By Ed Offley
The scrub forest is gone, and heavy earth-moving equipment has cleared a fourteen-acre tract of land along the north side of Panama City Beach Parkway just west of the intersection with Front Beach Road.
At first glance, the development of Vintage Lake Powell does not appear to be a harbinger of dramatic change. When completed in late 2025 or early 2026, the mixed-use development will be one of several dozen residential housing communities underway throughout the Panama City Beach “island.”
The project will comprise five 5-story buildings with 286 one- and two-bedroom apartments, and a handful of three-bedroom units, said Jake McDonald, president of the Nashville-based company Oldacre McDonald LLC, which is co-developer with another Tennessee firm, TDK Co. Two of the buildings will feature 20,000 square feet of businesses on the ground floor ranging from full-service restaurants to specialty retail outlets.
While adding only modestly to the area housing inventory, Vintage Lake Powell nevertheless is symbolic of a major growth boom that will soon physically transform the west end of Panama City Beach.
For years, the area remained a quiet residential area with some commercial development along the parkway, avoiding the boom-and-bust development cycles of the early 2000s and 2010s that transformed the skyline of the Gulf beachfront. Most new construction consisted of individual houses replacing older cottages and smaller homes.
That era is over.
Panama City Beach and Bay County planners have identified five substantial development projects eyed for unincorporated Bay County west of the city limits in addition to Vintage Lake Powell. Many are in the preliminary planning and permitting process and do not yet have firm construction startup dates. They include:
* A future St. Joe Company residential project identified only as “Lake Powell,” comprising a 2,100-acre swath of forest land north and west of Wild Heron and the new Watersound Golf Course. Current plans call for 1,500 single-family homes and 125,000 square feet of commercial development.
* West Laird, a second major St. Joe residential community, will be located on 1,368 acres immediately east of the Lake Powell development. Currently, it is slated to have 2,390 residential lots when built, including 400 in the first two phases of development.
The timing on both projects is still somewhat undetermined and is probably between 5-10 years off, said Bay County Planning Director Wayne Porter. Both projects are “contingent” on the future extension of the Phil Griffitts Parkway west of its current terminus at SR 79, he said.
A St. Joe spokesman did not respond to a request for comments on the two massive projects.
* “West Lake,” a multi-family development, is planned on both sides of Wild Heron Way just north of Panama City Beach Parkway. It will feature 750 apartments.
* Two hotels earmarked for a 5.5-acre lot on the north side of Front Beach Road on Jamaica Lake just east of the Bayou Bill’s restaurant. One is identified as a 259-unit Dual-Branded Hotel, and the second is a smaller, boutique hotel with less than a dozen rooms.
All in all, the projects are expected to add roughly between 8,000 and 10,000 residents to the area when finished.
McDonald told PCB Life he and his company are well aware of the boom in development throughout the greater PCB area, which is occurring elsewhere throughout the Florida Panhandle. Oldacre McDonald recently redeveloped the Just Jump Shopping Center on Hutchinson Boulevard and previously helped build the west end Winn-Dixie at 23200 Front Beach Road. “We’re excited to have broken ground with this project,” McDonald said. “It’s great to be back at the same intersection.”
