Jay Tallman and Tom Brown

FINALISTS

Jay Tallman

Tom Brown

Owners

U.S. Assets Group

Sarasota

In March, Jay Tallman and Tom Brown of Sarasota-based U.S. Assets Group, saw the ground broken on the Founders Club, the first golf course to be approved in northern Sarasota County since the early 1990s.

It marked the culmination of five years' effort to bring the project to fruition amid the landscape of Sarasota's ongoing development debates.

"Growth in Sarasota County has been political football for many years, particularly in the eastern part of the county," Tallman says. "Since the mid- to late-1970s, Sarasota has had an urban services boundary (from Interstate 75 to Ridge Road to Clark Road). This is really one of the first developments that has been approved east of that. It's been very difficult."

Equity membership for the private club will cost $75,000, according to Tallman. Completion of the traditional-styled course - it will feature existing old oaks as backdrop - is expected by year's end. About 200 of the 262 homes will be on the course, but set back. Construction should begin on homes this summer. The project marks the first single-family development for Tallman and Brown, who built en Provence in Longboat Key, Beau Ciel on the bayfront and who have just broken ground for Orchid Beach Club on Lido Beach.

Tallman says the market has continued to strengthen since he entered it in the mid-1990s. Most notably, he adds, the buyer has changed.

By 1997, the buyer was not the typical Midwesterner that the Sarasota area had catered to over the years, nor was it the typical retiree. The buyers, more and more a split between people from the Midwest and the Northeast, were becoming younger and their resources more diverse.

U.S. Assets first applied in 1999 for rezoning of the Founders Club property, three miles east of Interstate 75, off of Fruitville Road, from rural to a category that would grant the 262 residential units allowable under the comprehensive plan. The appeal went through the Sarasota Planning Commission and the county commission, with numerous public hearings to face the local anti-development faction.

U.S. Assets Group won approval for the luxury golf course community, in part, by promising design criteria that would create natural buffers around the property's perimeter. The duo developed pesticide management plans to address concerns about chemical run-off; and developed habitat management plans to explain how they would mitigate the effects of the development on existing wildlife. Furthermore, they promised to adhere to strict landscape standards, including the use of native plants and higher-than-necessary drainage standards. The company also promised to enhance existing wetland areas.

"We committed in the process to go over and above normal development standards to demonstrate that growth can be positive," Tallman says. Ultimately, commission voted in favor of the project.

Brown, an Oklahoma native, formed U.S. Assets in 1993. Six years later, he met Tallman, a native of Ohio, through a mutual friend and invited the younger man to join the firm.

"It was a great marriage," Brown says. "He's good at project management. I had more of a background in major project development. We both had good experience in waterfront condominiums and golf club communities."

Tallman says he leads by example. Brown claims a more direct management style: he freely admits he likes "clear lines of authority and responsibility while Jay's a little more laid back."

Brown says the two, both University of Denver graduates, are partners who share in the financial management of the company: "We have no titles."

Annual revenues have averaged 62.5% growth since 2001, from $20 million that year to $50 million in 2003. The number of employees has grown from 7 to 23 between 2001 and now, although Brown expects to add at least 50 more people this year.

STATS

Employees: 2001: 7; 2002: 7; 2003: 10;

2004: 23.

Revenues: 2001: $20 million; 2002: $40 million; 2003: $50 million.

Average annual growth: 62.5%