ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — Lori Matthias and her husband had uninterested in Atlanta site visitors once they moved to St. Augustine, Florida, in 2023. For Mike Waldron and his spouse, transferring from the Boston space in 2020 to a spot that payments itself as “the nation’s oldest metropolis” was motivated by a need to be nearer to their grownup youngsters.
They had been amongst 1000’s of white-collar, remote workers who migrated to the St. Augustine space in recent times, remodeling the touristy seashore city into one of many high distant work hubs in the US.
Matthias fell in love with St. Augustine’s small city feeling, buying and selling the hour-long commute she had in Atlanta for bumping into buddies and acquaintances whereas working errands.
“The entire tempo right here is slower and I’m interested in that,” mentioned Matthias, who does gross sales and advertising and marketing for an influence software firm. “My commute is like 30 steps from my kitchen to my workplace. It’s simply completely different. It’s simply relaxed and pleasant.”
Centuries earlier than changing into a distant work hub, the St. Augustine space was claimed by the Spanish crown within the early sixteenth century after explorer Juan Ponce de Leon’s arrival. In fashionable instances, it’s best recognized for its Spanish structure of terra cotta roofs and arched doorways, tourist-carrying trollies, a historic fort, an alligator farm, lighthouses and a shipwreck museum.
In St. Johns County, residence to St. Augustine, the share of employees who did their jobs from residence practically tripled from 8.6% in 2018 to nearly 24% in 2023, transferring the northeast Florida county into the highest ranks of U.S. counties with the biggest share of individuals working remotely, in accordance with U.S. Census Bureau figures.
Solely counties with a heavy presence of tech, finance and authorities employees in metro Washington, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte and Dallas, in addition to two counties in North Carolina’s Analysis Triangle, had a bigger share of their workforce working from residence. However these had been counties way more populous than the 335,000 residents in St. Johns County, which has grown by greater than a fifth throughout this decade.
Scott Maynard, a vice chairman of financial growth for the county’s chamber of commerce, attributes the preliminary inflow of latest residents to Florida’s lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in companies and faculties in the fall of 2020 whereas a lot of the nation remained locked down.
“Lots of people had been relocating right here from the Northeast, the Midwest and California in order that their youngsters might get again to a face-to-face schooling,” Maynard mentioned. “That introduced in an amazing quantity of people that had the flexibility to work remotely and needed their youngsters again in a face-to-face faculty scenario.”
Public faculties in St. Johns County are among the many finest in Florida, in accordance with an annual report card by the state Division of Training.
The inflow of latest residents has introduced rising pains, notably on the subject of affordable housing since most of the new, distant employees transferring into the world are wealthier than locals and capable of outbid them on properties, officers mentioned.
Many important employees comparable to cops, firefighters and academics have been pressured to commute from outdoors St. Johns County due to rising housing prices. The median residence value grew from $405,000 in 2019 to nearly $535,000 in 2023, in accordance with Census Bureau figures, making the acquisition of a house additional out of attain for the county’s important employees.
Waldron, a gross sales government within the well being care business, was capable of promote his Boston residence on the peak of the pandemic and buy a three-bedroom, two-bath residence in a gated neighborhood by a golf course outdoors St. Augustine the place “issues actually labored out to be inexpensive down right here.”
The flexibleness supplied by quick wi-fi web and the recognition of on-line assembly platforms for the reason that begin of the pandemic additionally helped.
“If I used to be nonetheless locked in an workplace, I might not have been capable of transfer down right here,” Waldron mentioned.
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