After meeting Jessica Jolly at the SIOR ceremony, I was anxious when I heard she was coming to speak at our class. I wanted to hear her perspective, she sat where I am today just a few years ago. Now she is working on major developments which include major tenants like Publix. Along with Jessica I was able to meet the infamous Terry Stiles, though it was brief because he is a busy business man it was an honor just to shake hands with him. Coming from Chicago I really hadn't heard of him and all the things he has done throughout south Florida, but when I was presented an award from him I made sure I did my research. Jessica explained how she handles all of the due diligence first, in these major projects for Stiles Corp. Her and her crew jump right into the fire and make critical decisions to pursue a deal or not. She explained to us the cost benefits and consequences that may come from bad judgement on a project. This is why it is critical to follow diligence and not cut shortcuts.
A few thing I learned while conducting our case study (MIT) was to reach out to the public before doing a development, account for contengicies, and get city approvals. This is something that Jessica and her team found to be a challenge throughout the duration of their project. While I'm certain that they did their research in these area there was some factors that were over looked and ended up being minor cost deficiencies. This just reinforced to me the importance of diligence. I have never been a fan of investing in something without getting a monetary return and diligence was something I believed was unnecessary in residential establishments, but just listening to others experiences and faults encourages me to find out more everyday on the topic.
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