Gables Business News
A New Startup Connects Producers with Consumers
Not all entrepreneurs are high-tech. Case in point is Source, a new venture born in the Forum co-working space on Alhambra Circle. Co-founded by Joanna Davila and Jennifer Kapoor, Source is a “field-to-feast” marketplace that delivers a weekly “Farm Box” of the freshest seasonal produce from Redland farms to subscribers anywhere in Miami-Dade County. “Jenny and I wanted a place to get fresh farm produce,” says Davila. “We have a lot of great farms here, but I can’t go to Homestead every weekend.” Source bridges that gap, and delivers boxes of fruits and vegetables each Friday, along with options that include gourmet mushrooms, fresh eggs and artisanal bread. Source also has an in-house chef creating recipes. “Not only are we giving you a box of freshly harvested vegetables and fruit picked at the perfect time, we tell you ways to prepare the food,” says Kapoor. “Not everyone knows what to do with a watermelon radish.”
Codina Plans His Own Downtown Penthouse
Developer Armando Codina, who has built some of the handsomest buildings in downtown Coral Gables (who doesn’t love a cupola?), has announced his intention to build a luxury apartment building blocks from his company headquarters on Salzedo Street. The building would rise on what are now parking lots on Salzedo between Valencia and Almeria avenues, currently being used by Mercedes-Benz of Coral Gables. Codina Partners acquired the 1.34-acre site in exchange for the old police department building on Salzedo Street (at Sevilla Avenue). Codina had acquired that building from the city in a previous swap for the property at Salzedo and Minorca, where the new HQ building for police, fire and EMS was recently built. Codina says he wants to include a total of 13 massive apartments (3,000- to 7,000-square feet) in a new building on the parking lot site, and that he intends to occupy the penthouse himself. He can then walk seven blocks to work at Codina Partners HQ, catty-corner from the new police building.
An Unconventional Business School
Success in business is all about the journey, says Wayne Eldred, founder of the new Outliers business school that began its test run at the Coral Gables Museum last month. Officially opening in July, the Outliers Institute is a decidedly maverick nonprofit that Eldred says will fill the gap between formal business school curriculum and the real world. “It’s a very raw, but very real way of teaching,” he says. “Being successful in business is not what people think it is. There is a lot of hard work, a lot of dirt, and grind, and sawdust.” The classes, held twice weekly in the evenings, include cocktails, dinner and guest speakers from the nitty-gritty world of entrepreneurial business. Traditional subjects such as hiring, management, sales and finance will be covered “but in a real-world context, not in theory,” says Eldred, with an eye toward teaching small businesses how to grow. Eldred himself is a restaurant industry consultant (he owned and operated Tarpon Bend on Miracle Mile for over a decade) and has a successful events production company. Semesters are one month long and cost $1,500. Go to outliersinstitute.com.