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Building Success in Southeast Florida Real Estate with Jake Geleerd of Tortoise Properties 11-17-25
00:15:40
In this episode, Jake Geleerd, CEO of Tortoise Properties, shares insights on evaluating opportunities, navigating market cycles, building strong partnerships, and the personal habits that drive his success in real estate development.
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by an extraordinary both developer and entrepreneur. We're joined today by Jamie Gileard, also known as Jake Goliard. We're going to talk to him about mostly real estate development leadership and a lot more. Jake, can you take a moment to introduce yourself? I know that you've been running this incredible project that you developed in the West Palm beach area through Tortoise Properties. Maybe you could tell us about that and tell us a little bit about your career and background and so forth.
- [00:40]
B
Sure. So Tortoise Properties is the third kind of venture in my career. It started in Chicago, actually working for Sam Zell. So back up a step. I was a golf pro at Club Med, which was unbelievable. And if you could see me live, you'd see all my golf pictures behind me. And when I came home after a year, I was reading in the Tribune about a guy who rode a motorcycle to work, wore blue jeans, and was rich, and I wanted to be him. I had no idea what he did, but I got my typewriter out and I typed him a resume and I sent it to him. And I got a job working for Equity Group, and I ultimately took his real estate public eop, ELP and eqr. And then I went on my own and put a group together and we bought SkyDome in Toronto, or the Blue Jays play. And then we tried to buy the team, but we were outbid by Ted Rogers. It's now called Rogers Stadium. And sadly, the Blue Jays came in second this year, but it was very exciting. And then I started what was another Chicago development company called Harapin Properties, which had a great run until the great financial crisis, the GFC, as young people call it. And I. And I started over, and in 2016, I partnered with one of my YPL young president organization colleagues and we started a business together in Florida in Palm Beach County. We bought a project in Oka in 2018 and then a project in Jupiter in 2020. And. And then we bought this land in downtown West Palm, which, as you mentioned, Tortoise One, and we got it zoned and titled permitted. We built 264 apartments in downtown West Palm Beach. We opened up one tower in May last year and the second tower in September, or 75% leased. And Southeast Florida is humming and I'm looking for the next thing. So the timing of this call is great to let everybody know that we're in business and we're growing and things are good. In southeast Florida.
- [02:36]
A
It's really remarkable to see what's happened there. Let me ask you a question about that market. Is it plateaued? Is there a new wave coming? What is your sense of that and any thoughts on the, on the southeast Florida market? Because obviously you've had this huge growth in value over the last 20 years, particularly the last five years. What's your sense of the Florida market situation and what are some of the biggest trends you're seeing in development today?
- [03:08]
B
Florida. And I'm going to talk specifically about southeast Florida and not to say that any other part of Florida isn't great, but I really only focus on southeast. And prior to Covid, Miami was doing great. Miami has always been an international city and Palm beach has always been a destination of uber high net worth people who have second and third and fourth homes. And prior to Covid, West Palm beach and Jupiter and Delray and all the communities were kind of nice communities. Covid came, we didn't have Covid in Florida. So thousands and thousands of people relocated. I'm on the Palm Beach County Business Development Board and we came up with a slogan, Wall street south. And we truly are now Wall Street South. Several dozens and dozens of financial firms have relocated to downtown West Palm Beach. The growth there was booming post Covid. We're still growing nicely. In some areas it's double digit. But as long as people recognize Florida for what it is, no state income tax, great weather, a community where politicians and teachers and educators and business people and community leaders work together. There's no Republican Democrat in Florida. In southeast Florida, we all work together for the good of the community. And as long as that continues, you will see companies continue to relocate, continue to expand. We address the affordable housing issue every day as we build more and more apartments and single family homes and condos and. And there is no end in sight. And just like Miami, as I mentioned, was an international destination for Central and South America, it's now a global city, as is West Palm Beach. And so whereas it used to be largely Americans knew about it, Miami is truly Manhattan now. And Palm beach is the Hamptons and Wall Street South.
- [05:09]
A
No, it's, it's really fantastic and I appreciate that perspective. You're looking at new projects and I've invested with you in a project a time ago. I was so impressed with the diligence in making that work even through the great financial, the great recession and so forth. It made me a lifelong fan of you and your team, quite frankly. Just incredible grind to get through a tough time and make sure the investors made out well. It's, it's really impressive. I was so thankful and so grateful for the experience of being an investor with you. Talk for a second about your development business vision. When you evaluate a potential project, how do you decide on it? What makes something worth pursuing versus passing on? You know, what is your decision framework?
- [05:54]
B
Real estate is still location matters. That's everything. So you have to understand the market. Why are people working there while why do people live there? Why would more people come to work and live there? And then you have to understand what your competition is. If it's in multifamily residential or what if it's an office or industrial, what currently exists, what does that community or that city need? Just because you have this idea to build a single family home community or a high rise doesn't mean it's going to work. So you have to know the competition and you have to know the trail wins. And the example I always use, and I won't mention cities, but you'll understand if you're in Vegas and you're sitting at blackjack table and some of the larger cities in the country that have not been faring so well, you get blackjack, they take half of it right away and they ask you to leave. If you're sitting at the Florida table, they pay a 2 to 1, they patch on the back, they give you a nice dinner and a drink and they ask you to stay. So where do you want to do business? You want to do business where the community and the local government is behind you? The second thing, and I'm glad you brought up about, you know, the deal that you got into. Every time I do a deal, I put together what's called a pro forma and I take all the knowledge I have on the market, on the costs, on the revenue side, and I put together a snapshot of what an income statement could look like now and in the Future. And it's 100% wrong no matter what. By definition, a pro forma is wrong. And what I've learned over the years is most people, when they do a deal, they raise enough equity and debt to do the deal according to the pro forma. Well, what happens when in 2022 I get a construction loan and rates are at 2% and by the time I'm fully funded they're at 6%, I should have bought a cap because if I had the right advisors telling me you're a floating rate debt, but if you don't and you only raise enough equity and debt how do you cover that additional debt service? And that's what happened in the great financial crisis or whatever is most developers only raise enough money for each deal. And so what I've done post that is I have partners who can cover additional costs if needed. And I always allocate and raise additional equity just in case that the pro forma doesn't work. And I have a plan B and a plan C. No one goes back to the office in a lot of cities across the country in Florida they do, but we didn't know that. So all of our office buildings, we reserved capital. Well, thankfully, we're 100 leased in our, in our office buildings. And it's great, but we didn't know, so we reserved. Those are the things you got to learn over time because you got to stay in business. Everything is cyclical. Even though Florida's on a nice run, things could change. You never know. I don't even want to speculate what could happen. But you, you need to have a plan B and a C and be prepared to survive slower times.
- [09:04]
A
Thank you. And take a moment. Jake. Development of team sport. You've built this great relationships amongst investors, builders, local communities. How do you think about that and what have you learned about building partnerships?
- [09:21]
B
That's equally as important as having enough money to stay in business is doing it with the right people. And really there's no way to know that other than spending quality time over a period of time to get to know them. So, for example, if I go to bid contract and I bid to three general contractors, I don't want to walk into a room with three groups that I've never met before. I want to know who the owners of those general contractors are. I want to know who the presidents are. I want to know who the key people are. Because stuff happens. And during the course of a project, people come, people go, trades might get in trouble. You got to know who you're dealing with and who, whether they're your equity partner or your partner because they're a sub or a vendor of yours, you have to know them and know that there's a relationship you can count on when things don't go as planned. And in construction, things never go as planned. They go kind of as planned. And you can say the same thing about leasing and management. If you want to hire a large leasing or management company out of London or New York, how does it, how is that relevant to West Palm? You have to know who the leasing people are going to be, who the management's going to be. Who the accountants are going to be. And you have to have a relationship with them so that again, even in good times you want to celebrate with them, but in less than good times, you want to make sure that they stick around and they do the right thing. So the partnerships, picking the right people is, it's in any business, it's a people business.
- [10:48]
A
And at the end of the day, you could have as many contracts and all those things as you want, but they're irrelevant compared to having the right people. There's an old adage, you can't do the right, a good contract with a bad partner, but a good partner because you're going to go through, like you mentioned, cycles and anything you do, and if you have good partners, you work through those and make them work. So one of the things I've been incredibly impressed by Jake, is your diligence, your ability to pursue things through to success. That sort of grit, that grind, that incredible constant effort at it. Are there sort of personal habits, routines, ways that allow you to stay focused like that through ups and downs? I've been incredibly impressed at watching your career, watching this effort in Palm Beach. I've seen it. You know, I was actually at the train station a few years ago and I'm like, oh my God. I watched by Jake's property at toward his properties and I was, I was blown away. Are there personal habits, principles, routines that help you stay sort of focused through the ups and downs? Being a real estate developer, you know, it's like being a trader in the old days at the board of trade. Some guys cash either end up in trouble or they cash out or they end up, you know, done what have you. I've seen you get back at it, build incredibly successfully, stay diligent. It's been really something to watch as I watched your career over 20, 30 years, I think are there habits, principles, drive what, what, what is, what makes that work? What makes you show up every day and do creative, exciting things? I mean this concept of at one point younger your career managing the, the Blue Jays stadium was remarkable. I've seen you do other projects. The grit and grind has been remarkable. Here again, regatting going in 2016 on this, it's already 10 years now. What are their personal habits or principles or just drive? What makes that go? How does that happen?
- [12:53]
B
Well, one of the strengths I have, and I think I would give it to Sam Zell, is I get, I try to get every minute out of every day as productive and as forward thinking as possible. I don't Stew about the past is in the past. I only think about being in the now right now. What am I doing today? I had sick. I waited a few minutes for the call to start. So I was on my phone scheduling some calls. I get the most out of every day. And when I worked for Sam and I'd go in his office and I'd have 90 seconds with him and he would say, jake, what do you got for me? And if I didn't know the deal backwards and forwards, I don't get a second chance to come in his office. So I was always prepared, I always did my diligence. And in 90 seconds, I could be succinct and tell him the opportunity and he would say, great, go get him. And I kind of try to give that to all my team too. About staying off your iPhone during work or focusing on being engaged, I tell my kids, if you're not in your 20s, when you're working, if you're not into what you're doing, get out of it. You've got to be engaged and focused. And I've been very fortunate, going from Sam to Skydome to terrapin to tortoise, 100% engaged, 20 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't work. It's a lifestyle. But that's by choice, by surrounding myself with people I want to be with, by doing things I like to do. I like putting the pieces together to do a development. I like buying an office building, knowing in my back pocket that a 60,000 square foot private equity firm is moving in and wants to be in my office building. I don't just put a for sale sign or a for lease sign in front of a property. I do the work to know and be in the know about what's happening, and that's through relationships. So I'm engaged. I also learned in college where you and I went to Illinois. No matter how much you like to enjoy going out at night, every morning you answer the bell. No matter what, there's no sleeping in. I don't sleep in. I answer the bell every day.
- [15:04]
A
And I love that attitude. I've watched it over 30 years or more. I think it's remarkable. Jake, I want to thank. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. It's remarkable leadership. I know you're busy completing and leasing up fully these tortoise properties, which are amazing to see in West Palm Beach. I know you're looking for more projects and always on the hunt. Just fantastic. What a career to envy. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity in the Becker Business podcast.
- [15:37]
B
Thank you, Scott. Pleasure.