On this episode of “The Building Code,” Zach and Charley are joined by Terry Paterson, president and CEO of Paterson Project Management, Inc. Terry is originally from Cape Town, South Africa, where he built his first couple houses at the age of 20. He then made the move to the U.S. at 23 and got involved with the development of a small luxury hotel. This eventually led him to start his own company that focuses on property development and new construction.
Tune in to the full episode to hear more about the behind-the-scenes planning and processes required to bring a 43,000-square-foot development to life.
Can you tell us more about the large-scale project you’re currently working on?
“We’re about to start construction on our brand-new Lighthouse Point Yacht Club. It’s a phenomenal development. There’ll be a 43,000 square foot clubhouse building. Then inside that is a massive gym, locker rooms, jacuzzi, saunas, steam rooms and outside jacuzzi. Then there’s a conference room for members. There’s a banquet hall that can hold 300 people. We even have a bridal suite in there for brides, for weddings. We have two member-only restaurants and two member-only bars as well. It’s quite an undertaking, but we’ve spent seven years to get to this point that permits are literally being issued as we speak.”
What processes and planning go into a project this massive?
“Seven years ago, we started. A lot of people see developments come up, but they don’t realize what happened behind the scenes for years and years just to get to that point. You first need to locate a piece of land that you feel that you really want. But before ever buying a project, always make sure you can actually do what you want to do. What we went through here was a total land use change with the county, a zoning change with the city. We had to rewrite a new building code for this kind of a property in the city. You’ve just got to go through the motions. I advise to anybody trying to do this to take the time to meet one-on-one with whoever you’re going to do a public presentation to, including the naysayers. We did and got all the entitlements approved by February 9th, 2022. We then moved forward with engineering.”