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It took more than 40 years for Pat Neal to tweak, twist and turn his homebuilding firm, Neal Communities, into a local leader in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
But growth to other areas, first south and now north, of the firm's original locations, has come significantly faster. So quick that Neal Communities will charge into Hillsborough County in 2014, less than a year after it began to build homes in Collier and Lee counties.
“It's a strategy we have developed over time,” Neal Communities President of Building Michael Storey tells Coffee Talk. “The model is transportable.”
The firm's initial focus will be to build in southern Hillsborough County communities. Storey didn't rule out expansion to other Tampa-area counties, though he says Pinellas is more developed than Hillsborough, which would make a move there more challenging.
Hillsborough expansion, Storey adds, isn't only to capture opportunity in a rebounded new-homes market. It's also necessitated by the firm's success in its backyard, where it builds homes in more than a dozen communities from south Sarasota County to north Manatee County. Pat Neal co-founded the firm in 1970 with his father, Paul Neal Jr. It had $139.4 million in 2012 revenues, up 25.7% from 2011, when it had $110.94 million. The firm sold a record 826 new homes in 2013.
That success forced the executive team to think about geographic expansion of the Neal model — which combines shrewd land deals with hyper-diligent attention to homebuilding design detail. “To continue to grow the business, we needed to grow the footprint,” says Storey. “But when we go somewhere, and where we do it, it has to fit within our brand.”
First came Lee and Collier counties. That division, run by former WCI executive Michael Greenberg, has been a big hit, says Storey. The firm already has about 1,000 lots in the two counties.
Neal Communities hasn't named an executive to run the Hillsborough division, says Storey. But one factor that should help with leadership there, he says, is several Neal Communities executives have worked for other firms in Tampa, so they're familiar with the market.
One aspect that won't change, says Storey, wherever the firm expands, is Pat Neal's 30-second rule: That holds that anyone who drives into a Neal Communities project will know, in half-a-minute, they aren't in a bland, cookie-cutter community. Says Storey: “We work very hard for our communities to be different.”
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