Suncoast Business Forum; Dick Beard

Oh. I. Only use a special presentation of w. we do YOU Tampa St. Petersburg Sarasota thinking office furniture treatments where our in-store design staff help you select the furniture and fabrics to capture the look you're after. Greeting the family on business celebrating its 25th anniversary and a proud supporter of PBS and double Ds. Who would you turn to if you want to rebuild your city's downtown. Who would you turn to if you want to bring a Super Bowl to your city. Who would you turn to to help lead one of the fastest growing research universities in the country. Well if you want to done right then you turn to a go to guy with a track record of getting big jobs done. And you're about to meet the go to guy who's done all those things and more. Coming up next the Suncoast business for. You.

About 25 years ago downtown Tampa was in the midst of a major turnaround. It needed a facelift. It needed world class office space and amenities to attract businesses. That's when developer Dick beard stepped up to the plate and within a few years built some of the major office buildings that now define downtown Tampa skyline. And in some ways that was just a warm up to some of the big challenges yet to come. Dick welcome to the Suncoast business form. Well Jeff I'm just pleased to be here today. Let me ask you this. When you were a young man getting out of college could you have imagined that you one day would be building the biggest office buildings on the west coast of Florida working on a task force that successfully brought a Super Bowl to Tampa and heading up the University of South Florida as the chairman of the board of trustees.

Well Jeff you know the real estate piece of it building downtown Tampa wasn't a real big surprise to me because I pretty much knew since I was a junior high school that I wanted to be in the real estate business. Had worked out a plan with some good friends and family members that that kind of gave me the direction I wanted to do. I wanted to go and you know ultimately that happened so I was so surprised about that. But you know when in the Superbowl. Now that was a surprise particularly beating my hometown of Atlanta in that effort. And we were we were expected to win that contest so it was a great surprise and a great thrill for me and for Tampa and and for the you know the group the team that we have put together to do that. The being chairman of USAF I wouldn't have thought in a million years no way to figure that out I was an average student.

I knew I needed a college degree to do what I wanted to do but really didn't focus on it too much. But I knew I needed to go to a real good school so I worked hard to get into Georgia Tech and finally ultimately graduating but to be chairman of the USAF. Nobody ever figured it. So it's the story of an average student makes good huh. Yeah absolutely. You know I was you know I had the ability but it was a main effort and focus. And frankly I couldn't I had to work when I was at school from high school. And so I spent part of my time studying and part of my time working and probably more than more than I should have to play a little bit. Well let's talk about growing up. Let's talk about your mom and dad and your siblings you had yet siblings. And describe your life your family growing up. Well my dad was a career Marine and he graduate from Georgia Tech like I

did finally and my daughter did but played football there so he was an athlete and a career Marine aviator. He served in World War 2. He served in Korea. So that that meant that we had to travel around all over the country we lived in California Washington D.C. Miami Florida Norfolk Virginia and. Various and sundry other places around the country and so you know it made life pretty interesting and a lot of change. My mother is an artist and real smart and a huge amount of energy and so have and those she was kind of the person we go to when he wanted something you know that we didn't quite like but it was an interest in interesting grown up grown up around the country and having to make new friends and that kind of thing. Was it tough for did. Did you think that helped shape you your life and your career. As time went on. Well I mean I was born into the end of that life so it was

pretty natural for me to every two years to go meet new friends and meet new classmates and go into new schools and and be pretty aggressive about it. And so. No it really didn't seem tough to me and or any of my brothers and sisters. My dad's in the military and mom's an artist to opposite ends of the spectrum. Do you see any parts of their personalities in you. I would think so. Certainly you know. I never was the kind of artist that my mother was and I don't I'm not a formal artist at all. Drawing a picture or writing a word or any of that kind of stuff but I've always felt like I had a pretty good eye for architecture for you know the way things ought to look in the way things ought to be. And so you know after kind of said That's my artist side of me but and then my dad as a Marine

was tough and strict and Purty purty goal oriented and. And you know so I got a good bit a bit of that and he was a guy that everybody looked up to and you know you always wanted to make him proud. And you know I strived all my life to make sure Daddy felt good about what I was doing it took a lot of years for me to get there. You know if he could only have been here now you know. Indeed yeah. So in a in a way although you are formally an artist you had an eye. You had appreciation of architecture and you might say that your tapestry was kind of a downtown skyline. Yeah. She she gave me a little of that. We had good architects too but at least I was able to see what it what it ought to be and what I what I felt like it all to be. Well let's talk about school you say you are an average student right. Yeah I work hard at it right now do you work through school what kind of jobs did you have as you're working way through school.

You know like I indicated earlier I always pretty much knew that the real estate business was where I was going to end up after I'd gotten out of college so an engineering degree from Georgia Tech wasn't something that I really needed. I wanted to go to a good school but something that I really needed to go into the real estate business so you know during school I worked as a waiter I worked in a theater. Setting up all the sets and stuff like that sell and take it and stuff like that. I was apartment manager for a while I leased apartments I did things that I thought was going to give me the background to you know get formally into the business. Now after college you actually didn't go directly into real estate. So it took a different path to you. You moved to New Orleans and you worked as a as a mortgage appraiser my and my rights correct. I mean my uncle Stuart who lived next door to me in Atlanta felt like if

you wanted to get in the real estate business the best background you could have is understanding the math. What values are getting a formal training in the underlying principles of real estate. And at that time Equitable Life Assurance society had a very good formal program and he convinced me that that was the right thing for me to do in my early Real Estate years and so I moved to New Orleans went to work for equitable. So my fact that I got that job while I was a waiter I met the man that would that ran the southeastern region while I was his waiter in a restaurant. And it's kind of interesting but. But you never know what's going to work for you. Right. So I moved to New Orleans and worked for equitable for three years and and and and met my wife to be down there while I was there. Well tell us about your wife Lee and your family.

Well Lee and I have been married for 36 years. She's smart. She's an environment environmentalist. She's a very conservative politically. She's she's a lot of a lot of things but most of my friends call her a saint for because she's married to me and has been willing to put up with me all these all these years and and I agree she is a sight. And we've had of course two children one of them Alex is working in New York City. He went up there is a musician and he's continuing to be a musician but he's about a month ago. Well about a year ago he got a job in the real estate business of all things and so he's trying to learn our business and I'm proud of him for that. And then Allison is a banker with Bank of America here in town in the commercial mortgage business which is where I started so I'm pleased proud and pleased with both my wonderful children.

It's kind of rubbed off a little bit. Yeah I think they figured out that the real estate business you can you can do well in it if you're good at it. Now you learned the insides of the inner workings of finance while you were in New Orleans then you changed jobs and you went to work for a company called Redmond industries and they were developers to my right. Right well they were major their major business was the mobile home business but they decided that they wanted to be in the apartment development business and they bought a company and it turned out that I was given the opportunity to go where to go to work for Redmond in this new apartment development company. And I did. We moved to Jacksonville and then Dallas pretty shortly thereafter and with a public company we were able to develop apartments all over the country. And I got a real good fast quick intense

development education. You're with them for how many years I was with them for three and a half about three years. And what time was that roughly. That was in the 69 70 71 72 area right in that range. But. You know a public company they're paying you a salary that's really not what real estate development. That's one way to do it but not what I will ultimately want to do I'll commonly wanted to find a way to. Have an equity participation in in the real estate business in the developments that I did and was lucky enough to get I asked by a company called Lincoln property company who's partners at the time were named Trammell Crow who was kind of the godfather of of given equity to a young smart

entrepreneur in the real estate business and trammel and Matt Polk who's the current chairman and always been the chairman of Lincoln in a partner named Bill Cooper and I. I came to Florida to open Lincoln's operations in Florida in 1900. Well it was 1973. What was your task What was your mission now that you would link it and now your partner so you have potential equity. Yeah we we started from scratch and my task was to come to Florida and build apartments and I had developed some apartments in Florida with the redmen. And so I had an understanding of the knowledge of the markets down here and. We picked Tampa Tampa on the water it you've got St. Pete where you've got the beaches and all and I felt like a city that was able to put an airport together like Tampa's airport was a city that I wanted to move to and it was really my choice to come here. And we developed

apartments for the first couple of years. You know Bay Oaks on Bay Shore Boulevard river a place I can name a few that we developed during those early days. But it was kind of interesting we we didn't. We had a hard time finding office space. And so I called my partner and said look I mean we're having a hard time it looks like there's a good market here for office space why don't we go try to find a way to do an office building. I had financed them many times with Equitable had some experience and they said fine let's try it. And so Lincoln officially got into the office building business at that point in time with the Lincoln Center here in Tampa that was built really right in the the throes of a market that was going to get much better but it turned out OK in the end. So necessity in this case was the mother of invention. You needed office space you couldn't find it so let's go build one right. And then then Lincoln property company actually

began some very significant office develop. It turned out that they are one of the biggest in the country and you know they built a lot of them here after you know over the years I mean Lincoln Center Kennedy Center Paragon Center were three that developed and then we scan a move we're looking at downtown in those early days. Well you stayed with Lincoln apartments. You moved into office you with about five years is that right. 73 to 78 Yeah about five years that's correct and then you decide it's time for change even though things sound like they're going pretty well. Things were going great. But you know you want to grow particularly in your percentage of equity. And so my partners and I decided that we wanted to kind of go off on our own and create a new company in order to that we could have nationwide and

and we all left Lincoln at that time and form Paragon group Paragon group was also based in Dallas but you stayed here right. Paragon group was based in Dallas my partner was a guy named Bill Cooper who who you know was a great guy. And yeah I stayed here is what we would call the founding regional partner for the southeastern United States so we also expanded the market beyond just Florida we did projects in Atlanta and Birmingham and around the southeast and then we had a partner in Charlotte Dallas Houston in California and St. Louis. So what was this what was the business strategy for Paramount really to build investment for our own account development for our own account and basically grow the apartment business but we we would look at strategic opportunities in the office building building business also.

Similar to the crow crow philosophy and similar to the Lincoln philosophy it was at this point though that you actually undertook the major highrise development we're talking about the late 1970s early 1980s when you really started building some of the tallest buildings that are on the West Coast. Well I mean you know it took some time to build those buildings but yeah in 1980 there was an effort to revitalize downtown Tampa the first Florida building was built in the early 70s and nothing had happened for a long time and during that whole 70s era office buildings and at that time the DDA got me to come downtown and look at the look at downtown and you know I've always had a lot of confidence in Florida and in Tampa particularly. And so we optioned some property from. Which was then the freedom Federal Savings alone who had three or four blocks that they put together and ended up starting the first office building that we had done in an urban setting and that

was plaza on the mall. It was 300000 foot build and it's connected to Barnett now. Or Bank of America prizes the right word. Right right. And then you built shortly there after you built the bank what's now known as the Bank of Ireland was a right. We built that in about 85 86 era. I mean the first one went well leased up very successful in that first wave and then we kind of had a second wave and we built Barnett. And at the same time. NCLB was building their headquarters across the street and there was a hole. There was some other things go in but. You know we had a real strong partner in Metropolitan Life Insurance Company we were building the buildings with 100 percent equity. We didn't have any debt so we had lots of staying power and we had some good pre leasing on that building on Bank of America Plaza. So. We decided to proceed with it and built at least it up and

in the early 90s. There was another opportunity another need for office space downtown and we built 100 North Tampa which is now called the Ansett building. Well I mean yeah that's what I was that's the lead Tenet in the building right there himself building and you know that's great architecture in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah indeed and it's 100 percent occupied as we speak. Now during this period the whole real estate industry went through a big transformation. There were some downturns and some upturns ultimately Paragon went public in the early 1990s and you were with this company with paragon at that point. What was your position with the company as you move through the upturns and downturns and then ultimately the company went public and you left a few. Surely they were right. Well you know if people remember the 1986 tax law during that time when that tax law changed it

basically took the footing out of the real estate business and. And when there were some overbuilding in the market a lot of the things going on but. 86 87 88 and 90 those years. I mean there were huge amounts of Bank of bank bankruptcies in the banking industry the S&L industry the development industry the real estate industry as a whole. We had the RTC we had all this kind of bad stuff going on around the country and and so we had to figure out a way to survive nationwide through those times and we did. I mean we we had a great organization we had great people we we focused on what we could do which was manage other people's assets and we continued to work on that to create some kind of cash flows. And then we worked our way out of it and. But it looked to us in the early 90s that it would take a long

time for those assets that we had to really generate the kind of values one off one on one so we came up with a strategy to take it public and we did. In 94 we created what was the Paragon group. It was an REIT. We all are apartment assets when that rate and it created liquidity for the company in the partners and it paid off all the bank debt and did a whole lot of things very quickly and was a good strategy for us. And but it also it was another public company and I had no interest in moving to Dallas and going to work for another public company and my uncle Stuart White who I mentioned earlier who is my advisor said don't do that. Stay here. And keep on doing what you want to do. And so. We still had some commercial assets like the buildings downtown and so OP watch those for our

partners and continued to look at other real estate activities outside of the Paragon group but really wanted to focus on other things other things in life. Let's talk about some of those other things in the in the mid 1990s you got very actively involved in Republican Party politics. In fact he became the finance finance chairman for the Republican Party of Florida. Right. You act you hadn't been that actively involved in politics up to that point. Not not really I mean you know any real estate business always is hovering around politicians and politics and local and state and national Really. And I became a very very close friend of a guy who we all know and love Mel Sembler. And Mel was the finance chairman when I got to know and. As it turned out when he was asked to go to Washington do some other things he considered. He asked me because I had some time on my hands if I would consider doing it. And I happen to know Tom Slade who was

then the Republican Party chairman. And he's a good friend and I enjoyed being with him so I had two friends asking me to do it. And I. Also had a lot of confidence in a guy named Jeb Bush. And all three of those guys said well if you want to do it if you'll do it we'll have you. And so I spent four years wandering around the state meeting you know lots of people that are still very good friends of mine and who I still see an awful lot from Carl Gables to. Jacksonville to Panama City. And it was a great experience in in in accomplishing something for the state. And in meeting people in other areas and other kinds of lives saw it was a great show it was wonderful. How would you compare your experience in politics to your experience in business and real estate development.

Well I mean pub politics is not quite is. You know we set our goals we know we figured out what we had to raise to meet our quotas and we had goals and all that kind of stuff. But you got to motivate people to to to raise the money and do the things that you need to have done. Not through say and your mind ploy but through making it important to them to do it. And and you know politics is more of a gray it's not very black and white it's you know it's it's a different kind of kind of thing but it's a lot of fun and very rewarding. And you know when we took over we didn't have the house we didn't have the Senate we didn't have the governor's mansion. And when we when I finished that job we had all three. So it's pretty good a pretty good pretty good run. And now you're working an on a committee chairing co-chairing committee to get the Republican convention here in Tampa in 2008 is that right.

Well yeah I was involved in the committee the one that came before where we tried came in second in New York the last the last time they had the convention. And I love and working for Al Austin who's going to chair that committee. And you know the Republican in Tampa and I think we've got a good chance at it. I think we've got to be over the top with our proposal. The chairman of the committee that makes the decision is from. Is from Ohio and that's one of our comp competing states so. We've got to convince her that it has to be in Tampa. Otherwise she may decide that it's a lot easier for me to take it home. So we've got to have a great over-the-top package but I'm sure we can do it. We're down to we're down to less than a minute but we haven't had a chance to talk about your involvement us out but you just finished five years as chairman of the board of the USF.

What's your outlook for the university. I think I thank you USF is a just a wonderful asset for Tampa. It's gone from a commuter school to full time through 5000 students living on the campus. We've got. Abstaining medical school we've got five hospitals out there we have a wonderful relationship with Tampa General Hospital. As a matter of fact I truly believe USF can be the center of medicine for the Tampa Bay area and can ultimately move it to the point where if I've got something medically wrong I don't have to leave the city to get my care I'll do it here and we'll get people to come to Tampa for care which is where I want to see it go. Well Dick I'm afraid we're out of time there's a lot going on. I hate to say it but thank you I think it was fun. It was fun having you.

Thanks for being our guest and would like to thank you for joining us. The Suncoast business for. Thinking office furniture treatments where our in-store designs help you select the furniture and fabrics to capture the look you're after. A family on business celebrating its 25th anniversary and a proud supporter. Of. The.

A. Who would you turn to. You want to rebuild your city's downtown. Who would you turn to if you wanted to bring a Super Bowl to your city. And who would you turn to to help lead one of the fastest growing research universities in the country. Well you turn to Dick beard and he'll be my guest. Coming up on the Suncoast business form.