Columbia County, Florida: A Local Guide for Home Buyers and Homeowners

Lake City

Lake City sits at the crossing of I-75 and I-10, and its historic downtown wraps around Lake DeSoto, with a walking path and benches along NE Lake Desoto Circle. The 1902 Hotel Blanche and the 1876 Bigelow Building, which later served as City Hall, are the downtown landmarks.

The town was called Alligator until 1859. The story goes that the mayor’s wife wouldn’t hang her lace curtains in a town by that name, though historians treat that as legend. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida with electric lights supplied by a local power company.

The old college campus

Florida Agricultural College opened in Lake City in 1884 and was a forerunner of the University of Florida, which moved to Gainesville in 1905. The campus became the Lake City VA Medical Center, which admitted its first patient on Dec. 6, 1920.

Fort White

Fort White is named for a fort built in 1836 during the Second Seminole War. The town incorporated in 1884 and grew with the railroad, which arrived in 1888, and with phosphate mining, which ended around 1910.

The Florida Secretary of State has designated Fort White a Florida Main Street community. Ichetucknee Springs State Park has a Fort White address on US 27, and the Tax Collector keeps a branch at 118 SW Wilson Springs Rd.

North Florida Mega Industrial Park

The 2,622-acre industrial site sits at SE Tyre Road and US 90 east of Lake City. Its first tenant was AgroLiquid, a liquid fertilizer maker.

Lake City Gateway Airport

The City of Lake City owns and runs this general aviation airport (LCQ). HAECO operates an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul facility there, so commercial airliners fly in for service even though the airport lists no scheduled passenger flights.

Columbia County SHIP purchase assistance

The county’s SHIP plan offers down payment and closing cost help, with or without repairs, as a 0% deferred loan. It’s set up in tiers for very low, low and moderate income buyers. You put a small share of the price in yourself, take a homebuyer course, and the house has to come in under the plan’s sales price cap.

Applications go through the Suwannee River Economic Council, 303 NW Quinten Street, Lake City, 386-752-8726. The amounts and the cap move with each SHIP allocation, so call 888-601-8344 and we’ll ask the Quinten Street office what the county is paying and whether purchase money is left before you write an offer.

County SHIP plan (PDF)

SHIP repair help for current owners

Owners with very low or low income can apply for rehab money as a 0% deferred loan that’s forgiven over 5 years while they stay in the home. After a declared disaster, the plan also provides repair grants.

If you’re weighing a repair loan and a cash-out refinance for the same roof or well, text us at 954-816-8820. We’ll check with the Suwannee River Economic Council on the repair side and put both options next to each other for your house.

SHIP office listing

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

A buyer who teaches in a Columbia school, works at the Lake City VA Medical Center or serves on a fire crew may qualify for Hometown Heroes. Florida Housing pairs a 30-year fixed first mortgage with a 0% second for down payment and closing costs. There’s no monthly payment on the second, and it isn’t forgiven: it’s repaid when you sell, refinance, pay off the home or stop living there.

The eligible fields are health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts and licensed child care, with at least one buyer working full time for a Florida-based employer. Columbia County buyers on active duty can work for any employer; veterans, Reserve and National Guard members need to work full time for a Florida-based employer. Remote jobs and offer letters don’t count.

Florida Housing assistance can be used once in a lifetime, and only through a participating lender or broker. Spend it on the right Columbia house with the right lender: call us first at 888-601-8344.

Official program page

FL Assist and HFA Preferred (statewide)

FL Assist is a 0% deferred second mortgage from Florida Housing for down payment and closing costs, with nothing due monthly. It comes due when you sell, refinance, transfer the home or move out, and it sits behind a Florida Housing first: FHA, VA, USDA, or a Conventional HFA Preferred or HFA Advantage loan.

HFA Advantage PLUS adds a second that’s forgiven over 5 years while you live in the home, and the HLP second carries a small fixed payment over 30 years. Florida Housing reserves these funds one loan at a time, so call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll confirm which one is open for your Lake City contract before you sign it.

Official program page

Schools and colleges

Public schools are run by the Columbia County School District.

Florida Gateway College has its main campus about six miles east of downtown Lake City on US 90. It began in 1947 as a Forest Ranger School in buildings left from a World War II naval air station, and it offers four-year degrees in nursing, early childhood education, water resources management and business administration.

Getting around

I-75 and I-10 meet at Lake City, and both opened through the city in 1963. US 41 and US 90 have crossed there since 1927. US 27 runs through Fort White, and US 441, SR 47 and SR 100 are the other main routes.

Lake City Gateway Airport has a contract control tower on weekdays and an FBO selling 100LL and Jet A fuel.

Ichetucknee Springs State Park

The Ichetucknee River runs 6 miles from eight major springs to the Santa Fe River, and the Blue Hole spring stays 72 degrees all year. Tubing it is a warm-weather tradition, and tubers put in at Dampier’s Landing by the South Entrance.

The park covers 2,669 acres in Fort White. The state bought the land from the Loncala Phosphate Company in 1970, and the river was declared a National Natural Landmark in 1972. Long before that, in 1608, the Spanish founded Mission de San Martin de Timucua here, one of the major interior missions serving St. Augustine.

O’Leno State Park

O’Leno is one of Florida’s first state parks, developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and its CCC-built suspension bridge crosses the Santa Fe River. The river disappears underground here and comes back up about 3 miles away at River Rise Preserve State Park. The two parks lie in Columbia and Alachua counties.

Alligator Lake Park

This free county park at 420 SE Alligator Glen in Lake City covers about 1,000 acres of wetlands. It has 12 miles of hiking and biking trails, a canoe launch and more than 150 recorded bird species.

Lake DeSoto and the Olustee Festival

Lake City holds its Olustee Festival at Wilson Park on Lake DeSoto over Presidents’ Day weekend in February. The festival marks the 1864 Battle of Olustee, fought in neighboring Baker County.

Buying a home

Most of the buyers we work with in Columbia County use FHA: 3.5% down, flexible credit guidelines, and it works alongside the Columbia County SHIP and Florida Housing programs above. VA loans need no down payment for eligible veterans, and we also do Conventional loans, Hometown Heroes and FHA 100% financing.

As a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997, we lend statewide in all 67 Florida counties, and Columbia files from Fort White up to the Baker County line are part of that, as is a move down I-75 or across I-10. We send your file to multiple wholesale lenders and tell you what you qualify for before you start touring in Lake City or Fort White.

Refinancing the home you have

A refinance can lower your monthly payment, take cash out for a new roof, a new well or storm repairs, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy someone else off the title.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll show you your present payment, the new payment, the cash you’d take out and the closing costs on one page, so the decision is yours to make on real numbers.