by Miranda G. McLeod
Staff Writer
One of the most challenging tasks in describing Toney Sleiman, one of the biggest jitterbugs in Jacksonville, is putting his colorful personality onto a black and white page. He’s never at a loss for words, many of which can’t be printed in a family newspaper.
Sleiman moves faster than a freight train and is so excited and passionate about Jacksonville’s opportunity to be great, it’s nearly impossible to accurately capture his personality.
He’s constantly on his cell phone between questions. Callers sent to his voice mail get a rambunctious “Go Get ‘Em!” — that’s it.
His energy — for his family, his company and mostly for this city — is higher than a kid on a four-day cotton-candy binge. He’s lived his entire life in Jacksonville. He’s seen it evolve and has been a pivotal part of its maturity.
His office in Southpoint is decorated wall-to-wall. The three-story building houses his office, conference rooms, TCI (the construction arm of Sleiman Enterprises) and a gym (sauna and locker rooms included).
There’s a balcony overlooking a fish pond attached to his office. Many mornings he bangs on the banister, throws some cat food into a deep blue pond, and turtles — as if the supper bell just rang — swim over to feast. He watches as the turtles pluck the brown tidbits from the water, and catfish, ironically eating cat food, steal morsels, too. He giggles as much as a grown businessman can at this ritual.
Inside his office, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf doesn’t appear to house the first manual, biography or fictional-tale. Instead, footballs signed by coaches, players and administrators share space with knickknacks — cows from Chick-Fil-A, Mardi Gras beads hanging from different statues, a team of bobbleheads, trophies, pictures and papers. The shelf is slowly succumbing to the collection.
Blue prints and sketches of the Landing and other projects line some of the walls; animal trophies line the others.
His phone reads “22 new voice messages” and his computer is nearly invisible on his desk. He doesn’t spend much time in his office because of his wheeling and dealing — and hunting, a daily ritual that starts at 3 p.m. (or as close to that as possible) on his property off Pecan Park Road. He shoots turkey, deer and hogs, then hosts the barbecues afterwards.
Toney Sleiman loves his work and he loves to party. He cites the Super Bowl as the best party of the year, a close second is Florida-Georgia weekend.
It’s hard to believe Sleiman when he says if he wasn’t doing what he’s doing, he’d be a biologist or game warden in the mountains, maybe Montana, he says. But it’s doubtful he’d be gone for too long anyway.
His father Eli, founder of Sleiman Enterprises, is from Beirut, Lebanon — a place Sleiman has never been, but would like to visit.
As far as world travel, Beirut may be the only place Sleiman goes any time soon.
“I’ve been around Europe and different places, but I’d rather spend my time in America. There’s still so much of America I haven’t’ seen,” he said.