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Paul and Carolyn Martin are two part-time Florida residents you're not likely to find lounging away their winter reading books on the beach.
The couple, which bought a part-time home last year on Casey Key to avoid the chilly London winters, acquired the Osprey Inn on Tamiami Trail as both an investment and a way for the couple to brake up the boredom of their Florida visits.
Not content to keep the 140-unit motel as is, the Martins are drawing up plans for an extensive transformation of the property into a three-star hotel with conference, meeting and office space along with one or two restaurants and a possible coffee shop. Faced with the task of finding contractors for the project, the Martins fell back on something they know: business building.
Paul Martin is hiring a team of plumbers, electricians, mechanical engineers and other construction trades people to form Resolve Projects LLC. The new company will work on the major renovation of the hotel until late 2010, after which the Martins plan to have the company working as a stand-alone building-refurbishment company.
“With every business I look at multi-tasking,” Paul Martin says. “That way you have multiple sources of revenue and you aren't stuck if the market changes. [The Osprey Inn] gives me the flexibility to do everything I want to do.
Everyday I look at it a new idea comes out of my head. In the next few weeks, we'll probably be up to 10 to 15 people with Resolve Projects. I hope and believe that the market will improve and that we will be positioned very well for the future.”
Juggling multiple companies is the norm for the Martins, who have owned several businesses in the United Kingdom, including an office-facilities management business and a 120-person high-tech office-refurbishing and maintenance company called Orange Environmental Building Services.
Having sold Orange Environmental Building Services in 2007, the Martins are turning to their past business partner, Rod Thomas, to handle much of the day-to-day operations of Resolve Projects. Thomas is also a partner in the Osprey Inn and its management.
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