Dev Motwani, Managing Partner, Merrimac Ventures
Merrimac Ventures has such a long-term vision that one of its current projects is on a site the company bought 30 years ago. “We’re long-term thinking in nature,” Managing Partner Dev Motwani told Invest:. “We think we’ll make more money over time by investing more in certain areas, but that return may not show up in the short term.”
What have been some significant milestones and achievements for Merrimac Ventures in the last 12 months?
In the last 12 months, we’ve launched two major projects, one being the Waldorf Astoria Residences in Pompano Beach, and the other being Bungalow East, a condo in Fort Lauderdale. Those are two projects for which we’ve owned the properties for years. Both are going extremely well. The Waldorf project is exciting because we never expected to be bringing a brand of the caliber of Waldorf to that destination. This is their first-ever branded and serviced residence-only project, so it’s very special for us to be able to bring that to the market. We’re seeing a great response to both the brand and the product that we’re delivering.
What trends have emerged in terms of luxury projects?
What we’re noticing is that residents across the board want resort-style amenities, even at home. In our condo buildings as well as our apartment buildings, we take that into account. We’re trying to incorporate not only amenities but also services that mimic the lifestyle of being in a resort. As we built the Four Seasons, which is a hotel with residences, we realized that it was a desirable product because people want to live at the resort to get all the services and amenities.
What we’re also seeing, like with the Waldorf, is that people want those services and amenities, but they don’t always want to be attached to a hotel; they are willing to pay for those services and amenities to have them on a daily basis. We’ve done that across the board on all these projects, including Bungalow East, which is a boutique project that we’re doing behind the Four Seasons.
That’s from a product standpoint. From a demographic standpoint, what we’re seeing is that we really have a much broader base in Broward County and particularly in the Greater Fort Lauderdale area in terms of who is moving here. We’re still getting the Northeasterners and the Canadians, but we’re also starting to see more international markets starting to come here, whether it be Mexico, South America, or even Europe. We are starting to see people from those markets come to Fort Lauderdale, whereas they have traditionally focused on Miami.
How do you balance short-term returns with long-term community impact?
Typically, when we go into a project, we control it from day one. We do a lot of projects with partners; however, we can control the design and a lot of the aspects of the project that do impact the community. If we’re in charge of it, we’re always keeping an eye on that. If we have a partner, their interests and their values should be aligned with ours, and they understand that’s important to us.
From a return perspective, short term versus long term, our family has been in this area for 40 years, so we’re long term. In the Bungalow project that we just launched, we bought the first part of that property 30 years ago, in 1994. We’re long-term thinking in nature. But we don’t do this alone. We typically have a partner, either a development partner or a capital partner. Some are short-term in nature, and some are long-term in nature. That’s not to say it’s good or bad or right or wrong, it’s just a different view of the world.
We try to partner with people who are aligned not only with our values and interests but also with our time horizon. We think we’ll make more money over time by investing more in certain areas, but that return may not show up in the short term. You need to have capital and partners who are aligned with a long-term view to reap the benefits of those decisions.
What are the top priorities for Merrimac Ventures over the next two to three years?
From a growth perspective, we’re looking more like the Southeast and even other parts of Florida. We have a project in Ocala, Florida, for example. It is a multifamily apartment project. We bought the land with a partner that brought it to us, and we’re planning to break ground next year on that. We think that there’s a lot of opportunity within the state, even just beyond South Florida, which is our home base.
We are also partners on a large 50-acre site in East Tampa that we bought a few years ago. We knew that it was a little early for development, but we felt that the Tampa MSA was going to continue to grow out.
We’re also looking at other markets, including the Greater Orlando MSA and the Space Coast and Jacksonville. We’re selectively looking at other markets. We’re certainly open to projects that people bring to us if we can find a local partner who can help us with it. We’re open to that until we get to know these markets a little more intimately. But we also have a healthy pipeline here in South Florida. We have about five apartment projects that we already own and control.
