The Wave
Atlantic|Pacific has expanded their management portfolio with three new buildings: Apogee Beach Hollywood, The Wave, and the Whitney. These three new additions mean “three big opportunities” to Tom Smith, managing director for A|P management. He is looking forward to further expansion for the company.
The three buildings differ greatly from each other. The Wave is an older product, over 40 years old. There are a lot of maintenance concerns. According to Smith, “The manager we hired for the project has experience in this area […] we hand-picked the manager to fit the needs of what’s going to be going on there.”
Apogee Hollywood Beach
The Apogee is a brand new building “on the opposite end of the spectrum,” built by The Related Group. It is on the ocean and extremely high end: Five Star, with condos going for multi-millions of dollars. The units are still in the process of being sold. The manager hired for this building has experience running projects as they are turned over to the new board of directors. At her previous job, “basically, all she did was work on new developments, transition-type projects.”
Whitney is not old, but it was built with Chinese dry wall. Smith says, “it was much cheaper, but it had some type of chemical that deteriorates over time.” The manager will be moving people out over 14 months, one floor at a time, overseeing the removal and replacement of drywall, new appliances and wires. “We’re stepping in right at the beginning of it. […] We’ve worked with them in the past.”
The Wave and Apogee are in the same neighborhood. “Right next to the street from each other.” They are on the ocean, and are wealthy, high end, and security-oriented. The Whitney is in the middle of City Place. “It’s kind of in the middle of all the action,” according to Smith. There are many restaurants, entertainment sites, bands, events and bars. It has 24/hour front desk and security.
The three buildings are all very high-end, luxury designs. “Everything has to be concierge; it’s all about customer
The Whitney
service. Everybody that works for us has to have a customer service background. We train people to be over-the-top with customer service.” Unit owners are on the board of directors. So everyone is treated the same with high-end customer service.
A|P will be taking on more people for these projects. One person was hired to coordinate the moves for the Whitney because of the Chinese drywall. They have already contracted with a “preferred moving company.” An extra maintenance guy may be hired depending on how the moves go. “If people move out and leave the place a mess, we may need an extra maintenance guy to help out.”
A|P Recently hired someone to work on raising new business, and their acquisition of the three new buildings came as a part of the work he was able to drum up for them. “The cost of building has turned around, and made it realistic again for developers. There’s a lot of development going on.” A|P does a lot of pre-development work with companies to help them — such as budgets and documents. Each project takes 10-12 hours, but the building company will usually hire A|P to manage for them once the construction job is done.
When asked about challenges unique to Florida, Tom Smith responded, “Hurricanes!” A|P has put together a hurricane manual that they constantly tweak. And every manager gets the manual — residents can also request a copy. For any kind of storm, there is usually only three days notice, with much work to be done. A|P’s buildings are usually high rises, which require extra care. Everything must be taken down from the balconies and closed up. There are also flood zones to be concerned about.
Tom Smith is senior managing director for A|P Florida.
A|P has been voted one of the Best Places to Work by the South Florida business journal six years in a row. Smith cites the quality of the employees, saying that winning the award so consistently is “employee driven.” they are placed in the large company category, going against companies like Bank of America. “We shoot an email to employees and let them know.” Employees have the option to go to a website and rate the company. A minimum of 150 must respond to be counted in the contest. People love working for A|P. “We do a lot of things that are different from other companies in our business.” They have a family-oriented holiday party. “It’s a family-oriented type company, and I think the reward kind of reflects that.”