Spotlight On: Bryan Moll, CEO, Gateway Jax
November 2024 — Jacksonville is one of the best job markets in the country, which is a key factor for real estate development, Bryan Moll, CEO of Gateway Jax, told Invest. “Job growth is key to being able to promote successful developments in terms of new housing developments, with new renters and new condo buyers moving into the Urban Core,” he said.
What have been the main highlights and key milestones for Gateway Jax over the past 12 months?
We’ve been working on our parcel assemblage and our inaugural project for about two years now. The first year necessitated a lot of foundational work to get the company up and running, and to start to plan what we anticipate building on a lot of the sites that we now own. The last 12 months have been spent using that foundation to build what ultimately will end up being the first phase of a $500 million project in Jacksonville’s Downtown that will grow into a $2 billion project upon completion. We have been laying groundwork for 24 months, and will break ground on our first project in the urban city center area in Downtown in October.
What makes Jacksonville an ideal place for the commercial real estate industry to invest and develop?
I’ll break it down into three different buckets: first, the economy in general in Jacksonville, next being the development world in Jacksonville, and finally, Downtown. Jacksonville’s economy continues to be one of the top markets in the nation. In April, the Wall Street Journal named Jacksonville the number two job market after it had been number four two years prior, and number three last year. That data reinforces what a consistently strong job market Jacksonville has. A lot of the jobs being created are in well-paying fields that require a well-educated workforce. When you’re a developer, in particular, job growth is key to being able to promote successful developments in terms of new apartment development, with new renters moving in and new condo buyers coming into the market. Job growth is the backbone of the successful development world.
In general, I think things couldn’t be better now, nor point to a brighter future. Florida continues to be one of the top states for growth in the nation; it has a great quality of life, a great business environment, and no state income tax –– it’s a fantastic place to live. I truly believe that Florida is going to be one of the top states for businesses for decades to come. If you look at the areas in Florida that have the most opportunity for growth, and you look at some of the major cities, including South Florida, Miami, on the west side in Tampa, and the central part of Orlando, a lot of those cities have been growing like crazy over the past 10 years. As they have grown, they’ve gotten more expensive to live. Jacksonville has all the same things going for it, but it also offers a great quality of life, and it’s still a relatively affordable place to live. There’s just a bright future in Jacksonville from an economic standpoint making it a great place for the commercial real estate industry.
What is your approach to real estate development?
I truly believe what we do at Gateway Jax is helping to create and give people a better life. Ultimately, what we build, what we’re doing here in Downtown Jacksonville and what I’ve done throughout my career, is to create thriving neighborhoods that include everything someone would need on a day-to-day basis. Our developments have staples, like very walkable streets where you don’t have to hop in a car to do an everyday chore –– you can simply go outside your door, walk down the street, and do what you need to do. We’re creating an accessible neighborhood where people can potentially not need their cars for days at a time –– with the ability to walk to work, to the grocery store, to the gym –– truly creating a cohesive development right in our Urban Core.
The ability to have that type of lifestyle doesn’t truly exist anywhere in Jacksonville at the moment. Creating that environment here is going to be something that not only will improve people’s lives, but will then prove that there is a desire for these walkable environments, and that will help stimulate more and more of these types of developments throughout Downtown, and across Jacksonville.
What we are building here, this $500 million development Downtown, with over a thousand multifamily units, 170,000 square feet of retail –– including health clubs, everyday services, grocery stores, a little bit of office space, and hotels –– we believe will stimulate additional investment and additional projects Downtown, making it an even better place to call home.
Have you seen a shift in client expectations in recent years, and how is Gateway Jax adapting to those changes?
There have been some changes in expectations, and COVID has driven a lot of them. One area we’ve seen drastically change in a lot of people’s lives is how they work every day. A lot of people work from home now, although the pendulum may have swung a little bit back the other way toward the traditional office setting in recent months. That said, the population is not going into an office five days a week anymore.
Today, people are in the office three, maybe four days a week. What that has resulted in is changes in the way that people use the amenity spaces in public areas and buildings. I don’t think it’s a dramatic change, but it does influence the way that we think about designing buildings and their amenity spaces. We’re thinking a lot more about co-working areas in our buildings. Even in our lobbies, we’re looking at how we can design and program the space so that people can just sit down at a comfortable table, pull out their laptops and work for a little while if they need to.
Then, there is the way that we curate the retail aspect of our developments. We’ve always been big believers in having great outdoor public spaces, but now we are also focusing on the mentality of experiential retail and the importance of food and beverage in people’s lives. We are intentionally making sure that every restaurant, every food and beverage outlet, has not only the ability, but has the requirement to be able to activate the outdoor space and have outdoor dining. Not only is that already a trend, but we want our developments to be forward thinking should anything like the recent pandemic return in the future.
The final thing I would say that has changed in the way we plan and execute developments relates to the hybrid or remote work world. The idea of private offices everywhere has changed quite a bit, and the idea of hoteling and using a more collaborative environment where people are sharing spaces is a lot more prominent. That was already a trend, but it has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Overall, we have seen changes over the years and fully expect that the needs of those we serve will continue to evolve. While how we do it may slightly change, what we do and why we do it stays the same. We believe in developing curated, inspiring, exciting places to live, work and play, and we cannot wait to get started on our inaugural project, the Pearl Street District, in Jacksonville this year.
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