If there’s a major theme in this issue, it’s all about overcoming obstacles.
Cover subject Gil Dezer and his family faced 900 condo unit buyers wanting to walk away during the Great Recession. More recently, he was told there was no way you could take cars up in an elevator and park them outside of a condo unit. Both problems were solved.
The trio of NSU Huizenga School Entrepreneur Hall of Fame honorees each had significant challenges. Ramola Motwani had to deal not only with the end of the lucrative Spring Break business for her family’s hotel, but the death of her husband. Steve Mariano had to balance being a single father for five children with building new ventures. Joseph Farrell started out with one tugboat, symbolically named Resolve, and created one of the world’s top maritime emergency responders.
There are also struggles overcome in some of our feature stories as well.
Billionaire Mike Fernandez battled illness during much of a 508-mile walk, but developed an inspriational book about life’s journeys.
Rokk3r Labs is all about overcoming the obstacles faced by entrepreneurs. It’s getting a lot of attention from major companies.
The region’s community banks had to overcome the challenges of the Great Recession and increased regulation. Our panel discussion provides a lot of insight into what happened and how that has shaped the current state of lending.
In other stories, we are happy to launch our Hot Spots for Your Business series in this issue. The series is designed to provide insight and perspective about some of the best places to grow your business in the region.
Coral Gables was a great place for us to kick off with its rich history, international cosmopolitan business environment and an outstanding quality of life.
I’d like to give a big shout out to Mark Trowbridge, President of the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce, for his willingness to lend his support to our project. Mark is one of the most insightful and fun business leaders I know in South Florida, so I would highly recommend getting to know him if you have even the slightest interest in doing business in the City Beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful, we have plenty of great images of great residential in this issue.
For starters, I’m awestruck that there are two pieces of art costing $14 million going in to Oceana Bal Harbour. The landscape approach to the project also seems like a welcome departure. Check out our Spaces feature to see more about that.
The profile of the Dezers also has some great images of the Porsche Design Tower. It’s very clever how the car elevator system has turned into what I would call performance art.
Then, there’s our special report on what I call Mega Modern Mansions. What’s going on here is truly amazing. This was a team effort, so I’d like to thank Pinecrest Magazine Publisher Gail Scott and Lifestyle Publisher Michelle Simon for their help. ?
