Jessica Joly and Westlake Commons Project

Jessica Joly of Stiles Development Arm.

What a great experience having a former student come speak to our class.  Mrs. Joly graduated from the Nova Real Estate program 3 years ago and has been working with Stiles Development since. Mrs. Joly took us through the first project that she has been working on since inception, Westlake Commons.  Jessica discussed the entire project and explained the challenges of dealing with government regulation and approvals, construction challenges and delivery of the building to their largest tenant, Publix.  Jessica described the due diligence period as a race to make sure that their preliminary site application would be acceptable with the City of Hollywood and that they had a viable anchor tenant to solidify the deal.  Some of the site challenges she faced was the de mucking of the undeveloped land, relocation of know utilities including cell towers and FPL power poles.  There was also challenges with FDOT permitting new turn lanes and relocation of a traffic signal.  The most interesting challenges of this project she described was having to complete all the tasks and unforeseen challenges while still delivering the building to their anchor tenant, Publix, on schedule. 

As a contractor I have experienced a lot of the construction challenges that Jessica was dealing with but it did bring to light seeing it from the developer’s perspective.  Small changes and unforeseen challenges from a general contractor’s perspective can add significant delays and costs to a project.  Having an owner’s representative at the project not only to witness the problems but to make quick decisions for corrective action is imperative to keep the project moving forward. 

On a side note, I spoke with Jessica at the Alumni happy hour and we discussed the project at more length.  I had completed the front door/back door assignment for the extra credit in class and was having a hard time getting the project to be financially feasible given the market rates and their construction costs.  Jessica told me that the project turned out to be very thin but the importance of having Publix as a partner was crucial and if they had known the financial outcome of the project in advance they would have still proceeded with it.