Our team transformed this tired-looking commercial property – which increased their revenue and profits!

The Before: 

The After:

The Madeira Commons shopping center is located just footsteps away from the sandy white beaches. The building was looking dated with no accessible walkways and lacked sufficient lighting.

The 30-year-old building suffered structural issues due to previous water damage and termites. The building was updated to adhere to new hurricane building codes, provide eco-friendly lighting, and create a more inviting atmosphere. 

Four Tampa Bay Companies teamed up to transform a 30-year-old building into a vibrant shopping center that drives business and attracts thousands of local residents and tourists in the heart of Madeira Beach.

Mangrove Construction: http://www.mangrovebuilds.com

Ross Realty Group: http://www.rossrealtytampabay.com

Landqwest Property Management Tampa: http://www.lqwest.com

… and me – Design Consultant, Gary Greer

This now hot spot shopping center is booming with business and continues to be leased at 100% with before and after rents increasing by over 20%!

The Transformation:

• Engage a creative design consultant for visual concepts and to oversee progress to completion 

• Structural repairs to trusses, facade, and decking

• Install new irrigation system with landscaping that is a blend of native Florida plants

• New walkways including one across 150th street to safely redirect pedestrians across traffic

• Create entryway sculpture to invite foot traffic to the shopping center 

• Additional outdoor seating and bike racks

• Regrade and repave parking lot with paver pathway to Madeira Commons 

• Improve signage to provide better visibility for the tenants and customers

• Exterior lighting that is sensitive to the turtles and other beach habitants

Push Yourself to Play Outside of the Box to Increase Your Revenue and to Stay in the Game

Watch this YouTube video on how I created and installed a 10 foot outdoor sculpture for an office building in Clearwater, Florida. It was quite the challenge, as it was the first time I’ve ever created a sculpture. How did I get this job? I’ve given my clients the impression that I can deliver to them what ever they need, and if I have to learn something new to do it – I will.  Why?

Because if your customers consider you as a valuable resource to get the job done, then it opens the door for additional opportunities. I’ve been on my own as a designer for almost 20 years, and there isn’t anything I’m doing today that I did 20 years ago because technology changes and so does the needs of customers. There is a first time for everything, and if you believe you can do it – and learn from others, you have a better chance for success:

Here is a method that is helping buildings get More Tenants

Paint and art – hire a designer!

Belleair Oaks office building. The “before and after” examples above made a huge impact on not only keeping the current office building tenants, but it made a good first impression when brokers showed the building to prospective tenants. Above is the Photoshop concept, below are actual photos from the finished project.

Key point on branding: The name of the building is Belleair Oaks, so the thinking was to emphasize the name of the building by creating a contemporary theme around oak tree related images.

(This is what I put in the lobby to make the makeover have more meaning):   Artist’s Statement about the lobby: This lobby is an artist’s interpretation of Belleair Oaks – from first light, to end of day. On the stairway is an image that begins with the sun peeking above the horizon as morning light, accented by seedlings that represent when life, or the day begins. To your left is the copper sun rising up from nature’s varied landscapes – the whole focusing on the challenges of the day. The sunset painting represents winding down at day’s end. The paintings to your right depict night when rests occurs before the next day, and the white shafts represent oaks that were once seedlings – have now matured to become sturdy and resilient to life’s challenges. Artist/designer: Gary Greer

The copper sculpture represents the sun rising up from nature’s varied landscapes (the base is grass, rocks and sand) – the hole focusing on the challenges of the day.

On the stairway is an image that begins with the sun peeking above the horizon as morning light, accented by actual dried seedlings that represent when life, or the day begins.

The 6 foot by 4 foot sunset painting represents winding down at day’s end.

Detail: This rock and grass decor takes the place of stringy, worn out, potted, vine plants – for a more contemporary look – and requiring no maintenance.

The eleven foot wide, three side-by-side paintings above depict night when rest occurs before the next day, and the white shafts represent oaks that were once seedlings – have now matured to become sturdy and resilient to life’s challenges.

Dynamic color changes: The columns are all painted the same color. The skylight in the lobby presents a more true color and the faux skylight in the foreground changes the color to a deeper yellow color. The effect occurs depending on what angle you are looking at the columns from, and they change as you walk by. As the sun sets and effects the light in the lobby, they change again, making the lobby an ever changing piece of art.

Big Shopping Center Makeover!

Above is the before. Color choices don’t relate to the Publix brand, plus the dark brick color makes the Publix slogan very hard to read. Below is the proposed (created in Photoshop), and approved new color scheme with more pop.

Below is another view of the “before” and “after” of this very large shopping center. It needed to be painted anyways, so they brought me in to give the center a more dynamic color scheme.

How to Attract More Business to a Store Using Color

Increase visibility with color.
The architectural design for this small strip mall is contemporary, but it has a very blah color scheme. This “neutral” color schemed mall is not attracting attention or driving business traffic to the mall. The value of color; The more traffic to the mall, the more value the space is worth, the more rent can be charged, which results in a better return on the real estate investment.

Here is why this strip mall is not getting much business traffic:

1. Blah. The base color blends with the wide sidewalk, parking lot and road, and the dark windows and rock look nice but visually end up appearing as the shadow for the base structure and that fine detail below is lost.
2. Lack of contrast. There are no dark trees or buildings around the structure to give it contrasting background to make it standout.
3. Weak end cap store. The end cap business is suppose to help pull people driving by to the building: A T-Mobile type business doesn’t have the traffic that other types of businesses could have. In the space of 45 minutes, I noted one person in that store, and many of the parking spaces by the other businesses were occupied.

How to improve business traffic: Use bold colors to catch the eye of traffic going by. A black trim at the top helps tie the rest of the building back into the windows and roof supports, and it also makes the deep yellow color “pop” more. People driving by will notice this building if painted this color scheme, and the building itself will become the eye-catcher versus relying on the businesses and their logos.

How do I do this? In Photoshop, because the best way to show someone what a color looks like is to digitally paint the building before picking the paint colors! (After doing about 75+ malls and office building makeovers, I’ve figured out little tricks to improve and speed up the process).

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