by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
If you could bottle the energy, drive and determination of Elizabeth Robins, president of Modern Properties of St. Augustine, you could make millions.
At the ripe old age of 33, Robins has earned her pilot’s license before she got her driver’s license, a bachelor’s degree, practiced entertainment law in Soho, owned her own medical supplies company, owned several start-up companies, earned a law degree and moved to St. Augustine to run her family’s development company.
“I continually appreciate the challenges that life offers me,” said Robins. “If it’s not a challenge, then I really don’t see the point. Life is better when you are challenged. It’s just more interesting.”
Robins’ parents came to St. Augustine about 15 years ago by accident. They had a plane emergency and had to land there. While the plane was getting fixed, they started driving around and met some people that were builders and developers.
“My father is a physician in New York City and you can imagine how eager the developers were to say, ‘Hey we need you to be our partner we’ll make a lot of money in real estate’,” said Robins. “Well, they ran off with all his money and he was in a lawsuit against them. As a settlement, my father ended up with this land.”
That land is located just off US 1, four miles south from SR 312. He tried to develop it as an absentee owner and did that for five years by hiring consultants.
“About four and a half years ago, I was practicing entertainment law in New York City and one day my father ask me to go down to Florida to take a look at what’s going on with his property,” said Robins. “He said it is an operation that needs management and some kind of oversight. So, I came down one week a month for about a year. Two weeks a month turned into three weeks a month and now I haven’t seen New York City in eons.”
Robins said having a law degree has helped her in everything that she does.
“I think it gives you the ability to articulate your position and be stronger in negotiating then a lay person,” she said. “I think it assists me in contract negotiations because I have the knowledge of what should or should not be in a contract. I started when I was 29. When you are young and female, a lot of people look at you with disrespect. It’s tough to be a female in a male dominated industry. But, when I can assert my legal status it helps, although, I don’t do it very often. It is a much more powerful tool when you don’t flaunt it.”
When she came down here, there was a carved out parcel that was undeveloped and she decided it was time to develop it into multi-family.
“It’s not that we are pioneers, but there was no one doing multi-family when we started and now everyone is doing it,” she said.
Robins started developing Belle Haven, a condominium community located within the private gated Southwood community in St. Johns County three years ago.
It will have 120 single family units among nine individual buildings. The first of the nine buildings was just opened as a model a few months ago. Haskell is the builder.
“It will be built out in the next five months and the final phase will sell in the mid- $200,000s,” said Robins.
Shopping, banking and the downtown historic district are minutes away. Three separate floor plans range in size from 1,272 to 1,520 square feet. Two- and three-bedroom residences have ceramic tiled foyers, kitchens and baths with the option of a private attached garage including remote entry and carriage house door hardware. Kitchens feature solid surface countertops with double sinks and cabinetry in shades of cherry and walnut, GE appliances, and walk-in pantries. Master baths have a walk-in shower with built-in seats and safety glass enclosure. While the second bath comes with a porcelain tub, both baths have elevated vanities, custom cabinetry, and cultured marble surfaces. The clubhouse includes a fitness center, pool, deck and entertainment room with gas fireplace.
“I’m amazed at how many other people don’t think outside the box and are so used to this formula building,” said Robins.
Robins’ idea of thinking outside the box was making sure each building in her condominium community have an elevator.
“We are one of the only two-story buildings in St. Johns County that have an elevator to the second floor. Why? Because most of our clients are retired and I am a klutz.” (She said she’s broken her leg several times, so she’s no stranger to crutches.)
Robins’ father didn’t know a lot about development when he started developing the land and neither did she, but she thinks she found the key.
“It’s all about surrounding yourself with people you can trust,” said Robins. “If we don’t pretend to know it all it’s really amazing how many people want to share. I’m so impressed by people’s integrity and the fact that they want to share their experience, know-how or they just want to talk about things that they’ve done. Being able to listen to them is how I’ve been able to progress, keep learning and keep doing. Now, my family has nothing to do with the business anymore. I am slowly in the process of buying them out, so it’s just my business. I love it. Everyday in developing is an enormous challenge and I’m pretty sure I’m going gray.”
Robins created Eastwood of St. Augustine, a development company created exclusively for the development of Belle Haven. Eastwood is a sister company of Modern Properties, which has been developing and managing commercial and residential real estate properties since the 1990s.
Southwood, the planned unit development, consists of single-family houses, multi-family condominiums and commercial space. There will be a total of 320 single family houses, 120 condominiums and 100,000 more square feet of commercial space.
Robins is in the planning stages of creating a shopping center along US 1.
“It’s a perfect location,” she said, adding the shopping center will be modeled after Park Avenue in WinterPark. “It’s going to be an architecturally beautiful, multi-dimensional, mixed-use project that we’ve never seen in St. Augustine.”
Robins is also looking into some urban renewal projects in downtown Jacksonville and Riverside.
Robins earned her bachelor’s degree in international affairs and German from the University of Colorado and her law degree from Hofstra School of Law in New York. She is single and lives in Serenata Beach. In staying true to her adventurous spirit, she has embraced the Southern life by learning golfing and skeet shooting; she also canoes down the Suwannee River.