Spotlight On: Gary Gagnon, President & CEO, Gagnon Development

Spotlight On: Gary Gagnon, President & CEO, Gagnon Development

2022-07-15T04:51:32-04:00March 23rd, 2022|Construction, Orlando, Real Estate, Spotlight On|

Gagnon Development2 min read March 2022Gagnon Development specializes in new construction of commercial and residential properties throughout the state of Florida and offers everything from site selection, underwriting, architecture, engineering, and construction. In an interview with Invest:, President and CEO Gary Gagnon discussed lessons learned during the pandemic, design trends, labor shortage, supply chain disruptions and the outlook for the company.

How have the last 12 months been for your organization? 

The thing that surprised me when COVID first hit was that I thought it was going to negatively affect our entire business, but the areas that really took a hit were those related to restaurant and retail. I was surprised when our clients’ demand for industrial and multifamily actually grew.  Demand for industrial and multifamily properties almost tripled for us over the last 12 months. The increased demand was unexpected as most reports stated that the economy was going to face hardships across the board, and it would likely take years to recuperate. Luckily, Central Florida has behaved differently from most other areas. We have seen increased demand both in the number of clients we are working with, and the number of properties that our clients are interested in.

What design trends are impacting the type of projects people are looking for?

Not so much a design trend so much as a trend, but the pandemic has increased the demand for medical properties. Doctors are looking to grow & are building additional locations. Medical tenants are also in high demand due to the current environment. Investors are more interested in building & owning medical properties than ever before. If we are talking about changes to design, I would say that all of our clients whether office, multifamily or even climate-controlled warehouse, are looking at systems that kill COVID other airborne diseases.  Clients are also asking for design changes that may promote social distancing or additional cleanliness procedures within their properties. I’ve had discussions with my clients about everything from UV sanitized rooms that are locked up at night to be sanitized, bathrooms that use UV lights to clean it. The most common option for airborne sanitation has been adding medical UV disinfection lighting to HVAC systems.

Medical is already ahead of the curve regarding these technologies, but now these types of upgrades and retrofits are happening across all industries. When designing their new headquarters, the Orlando Regional Realtors Association (ORRA) made sure that they would have modern UV disinfection within their HVAC systems as well as other improvements such as touch-free faucets and door openings etc. We are seeing the same trends in conference settings, where they are implementing methods to clean entire spaces after each event in hopes of bringing an added level of comfort to attendees.

What is the current state of the labor market in the construction industry?

The labor market is tough.  Tradespeople are in high demand. I’m continuously seeing companies that are not involved in development, promoting the value of traditional business degrees, however, I believe we need to be pushing trade schools. The demand for skilled labor is growing exponentially and anyone getting a trade degree is setting themselves up for success, because the trades are not going away, and they are really needed right now.   

How are you remaining ahead of the supply chain disruptions?

I’ll be honest, I’m not staying ahead of it, but I’m trying to stay as current as possible. We are watching lumber and steel trends, which are the biggest factors besides labor, and trying to guide our clients through the current situation. We try to plan as far in advance as possible and try to lock in pricing with our suppliers if possible. Even though suppliers cannot hold prices, they do their best to stay competitive. Our main goal is to continuously keep our clients informed on labor and inventory costs while we wait for prices to come back around.

What is your outlook for your organization and industry over the next few years?

Our main priority is to hire a few more team members to stay on top of our workload and broaden our development focus. If we don’t do this, we are not going to be able to grow at the rate our clients expect. We currently have more business than we can handle, but it is always hard to turn away work. We want to keep all our clients so that when times get lean, we still have clients to do projects with. There is currently a lot of competition for infill, multifamily and industrial lots and we are researching to find properties that may not be for sale and letting owners know how much their property may be worth to us and our clients. We have clients paying as much as $800,000 to over $1 million per acre for smaller infill Industrial and multifamily lots, making it a great time for owners to sell. 

For more information, visit: 

https://www.gagnondevelopment.com/ 

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