Stimulus Success

In 10 years of running hotel construction projects on the Gulf Coast, Frenchman Eric Collin has come to a startling conclusion: In more than a few ways, socialist-leaning, regulation-thick France can be a bedrock of efficiency compared to Florida when it comes to getting government approvals of construction projects.

“What surprised us the most is the regulations,” says Collin, an executive vice president of Sarasota-based Finergy Development, which is run by his Italian cousin, Enzo Gagliardi. “We were never expecting to find an environment that was even more regulated than Europe.”

Collin and Finergy have nonetheless survived the government gauntlet many times, with completed projects including a four-story downtown Sarasota office building and a large Homewood Suites by Hilton conversion project to show for it. Company executives declined to release annual revenue figures for the last three years, although the company was at $9 million in 2006 revenues.