SUPER CITY

Northeast Florida was once among the Sunshine State's best-kept secrets. But come February, hundreds of millions of people will get a virtual tour of Jacksonville and the surrounding area courtesy of Super Bowl XXXIX, to be played in downtown's Alltel Stadium and televised worldwide.

Almost certainly, the result will be a surge of interest in this seductively low-key region of quiet neighborhoods, uncrowded beaches, majestic waterways and old-fashioned Southern hospitality. In fact, real estate pros believe the big game and the resulting international exposure could boost the region's already strong housing market into the stratosphere.

The attraction for relocators goes far beyond the hoopla surrounding a one-time event, however. As locals already know, Jacksonville boasts most of the same cultural and recreational perks found in glitzier Florida cities, plus affordable housing and a welcoming ambience.

"Why wouldn't you want to live here?" asks Charlie Clark, a real estate guru based in Ponte Vedra Beach. "We have a low cost of living, we have the river, beaches, golf and tennis and the weather is to die for. What's not to like?"

Clearly, Clark and others are bullish on the Jacksonville MSA, which encompasses Duval, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns counties. Increasingly, Flagler County to the south and Camden County, Ga., to the north are also being pulled into Jacksonville's orbit.

"It's tough to make a bad investment on a home in Northeast Florida," says Clark, who for years has interpreted economic trends for industry clients. "The market is just extremely strong right now."

The hottest sector appears to be in the $250,000 to $300,000 price range, he notes, while starter homes priced at around $150,000 are also in strong demand. In addition, condominiums in all price ranges are being snapped up as quickly as they can be built.

The numbers tell the story. According to the Northeast Florida Builders Association, single-family housing permits issued in the four-county area reached 9,492 from January through August 2004, marking a 9 percent increase over the first eight months of 2003. Clearly, the region is on pace to break the record-setting 11,976 permits issued throughout 2003.

SOLID APPRECIATION

The housing appreciation rate is also strong. Jacksonville home prices have increased nearly 45 percent in the past five years, an average of about 9 percent a year, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

The median price of all Northeast Florida homes sold last year increased 9.8 percent, to $132,800. That's healthy growth, notes Clark, but it isn't outrageous. "Increased prices in Jacksonville seem to be based on real value, not speculation," he says.

In some parts of Florida-particularly around Naples and Sarasota-home prices last year rose at rates more than 25 percent, leading some industry experts to suggest that a collapse is possible as even relatively affluent buyers are forced from the market.

That's not likely to happen in Northeast Florida, which is still known for its relative affordability. For example, Coldwell Banker's annual Home Price Comparison Index shows a home costing $250,000 in Jacksonville costs $701,000 in Miami, $330,000 in Naples and $265,000 in Tampa.

"The market has been buoyed by a healthy combination of strong demographics, improving employment and income growth and a downshift in long-term interest rates," says Roger Day, president of Orange Park-based Rosewood Homes. "Anyone talking about a local housing bubble should look at the fundamentals that are in place and see that the residential market is extremely sound."

To make the deal even sweeter, Jacksonville offers the same proximity to sun and sand as you'll find in pricier locales, but with less congestion and a more laid-back pace.

And housing isn't the only thing more affordable in Jacksonville. According to ACCRA, a nonprofit research group formerly known as the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association, the region's Cost of Living Index is 91, or nine points below the national average of 100.

Ft. Lauderdale (121), Orlando (99) and Tampa/St. Petersburg (95) notched higher scores in ACCRA's most recent survey, which compiles statistics on the cost of housing, transportation, food, health care and other expenses in more than 300 markets nationwide.

TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH

While the Super Bowl will attract hordes of modern-day explorers to the area, Northeast Florida has, in fact, been charming visitors for centuries.

Among the first was Frenchman Jean Ribault, who dropped anchor in the St. Johns River on April 30, 1562. After coming ashore at what is today Fort George Island, the awestruck explorer described what he saw this way:

"This land is the fairest, frutefullest and plesantest of all the worlde, abounding in honey, veneson, wildfoule, forrestes and woodes of all sortes. It is a pleasure not able to be expressed with the tongue."

Ribault's rapture may seem a little over the top to modern sensibilities. But over the past 400 years, those who have come to this part of Florida, from military men and women who made Jacksonville their retirement port to quality-of-life conscious CEOs who moved their companies here, have indeed found it to be "the fairest, frutefullest and plesantest" place.

Of course, since Ribault's time, Jacksonville has rebuilt and reinvented itself many times over. The most dramatic makeover happened a century ago, when vast tracts of the city were destroyed by what is remembered today as the Great Fire of 1901.

On May 3, a family living in a shanty on the edge of town began to prepare a midday meal. An errant cinder leapt from the chimney of the stove and floated west, landing on a pile of moss drying in the yard of a mattress factory at Davis and Beaver streets. That spark began a cataclysm that would ultimately remake this rough-and-tumble port city into a modern metropolis.

Breezes fanned the flames and quickly spread carnage through the city's center. Overwhelmed firefighters performed heroically, but by 8:30 p.m. 2,368 buildings-most of downtown Jacksonville-had been consumed. Ten thousand people were left homeless and damage was estimated at $15 million, the equivalent of $2 billion today.

Surprisingly, there were only seven fatalities, in part because locals with boats lined up to rescue people who fled to the St. Johns River docks.

Then, no sooner had the smoke cleared than Jacksonville rebuilt. Within five years, 1,500 new buildings had gone up, including several by nationally recognized architects. Henry John Klutho, for example, designed the distinctive St. James Building, which now serves as City Hall. By 1910, Jacksonville had reclaimed its position as Florida's major metropolitan area.

In the decades following the disaster, Jacksonville has, in turns, been characterized as a resort destination, a manufacturing center, a movie capital, a golf mecca, a progressive business hub and, after February 2005, a Super Bowl city.

So where should a newcomer look? Well, as Ribault did, you can float aimlessly down the St. Johns and come ashore wherever it pleases you. Or you can go about it in a more systematic way. That's where Jacksonville Homebuyer can help.

Following is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood primer, in which you'll find everything from new master-planned developments to funky historic districts. Undoubtedly, there's a neighborhood and a home perfect for you and your family.

In 1803, when Zephaniah Kingsley purchased 1,880 acres on the western shore of the St. Johns, the property was lush with laurel trees. The wealthy land baron and slave trader dubbed his plantation Laurel Grove.

By the late 1870s, the tract had been redeveloped as a resort community and renamed Orange Park for the abundance of citrus groves that surrounded it. During its brief heyday as a tourist destination, such luminaries as Ulysses S. Grant, Buffalo Bill Cody and Sitting Bull stayed in luxurious hotels and enjoyed the scent of orange blossoms wafting through open windows.

Today, however, you'd be hard pressed to find any orange groves in this bustling Clay County municipality, which has emerged as a popular suburb dotted with dozens of subdivisions and hundreds of businesses. More than half the residents of Orange Park work in Jacksonville, according to the Clay County Economic Development Council.

And more are coming. Clay County's population more than doubled from 1970 to 1980, then grew another 33 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That pace is expected to continue, in part because there's still undeveloped land here. In fact, Clay remains one of the most sparsely populated counties in Florida, with about 234 residents per square mile versus a statewide average of 296.

Orange Park's residential development first gathered momentum in the early 1920s, when Caleb Johnson, president of the Colgate Palmolive Company, built Villa Mira Rio, a $500,000 estate on the banks of the river. Other millionaires followed Johnson's lead, as did less ostentatious families who were attracted by the community's natural beauty and its convenient location.

Vestiges of that era remain in Orange Park's small commercial historic district at the east end of Kingsley Avenue, where a few vintage buildings stand around what was once a watering trough and hitching post that served as the community's unofficial gathering spot. A scattering of gracefully aging residential showplaces can be seen along River Road, while Johnson's Mediterranean-style mansion survives as Club Continental, one of Northeast Florida's most popular special-event destinations.

Otherwise, Orange Park is a thoroughly modern place where amenity-rich, master-planned communities attract hordes of buyers. For example, Eagle Harbor, a huge mixed-use development that boasts a Disneyesque waterpark, ranked as the sixth-busiest development in the region last year, with 209 housing starts.

Residential development along the U.S. Hwy. 17-Hwy. 220 corridor is also moving forward with projects such as Fleming Island Plantation, which will contain 2,000 homes at buildout, and OakLeaf Plantation, which will contain more than 15,000 homes at buildout.

Last year OakLeaf Plantation was the region's second-busiest development-Julington Creek in St. Johns County was first-with 581 starts while Fleming Island Plantation was fifth with 218 starts.

Additional mixed-use developments containing at least 11,000 homes have been approved for 20,000 acres straddling Brannan Field Road, which extends from Blanding Boulevard in Middleburg through the Argyle area to I-10.

Smaller developments are also under way. Doctors Inlet Preserve, at C.R. 220 and Sleepy Hollow Road, will feature about 300 homes priced from the mid-$100s to about $250,000. Because of the surprisingly moderate price range, sales are expected to be strong.

Clay County's highly rated school system is a major selling point for Orange Park, as is the community's location near Naval Air Station Jacksonville and its plethora of retail and entertainment outlets, including the sprawling Orange Park Mall and the Orange Park Kennel Club, a 5,100-seat greyhound racing mecca.

Other Clay County communities include Green Cove Springs, Keystone Heights, Middleburg and Penney Farms, which department store magnate J.C. Penney founded in 1926 as a retirement home for ministers and their wives.

Despite frantic development, much of Clay County remains rural, with Gold Head Branch State Park, Kingsley Beach, Strickland's Landing, Jennings Forest and Black Creek/Ravines Conservation Area offering camping, hiking, fishing and hunting.

ARLINGTON/INTRACOASTAL WEST

Arlington is home to Jacksonville University and some of Northeast Florida's most precious environmental and historical landmarks. It's also a center for commerce, encompassing Regency Square Mall and vast expanses of shopping centers, restaurants and office buildings. Downtown is just a 10-minute drive over the Matthews Bridge, and the Beaches are just 20 minutes away via Atlantic Boulevard.

Roughly 50 square miles in area, Arlington is a melting pot of some 80 distinctive neighborhoods, containing everything from modest, ranch-style homes to spectacular riverfront mansions.

Although much of Arlington was developed in the 1950s and 1960s, its history goes back much farther. French explorer Jean Ribault came ashore here in 1562, preparing the way for a second French expedition to start a colony called La Caroline two years later. The centerpiece of the settlement was an earth and wood fort built on the bank of the St. Johns, which was then called the River of May.

The Spanish, led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, later routed the French and captured Fort Caroline. Remains of the fort and the meadow on which it stood were swallowed when the river was dredged. But in 1964 a replica of the triangular structure was built, and stands today in the 680-acre Fort Caroline National Memorial.