By Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
As he looks out his office window on the fourth floor of the SouthTrust tower on the Southbank, Michael Balanky can see the view the tenants of his new project, San Marco Place, will have.
Balanky, president of Chase Properties, is a jack-of-all-trades, literally.
He started out in the radio business while starting his own company selling aftermarket automobile accessories and now, for the last 12 years, he has been developing properties all over Jacksonville.
With all that experience and diversity, its no wonder he was the recipient of the 1998 SBA “Small Business Person of the Year” award for the State of Florida, recipient of the 1997 “40 Most Influential People in Jacksonville” award and recipient of the 1995 Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce “Small Business Person of the Year” award.
“It’s all marketing related, if you think about it, and that’s what I really like to do,” said Balanky. “People ask me why I went into real estate and I say I can’t sing, I can’t play a musical instrument and I can’t paint, so this is my form of self-expression, this real estate development. It’s something I truly love and something I will do for the rest of my life.”
Now, with four projects all in various stages, Balanky has his plate full and he’s never been happier.
“I locate new projects, assemble a team to effectuate any entitlements, oversee construction and deliver the final project,” he said.
His current project, San Marco Place, a 141-unit condominium project on the Southbank, started construction the day after the Super Bowl. He is partnering with Jay Southerland, president of The Southerland Group, on this project.
The 21-story building will have 6,300 square foot of retail space and prices will range from $190,000 to $550,000 for a condominium. Penthouses will range from $890,000 to $1.4 million. The units range from 1,000 square feet to 2,400 square feet with an average size of 1,650 square feet. Penthouses are around 3,300 square feet. There will be eight townhomes above the retail area that will be about 1,700 square feet each and are priced about $390,000.
“The city’s drive is to bring more residents downtown,” said Southerland. “What I think this is going to do is accomplish that goal with a product which is very desirable for this area, the Southbank. It fits the eclectic nature with the Mediterranean style or old world look.
“The Southbank is somewhat more desirable than the Northbank, but that is going to change as the Northbank continues to grow.”
Across the street on the river will be big Peninsula and Strand condo/retail projects but Balanky is not worried about the competition.
“Two different products and two different styles,” said Balanky. “Ours is as luxury a condominium as theirs is but theirs is more of a South Florida look, while ours has the Mediterranean, San Marco look. Our product is perfectly priced.”
Balanky said they are about 80 percent sold and should sell out in a month or two.
Realtors and investors are buying to get a piece of the action.
“There are over 50 percent buying for investment,” said Balanky. “We did receive incentives [for the project] which require us to maintain an average sales price of $230 per square foot. That is why we have such a strong investment base. We have had over a dozen of the area’s top producing Realtors purchase a unit here due to the value created by our agreement with the city.”
The project should be complete in 18 months from the start of construction.
Selling on the Southbank has been pretty easy given all the nearby amenities including the Riverwalk, high-end restaurants and retail.
Balanky’s project Deerwood Lake is a mixed-use community that is currently under construction in the Tinsletown area. The mixed-use project consists of residential, retail and office. He said construction should be complete by the end of this year.
The Cove at San Jose in Mandarin is a 76-unit condominium project on the water with a marina.
“We are just getting ready to put up a sign. We haven’t even started yet,” said Balanky. “We haven’t finalized the price points on that just yet, but we are working on that.” Sales started in February.
Lastly, Balanky was just recently awarded,Kings Avenue Station, an office and retail project on Kings Avenue in the parking lot in front of the Kings Avenue garage.
“The intent is to infill the garage,” said Balanky. “With the Kings Avenue garage, that is where the Skyway Express terminates and it will become the nucleus for the rapid transit system that JTA is in the process of purchasing the land for. We feel like with all of going on there, things like the retail that we are proposing will do well.”
One of the things they are proposing is a grocery store, which will help the area immensely. Balanky said they should be announcing tenants in the next six months.
“The day after Super Bowl, they started re-doing Hendricks Avenue and that will go from four lanes to three, which will force a lot of the traffic onto Kings Avenue. When the Radisson develops, Kings will extend right through their property straight to the river,” he said. “So, Kings will become a major road instead of being a peripheral road.”
He and Southerland are also working on another project on the Northside that they should be announcing shortly.
Who’s Mike Balanky?
Balanky started his career in radio where he stayed for 15 years while cooking up his new ventures.
“I used to manage FM-104.9 in Jacksonville back in their heyday,” he said. “I started out in sales and worked my way up to manager.”
Prior to owning Chase Properties, which is named after his son Chase, Balanky owned a chain of Jacksonville retail stores, Truck Options, which sold retail after-market automotive accessories.
“I started the company in 1987,” he said. “We had stores in Atlanta, Orlando, Baltimore, Jacksonville and Tallahassee. I sold them four years ago.”
How does someone in the radio business get the idea to open an after-market automobile accessory store?
“It’s a funny story,” said Balanky. “When I worked for the radio station, I drove a company vehicle. Mine was a four-door Jeep Cherokee. I used to take it hunting on the weekends. It kept getting scratched so I started looking for a cover to protect the vehicle on my excursions. I couldn’t find one, so I invented one and had it patented. I took the patent to a trade show and sold the patent rights. I had written a business plan to promote the product and as I wrote the business plan, I identified the need for a high-end retail automotive accessory store.
“After I sold the patent rights, I took that money and invested it in a retail store. I stayed in the radio business for the next seven years as my retail business grew.”
Unfortunately, the store he sold the patent to went bankrupt before they ever did anything with them.
“As far as I know, it’s never been in the market,” he said.
And real estate?
“I left radio and started getting involved in real estate while I was doing my retail business,” he said. “I started doing some investment in real estate by buying some shopping centers and selling them. I just kept looking for more investment opportunities and eventually got involved with the Urban Land Institute out of Washington D.C. I started taking some development curriculum because I had always had an interest in doing that. It just evolved into my starting a development company.”
He started each of his new companies while still working at the previous one.
“I’ve kind of always had two jobs,” said Balanky. “I learned a lot of human interest skills. The best part about radio, except that it was a ton of fun, was that the company that I worked for, Metroplex, was real big into training. Back in the 1980’s, they would send us to a high-level management-training course about once a quarter. There was a lot of motivational type training. I think that that gave me a lot of skills as far as planning, training and following through.”
Balanky has lived in Jacksonville for most his life, graduating from Englewood High School. He has been married to Gayle for 10 years. “She is the love of my life,” he said.
He has two children, Chase, 19 and Evan, 16. When he is not working, he enjoys spending time and traveling with his wife. They work out five or six days a week at Epping Forest.
“We love Epping Forest,” he said. “We keep our boat, a 34-foot Sea Ray, there too.”
Though he has a lot on his plate, he believes in working efficiently rather than killing himself.
“I work when I want to work,” he said. “I work hard, then I play hard. The trick is to be organized and surround yourself with really good people.”