South Florida developer Glenn Straub
just keeps going and going!
Wfor the interior; the hotel will include, a private beach club, spa, salon and eighty high-end luxury accommodations. Five hundred million dollars have been invested and another $300 million will be spent over the next two years to develop a property in the Bahamas, recreating the Palm Beach Polo Club concept, for investors interested in having their money offshore. Just a 15 minute helicopter ride away, Straub described the project, “it will be twice the size of Paradise Island with 2 or 3 story maximum height for homes; people in the equestrian world don’t like high rises!” Their holdings are not restricted to just the Palm Beach area, Broward Marine Inc. in Fort Lauderdale is another one of their properties and Straub enjoys cruising the waters aboard his latest yacht, the 155 ft Sterling, Triumphant Lady. He has high praise for Miami as a place that has value for your money. “Miami is great, it has all the flair of South America. It’s a great place to invest for people who don’t want to have all their money invested in their country. It actually came back strong, for awhile there they had 10,000 apartments built but not sold, but now those are sold, they have started building again and Miami has really bounced back.” So what can be attributed to the secret of his success? “Even though we own lots of country clubs, marinas, things of that nature, we don’t like to run things, we like to build things. That’s where our background came from; airports, tunnels, highways, mining oil and gas are where we made our money. We were very conservative in our mining operation and construction division; we came to Florida with lots of cash. We invest in about seven industries, a lot of different things going on; our thinking is the economy never goes bad on everything. We just have people with cash who are able to gamble and take a risk and that’s what keeps us young.”
Vol 1 Spring 2013
When engaging in conversation with Glenn F. Straub, CEO of Palm Beach Polo Holdings, the vision that comes to mind is the Energizer bunny, the man just keeps going and going. His schedule would be daunting to a man half his age. Straub, 66, admits he’s attempted to retire at least twice, but one gets the feeling that the man thrives on negotiation, conflict, and acquisition; the foundations of business in today’s world.
Though most residents of Miami might recognize the name from his acquisition, demolition and then profitable sale of the former site of the Miami Heat arena, Straub‘s company juggles an average of 10 projects at a time acquiring new businesses every 6 months. These days Straub is high on his horse, literally and figuratively; the polo playing Straub is enjoying the success of his arena polo concept, held at the equestrian center at his 1,500 acre Palm Beach Polo, Golf and Country Club. “We’ve started medium goal polo for guys who don’t want to spend a million dollars a month for pros on their team, this way, once in awhile they actually get to play a game and hit the ball a few times,” laughed Straub. The night games under lights in the arena, similar to a hockey field but one third larger is yet another successful venture in a season that has brought 6,000 horses to the equestrian complex for events which include dressage and show jumping. Recently, they raised close to a million dollars for charity with a 40 goal polo game, where four 10 goal players showed the highest quality of polo playing. Tables for seating at the jumping events range from $40,000 to $150,000 and are all sold out.
Straub is also actively involved in their $40 million build of the Palm House, opening soon in Palm Beach. Since taking over the project known previously as the Heart of Palm Hotel, millions of dollars have been spent in marble