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St. Joe Chief Takes
His Story to Wall Street
NEW YORK -- Dec. 10, 2004
As the chief executive of St. Joe Co., Florida's largest private landowner and an accelerating juggernaut of real estate development in this state, Peter Rummell's influence to shape the future of vast portions of Florida is second only to the governor. Thursday morning, Rummell strode to a podium in New York and told St. Joe's short but sweet story to a room of real estate industry analysts at a Wachovia Securities conference.
"If you believe that well-placed land is a diminishing asset," Rummell said. "If you believe the demographics are compelling for the next 20 years, and there just is not much of this land in places people want to go," he added, pausing for effect, "then St. Joe is a compelling story. "In a nutshell, that was, is and will be the message Rummell tries to impress on Wall Street. For those new to Florida or asleep this past decade, Jacksonville-based St. Joe is the ex-paper company started by the rich Alfred duPont who bought up vast tracts of timber land at dirt-cheap prices in the land depression of the 1920s.
A half century later, Rummell arrived in 1997 to shed the paper mills and start leveraging the company's immense, debt-free holdings into prime real estate developments just in time for the wave of retiring baby boomers."If we're talking about Florida and boomers, that demand will continue for 20 years," Rummell said. His research shows boomers will choose Florida twice as often as the next favored destination.
Rummell is a veteran developer who insists St. Joe projects offer a southern or coastal "sense of place." It's a design strategy Rummell learned while heading real estate development projects at Walt Disney Co., including the creation of the Disney town Celebration, as well as his earlier development work on Hilton Head, S.C.
© St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 9, 2004. All rights reserved.
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