If you moved into northern Saint Johns County even three years ago, your mental map of "where to eat and shop" probably ran through two places: The Pavilion at Durbin Park for the Walmart run and a movie, and Nocatee Town Center for a Publix loop and dinner at Chophouse. Everything else meant a drive to St. Johns Town Center or a long haul into St. Augustine.
That map is being redrawn this year, and not in a slow, one-tenant-at-a-time way. Two commercial nodes on either side of the county's fast-growing northern tier are filling in at the same time, and by the end of 2026 the practical question for residents will no longer be "where do we drive to?" It will be "which node do we feel like tonight?"
The Nocatee Side Adds a Health-Food Layer
Nocatee Town Center already carried the fine-dining and everyday-Publix load. The 2026 additions are aimed squarely at the weekday lunch and post-workout crowd that has been driving out of the community to find it.
Salata opened April 6, 2026 at 641 Crosswater Parkway, Suite B, taking the space that Coastal Wine Market vacated when it relocated next to Chophouse. The build-your-own concept runs six salad bases, more than fifty toppings, and eleven house-made dressings. The Nocatee franchise is owned and operated by Jason and Sandy O'Hara, and the location keeps hours from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Notable for a chain opening: 25% of opening-day proceeds went to HUGS St. Johns, the local nonprofit that provides emergency clothing and school supplies to county families.
SoFresh is next in line. The chef-crafted bowl, wrap, and smoothie concept has been announced as the first restaurant coming to Marketplace at Nocatee, the newer shopping center on the west side of Town Center. The opening window is late summer 2026, and the grand-opening promotion will run a $5 bowl, wrap, salad, or quesadilla deal.
Marketplace at Nocatee Changes the Walk-to-Grocery Equation
Marketplace at Nocatee is the piece most residents outside Nocatee itself may not have on their radar yet. The center sits off Valley Ridge Boulevard on the west side of Town Center, and its anchor is a new Publix with a Publix Liquors and a pharmacy drive-thru. The mix will also include restaurants, office space, and neighborhood services.
The other piece of that same corner is Velara, a 312-unit Class A multifamily community from Thompson Thrift off Burbank Avenue in the western interchange of Town Center. First residents are expected in summer 2026. What that adds up to for the existing homeowner: another few hundred daytime shoppers within walking distance of the new center, which is the kind of daytime population that pulls in the next round of retail. This is how a Town Center that started with a single Publix ends up with two.
If you already live in Nocatee, the practical shift is quieter than the headline suggests. You now have a second full-line Publix option inside the community, which means the Crosswater Parkway loop stops being the only grocery route on a Sunday afternoon.
Durbin Park Stops Being "Just" a Big-Box Corridor
Fifteen minutes north, along County Road 210 and East Peyton Parkway, is where the bigger 2026 story is playing out. Durbin Park has always been the utilitarian half of the county's retail map, a place you went to for the Walmart Supercenter, Petco, and the theater. Two projects announced this year change that reading.
The first is quiet infrastructure. The 195,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenter at 845 Durbin Pavilion Drive filed for a roughly 9,000-square-foot expansion on its northernmost endcap, dedicated entirely to online pickup and delivery. That is not a store growing bigger for shoppers walking in the door. It is a store admitting that a meaningful share of its Saint Johns customers are ordering from a driveway.
The second is the headline. Regency Centers announced The Berkeley at Durbin Park, a 106,054-square-foot open-air center on East Peyton Parkway adjacent to UF Health Durbin Park. Anchored by Whole Foods Market. Confirmed co-tenants include TJ Maxx, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, and Shake Shack. Nineteen spaces remain, and groundbreaking is planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.
Here is the two-node picture in one view:
| Project | Where | Anchor / Notable Tenants | Status in 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salata | 641 Crosswater Parkway, Suite B, Nocatee | Build-your-own salads and wraps | Open since April 6 |
| Marketplace at Nocatee | Valley Ridge Boulevard, west Nocatee | Publix, SoFresh | Publix under way; SoFresh late summer |
| Velara Apartments | Burbank Avenue, west Nocatee | 312-unit Class A residential | First residents summer 2026 |
| Walmart Supercenter OPD Expansion | 845 Durbin Pavilion Drive | ~9,000 sq ft online-pickup addition | County review this year |
| The Berkeley at Durbin Park | East Peyton Parkway, next to UF Health | Whole Foods, TJ Maxx, Firebirds, Shake Shack | Groundbreaking Q4 2026 |
| Proposed grocery center | East Peyton Parkway across from UF Health | 30,000-sq-ft grocery matching Sprouts' footprint | Under county and water-district review |
Put the two nodes next to each other and the shift becomes obvious. Nocatee is filling in the everyday-walkable layer for the people who live inside its villages. Durbin Park is filling in the regional draw for the wider northern-county audience that used to leave the county to find it. Whole Foods and Shake Shack are not neighborhood tenants. They are anchors that pull in shoppers from across the interchange.
A Second Grocer May Be Coming to East Peyton Parkway
The most under-covered item in the current pipeline sits directly across East Peyton Parkway from UF Health Durbin Park. A separate developer, working on land owned by Gate Petroleum through Durbin Creek National LLC, is proposing a retail center whose 30,000-square-foot grocery footprint matches Sprouts Farmers Market. Site plans include an attached 25,000-square-foot retail tenant, two additional buildings totaling 31,000 square feet, and four pad sites ranging from 2,500 to 7,900 square feet. St. Johns River Water Management District and the county are still reviewing the application.
If both centers move forward, you would have a Whole Foods and what appears to be a Sprouts within walking distance of each other on the same parkway. That is a level of specialty-grocery density most of Northeast Florida does not have, and it is a useful piece of context for a resident weighing whether the drive to St. Johns Town Center is still worth it in eighteen months.
What This Means If You Already Live Here
A few practical shifts to expect over the next twelve to eighteen months.
- Two dinner nodes, not one. For households in Nocatee's northern villages and in Durbin Crossing, Durbin Park moves from a chore stop to a night-out option once Firebirds and Shake Shack are in place. For households closer to the Intracoastal, Nocatee Town Center's dining lineup keeps its edge for weeknight walking.
- Grocery routing gets easier. The current Publix loop through Crosswater Parkway loses some of its Saturday-morning pressure once Marketplace at Nocatee opens, and Whole Foods gives the northern half of the county its first upscale-grocery option that does not require crossing the county line.
- Construction traffic will follow the news. Groundbreaking on The Berkeley is scheduled for Q4 2026, which means East Peyton Parkway will be a construction corridor through most of 2027. Worth remembering when a friend asks whether they should schedule showings at that end of the county on a weekday afternoon.
- The daytime-population story matters for resale. The Regency Centers strategy statement singles out household income, growing daytime population, and limited existing retail as its reasons for building here. Those are also the ingredients that keep supporting home values in the neighborhoods that feed the center.
None of this is the kind of change that shows up in a monthly market report. It shows up in the small edits to daily life: the lunch spot you used to drive twenty minutes for, the grocery run that no longer needs I-95, the Friday dinner that suddenly has a rooftop option a few miles closer. If you have been living in Saint Johns for a few years, 2026 is the year the map you built in your head goes out of date.
If you are thinking about how these commercial shifts might change what your home is worth, or where the next round of buyers will want to be, I am happy to talk it through in plain terms. Katie Kravtsov works with buyers and sellers across Nocatee, Durbin Crossing, and the broader Saint Johns market. Schedule a Free Consultation when you would like a local read on what is happening on your street, not just in the county.
