Coastal Compass Executive Office Suites has been open for about a year and now they are official members of the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce following a ribbon cutting ceremony July 20.
The complex opened in August 2021 and is located at 4210 Valley Ridge Blvd., Suite 101 in Ponte Vedra Beach and is in a prime spot to service residents in the Nocatee community.
According to Coastal Compass president Cutter Arey, he was always fascinated with how his father ran his business growing up and saw some of the issues he ran into over the years.
“He started taking me on business trips with him when I was 8 years old,” Arey said. “I saw some of the things he went through, and I saw how getting companies started is tough, but especially when they don’t have the necessary resources.”
As a result, after graduating from the University of Miami, he came back to his hometown of Ponte Vedra Beach and wanted to do his part to help erase some of those issues years later.
“In a nutshell, I wanted to get to know businesses and find out what I could do to give them the tools they needed to succeed,” Arey said. “Sometimes good ideas can come from wanting to correct bad experiences (he saw his father have).”
Some of the ways he strived to improve the common approach of office complexes included making the office spaces roughly 20% larger than the average. The smallest office in the building is 120 square-feet.
Another improvement was adding insulation in the walls ceiling of each office to provide an assured sense of privacy, so that conversations could not be heard by neighboring offices.
According to Arey, this move has led to several medical institutions using the space, because they feel comfortable that their conversations with patients are able to remain private.
“We really wanted to be the place for high-end professionals to run, grow or start their businesses,” Arey said.
One of the final pieces of the puzzle was eliminating the additional costs often associated with office spaces, which Arey saw as something that can add up and create a burden on businesses, especially startups.
He responded by making sure that no fees are required to use mailboxes or conference rooms. Instead, those services are open for use by all businesses in the complex as needed.
The current building is 10,000 square feet, but there is a plan in place to add an additional 4,000 square feet in the form of larger-scale offices that are 800 to 1,000 square feet each and designed to hold six to eight employees.
The property owned by Arey is 30,000 square feet, which allows for even more expansion as needs and interest continue to rise in the future.
“We want to be a long-term business partner, not a short-term landlord,” Arey said.
A further example of that is that Arey makes sure that each office is personalized with a vinyl logo of that business on the front door of their space.
During the pandemic the mindset of how what a business space is changed with many people spending periods of time working from home.
Although many people loved the ability to work from their home, Arey also acknowledged that many also found out how being at home can lead to certain distractions that take away from their focus on work-related duties. He believes the Coastal Compass offers a happy medium between the two sides.
“We try to do everything we can to create a comfortable atmosphere similar to their home, but that also allows them to remain in an efficient environment,” Arey said.
