Under One Roof

Don't like the look of the Florida landscape? Wait a minute.

Mark Twain is said to have authored that quip about New England's changeable weather, but the same applies to the local scenery, as malls sprout where swamps stood in the blink of an eye. The changing topography owes its energy to the steady demand for new and better buildings and the builders and developers who aim to satisfy it.

In the vanguard is John McGarvey, a soft-spoken native Philadelphian who entered the Florida market in 1996 and has been making waves in the dirt ever since.

With less than a decade of activity in the Southwest Florida market, his companies are expected to experience a gross sales volume of $74.3 million in 2005 and $91 million in 2006. With a current staff of 146, he's built schools, office parks and 101 homes (with 27 more in progress) to date. McGarvey not only builds homes for the upscale market, he constructs large commercial spaces.

The president of Bonita Springs-based McGarvey Custom Homes and McGarvey Development credits his rise to the top to his start at the bottom.

"As a kid, I wanted to be an electrician, so I went to trade school. I worked for a general contractor during school vacations, and for my uncle, who put up aluminum siding. But I didn't want to spend my life hanging siding, so after attending Drexel [University], I worked for electrical contractors for 10 years before going out on my own."

As the business evolved into commercial construction and office park development in southern New Jersey, McGarvey initiated his under-one-roof policy. For many projects, he bought the land for office parks, built the buildings and managed the property. Work usually left to subcontractors was done by his own employees. The policy, which addresses both residential and commercial projects, is unusual for a company of McGarvey's size, says Al Zichella, an Elias Brothers Communities Inc. executive and incoming president of the Collier Building Industry Association.

A business convention brought him to the Ritz-Carlton, Naples, in the mid-1980s, when he and his wife, Joanne, were living in Moorestown, N.J.

"I became fascinated with Pelican Bay, which I viewed as a gem in the rough," McGarvey recalls. "Joanne and I began vacationing here, and we bought a condo in 1991."

While their commercial business was growing up North, the couple was buying older homes on the New Jersey shore, fixing them up and selling them.

"That was our weekend hobby," he says, chuckling. "Eventually the market was so good that we bought old homes, tore them down and built new ones."

When a buyout offer on his commercial holdings in New Jersey was too good to refuse, he made his first Southwest Florida move: acreage for the Westlinks Business Park at Gateway in Fort Myers.

But his way of doing business raised some eyebrows.

"We have always done about 75 percent of the subcontractor work ourselves-earth-moving, plumbing, electrical, HVAC," McGarvey explains. "For Westlinks, 34 members of my New Jersey construction staff and their families relocated."

McGarvey also imported novel ways of construction and marketing at Westlinks.

"We used tilt-wall construction. Instead of building up cinderblock walls, we cast the concrete wall panels on the slab with the doors and windows already framed on the ground; then we lift them by crane into position. The process gives us walls that are more durable, more easily crack-controlled and look better longer."

He also offered flex building, enabling tenants to have retail/office space at the front of their units and warehouse space at the back.

The 57-year-old builder/developer maintains a 25,000-square-foot warehouse at Gateway to better control the flow of materials.

"The worst thing that can happen in the construction business is to have people standing around with nothing to do," McGarvey says. "We try to schedule deliveries two weeks before materials are due at the job site. That gives warehouse personnel time to inspect the arrivals and make any necessary reorders without loss of time."

Time is also saved by the company's team approach, moving everyone in the same direction, McGarvey says. Crews work together, so employees know that if they cause a slowdown in their own area, they'll be holding up other members of the team waiting to do their part.

As a developer, McGarvey says he tries to do his part to comply with community needs. When he proposed the Riverview Center for the 23 acres south of Bonita Bay and the Bonita Executive Center, some residents opposed the project.

"We listened to their grievances and did everything we could to alleviate their concerns," he says. That included added landscaping, a higher divider wall, under-building parking, strategic lighting and an adjusted trash pickup time so neighbors would not be disturbed.

Dennis Gilkey, president and chief executive officer of The Bonita Bay Group, calls McGarvey a good neighbor, not only for his Riverview actions but for his contributions of mechanical and electrical expertise to the Bonita Springs YMCA building.

"It's not usual to find someone with the breadth of technical knowledge and business acumen that John has," Gilkey says. "And he's equally adept at commercial construction and high-end residential work. He built our company headquarters in the Town Center at The Brooks on-schedule and within the budget and made some design improvements on his own initiative.

"He's community-minded and a nice guy. That's a pretty nice package."

The company's residential division thrives as vigorously as the commercial arm, with multimillion-dollar offerings in Quail West, Mediterra, Pelican Marsh, The Colony at Pelican Landings, TwinEagles, Tuscany Reserve and Treviso Bay.

An initial joint venture with Borelli Construction on four homes in Pelican Marsh taught the newcomer how to meet subtropical challenges.

"We learned to watch how the rain falls, what materials work best against humidity, and how to combat other situations native to the area," McGarvey says.

In keeping with policy, the design professionals for the mega-mansions the company builds are all in-house, working together to create a product that not only looks good but works well.

It's no accident that the communities are a tolerable ride from the company's Bonita Springs headquarters in Riverview Center. McGarvey reports that he visits every project every week and isn't afraid to get down in the mud to straighten out a problem.

It also means a handy commute for company executives, several of whom own homes in the communities in which the company builds.

McGarvey hopes that one of these days his 21-year-old daughter, Jen, might be on the route with him.

"She knows every phase of the business," he states with a proud parental grin. "They call her 'John Jr.' around here. Right now she's studying business at the University of Miami, but one day she might decide this is right for her."

She wouldn't be the only female in the shop. Her mother, Joanne, has always been a part of the daily operations of the business. And in addition to office positions, women have jobs as project managers and field workers.

Jen wouldn't lack for things to do. There's a tech park in the works for Fort Myers as well as office and flex parks in Fort Myers and Cape Coral.

McGarvey is on the board of the Big Cypress Community Stewardship District, on land owned by Collier Enterprises. Located near the coming Ave Maria University and Town, it is expected to have housing for working-class people who provide support services for the new town and university.

It's not surprising he was selected to participate. His reputation has grown with his business, according to Elias Brothers' Zichella.

"John is well thought of throughout the building community and has an excellent reputation for high-end home building and commercial development," he says. "He is also known for his support of other area developers."

Another of the company's activities is creating school buildings for Charter Schools USA Inc., a private education company with elementary and high schools in Lee County. Charter Schools USA has purchased a few of the sites, but as with its other commercial projects, McGarvey has retained ownership of several of them and leases the space for the school.

But isn't it risky building schools for a tenant that might eventually decide to vacate?

McGarvey smiles at the naiveté of such a query. All schools are built to office-building code specifications, he explains. And the latest schools will be close to McGarvey office parks.

"Everyone wins when workers can be close to their children's classrooms," he says.