Ask two Durbin Crossing neighbors what's opening nearby and you'll likely get two different answers, both correct, describing two different places. One person means the shopping corridor off Florida 9B and I-95 where a Chipotle has been approved. The other means the actual streets inside the neighborhood, where a wood-fired pizza restaurant is going up on land the community's own commercial arm used to own.
Those are not the same conversation, and the difference matters more than it sounds. Durbin Crossing and Durbin Park share a name and not much else. One is a residential master-planned community of roughly 2,500 homes built around lakes, preserves, and two amenity centers. The other is a nearly 2.4 million square foot commercial district built separately by Gatlin Development Company at the intersection of Florida 9B and I-95, a corridor away from the neighborhood's own gates. Almost everything people are excited about this year, the new restaurants, the coming grocery stores, belongs to Durbin Park. Only one project actually belongs to Durbin Crossing.
The Exception on Longleaf Pine Parkway
V Pizza is building its next Northeast Florida location at 150 Longleaf Pine Parkway, west of St. Johns Parkway, next to the Borland Groover Durbin Crossing Endoscopy Center. That address sits inside Durbin Crossing's own small commercial pocket, on a parcel the company bought in June 2025 for $1.87 million from an entity called Durbin Crossing Properties LLC. St. Johns County issued the building permits for the shell and patio on January 20, 2026, at a construction cost of $2.07 million, for an 8,274 square foot, two-story building with an outdoor bar and patio. Jacksonville-based Fasanelli Construction is the contractor.
This will be V Pizza's 13th location across Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, and its third in St. Johns County, joining outposts in Palm Valley and St. Augustine. The chain built its reputation on Italian brick ovens that cook a pizza in about 90 seconds, and the Durbin Crossing build includes a full bar setup rather than just a counter operation, which is a step up from a quick-service format into something closer to a neighborhood restaurant with a patio you'd actually linger on.
The detail worth sitting with is not the pizza. It's the address. For years, anyone in Durbin Crossing who wanted a sit-down dinner without leaving the neighborhood mostly couldn't. Every recent restaurant opening people talk about has been a drive away in Durbin Park. This is the first one that isn't.
A Corridor Away, Durbin Park Keeps Filling In
None of this means Durbin Park has slowed down. It hasn't, and the pace there explains why so many residents assume it's the same place as their own front gate.
Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux finally opened at The Pavilion at Durbin Park on October 6, 2025, at 495 Durbin Pavilion Drive, in front of the Cinemark Durbin Park and XD theater. The building had sat as an unfinished shell for months after its 2023 permit before construction restarted, so the opening closed out a two-year wait. Franchisee Shane Morrison of R&R Brands, who operates a dozen Walk-On's locations, brought Louisiana-style sports bar food to the space, and the grand opening included donations to four local organizations: the St. Johns County School District's Character Counts program, Diamonds of Dreams, the St. Johns County Fire Rescue Cadet Program, and the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office Special Teams Association.
Down the same shopping center, Chipotle has an approved application for a new location at 480 Durbin Pavilion Drive, taking over a space a Rumble Boxing gym vacated, next to a Firehouse Subs and a T-Mobile store. Because the roughly 3,800 square foot restaurant won't be freestanding, there's no drive-thru option planned, a small but real difference from the standalone Chipotles some residents may be used to elsewhere.
Here's a quick way to keep the two places straight:
- Inside Durbin Crossing: V Pizza, 150 Longleaf Pine Parkway, permitted January 2026, still under construction
- Durbin Park, already open: Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux, 495 Durbin Pavilion Drive, opened October 6, 2025
- Durbin Park, approved and coming: Chipotle, 480 Durbin Pavilion Drive, taking over the former Rumble Boxing space
The Grocery Race Nobody Announced on Purpose
The bigger story is happening a little further out, along East Peyton Parkway across from UF Health Durbin Park, where two separate grocery-anchored developments are moving forward at almost the same time, apparently without either developer waiting to see what the other does.
Jacksonville-based Regency Centers is developing The Berkeley at Durbin Park, anchored by Whole Foods Market with TJ Maxx, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, and Shake Shack also announced as tenants. Regency said in June 2026 that it plans to break ground in the fourth quarter of this year, calling St. Johns County the kind of market it seeks for its combination of demographics and residential growth.
Almost simultaneously, Gate Petroleum, through an entity called Durbin Creek National LLC, is pursuing its own retail center nearby with a 30,000 square foot grocery footprint that matches Sprouts Farmers Market's typical store size, plus an attached 25,000 square foot retail tenant and several smaller pads. St. Johns County was scheduled to take up that proposal on June 6, 2026, and as of that filing, the project was still moving through county and St. Johns River Water Management District review.
Add in the fact that the existing Walmart Supercenter at 845 Durbin Pavilion Drive filed for its own expansion in February 2026, adding roughly 9,000 square feet to its online grocery pickup operation, and you have three grocery-related projects moving forward within the same stretch of road in the same year. Whether the market genuinely supports two new grocery-anchored centers built almost across the street from each other, on top of an already-expanding Walmart, is the kind of question that tends to answer itself over the next year or two. For now, both projects are still moving through approvals rather than construction, so nothing is guaranteed to open on the timeline announced.
What Actually Changes for Someone Already Living Here
If you live in Durbin Crossing today, the practical shift isn't that your neighborhood suddenly has more restaurants. It's that the neighborhood is finally getting one restaurant of its own, on its own streets, rather than continuing to borrow all of its dining options from a shopping district a few minutes away by car. That's a small change in absolute terms and a meaningful one in daily-life terms. A patio you can walk to is a different thing than a patio you drive to.
Everything else on this list, Walk-On's, the coming Chipotle, the Whole Foods and Sprouts-footprint projects racing each other along East Peyton Parkway, belongs to Durbin Park's continued build-out, which has been the busiest commercial growth story in northern St. Johns County for several years running. That's worth knowing about and worth watching. It's just not the same thing as watching your own neighborhood grow.
For residents keeping track of what's actually changing block by block, distinguishing the two matters. One tells you what's coming to your commute. The other tells you what's coming to your street.
If you're weighing a move within Durbin Crossing, curious what a nearby resale or new listing might mean for your own plans, or just want a neighbor's read on how these projects are likely to shake out, Laura Worrell has been tracking this corridor closely and is glad to talk it through. Request a Consultation whenever the timing is right for you.
