Interview: Mark Metheny

Mark Metheny

President – Tampa Division Lennar

What is your assessment of inventories and pricing in the Tampa Bay market?

Inventory right now is very low. At Lennar, we tend to build a lot of inventory homes. It allows us to provide that brand new home for people who are looking to move relatively quickly because they are new to the area, leaving an apartment or just want to start enjoying their home sooner. We are not the only builder that does that, but we are by far the largest that uses that approach.

What shifts from multifamily assets are you seeing?

It doesn’t look like the multifamily rental product is going away anytime soon; there are a number of large apartment projects underway throughout Tampa. From a rental standpoint, we are seeing a trending preference for the more traditional, single-family detached homes, and we are delivering quite a few homes that will be for rent. Large, private equity groups are investing in that space.

What are the main projects or communities you are most excited about?

We have two age-restricted, highly amenitized, lifestylefocused communities. One is in Southshore Bay and the other is in Mirada. They both include resort-style pools and clubhouses extending over 15,000 square feet and are among the first communities to have a worldrenowned amenity: a Metro Lagoon by Crystal Lagoon. These two communities are great for snowbirds or those looking to leave the Northeast for better weather and resort style living.

We also have an exciting community in Pasco County called Angeline. It’s a large-scale project of up to 10,000 homes at a variety of price points. It will feature some innovative amenities for those homeowners. Additionally, we sold a parcel of land there to Moffitt Cancer Center to build a research campus. It will be exciting to see the impact of the community and the Moffitt facility on job growth and innovation over the next 10 to 20 years.

More than 3.2 million square feet of industrial space was under construction in Tampa Bay as of May 2021.

( ) is a case in point. As this was city property, deciding who would develop it was left up to Tampa’s mayor, Jane Castor. She awarded the contract to Related Urban Development Group who, partnering with the Tampa Housing Authority, proposed a mixed-use development for the 18-acre location: apartments, townhouses, commercial space, parking, outdoor gathering areas, a small park, a fitness trail with distance markers and an enormous pool. Part of the logic in this choice was that the pandemic has shifted consumer demand: people need outside space with the capacity to socially distance.

There has also been progress in the integration of smart technology into building. As the pandemic made it more difficult for managers and clients to visit building sites together, programs such as the contractor Suffolk’s Computer Aided Virtual Environment

allowed clients to don a pair of 3D glasses and inspect the construction progress of their property. The hope is that similar technology will make the building process more efficient and collaborative.

Sustainability and green technology has also become a force in construction, both in spurring new building as well as being integrated into design. A new paper manufacturing plant is going up on a 37-acre site at the Port of Tampa Bay, the latest in a string of projects that promote cleaner consumption. In a similar vein, Duke Energy announced plans to invest $1 billion in solar plants across the state, with the hopes of turning the Tampa Bay region into a national leader for solar energy production. This comes on the back of other projects such as Florida Power & Light’s battery facility in Manatee County, slated to open at the end of 2021, which will store solar energy and will be the largest such battery facility in the world.

Financing The first months of the pandemic saw something of a freeze in lending for real estate projects, as bankers were forced to shovel funds into their reserves and also turned their focus to processing PPP loans. Lending institutions, like everyone, also felt uncertain about whether the economy would bounce back or stay in a rut for the long term. By and large, there was a reluctance by major institutions to serve as lenders on projects. During the lockdown, 65% loan-to-cost was the norm, down from 70% six months before the pandemic.

Given the strange circumstances of the pandemic, lenders and borrowers entered a delicate dance to get deals done. At the height of the outbreak, lenders were more tolerant of restructurings involving SWAPS ( )