By Carole Hawkins, Staff Writer
Residential real estate crashed around the same time Chet Skinner joined the family business.
For Skinner Bros. Realty Co., a commercial development company owned by Chet’s father, Chip, it was a fortuitous turn of events.
The recession had generated scores of half-finished bank-owned subdivisions priced at a discount.
As the former director of land acquisitions and entitlements for Pulte Homes, Chet Skinner knew residential real estate.
Within two years Skinner Bros. picked up its first residential deals.
Today residential development has become a permanent arm of the business.
“We felt like we saw some opportunities with bank-owned properties,” Chet Skinner said. “We could come in and get a good piece of residential real estate and diversify our portfolio. It’s just grew from there, and it’s been very lucrative for us over the last three or four years.”
Skinner Bros. picked up most of its foreclosure deals between 2010 and 2012. The company altogether purchased portions of five subdivisions and finished developing them for resale to homebuilders.
In 2011 the company landed another type of residential work. As the development arm for three projects owned by Mattamy Homes, Skinner Bros. readied 500 lots. A pending fourth project for Mattamy will add another 200 lots to the total.
Just recently Skinner Bros. bought 6.5 acres in North Jacksonville along the marshlands of Dunn Creek. The company plans to develop what it calls a “boutique subdivision” of 11 lots, five of which will be on the marsh. Mercedes Premier Homes of Jacksonville will build the homes, with sizes and prices yet to be determined. It’s the first project in which Skinner will develop its own residential property from raw land.
Asked about the company’s emergence in residential, Chet Skinner is modest.
He credits his father, Chip Skinner, who founded the company in 1999 for its strong beginnings.
A former employee of Regency Centers, Chip Skinner built Skinner Bros. around his expertise, which was in commercial real estate.
Projects over the years included Cypress Creek, a 400-acre mixed used Development of Regional Impact; build-to-suits for Florida Capital Bank in Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Gainesville and Daytona; and ownership and management of Moultrie Square Shopping Center, a 70,500-square-foot Publix-anchored center in St. Augustine
When Chet Skinner joined the business in 2008, it brought a capability to look for residential opportunities, the younger Skinner said. He doesn’t foresee residential overtaking the company’s commercial arm any time soon though.
“It will take a good amount of time to equal what my father accomplished on the commercial side,” he said. “The good thing about this is maybe five years down the road, by adding residential to our portfolio, we can take advantage of cycles - where we have the expertise, if residential slows down, to pursue commercial or industrial, and vice versa.”
The Skinner family name has long been associated with real estate in Jacksonville, stretching back to the early 1900s, when Chet’s great-great grandfather bought property on what is today’s Southside for a turpentine plantation. The family eventually accumulated 50,000 acres.
The name, Skinners Bros. Realty Co., actually comes from an old real estate company which the sons of the original Skinner founded in 1919.
Other family members have also developed real estate over the years, including Chet Skinner’s uncle, Bryant, who developed Deerwood and property at Southpoint.
Perhaps most memorable, several Skinner family members in 2003 collectively sold property from the family’s holdings to developer Ben Carter to build the St. Johns Town Center.