In Conversation with David Hunihan, CEO for Lee Wetherington Homes, and Robert Milligan, Founder/President for Preferred Shores Real Estate on regional trends in Real Estate and home building.

HOW DOES OUR LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE HANDLE THIS GROWTH?

HUNIHAN: I’ve been in this business in Florida for over 30 years and I could literally, until about three years ago, count on one hand the amount of people from California, Washington or Oregon that we were selling homes to. The people from the Northeast and the Midwest would generally come here. But we have quite a few people that bought homes from us recently coming from Portland, Oregon and California. That really is surprising. And as for the people coming from Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, etc., even more of them are coming down here now. I grew up in New Jersey, worked in Manhattan and went to school in Boston. So if you want to talk traffic, you want to talk crowded, we have not even come anywhere near what 13 lanes of traffic going each way, going over the George Washington bridge or the Garden State Parkway in the morning is compared to what it is here. The big thing for me is how we handle that as a community. That really goes back to good planning and smart growth. Lakewood Ranch has done a great job of that over the years. They started back in the ‘80s, planning for today. They had a map and a plan for infrastructure and arterial roads, north-south roads, communities, interior retail, industry, office space, knowing that they wanted a live/work/play community, a place where people could come and live and work and stay and recreate and not even have to go out, but also that would be able to accommodate growth. 

MILLIGAN: The majority of our business is in Tampa, St. Pete and Sarasota and Charlotte Counties. We also operate in Fort Myers, Naples and Miami. So we are really statewide. As far as handling infrastructure, I’m no city planner, but there are pros and cons to everything. As a local, I’m very nostalgic about the way Sarasota was, but on the other side of the coin, there are a lot of great amenities and nicer restaurants and things to do now that we didn’t have then. Being a father of three boys, when I was growing up here, mostly everybody my age wanted to get out of here. And now that Sarasota’s become such a vibrant destination with more things to do, I’m hopeful that people, such as myself with children that are growing up here, may hope to remain here and stay closer to home and keep the family together.

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