Jim Clark, the Silicon Valley guru
who helped found Netscape and made billions off the
Internet's tear through Wall Street, has turned to a new
darling of the investment world: Miami real estate.
Clark and longtime lieutenant
Thomas ''TJ'' Jermoluk are poised to announce two
condominium projects they want to build in Miami,
including a pair of 55-story towers in the blighted area
across from the AmericanAirlines Arena.
The complexes will be the first
venture into real estate for the duo that made their
fortunes during the 1990s technology boom, and then sold
their companies for billions before the Internet stock
bubble burst in early 2000. Now they are wading into a
sector with its own bubble concerns, as industry
watchers ponder how much longer the real estate market's
five-year buying binge will last.
Jermoluk, the former chief
executive of Internet portal Excite@Home who ran most of
Clark's ventures, said Friday he has no doubts about his
latest business model.
''I did a lot of diligence because
I was new to the area,'' Jermoluk, 46, said in a
telephone interview from his New York office. ``The
conclusion I came to [was] the fundamental economics of
the area are some of the best in the U.S.''
Clark and Jermoluk want to build
in Miami's urban areas near Biscayne Bay, where land is
cheaper but the views are still impressive.
Arquitectonica, a prominent Miami
firm with an international reputation for unconventional
architecture, designed the two projects: Blue, a curved
36-story building by the Julia Tuttle Causeway; and
Mist, an imposing 55-story, 500-unit complex on Biscayne
Boulevard in downtown Miami.
''Jim has sort of a legacy he'd
like to leave,'' said Paul Murphy, the Miami builder
working on the projects. ``He feels if he could deliver
interesting architecture and sculptural architecture to
the market, that's what he wants to do.''
Murphy is supervising the
construction of Clark's new mansion in Palm Beach
County, and said he has been pitching Clark and Jermoluk
on real estate projects for about three years. They
finally bit on the Blue property -- a close-quartered
lot once slated for luxury rental apartments in a deal
that stalled for lack of funding.
Capital isn't much of a problem
for Clark. AOL bought the Netscape web browser system
for about $10 billion in stock four years ago -- a deal
that's since diminished with AOL's stock slide, but
which still made Clark one of Internet's biggest
winners. Before Netscape, he and Jermoluk ran Silicon
Graphics, an early technology-sector success that has
since seen its fortunes ebb.
''I think his business sense and
timing was impeccable, as was his getting out at the
top,'' media analyst David Joyce, of Coral Gables'
Guzman & Co., said of Clark. ``You didn't hear too
much from him afterwards. He realized lightning struck
at least twice.''
Jermoluk described Clark as a
silent partner in their real estate company, named
Hyperion Development Group. Clark was traveling in Bali
and unavailable for comment, according to Hyperion's
public relations agency, but Jermoluk is settling into
his new condominium at South Beach's Il Villaggio.
A partner at a New York venture
capital fund, Jermoluk said his post-Internet days has
left him with considerable time on his hands, so he was
looking for a new project. South Florida real estate
appealed, he said, because of the region's engine of new
buyers: people from the Northeast and Europe looking to
vacation, and Latin American buyers eager for investment
havens.
Jermoluk, chief executive of
Hyperion, has an ambitious schedule for company: five
condominium projects under way at any one time.
''I've always believed go bigger,
or go home,'' Jermoluk said. ``We decied we were really
going to try and make this a big deal.''
The Biscayne Boulevard corridor is
in the midst of a building boom, with developers
targeting much of the scruffy waterfront for high-rise
residential projects. Jermoluk and Murphy said they hope
to attract professionals who can afford to buy in the
middle of the market, with Blue and Mist's units selling
for about $400,000.
Blue won city approval and would
open in two years; the developers submitted plans for
Mist to the city on Friday.
Mist would be the first
condominium project built near the arena. City officials
have pressed for residential development there, but so
far no one has tested the market. The One Miami
condominium tower is under way several blocks south in
Miami's office district, but at lower prices than what
Hyperion has proposed.
''In my opinion, that's on the
high end,'' said Lewis M. Goodkin, a real estate
consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, said of the
$400,000 price points for both projects. ``That area is
still really not established.''
Jermoluk said he and Clark
actually kept their prices low to lure buyers, noting
both projects will each be a single-unit wide in order
to give them a sleek, minimalist look.
''That's not the most efficient
way to build a building. But it's the more beautiful
building,'' he said. ``One of the nice advantages Jim
and I have is we've already made money, in a different
field.''