The Errand Map in Northern Saint Johns Now Runs Down St. Johns Parkway

"Traffic in St. Johns County is awful...You've got the Buc-ee's, Walmart, everybody," a resident told First Coast News when the last piece of County Road 2209 opened this spring.

That list of landmarks says a lot. People used to describe this part of the county by naming its golf attraction. Now they name the stores. In 2026 the stores are spreading out along a single road. With CR 2209 finished from CR 210 to State Road 16, northern Saint Johns has a local north-south spine that runs parallel to I-95. Its two ends are filling in faster than anything between them.

A Road Finished in Two Pieces

The corridor came together over about five months. The county opened the 3.9-mile stretch from SilverLeaf Parkway to International Golf Parkway on Oct. 28, 2025. The final leg, from IGP to SR 16, opened during spring break. The project from St. Johns Parkway to SR 16 cost about $40 million in grants plus state and county money, and it includes a shared-use path wide enough for walkers, cyclists and wheelchairs.

St. Johns County Public Works Director Greg Caldwell described what the county wants the road to be: "this alternate means to get to and from the north and south part of St. Johns County." Some neighbors who spoke to First Coast News said they would wait for schools to reopen before deciding whether it actually helps.

A road only gets used if it leads somewhere people need to go. Here's what sits along it this fall, from north to south:

1. SilverLeaf Market, at SilverLeaf Parkway west of St. Johns Parkway. Publix opened its 55,700-square-foot store at 1975 SilverLeaf Parkway on March 26, 2026. SoFresh and Avalon Nails & Spa were open next door by mid-September.
2. The 3.9 miles of parkway south to IGP. This stretch has four lanes, a divided road and the shared-use path. Reporters could not name any separate park or trailhead tied to the project.
3. World Commerce Center, along International Golf Parkway. This is where Buc-ee's, Costco and Bass Pro Shops are, with The Home Depot about a mile and a half southwest. That store opened April 17, 2025.
4. The SR 16 end. The new connection meets SR 16 near the AutoZone and 7-Eleven. A widening project there is still under construction.

What's Open, What's Building, What's Only on a Plan

The announcements make the corridor sound busier than it is today. The name that shows up in conversation is often months or years ahead of an actual opening date. This is where things stood as of early fall 2026:

The square footage shows how the two ends are splitting the work. The north end is turning into the place for a weekly grocery run and short local stops. The south end is drawing the large regional stores. The Walmart in the permit is more than three times the size of the SilverLeaf Publix. The Trader Joe's on the Legends Landing plan is about a quarter of the Publix's size and sits on a site built around big-box neighbors.

The Legends Landing plan, prepared by England-Thims & Miller, also lists Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Hobby Lobby, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen and Floor & Decor, along with a 140,500-square-foot anchor it does not name. Stiles Retail Group, Cantrell & Morgan and FCA Partners paid $45 million for more than 93 developable acres there in February. On Aug. 27, Stiles said it had picked the anchor tenant but was not yet able to name it.

The Walmart site comes with its own list of planned outparcels: Chase Bank, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Panda Express, Wells Fargo and a Walmart fueling station. In January, several of them were still in county review. AdventHealth's first phase calls for a 16,500-square-foot, 12-room emergency department with a helipad, south of Tocoi Creek High School off IGP. A county letter describes a later 88-bed hospital and 80,000 square feet of physician offices.

SilverLeaf has one more grocery proposal. It is a 61,000-square-foot store at the northeast corner of CR 16A and SilverLeaf Parkway, and the county's planning agency recommended a zoning change for it in November 2025. The developer has not said which grocer it is.

The Old Landmark Is Getting Quieter as the Road Fills In

All of this new activity is happening around World Golf Village, where the attractions that gave the area its name are mostly gone. The World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum closed in 2023 and moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina. The IMAX theater next to it closed in late 2024.

On June 27, 2026, Murray Bros. Caddyshack served its last day after 25 years at 455 S. Legacy Trail. It was the village's longest continuously operating tenant. When it opened in June 2001, cofounder Mac Haskell said the site was "surrounded by cow pastures," the Jacksonville Daily Record reported. In late 2024, after taking a lease extension, cofounder Andy Murray called the county's growth a tailwind:

"In St. Johns County there's all these new people, new money. It's building like crazy."

His closing post didn't say why the restaurant was shutting down. The village is still open. The Renaissance resort, sold in July 2025 to Indianapolis-based SUN Development & Management Corp., is still running, and Marriott still promotes its Villagio Grille. Still, the area's well-known names have moved. They're now a membership warehouse, a gas station chain and a grocery store, spread along a parkway, and no longer gathered around a museum lawn.

The SR 16 End Comes With a New Rule

The south end of the corridor is where daily driving is changing right now. The county's SR 16 widening is adding two lanes from IGP to just past CR 2209. As of the county's Sept. 9 update, the project was about 70% complete, with the whole thing expected to finish in early spring 2027.

That update also scheduled a shift for "around October 1." Eastbound traffic moves onto new lanes for about a quarter mile, between the AutoZone driveway and the 7-Eleven, so crews can rebuild the two existing lanes. The change that matters most for regular drivers comes with it. Anyone turning right from IGP onto SR 16 now has to stop first, because westbound traffic will use the right lane. The county says this stop rule will stay after the project is done. Access to AutoZone and 7-Eleven does not change.

As of Oct. 1, the county hadn't posted any follow-up confirming the shift had happened. Variable message boards will mark the new pattern. The county has a short video explaining the change on its SR 16 traffic shift announcement.

The North End Has a Change Pending Too

At the other end, where CR 2209 meets CR 210, the county and FDOT District 2 have proposed a redesign that would stop drivers on CR 2209 from turning left onto CR 210. Those drivers would go past the intersection and make a U-turn at a signal further along CR 2209. FDOT's modeling for 2050 puts the evening peak delay on CR 210 at about 277 seconds if nothing is built and about 48 seconds with the redesign. FDOT's project page still lists the start date, completion date and cost as to be determined.

East of I-95, the county finished widening CR 210 between Trinity Way and Beachwalk Boulevard to six lanes and held the ribbon-cutting April 24, 2026.

Further out, the First Coast Expressway segment from I-95 to east of CR 2209 isn't expected to be finished until late 2030 or early 2031. Until then, St. Johns Parkway is the local road connecting a grocery run in SilverLeaf with a Costco trip on IGP, and over the next year more of its stops should move from site plans to open doors.

If you're thinking about how these changes affect your own home, whether it's near SilverLeaf Market or closer to the IGP end, Katie Kravtsov is glad to talk through what's opening near you and what it means for your plans. Schedule a Free Consultation whenever it suits you.