Attendees: Eric Odum with Martin Gramatica and Terry Hunt
Date: October 24, 2011
Subject: The Market Minute
EO: Good Afternoon! Welcome to Market Minute. I’m Eric Odum, I’m the principal broker for Net Lease Commercial Advisory, and today we have two very special guests with us, and I’d like to just go ahead and roll right into it.. Terry Hunt, Terry is a local developer; I think you’ve been in the market for about 30 years now developing primarily industrial buildings, is that correct?
TH: That is correct.
EO: Great to have you here. I really appreciate it. And of course the next person probably doesn’t need much of an introduction….. Martin Gramatica, the former place kicker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Really happy to have you here today.
MG: Glad to be here.
EO: How long has it been since you stopped playing?
MG: Two and a half years now.
EO: Two and a half years. And so since then, what have you been up to?
[youtube]http://youtu.be/2GqvOKWGWRc[/youtube]
MG: Well I started a green energy efficient, pre-fabricated construction company with both of my brothers, so that has kept us pretty busy. Bill and Santiago are both working with me.
EO: Bill and Santiago both working with you…..so the three amigos are together in business.
MG: Amigos every now and then.
EO: Terry you were working on this project with the Gramatica brothers. How did you get together on this?
TH: Well, probably three years ago now, Deborah Tamargo, a long time Commercial Realtor friend, brought those people to see me. The humor around our office is that Deborah brought them in to buy a building from me and two weeks later, I throw away $18,000 worth of prints that were ready to go for permitting. We redesigned the office where I’m right now, my new corporate office, and two warehouses that we were ready to break ground on and adopted his [Martin’s] product for the exterior of the building. We never looked back. It was the best $18,000 I’ve ever thrown away.
EO: Just to get it straight, you were ready to go, and you had previous plans and you met Martin. The product you saw as beneficial for you, so you basically trashed the entitlement work you’d already done on it and started from scratch.
TH: That’s it exactly right, and it gave us an opportunity to be a little bit different. I think in the economic world that we’re in, somebody, a developer, a realtor, anybody in the real estate business wants to have something a little bit different and this product that Martin brought to the table, I’ve seen where it would give us an opportunity to be different. It’s really worked for us. We are different.
EO: You guys brought some samples here, Martin do you want to explain a little bit about what this is?
MG: Sure, the core is closed cell polystyrene and it’s skinned with two fiber cement boards. The 100% main benefit of it is the energy efficiency. With Terry’s wall we have an R32. We have an 8” wall, R32, where a block wall would give you an R value of 1. So, right there increases it tremendously.
EO: Explain R values, what exactly does that mean?
MG: That’s the insulation value of the product, so from an R1 to an R32 on the same thickness of panel.
EO: So it’s almost like a Styrofoam almost…
MG: That’s basically what it is. What we tell people is, you are building an igloo cooler on the shell of your building.
EO: But the exterior of it is a very hard substance, a very hard material.
MG: That is the fiber cement board; most people know like a Hardie Board. We use Nichiha, which is the same standards; it’s just a little greener. By using (Nichiha), you have the hard skins on the outside, and the foam in the inside. There are some competitors they put the cement in the middle of the foam and have the foam on the outside, so that makes it a softer product. This way, you never get to the foam. Termites won’t eat it, because they won’t eat the foam, they won’t eat the glue that we use, and they definitely won’t eat the fiber cement. We used all steel track in Terry’s building, so obviously they won’t touch any of that. So basically, Terry’s got a 100% termite proof building on the shell and obviously energy efficient.
EO So, let’s talk about strength a little bit, because it’s important in the state of Florida. You’ve got the hurricane situation. How does this substance hold up with hurricanes, for example?
MG: We had the whole product tested for Miami-Dade, and also for Florida product approval number. The standard system that we sell starts out at 130 mph from there you can engineer it to about 200 mph. So anywhere in the range; we have a house going on the water right now that’s 170. And it’s the same panel you can use for a 100sq. ft shelter that we sent to Haiti, to 10,000sq. ft. like Terry’s buildings, or even his corporate office.
EO: How does that compare with a concrete block?
MG: On the price or the energy efficiency?
EO: No, on strength?
MG: Oh, on strength, we are stacking strength 5 times stronger than block, and then on the projectile where they shoot the 2×4, we are the only company that has passed the Miami-Dade standard with a fiber cement board, where they shoot the 2×4. Some have passed it with metal skins, but the difference with that is, the metal skin tends to sweat. It’s kind of like a coke can, where the fiber cement does not sweat so it won’t peel your stucco off.
EO: Well, Terry, the building we’re shooting this video in is made out of this material, correct?
TH: 100%.
EO: Tell me a little bit about the building. This is the thing that struck me, how many sq. feet again?
TH: In our Corporate Office?
EO: Corporate office.
TH: 2,000 sq. ft.
EO: 2,000 sq. ft and the dollars and cents of it. The most expensive energy bill you’ve had was in the summer like most of us, right?
TH: Absolutely.
EO: And what was that on a 2,000 sq. ft. structure?
TH: We’ve never had a bill over $165.
EO: In the winter it’s running?
TH: Well, the unique thing in the winter time it’s running in the $70-$80 range, and we never turned the heat on….only one time this winter. The refrigerator and computer towers throw enough heat out. The lowest temperature it ever got in here was 68 degrees.
EO: Over the course of time, over a year, it sounds like it comes out to about $100 average over a year, right?
TH: Well, everything’s relevant to that, but I think the number would be about a 50% savings from what your energy bill is. My house bills are considerably more than this, and obviously not made out of this product. I’ve got 5 or 6 times that much with my house and I’m paying $300 and $400 (per month) on that particular bill right now.
EO: That would make sense. Commercially the average in Tampa is about $1.50/sq. ft. annually for electric costs, and you guys just on this building are running in the neighborhood of about .75 to $1.00/sq.ft. So that would be about right then.
TH: I hired an engineer when we did one of these commercial buildings and made him use all of Martin’s specs for the product and the A/C system was cut more than 50%. They wanted 11 ½ tons if it was conventionally done and they did it for 6 tons. They wanted to build it with 5 (tons), but I had them bump it just to be conservative.
EO: Now what is the product called?
MG: SIPS – Structural Insulated Panel Systems.
EO: Your development here is the United Business Park off of Hillsborough, and you’ve actually already constructed warehouse facility out of the SIPS product. Correct?
TH: We’ve constructed two 10,000 sq. ft buildings, and the ability to finish this product off in a warehouse atmosphere is very unique. You don’t have to put anything on it – you finish it like drywall – I’ll show you. You’ll think it’s drywall but it’s actually this panel, taped and mudded and for a warehouse look, it’s very, very pretty.
EO: Terrific. Now in terms of LEED, that’s the buzz word in construction right now, and that seems to be the standard. Are you guys LEED certified?
MG: Our product is, yes. We get everything from within 500 miles. So in order to get a LEED certified building, the best and quickest way to get to that point system that you need to get to is by doing a SIPS shell.
EO: So I think we have a pretty good idea now of what the base of the product is and how it’s working. Why don’t we go outside and take a look a little bit further on what you are working on.
EO: So, here we are in a SIPS building, and I think it’s probably been a month the first time since I came out here and it was – this is an air conditioned space – but the first time I walked in here it was not air conditioned. To me it was notable, because it was hotter than Hades outside, and you walked into the warehouse and it still felt like it was night, because it trapped the (cool) air inside. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about this space, Terry…. what’s in it and how the SIPS is working here.
TH: Well, we built this building for Keith Rucker, and Keith owns Quality Power, a very large power lawnmower dealer, probably the largest in the Southeastern US. And the reason he’s here is because of the SIPS product. We gave him an energy efficient building, and when I was giving you those numbers before, that’s the engineer that was in this building that did it. The product finishes off like drywall, as I told you before, and it’s just a very easy, friendly product to work with. You can do anything you can do with drywall and all this bottom stuff is just adhered to the SIPS product. There’s no furring, there’s nothing. It’s just the steel system of merchandising, all this is tacked right on to the SIPS product.
EO: It actually looks like drywall. If you came in here and didn’t know any better, it looks like drywall.
TH: You could tell somebody its drywall.
EO: And if you’re working on a residential property, I would assume there are benefits to that because you’re not having to put your cinder block, and then put a frame, and then put drywall. There’s probably some cost savings there I would think.
MG: Cost savings because we run the electrical chase through the foam and then you just pop out your boxes, so instead of having a 12” wall by the time you are done with block, furring and drywall, you have a 4” wall so you increase square footage on the house too…..not only the savings, but the square footage and obviously the R value.
EO: Let’s talk a little bit about the user. Why does a user care that this is an energy efficient facility. Talk about not only from the tenant’s side but from the owner’s side, as well.
TH: Well, number one as I told you earlier, the air conditioning here was taking 11 ½ tons. That’s two systems. Now we have one system that’s 6 tons in here doing it. So from the maintenance side, you’re at least 50% less maintenance and they run 50% less time, so your energy bill is down and your maintenance bill is down because they’re not running all that time. There are times that air conditioners just won’t come on. It’ll maintain that temperature for long periods of time. So, from an owner standpoint, Keith is on a lease/purchase program and we give 20% of his rent back in a 5 year period so he can purchase the building. The SBA has programs that work well. Your banks will acknowledge that, so the energy savings alone will make a huge difference in his budget over a 5 year period.
EO: So typically what are you finding payback periods on this type of a structure for the owner, from the owners side? I think after you’re running the air a lesser amount and you’re using less electricity…. it’s costing a little more actually to build, right?
MG: No, that’s where the misconception is. People equate it as a hybrid car, where you pay a lot more for a hybrid car. Here you are paying even cheaper than you would with block. Equally performing, we’re about 10% cheaper, plus you have the energy savings.
EO: So, right from day one you’re essentially saving.
TH: From day one, there is no payback period and the simplicity of this product. My concrete block guy is 60 years old…been doing it his whole adult life…looks at me and asks why would anybody build out of concrete block? That’s the man in business for concrete block.
MG: The other advantage is you can make it look beautiful. You see Terry’s buildings; more people have the thinking that just because it’s SIPS, the building is made out of foam, that it has to look a certain way. You look at Terry’s buildings you would never know they are made out of SIPS. So that’s another advantage you can finish them any way you want. That’s another huge advantage.
EO: Well guys I really appreciate you spending the time with me today, and I was told to ask you one last question. Who’s going to win the Superbowl this year?
MG: I always got to cheer for the Bucs, so I’m going to cheer for them, I’m not sure if we’re there yet, but I’m going to cheer for them.
EO: Alright guys, thank you very much!!
