by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Granvil Tracy isn’t worried about being stuck in traffic as he commutes to and from Jacksonville from his home in North Miami - he just flies right over it.
Tracy, president of American Land Ventures which is developing The Strand at St. Johns and The Peninsula on Jacksonville’s Southbank, has been flying a helicopter for over 10 years, which allows him to travel all over Florida quicker and more efficiently than driving.
“It is efficient,” said Tracy. “It takes me two and a half hours to fly from Miami to Jacksonville.”
Anyone who does that would appreciate Tracy’s mode of transportation. A drive takes about six hours and a commercial flight may take that long, counting the time needed to go through security plus stopping in Orlando.
Though it isn’t often, just two or three times a month, flying a helicopter to Jacksonville does make the commute less hectic.
But that’s just to Jacksonville.
He also flies his helicopter all over Florida trying to find new land and development deals. When he arrives in Jacksonville, he lands at Craig Airfield where he has a car waiting for so he can drive wherever needs to go in the area.
As the president of the Miami-based American Land Ventures, Tracy is responsible for all of development and acquisition activities of the company.
The company was developing high-end apartments and condominiums mostly in South Florida including Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties, but has now turned its sights northward toward Jacksonville and to the west coast of Florida.
“My interest and background has always been in multi-family residential development,” said Tracy, a bachelor. “We were looking for cities that were ripe for that type of development. Jacksonville had a lot of attributes, especially in the downtown.
“I would say the number of downtown workers and the amount of office space in downtown were key. One of our primary markets for residential are people that work in and around the central business district.”
The fact that the city was reassessing itself, and most notably the $2.5 billion investment of the Better Jacksonville Plan, enticed American Land Ventures to check out the city and eventually sign a development deal.
“We recognized that Jacksonville was becoming a preferred corporate relocation destination and that it had a great quality of life with the ocean, river and all the amenities,” said Tracy. “All these things in total made it a compelling place.”
American Land Ventures is developing two residential towers in Jacksonville - The Strand at St. Johns and The Peninsula.
The Strand at St. Johns, a high-end apartment development, is a two-phase, $146 million residential project on the Southbank between the Radisson and the Riverplace parking garage on Riverplace Boulevard.
Phase I will consist of a 32-story tower with 362 units, a 622-space parking garage and a public park. Phase II will have a 36-story tower with 346 units, a 412-space parking garage, a seven-story office tower and another 258 parking spaces.
There will also be 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor of the office tower. Rental rates will begin at $1,000 a month.
Tracy said it would be another 20 months or so before The Strand would be complete.
The Peninsula is a 36-story, 234-unit project and will have prices ranging from the high $200,000’s to over $1 million. The company expects to break ground in the first or second quarter of 2005 and it will take about 24 months to build. Completion is expected in January 2007.
“We are looking at more sites in Jacksonville but so far we haven’t found anything that is right,” he said.
Tracy has more than 25 years of experience in virtually all aspects of the real estate development industry.
He has been with American Land Ventures for 10 years. Before that he developed on his own and spent some time with Styles Development.
“I’ve always been involved in real estate one way or another,” he said. “I started on the construction side, then got into the finance side and then the development side.”
Tracy holds a master’s degree in real estate development/construction management from Nova University.