A local company wants to tear down ‘eyesore’ for a $250 million development

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — A local company wants to tear down a neighborhood blight and replace it with a $250 million, mixed-use development.

Vacated in 2012, the Bestbet Greyhound Track and Poker Room on Race Track Road in St. Johns County attracts crime and vandalism.

“When you come by this every day, you think, what?” Action News Jax reporter Ben Becker asked a resident. “It’s an eyesore,” Kristin Matthews said.

Gatlin Development Inc. wants to buy the land at Race Track Road and U.S. Highway 1 and demolish the building to make way for office space, retail and residential development. Gatlin plans to name it Grand Cypress.

“With all the vandalism and everything that goes on over there, (it) would be nice to see something other than a bunch of broken windows,” Matthews said.

Action News Jax first reported in 2017 when three teenagers were arrested after they broke into Bestbet, spray-painted graffiti and broke glass.

In 2015, a small fire broke out on the second floor, and in 2013, a man forced open two doors and took numerous DVRs, big-screen TVs and an antique desk.

Race Track Road has seen massive development in the past five years, including the nearby Pavilion at Durbin Park in 2019, a project of Gatlin and Gate.

Bartram Market opened across the street, and new retail and residential developments are planned at the corners of Race Track Road and St. Johns and Veterans Parkway.

This is in addition to the opening of the 9B extension in 2018.

As for Matthews, she said she feels lucky the Bestbet will be lost for good.

“It is like we hit the jackpot,” she said.

The deal is pending rezoning from county commissioners.

Bestbet statement

“The (B)estbet facility on Race Track Road was the site of our first card room in Northeast Florida, opening in 2004. As we have grown our footprint over the many years, this site no longer strategically fits our portfolio. We are very happy to have a development partner of Frank Gatlin’s caliber and reputation accessing the site for a mixed-use concept that I’m sure the citizens and elected officials of St. Johns County will welcome and be proud,” said Jamie Shelton, president of Bestbet.

Gatlin Development Company statement

“Gatlin Development Company plans to redevelop the old (Bestbet) racetrack in St. Johns County into a multiuse development and is currently working on a (Planned Unit Development) Rezoning with St. Johns County, known as ‘Grand Cypress,’ which will propose a mixed-use development that is consistent with the property’s intensive, commercial, future land-use designation (which allows commercial, office and multi-family uses as a matter of right). The plan for ‘Grand Cypress’ is to develop a mixed-use project to include up to 250,000 square feet of retail, and up to 975 multi-family units valued at approximately $250 million.”

Cox Media Group