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Company Profile
Harvesting rooftops: Rayonier is in the development business
The returns are just now starting to come in. Rayonier sold its first piece of commercial property in Wildlight last spring (a 1.3-acre commercial tract that sold for about $420,000) and its first residential lot a few months later.
Altogether, the company had closed on about $7.5 million worth of sales in Wildlight through the end of March. Those sales include commercial parcels for an apartment complex, a bank and the UF Health campus, plus 17 home sites that went for about $50,000 a lot. The first Wildlight resident moved in this summer.
Nunes and Corr say the company won’t stretch itself too far financially on the project — or get ahead of the market. One of Corr’s favorite mottos: “Think big, but act small.”
Rayonier
In mid-2014, Rayonier split its timber and manufacturing operations into separate, publicly traded companies.
The timber company, which includes Rayonier’s real estate business, has more than 330 employees and annual sales of $820 million. It’s led by Dave Nunes.
The manufacturing business, now called Rayonier Advanced Materials, has 4,200 employees, annual sales of $960 million and is based in Jacksonville. It’s led by Paul Boynton. It produces cellulose products for everything from cigarette filters and liquid crystal displays to food casings and pharmaceuticals.
Disney Alumni
Rayonier’s real estate division has hired nearly half a dozen former Disney executives, including Charles Adams, vice president in charge of Wildlight; Kent Findley as director of development design and planning; Janet Morris to oversee marketing; and Bill Cunningham, who leads the company’s Georgia projects. All but Morris worked for Chris Corr at St. Joe; Morris went on to the Pritzker Realty Group, where she helped lead the development of the Baldwin Park master-planned community just east of downtown Orlando.
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