areas within St. Johns County.
http://www.sjcfl.us/EconomicDevelopment/CommercialDevelopment.aspx

What’s the employable state of the regionally available workforce? What
analyses and recommendations are in place for workforce education and
training?

Labor force data for St. Johns County and all counties statewide.
http://www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-
information-data-releases/monthly-data-releases

What recent promotional pieces or magazine inserts promote economic
investment in the region?

(1) Florida Trend
http://www.sjcfl.us/EconomicDevelopment/media/2018/FT-1.22.18.pdf
(2) Global Trade Export Guide
http://www.sjcfl.us/EconomicDevelopment/media/2017/St%20Johns%20US
A%20Trade%20Reprint.pdf
(3) Business View Magazine
http://www.sjcfl.us/EconomicDevelopment/media/2017/BusinessViewMaga
zineSJC.pdf
(4) Southern Business & Development Magazine
http://www.sjcfl.us/EconomicDevelopment/media/2016/DixieDozen_Winter
2016.pdf

Other data relevant to to economic development in the Hastings area?

(1) Opportunity360 Measurement Report for Hastings
Tract FIPS: 12109021101
https://www.policymap.com/report_widget?pid=198400&type=op&area=pre
defined&sid=2010
(2) United States Census: Resident Population Estimates for the 100
Fastest Growing U.S. Counties with 10,000 or More Population in 2016:
July 1, 2016 to July 1, 2017 Population Estimates
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xht
ml?pid=PEP_2017_PEPANNGRC.US06&prodType=table
(3)
https://www.policymap.com/report_widget?pid=198400&type=op&area=pre
defined&sid=2010

           St. Johns County Tourist Development Council

• The TDC Strategic Plan was completed by an outside consultant in March
2017. The plan identified the areas for potential tourism development in St.
Johns County and was the precursor to the various studies for sports, arts
and culture and agritourism. We also completed a brand perception study
around the same time.
• The FY18 TDC Budget Goal Summary was prepared for the FY18
administrative budget hearings. As for FY19, the TDC has not yet created
the performance projections and goals with the exception of the revenue
projection. On Monday March 19th, the TDC voted to recommend a 5%
rate of revenue growth for FY19 which results in an anticipated annual
revenue of $11,012,830.
• Ordinance 2011-31 is the St. Johns County Tourist Development Plan.
The ordinance outlines some of the basic expected uses and goals of the
expenditure of Tourist Development Tax in St. Johns County.
• Tourism citations from the Comp Plan:
 A.1.6.8 The County shall assist as necessary the Agricultural Extension
Office in working with the farm communities in providing agritourism and
agribusiness activities and to transition from traditional St. Johns County
crops to specialty crops, ornamentals, flowers and similar alternatives as
applicable to St. Johns County. (page 18)

A.1.6. 9 The County shall allow agribusiness operations within R/S and A-I
as designated on the Future land Use Map and further defined by the Land
Development Code. Agribusiness is defined as operations associated with
active farm activities, equestrian activities, pasture lands, timber
production, crop and sod production operations and may include agri and
eco tourism establishments as defined in the Land Development Code
(page 18).

• Authorization for levy of the Florida Tourist Development Tax F.S.
125.0104 is here:
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&
URL=0100-0199/0125/Sections/0125.0104.html

                                Agriculture

(1) Policies directed to farming and to agritourism operations

A Hastings Overlay District follows the former jurisdictional boundaries of
the Town of Hastings. This overlay protects land development regulations
specific to the former town (smaller lot size requirements, setbacks, etc.).
Its only purpose was to preserve uses and land development regulations
that did not match up to the County’s land development regulations.

(2) Comprehensive Plan Policies:

Policy A.1.6.4- Areas designated A-I and R/S on the Future Land Use Map
shall be permitted the development of tracts of land as Family Farms and
Lots. Applicants for building permits pursuant to the Family Farm and Lot
provision shall not be required to submit PRD applications or be subject to
PRD regulations and requirements. The Family Farm and Lot provision is
restricted to the following conditions:

(a) Owners of property designated A-I or R/S shall be permitted to
construct or place a single-family residence on such property for use as the
Owner’s primary residence.

(b) Members of the Owner’s immediate family shall be permitted to
construct or place a single-family residence(s) for use as their primary
residence(s) on the same parcel or subpart thereof containing the Owner’s
primary residence, in accordance with County land development
regulations. For the purposes of this provision, immediate family shall mean
the Owner’s parents, step-parents, adopted parent, spouse, siblings,
children, step-children, adopted children, grandchildren, and the parents,
step-parents, adopted parent, siblings, children, step-children, adopted
children, or grandchildren of the Owner’s spouse.

(c) The Family Farm and Lot provision shall be limited to a one time use for
each family member.

(d) Applicants shall be subject to all other applicable County land
development regulations and other applicable law.