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“The opportunities in Panama City Beach are endless,” he believes. St. Joe, the largest
land owner in the state of Florida, owned a million acres. Mario immediately saw
that whereas he was building vertical buildings in Central Florida, Panama City Beach
was a blank canvas to build on for a community. “A key thing in being the major land
owner,” he notes, “is that there needs to be responsible growth.” From 2002 to 2006
he worked on land use changes and infrastructure including 1,200 acre annexations for
Home Depot, the Ashley Apartment Complex, Lowes, and Beach Commerce Park,
along with all the out parcels that join those larger developments. He helped with
some of the infrastructure of Pier Park, and developed design guidelines for Panama
City Beach Parkway (a 25-foot buffer for commercial development and 50-foot landscape
buffer for residential). He worked on the monument signage standards, the
400-acre “clean-up” annexation at Breakfast Point Academy, the small housing development
in front of Arnold High School, CVS, Dairy Queen, the balance of Palmetto
Trace and balance of Beach Commerce Park. “At St. Joe, the reward came in knowing
that I was part of the organization that helped bring Home Depot, Lowes and Pier
Park to a community that was ready for that stage of its development,” he says.
In 2005, he was promoted to Director of Development for Gulf and Franklin Counties.
There, he did a 300-acre annexation and land use change for Sacred Heart to be
developed in Port St. Joe. He doubled the size of their commerce park, and did land
use for multi-family and commercial developments. At the end of 2006, when St.
Joe downsized from a 700-person organization to 300, GAC Contractors hired Mario
as the Project Manager and Design Pre-Construction Coordinator. He worked
on several banks, several retail build outs and some small industrial
projects. In 2010, Mario became Assistant City Manager
for the City of Panama City Beach. In the summer of 2012,
he became City Manager. One of his focal projects has been
the Front Beach Road CRA. DRMP and PBS&J developed the
plans over the prior six years, and Mario inherited the project
in 2010. So far, the 30-year project is on schedule; the South
Thomas Drive section was completed just before spring 2012,
and the Front Beach Road side is currently wrapping up.
“We need to get the point across that Panama City Beach is a family
beach,” he maintains. “For 47 out of 52 weeks we are a family
destination location; for five weeks we’re a spring break destination
location.” He points out that unlike Destin, Panama City Beach
has a Back Beach and Middle Beach Road that accommodates the
locals. Front Beach Road is our tourist corridor; Back Beach Road
is typically the locals’ corridor. He also observes that the airport
has opened up new markets for us. “The person sitting next to me
on an airplane recently, in Baltimore, had purchased a condo here
because it was half the cost of something she could get on the east
coast,” he recalls. “She had to fly here, but driving to the east coast
from Baltimore is a two-hour drive versus just a one-hour flight
from Baltimore to our beaches.”
Mario has a huge love of the outdoors and water. He enjoys canoeing,
kayaking, fishing, diving, snorkeling, spear fishing, hiking,
hunting and bow hunting. “If I go to the beach it’s typically
by boat; we mainly go to Shell Island,” he says. “I drive to work
on Front Beach Road instead of Back Beach; it’s really not that
much longer. I get to look at the beautiful beach, see what visitors
we have, and see how the shops are doing.”
Mario feels that Panama City Beach has an incredible future.
“If you think of the available land, the opportunities we have
with the airport, our unbelievable amenities like the beach, the
bay, our creeks and our 3,000 acre conservation park…it’s a
beautiful place to live.”
v v v
Top: Lincoln Plaza in Orlando. Middle: Mario and his daughter Elaine. Bottom:
8-12 lb. red snapper caught on Mario’s boat, “Otter Be Fishing,” on the last day of
the 2012 snapper season.
THE CIRCUIT September/October 2012 49