by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
The leader of the St. Augustine and St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce says his organization works hand in hand with REALTORS® to nurture smart growth.
“REALTORS® are really the key to an introduction of people to the community,” said Don Patrick, president of the St. Augustine and St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce last month at a meeting of the local Women’s Council of REALTORS®. “One of the first things we do if someone is thinking about relocating here and asks about properties, is to send them to our REALTOR® members. There is a very strong partnership between REALTORS® and the Chamber.”
He said they have a very strong membership of agents in the Chamber and they provide several networking opportunities including a monthly mixers where the REALTORS® get together and mix with the rest of the membership.
Patrick said it would also benefit agents in Duval County to join the St. Augustine and St. Johns County Chamber because they could become very familiar with the things that are going on there.
“There is a lot of cross activity,” said Patrick. “There are a lot of issues where we will commonly work together on government issues and that is important to agents as well as to business owners.”
Patrick said there are about 100 REALTOR® members of the Chamber.
“The Chamber is a membership organization and it is sort of like the old saying, ‘However much you put into it is what you are going out of it’,” said Kari Hall, director of economic development and tourism for the Chamber. “I think what the Chamber does is offer all of these opportunities for involvement, advertising and extra exposure. We also sell a membership directory and relocation packet, so the REALTOR® members get exposure in there as well.”
In addition to those mediums, there’s exposure on the Chamber’s website.
“People are going now to our website just as much, if not more, than they are picking up the phone and calling the Chamber,” said Hall.
Recruiting new business into the area and creating a good atmosphere for growth in the county are two ways the Chamber helps.
More business means more people looking for homes and growth for the county.
Hall is in charge of bringing that new business into the area.
“We offer a live wire lead list, a database of everyone who has called us, e-mailed us or gone to our Web site and said they were thinking of relocating to St. Johns County or Augustine and asked us to send them information,” said Hall.
The list can be received for a $25 subscription and is sent out on a weekly basis.
She was very involved in creating a program for St. Johns County called St. Johns Vision. The plan is to develop a strategic plan for St. Johns County 20 years into the future.
“It is being done by the citizens of St. Johns County, including business people, environmentalists, developers and REALTORS®,” said Patrick. “People of all different backgrounds who are meeting now to develop a future plan for the county.”
Growth management is always an issue and Patrick said that he works very hard to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.
“There are some people who don’t want to see any growth management, but that is not going to happen,” said Patrick. “There’s going to be some growth management and properly so because we don’t want to develop over all of our natural resources. But, it has to be reasonable.”
Patrick said the Chamber’s role is mainly just to promote general business and prosperity for the business community.
“We do that in a lot of ways. We refer people to properties when they come into town and we refer them to member real estate agents,” said Patrick. “We have a very strong referral service where we send them to member real estate companies to do business. We keep a real strong inventory of commercial and industrial properties because we are the ones who recruit new business and industry to come into the county, so we deal very closely with the commercial and industrial agents, too.”
Patrick said he expects Realtors® to do a good job. He said the real estate community has really developed strongly over the last few years.
“There was a time when there really wasn’t anyone handling rental properties and we get many many requests for rentals,” he said. “Now those who handle rentals are staying very busy managing properties and keeping properties rented. The key is that they do a good quality job and we do manage those types of things.”