The High Life

for commercial development, Page joined Westinghouse in 1990

as a project manager.

After Hoffman and Ackerman purchased Westinghouse’s real

estate division, they spent a good part of the first year “immersed in our

business, learning the nuances, understanding the required people skills and

financial resources that would enable us to continue on the path that we were,

which was a fairly rapid expansion year after year,” Page says. In 1996,

Hoffman and Ackerman began encouraging him to continue seeking out new

properties to acquire to grow the business into the next century.

“The exciting thing when Hoffman and Ackerman arrived on the

scene was they brought entrepreneurial skills of building a business with a

focus on how to make the business as healthy as possible. They brought a

certainty regarding our future that we didn’t have with Westinghouse,” Page

says. “With Westinghouse, we were a non-core business that was treated

extremely well because we were profitable and consistent performers.”

Since then, Page’s division has grown from a regional

business in tower development to a statewide business, and WCI’s heads have supplied the personnel.

The company has offset the economic slowdown with its

ability to acquire and develop unique sites that draw buyers, Page says. In

Southwest Florida, Montenero (completed in 2001) has been WCI’s most successful

building. Trieste, the last tower in Bay Colony, Cove Towers in North Naples

and Belize in the Cape Marco community on Marco Island are all meeting

construction timetables, Page says. “Designing the right product at the right

price at the right location with the right backing from a company that has a

solid reputation, you can do very well despite a situation where the economy is

currently suffering somewhat from stock market adjustment,” he says.

Being public now gives WCI more access to financial capital

at more competitive rates, which enhances its ability to grow. The company

projects 10- to 15-percent annual growth in the next few years.

Going public grew from many years of hard work and is “not

the end but a new beginning,” Starkey says. Every morning, he realizes the

difference when he sees the stock price listed in newspapers. “I refer to it as

seeing your report card published to the world on a daily basis,” he says.

So far, WCI’s at the head of the class in Southwest Florida.

Building a Billion-Dollar Business

1946 Coral

Ridge Properties starts development of

Galt Ocean Mile, a 2,500-acre oceanfront community in Fort Lauderdale.

1963 Coral Ridge’s acquisition of large sections of land in

rural Broward County culminates in a new city, Coral Springs, with a population

of 116,000.

1966 Coral Ridge is sold to Westinghouse Electric.

Westinghouse begins operating on the west coast with the

purchase of about 2,500 acres in North Naples that would eventually become

Pelican Bay.

1975 Al Hoffman starts as a private developer in the Tampa

Bay area.

1985 Hoffman and Don Ackerman begin a partnership in the

real estate business in Naples.

1987 Hoffman and Ackerman purchase the floundering Sun City

Center near Tampa from First Chicago Bank.

1988 Jerry Starkey joins Florida Design Commun-style="mso-spacerun: yes"> ities as chiefstyle="mso-spacerun: yes"> operatingstyle="mso-spacerun: yes"> style="mso-spacerun: yes"> officer.

1988 Hoffman and Ackerman’s business has constructed

approximately 4,500 homes and devel-

oped five communities in cen- tral and southern Florida.

1990 The company’s first high-rise, Contessa, in Bay Colony,

is completed and sold out.

1993 The company moves its headquarters to Bonita Springs.

1995 Certain stockholders of Florida Design Communities

acquire Westinghouse Electric’s real estate business unit in a transaction

valued at nearly $600 million. The business unit is merged into WCI

Communities, a limited partnership.

1995 Pelican Bay receives the Urban Land Institute’s Award

of Distinction.

1996 Hoffman mentions to Forbes his intention to have an

initial public offering by year-end.

1998 WCI Communities Limited Partner-ship and Florida Design

Communities merge and become wholly owned subsidiaries of Watermark

Communities, a new holding company. The stockholders purchase from CBS Corp.

(the successor to Westinghouse Electric) its remaining

investment in WCI Communities Limited Partnership.

1998 The company invests in Tiburón Golf Ventures Limited

Partnership with an affiliate of Host Marriott Corp. to construct and operate a

Greg Norman-designed golf course in its Tiburón Naples community. Also forms

the Norman Estates and Tiburón Limited Partnership to construct and develop a

Norman Estates community.

1999 The company acquires 14,800 acres in Palm Beach and

Martin counties from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for

$227.5 million. simultaneously sells nearly 2,200 acres for $132.5 million.

1999 Watermark Realty, a wholly owned subsidiary of WCI,

enters into a six-year franchise agreement with Prudential Real Estates

Affiliates. The agreement allows WCI to provide exclusive residential brokerage

services as Prudential Florida WCI Realty in eight Florida counties.

2000 The company purchases two luxury beachfront high-rise

sites totaling nearly 22 acres in Cape Marco on Marco Island.

2000 The company purchases two acres

adjacent to the new Ritz-Carlton in downtown Sarasota to

construct a luxury residential tower, which will be managed by The Ritz-Carlton

Hotel Co.

2001 Watermark

merges into WCI, with WCI as the surviving corporation.

2001 WCI purchases three acres in West Palm Beach to construct

One Watermark Place, tower

residences priced from $1.3 million to $8.5 million.

2001 WCI files initial public offering in September. Reports

$1.11 billion in revenue.

2002 WCI starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange

(symbol: WCI) in March, priced at $19 a share. Raises $131.1 million by selling

16 percent of the company: 6.9 million shares.

2005 Ackerman’s agreement to provide major financial and

strategic business planning to WCI is slated to end. Ackerman is paid a base of

$500,000 annually for the services.