"We have a parking crisis right now and in absence of a solution those cars make their way into the neighborhoods." Gate Petroleum president John Peyton said that in May 2023, when the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club first presented its long-range plan to members, as The Ponte Vedra Recorder reported at the time. He also said: "It is a change, but a needed change."
Three and a half years later, the first finished building from that plan is open. The Inn & Club held the ribbon cutting for its new Sports Club on Monday, Oct. 26, according to the Recorder's report on the opening. For anyone living along Ponte Vedra Boulevard, the opening also says something about how the whole property is being reorganized and how long that will take.
The Recorder describes an 84,000-square-foot facility. It has a heated six-lane saltwater lap pool on the roof overlooking the Atlantic and a three-story rock wall. The fitness floor includes a dedicated golf training area and what the club calls one of the broadest collections of Technogym strength and cardio equipment in the country. Group classes include Pilates, Spin, yoga, HIIT and sports performance training. The recovery side has a steam room, sauna, cold plunge and dedicated recovery suites. The Reef, the club's nursery, takes children from 6 months to 10 years old.
"Health and wellness has become such a vital part of today's resort world," general manager Michael Gordon told the Recorder. The resort's renovation page adds casual dining at Sandpiper Cafe. It describes the Sports Club as a place for members and resort guests. The resort's restaurants are limited to resort guests and club members.
The redevelopment is a planned unit development, or PUD, that St. Johns County commissioners approved 4–1 on Nov. 7, 2023, as the Jacksonville Daily Record reported. According to the county commission's agenda packet, it covers about 90.5 acres, made up of the roughly 80-acre oceanfront Inn & Club property and the 10.5-acre Lodge property across Ponte Vedra Boulevard. Gate gave several reasons for it. Its aging facilities needed to be more resilient to sea-level rise, the resort needed to stay competitive, and parking had to be fixed. The county packet also notes that some of the buildings are experiencing storm damage.
The PUD documents place the Sports Club and its parking west of Ponte Vedra Boulevard. They generally bar parking structures east of the Boulevard, with one exception for the existing Lodge building. When the county issued the Sports Club building permit in November 2024, the permitted plans included a four-level parking garage alongside the building, according to the Daily Record. That permit was valued at $65 million.
The 2023 proposal called the parking structure "a top priority" because it would hold more cars than the current lots and had to be in place for people visiting the new buildings. County review materials also recorded neighbors' concerns about traffic, parking, building heights, views and flooding. Under the plan, the west side of the Boulevard takes the parking and the busiest new building. The oceanfront gets rebuilt next, behind them.
The project's dates moved after the first announcement. The table follows each milestone from the Recorder's May 2023 report through the permits and the October opening.
| Milestone | As described in 2023 | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Parking structure | Construction to begin January 2024 | Included in the Sports Club permit issued Nov. 20, 2024 |
| Surf Club | Construction to start after THE PLAYERS Championship in 2024, about two years to complete | Old Surf Club closed Dec. 1, 2024; new building permit issued March 6, 2025; resort targets spring 2027 |
| Sports Club | Part of the early phases | Estimated for early 2027 in late 2024; opened Oct. 26, 2026 |
The Surf Club is the larger oceanfront project. St. Johns County issued a $500,000 foundation permit on Feb. 18, 2025. A $44 million building permit followed on March 6 for a 94,343-square-foot building at 261 Ponte Vedra Blvd., the Daily Record reported. The planned amenities include pools, restaurants and bars, conference space and guest rooms. Brasfield & Gorrie is the contractor on both the Sports Club and Surf Club permits, and England-Thims & Miller is the civil engineer. Cooper Carry lists itself as master planner and designer of the Surf Club.
The resort's renovation page puts the reimagined Surf Club's opening in spring 2027. Work on the Surf Club and the Racquet Club is still underway, and the resort says some amenities stay closed until it's done:
So from now through the spring, a new three-story rock wall and rooftop pool sit on one side of the property while the oceanfront the Inn is known for is still a construction site. The Sports Club opened while the oceanfront rebuild is still in progress.
The Surf Club's spring 2027 date is the nearest milestone in a much longer plan. The approved PUD divides the buildout into six phases. Phase 1 has to start within five years of approval, and Phase 6 within 25 years. The whole program must be finished no later than Dec. 31, 2053.
The PUD also sets the maximum the property can ever hold. At the Inn & Club, that is 349 rooms and 595,000 square feet of indoor resort space. At the Lodge, it is 86 rooms and 70,000 square feet. Phase 2 adds 20 Lodge rooms and 35,000 square feet of resort space, and the later phases add rooms and space mostly at the Inn. The county's plan drawings show a Racquet Club, resort-room buildings and two future buildings at the Inn. Across the Boulevard, they show a Lodge parking garage and a building with pools. Each of those still needs its own site-specific construction plans.
Gordon, then president of Gate Hospitality, described the pace in 2023: "We're not taking too big of a chunk at a time for the redevelopment. If a building's construction starts, it has to be built within three years." The 2023 proposal also included an expanded Seahorse Grille with an ocean-view ballroom for larger weddings. In practice, the Inn will change one building at a time over many years. The Sports Club is the first one finished, and the Surf Club is scheduled to be the second.
Off the Boulevard, another local recreation upgrade opened this fall. The Yards reopened its renovated Pickle Garden on Oct. 9 with new covered pickleball courts, the Recorder reported. Pickleball director Maria Nili and owner Dave Miller chose the covers so play would be interrupted less by Florida weather. The Yards holds its Turkey AM Tournament on Thanksgiving morning, with a social bracket and a competitive bracket. Sooner than that, the Ponte Vedra Auto Show returns Sunday, Nov. 8, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Nocatee Station Event Field.
I'll keep tracking each phase of the Inn & Club's rebuild through the Surf Club's spring opening and the phases after it. If you'd like to talk about how a project of this size and length fits into your own plans on the Boulevard, or anywhere in Ponte Vedra Beach, Tara Belanger is happy to help. Let's Connect.
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