Job Generator

Job Generator

By David R. Corder

Associate Editor

About seven years ago, Grady Pridgen heard a common concern among many of the companies interested in the commercial space he owns and manages in St. Petersburg's Gateway area. He listened closely as prospective tenants lamented over the consistent increase in Pinellas County home values. They feared a labor exodus if workers moved farther away from the city's employment centers in search of attainable homes.

This was not just his tenants' problem, Pridgen quickly reasoned. If the tenants decided to follow such an exodus, then he could face competitive pressures against more suburban office and industrial parks elsewhere in the Tampa Bay area. This would require an adjustment in his market strategy.

"It appeared to me then to prop up our business park deals we had to solve this problem of work-force housing," Pridgen says. "We started looking for land."

The opportunity for Pridgen to solve at least a part of this problem emerged a couple years later, when the city decided to sell 130 acres of Gateway area land known as the Sod Farm for economic development reasons. In exchange for a competitive bid of about $5 million, the city required him to build enough high-tech manufacturing space capable of creating at least 1,800 new jobs.

Only Pridgen saw much more in this underused property. He envisioned the development of a small, self-sustained city on the 130-acre site. Pridgen conceived a project now known as La Entrada. When completed, it will contain nearly 1 million square feet of light-industrial manufacturing space, 5.9 million square feet of office space, 1.3 million square feet of retail, a 300-room hotel and 2,494 multifamily units. Units will sell from $200,000 to $400,000, Pridgen says, an average that falls within a range that Fannie Mae classifies as attainable housing in Pinellas County.

"The only requirement was the number of industrial jobs that he was going to provide the city," says Mayor Rick Baker. "The fact he added retail and residential as a mixed-use development is a positive thing."

By the time the deal closed three years ago, Pridgen had received inquiries from manufacturers about space in the Sod Farm project. Rather than wait for a commitment, however, he proceeded with speculative site development work. He has used that strategy ever since he founded Grady Pridgen Inc. in the early 1990s.

That is how he built the 400,000 square feet of office-industrial space in the Gateway Business Centre, 500,000 square feet of office and high-tech manufacturing space in the Gateway Business Park, 500,000 square feet of high-tech space in the Metropointe Commerce Park and 160,000 square feet of office space in the Westbay Corporate Center.

"What we've found is that by the time a company gets approved for a new facility they needed it years before and now, with the approval, want it yesterday," Pridgen says.

Just as it had in the past, Pridgen's development strategy quickly paid off. Last year, Largo's Valpak Direct Marketing Systems Inc. signed a long-term lease for 500,000 square feet with expansion capability of up to another 300,000 square feet in the Sod Farm. That project breaks ground next month.

Earlier this year, St. Petersburg's Halkey-Roberts Corp. purchased enough space in the Sod Farm to build a new 180,000-square-foot headquarters site. The maker of injection-molded medical equipment also allowed for expansion of up to another 100,000 square feet.

Such projects have earned Pridgen the stature as one of the icons in the Tampa Bay area commercial development, along the likes of Dick Beard, Mel Sembler, Joe Taggart, Al Austin or Jack Wilson. Last year, the Tampa Bay chapter of the National Association of Industrial Office Parks recognized Pridgen as its 2004 Developer of the Year.

Says Jim King, a senior vice president at the engineering firm of George F. Young Inc. and the man who nominated Pridgen for the award: "You can put him in that category. To compare him to some of the top developers, you could argue he's in the same category as other developers of the year. I would use that as a benchmark."

Since founding his firm, Pridgen estimates his commercial parks have attracted at least 700 companies that have relocated 13,500 jobs to the Gateway area. His portfolio of commercial properties exceeds 2 million square feet of leaseable space.

He also has a lot more in the pipeline than the Sod Farm. A year ago, he purchased 120,000 square feet of vacated office space on 22 acres from Honeywell International Inc. at Ulmerton Road and U.S. 19. That's a project now almost fully leased.

Earlier this summer, he purchased the 22-acre campus Nielsen Media Research vacated in Dunedin. That's an evolving project that may require some redevelopment work.

There are other projects, including:

• Baylofts Plaza, a 37-story condo project, with 360 units in downtown St. Petersburg.

• Celotex-Pridgen, a mixed-use residential project at Ninth Street and Roosevelt Boulevard with 350 condo units.

• 1500 Central Ave., another mixed-use residential project near Tropicana Field in midtown St. Petersburg. That projects calls for 325 units in six stories, with 45,000 square feet of retail and 30,000 square feet earmarked for the Florida Sports Hall of Fame.

Inside his "war room," Pridgen displays the architectural drawings that depict those projects and more. He frets just a bit because he hasn't had the time to properly organize and frame the drawings for viewing.

He's proud of what he and his small staff - fewer than a dozen or so - have accomplished.

There's no respite for them. Just recently he ventured over to the state's east coast, where Pridgen is in the planning stages for a 250-room hotel adjacent to the Astronauts Hall of Fame in Titusville.

Is this a new, broader direction for Pridgen?

"We are looking at opportunities elsewhere in the state," he acknowledges. "Anything outside of the area would have to have compelling reasons. The Titusville project is just a very neat project. It will be the first of its kind in the state - the first environmental hotel built from the ground up."

Sod Farm will remain green

Grady Pridgen is about to raise the standards for hotel development in Florida. He is developing a hotel in Titusville that could become the first in the state to meet voluntary guidelines adopted by the Florida Green Building Coalition, a nonprofit movement that encourages the integration of environmental and economic efficiencies.

Pridgen has applied to make his mixed-use Sod Farm project the Tampa Bay area's first green commercial development. He wants to install advanced solar-energy technology on 52 acres of commercial rooftops in the Gateway area.

If approved, the Sod Farm could become the state's largest urban project to earn the coalition's Green Development Designation Standard, says Roy Bonnell, the group's executive director. "We've done some urban infill projects, but nothing the size of that," Bonnell says. "We hope to use the project as a model for others to follow."

Pridgen says the coalition's guidelines will translate into about 3% to 5% more in cost to develop a building that uses the latest water and energy conservation methods, relies on renewable resources for building materials and incorporates environmental aesthetics.

"We think people will pay a little more for a building that's not harming the environment," Pridgen says. "It's a lot healthier, frankly. It will just take some education to convince the market."

Grady Pridgen III

Age: 46

Title: President, Grady Pridgen Inc.

Residence: St. Petersburg

Hometown: Charlotte, N.C., and Richmond, Va.

Education: Bachelor's degree in business administration, 1981, with a major in real estate and urban analysis and minor in finance, University of Florida.

Family: Married seven years to Jodie; they have four children, two boys and two girls.

Mentor: Miami-area entrepreneur David B. Fleeman, who taught him to be patient, conservative, fair and kind, while maintaining a killer instinct.

Favorite pastime: Spending time with his family.

Favorite book: "Adobe Dreams," a book his wife published in 2001.

Favorite restaurant: Salt Rock Grill, Indian Shores.

Favorite vacation spot: Hacienda de los Santos Resort & Spa, Alamos, Mexico.