Fred Seely
The Realtor-Builder Luncheon and Trade Show worked out as planned and here’s a vote to reprise it next year.
One change: get rid of the comedian, who was good but who was lost in the shuffle.
Oh, and another change: get rid of the drum corps that made such a racket as they paraded through the trade show.
Minor gripes, though. It was terrific, from the way it was set up to the food (ever had better fried chicken at one of these things?)
The committee soon meets to start planning next year. Please, please: don’t get any bright new ideas.
Keep it (almost) like it is.
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Can times ever be better for our industries?
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The new Panther Creek golf course may turn out to be one of the best 2-3 in the area. It also might start a move to a higher-end developing attitude on the west side of Jacksonville.
Most people assumed that the course would be just a come-on to homebuyers, one that would serve its purpose to promote sales and then, when everything was sold, the developer would dump it on the property owners.
Wrong assumption. Only four of the 18 holes will have homesites and they’ve moved as much dirt as any course around here, even Glen Kernan.
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More on golf:
The Hampton Golf courses here are led by a guy named M.G. Orender. His boss, Ed Burr, gets most of the ink in this paper because he’s Mr. LandMar but you need to give Orender some recognition, too.
If LandMar builds or buys a golf course community, the customers expect - duh - a good golf course in good condition with good service. Even if it’s a low-end development (LandMar’s aren’t,) they expect more than a low-end golf course.
It isn’t easy. Golf courses are hard to maintain and it’s a tricky business - we have way too many golf courses per capita, plus the awful fact that play has declined since 9/11.
Orender runs an admirable operation and, for the last two years, he’s run a bigger organization: the PGA of America. Those are the club professionals, the ones who work in the golf shops and who collect your money. (They aren’t the PGA Tour, which is Tiger Woods and that lot.)
He left office this month in a gala dinner at the Ritz-Carlton at Amelia Island where he received the accolades due someone who worked so hard and who brought so much success to his fellow pros.
He’s stepping down from the national scene but he’s into something that’s important to all of us - he’s the incoming president of the Jacksonville convention bureau, so he’s charged with bringing in visitors who, as we know, just might like what they see and decided to buy a home.
Ed Burr runs a very good organization and Orender is one reason.
- Fred Seely is the editor of Realty/Builder Connection and editorial director of Bailey Publishing & Communications In. He can be reached at [email protected].