Transforming a Sales Center to Seasonal Employee Housing: An Insight into the H2B Visa Process and Affordability Challenges
Nov 02, 2023Season 1Episode 3
Bonita Bay Club
Join us as we uncover the intriguing metamorphosis of converting an old Sales Center Into Seasonal Employee Housing with our guests Fred Fung, Joseph Elwell, Richard Brumm, and Peggy Taylor. We promise a riveting conversation that will provide a glimpse into the history of the building, the existential need for this type of housing, and the labyrinth of the H2B visa process. Learn with us as Joseph talks about the fascinating tale of the building's journey since its purchase by Bonita Bay Club in 2019. Richard and Peggy add depth to the conversation by shedding light on the necessity of an affordable housing system for international seasonal staff, as well as the project's logistical obstacles and financial aspects.
Have you ever wondered about the intricacies of obtaining visas for employees? Or about the financial implications and timeline of a major renovation project? This is the episode for you. Peggy will guide us through the complex process of visa procurement and share some insightful experiences from the Bonita Bay Club. Richard will give us a peek into how they have successfully cultivated a team of returning employees who embody the ethos of the hospitality organization. We also get a chance to delve into the financial costs associated with the transformation and the anticipated timeline for the facility's launch as an employee housing center. So sit back, relax, and join us on this enlightening journey of discovery and learning. Let's together dig deeper into the multifaceted issue of housing for international seasonal staff, its effects on the local community, and the broader implications of this proposed change.
Join us as we uncover the intriguing metamorphosis of converting an old Sales Center Into Seasonal Employee Housing with our guests Fred Fung, Joseph Elwell, Richard Brumm, and Peggy Taylor. We promise a riveting conversation that will provide a glimpse into the history of the building, the existential need for this type of housing, and the labyrinth of the H2B visa process. Learn with us as Joseph talks about the fascinating tale of the building's journey since its purchase by Bonita Bay Club in 2019. Richard and Peggy add depth to the conversation by shedding light on the necessity of an affordable housing system for international seasonal staff, as well as the project's logistical obstacles and financial aspects.
Have you ever wondered about the intricacies of obtaining visas for employees? Or about the financial implications and timeline of a major renovation project? This is the episode for you. Peggy will guide us through the complex process of visa procurement and share some insightful experiences from the Bonita Bay Club. Richard will give us a peek into how they have successfully cultivated a team of returning employees who embody the ethos of the hospitality organization. We also get a chance to delve into the financial costs associated with the transformation and the anticipated timeline for the facility's launch as an employee housing center. So sit back, relax, and join us on this enlightening journey of discovery and learning. Let's together dig deeper into the multifaceted issue of housing for international seasonal staff, its effects on the local community, and the broader implications of this proposed change.
Speaker 1:
Well, hello, benita Bay Club. This is Fred Fung, your General Manager, here doing, well, my first podcast, and I'm here with a very distinguished panel of senior leaders of the club. I've got Joseph Elwell, your Assistant General Manager. Welcome, hello everyone. I've got Richard Brum here, our Director of Culinary Operations. President, didn't account it for it. And finally, last but certainly not least, someone who some of you probably don't even know but is critical to our operation, Ms Peggy Taylor, our Director of Human Resources.
Speaker 2:
Hello everyone.
Speaker 1:
So what a great group that we have here today. The topic of today's podcast is the sales center conversion to seasonal employee housing, and we were given the green light by the Benita Spring City Council earlier this month to do that conversion. It was a long project, a little bit arduous in nature, just to get to that point, but we're just thrilled to be where we are. So today's topic is going to cover basically the who, what, where, when, why and how of what we're proposing to do, and we'll get right into it. So, joseph, why don't you kick it off and tell us a little bit about, for the people who are listening who may not know what building we're talking about and where is?
Speaker 3:
it Sure. So this is the community's sales center and, to kind of back it up, it was part of the original community association and then purchased ultimately by Benita Bay Club back in 2019. It had been occupied by a number of commercial tenants, primarily the Ronto Group who was doing the development and the sales for both the sea glass and Omega high rises, and they have since concluded with those buildouts and they left the property this past June, which now vacates that space for better use by the club.
Speaker 1:
Now, this building is pretty close to the club, but where does it sit in relation to the entrance of Benita Bay and within the property lines and things like that?
Speaker 3:
So the building is just adjacent to the main gate off of South Bay Drive, so it's just outside the gates.
Speaker 1:
So we've talked a lot about employee housing over. I guess we started back in 2014, 15. Is that right, chef? Yeah, I think it's right around there. And why is there a need for this and what have we done in the past?
Speaker 4:
Well, I mean the main need for the staff housing is the lack of reasonable, affordable and close housing for seasonal staff. You know these folks are coming in from overseas. They're not necessarily familiar with the area. We want to make sure that their transit to and from work is not only safe but also cost effective for us as a club, and to have this opportunity within our gates is just absolutely phenomenal. It's going to be a real game changer for us from the club overall.
Speaker 1:
Well, and I know in the past we focused primarily on our international seasonal work staff, but this is a serious problem within Southwest Florida and all over the nation, really, isn't it?
Speaker 3:
Oh, absolutely, and in fact, not only does this provide our staff with housing, but we feel really good about the fact that we're releasing area apartments back to the community. You know, we've really felt badly that those were sitting empty, since we had to secure housing year round, but we're only occupying them for six or seven months.
Speaker 1:
Well, on that, joseph. Over the course of time, I know that we've experienced housing locations that we've secured for our international staff that's close by. I remember a time when we rented them bicycles. That was my genius idea, along with Peggy Taylor, and we only had one person cry over that.
Speaker 1:
Well, and I think I saw that gentleman who was walking to work pushing his bicycle, and then we realized that maybe not everyone knows how to ride a bike, so I remember I can't remember who it was that was giving bicycle riding lessons in the it was on the dock.
Speaker 4:
We were doing bicycle riding lessons on the loading dock. Yeah Right, I forgot that. Oh God, everyone helps out everybody.
Speaker 1:
It's great. I don't think we had any workers comp issues, relays that that was a win, not that I'm aware of. But since then a lot's changed and Joseph, you know this and Peggy knows this as well as anyone. So tell us a little bit about, you know, having accommodations that are just down Terry Street to having accommodations down on Pine Ridge Road and Colonial up North, at points, depending on what's happened.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I know you noted the bike story in jest, but that was pretty favorable compared to some of the other locations that we ended up with through the years. In fact, just a few short years ago we had staff that were housed as far as 10 miles south of here on Pine Ridge Road and 22 miles north in Fort Myers, and I recall a couple of instances, chef, you remember there was those that were securing Uber rides. I think there was $60 one way fares to get to a lunch or a breakfast shift.
Speaker 4:
It was absolutely untenable for our staff, not the best option for sure.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, southwest Florida is not set up for public transportation, so it's difficult to have transportation for someone who's international, it doesn't have a driver's license, et cetera.
Speaker 3:
And even with the Uber stipends at that time, they're being outstripped by their fares pretty regularly.
Speaker 1:
We've been chatting mostly about H2Bs, which are international seasonal staff, and I think, for the most part, we've been really fortunate that the most challenging need for housing assistance has been for people who are coming in here from generally from another country if they're not in country and going to a brand new place, brand new country, not knowing a whole lot about where Florida is on the map, much less where do I secure safe, reasonably priced and convenient housing? So, peggy, why don't you tell us a little bit about why H2Bs are important, especially not just here but within the entire industry of private clubs and nationally, and what is involved in getting them to come here?
Speaker 2:
Well, the H2B process is a very complicated process. The government elots 66,000 H2B positions every year, but that is split up between Northern facilities and southern properties. So basically anyone who has a season like ours at Bonita Bay from October through April is allotted up to 33,000 positions, and that includes clubs and resorts. Everyone is vying for those same 33,000 spots. So we basically every year have to prove to the government that we have a need. So we have to show that we're seasonal in nature, which isn't difficult based on our seasonality. But in addition we also have to Show that we have attempted to recruit Locally or in the United States and have not been able to find any staff. And then we have to get approval through the Department of Labor and then, once they certify that we are okay to proceed, then it goes to the United States citizen and USCIS, I guess, is the acronym, I can't remember what it stands for.
Speaker 4:
That's all.
Speaker 2:
That's really important right, it's a wordy one INS basically and then, once they certify, then we can move forward and we actually participate in two different parts of the process. One is in country petitioners and then we also do out of country. So we do about half and half each year. This year we're bringing in 36 H2B staff and Half of them are we're already in the country, so we're they're transferring from a northern property, and then the other half are coming from out of country, meaning that they may have worked in the United States before, but they are based in their home country right now.
Speaker 1:
So you mentioned that we have to basically Prove or demonstrate that we exhausted the local resources, and I know that we all feel very strongly About that and doing it. Naturally, we don't want to hit an easy button, even if we could, to say, hey, let's bring down a hundred, each two bees, which and that's not an exaggeration there are clubs in this area that bring in more than a hundred people outside of the country or within country that are each to be, have each to be visas, and we don't do that, do we? We really look and feel like there is a responsibility of ourselves to exhaust the local talent pool of people who we try to get to work here, and there's one or two particular areas that are exceptionally difficult, not just locally but also nationally. And what is that? I mean, shafi, you tell us.
Speaker 4:
Naturally and nationally. The two main areas is that you're going to find your H2B staff, or the other side of that is H2BA staff is in kitchens, but you'll also see H2B staff showing up in agronomy, sometimes in golf areas, but pretty much all aspects of hospitality throughout the country, especially in clubs and resorts, use some level of H2B staffing to allow them to get up to full levels of hospitality that we're looking for.
Speaker 1:
And I think the ability to attract people into the culinary world and the restaurant world in general has been exacerbated. The difficulty has been exacerbated by COVID because all of a sudden people were working from home and not only is the restaurant business difficult, but now put them in an environment where you're in 120 degree cooking meals in front of a fire in the middle of the summer and there has to be a draw to that, and often that draw is that people want to be in that type of environment. It's a different type of environment. It's one that is driven internally and people that want to aspire to do something for not just the interaction, like I do, in the front of the house of the club, but the back of the house is different.
Speaker 4:
I believe the statistics were after COVID there was approximately 30,000 less people who were in the hospitality industry nationally, which is just a massive number. The industry as a whole saw a great deal of people walk away from interest in being involved in hospitality, and that's not just the culinary aspect itself, that's front of the house hospitality as well.
Speaker 1:
Sure, I mean, we always talk about you know, would you rather work Monday through Friday from nine to five, or would you like to work nights, holidays and weekends? And so there has to be something different to that and a lot of it is like. For myself, I gain a lot of gratification from the interaction that I have with people like you and our H2B staff, but also the, of course, the membership here is terrific.
Speaker 4:
Absolutely, and you know so much of this conversation has involved our H2B staff. But the option of having short-term staff housing also puts us in a fantastic spot to help bring in interns and externs from national culinary schools, which we didn't have in the past. Consistently, when we attempted to recruit from culinary schools for short-term internships, affordable and available housing was always a mitigating factor for people not joining the Neda Bay Club, and that's going to put us in a much better spot to attract actual American workforce as well.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's a great point, Chef. I know that you've gone to the CIA before and you recruited. You always came back and said well, question number one or question number two was always Do you have a housing, do you have a housing? And so, while this is very rare for Southwest Florida, I believe we are the first private club that is even close to looking at something to address this issue. It's pretty common in the rest of the world, in private clubs, right, the rest of the country anyway.
Speaker 4:
It is. It is there are a great deal of, especially the larger facilities and specifically in resorts. You look at places like the Broadmoor in Colorado, which takes a lot of the culinary externs out of colleges, like the Culinary Institute of America, Westchester, or even the Everglades Club over on the other side of the state. All have housing that's part of their packages, which are attracting people to their properties.
Speaker 1:
So I don't think we just unlock the door and give people a pillow and they go in there and sleep. We're doing more than that, aren't we?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, we've got a really nice plan moving forward for retrofitting that space into accommodations. So, with the design place that we have, we're basically formalizing that now with a design development process and what that'll yield is 20 double occupancy rooms for staff up to 40 people. Those double occupancy rooms will have dedicated vanities, work desks and they will conjoin for restroom facilities. Also, there'll be nice amenities during their downtime. There's lounge spaces upstairs and downstairs being a two-story facility with dedicated laundry facilities, an outdoor kitchen area with the outdoor lounge space as well. There'll be a resident manager suite on site and then we've got an additional suite to Chef's point about potentially having an extern or an intern. That provides us some flexibility for an additional housing area.
Speaker 1:
That's great, I think. What about outdoor areas? Anything for them to be able to relax and get outdoors?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, there's a nice outdoor kitchen area, actually onto the east side of the building, facing the rest of the promenade, which will be a really nice backdrop for a little outdoor relaxation.
Speaker 1:
So, richard, you touched base on this a little bit. This is going to help you from a recruiting standpoint, but you, and perhaps Peggy, how is this going to differentiate us as an employer of choice it's going to be.
Speaker 4:
This really will be a big deal, like you had stated and we had talked about. There just isn't another place that's going to have a facility like this. In our area of the state and I've seen with colleagues nationally it is a huge draw for staff in general to be able to have a place that's safe, convenient, well-purposed. You know we had staff coming back this year that was at a facility that just had extremely subpar amenities and housing for their staff and it really affected their experience and it's just not the right thing. You know, we are positioning ourselves to really give something good to the people who work for us and work with us and are delivering an incredible experience to our membership, and their experiences outside of the workplace directly affect how much they give back to the organization.
Speaker 1:
Good point. So, peggy, you talked about the process a lot, and is this a one-in-done? Are they here for six months and then they're done, or how does that visa term work?
Speaker 2:
OK, so an employee can stay in the United States for a period of three years and that basically includes six months here, six months up north, six months here, six months up north, and then after the three-year period, then they do have to go home to their home country for a period of I think it's two months, it's two or three months I know there's some variation in that and then they can apply to come back to the US. But every year when we go to file our petitions we have to show that the staff that we want to bring in have qualified experience. So we have to show that they have experience in other similar facilities. So we're not bringing in people that are unskilled. And what we have gotten to the point of is we have repeat employees, which Chef can state wholeheartedly that when you can bring back someone who already knows your operation, knows your process, that it's that much better for the whole operation because you don't have to spend weeks training.
Speaker 4:
Absolutely, and it's not even a matter of necessarily training, but it's people who are vested in the philosophy that we have as a hospitality organization, that have brought into the plan and that have bought into being team members of Benita Bay Club. They want to come back, they want to still be part of our team and our family and who we are Right.
Speaker 2:
This past year, unfortunately, we had more staff that wanted to come back than we had spaces for. So I mean, I guess that's a good challenge to have and we want to continue that to be our process.
Speaker 1:
So, so. A lot of people who are listening probably don't realize this, but Chef Richard came here in 2011,. I think it was the fall, wasn't it, chef?
Speaker 4:
It was.
Speaker 1:
And I remember that pretty well because I was- very involved in the process that we looked at over 100 people from a candidate standpoint and we whittled it down closely and you really impressed us with a philosophical difference than many other people, where you articulated it very well, which was that you want to ensure that you have the opportunity to prepare foods and create them from scratch to the absolute extent and limit that you possibly can right here at Benita Bay Club. And some of that's facility driven and some not. So recently a lot of members, I think, probably do not know is that Chef Richard's team was awarded and named the number two ranked culinary operation in the entire nation by Club and Resort Magazine. That is correct. What an accomplishment. So I would think that it would really behoove us to work on getting people not just to come back but to work with other clubs that are in the north that have a similar philosophy scratch philosophy that you do and that's what we really are doing a lot of.
Speaker 4:
I have colleagues in the north that similar minded clubs with similar minded chefs that we are actively exchanging staff with. That we're allowing our team members to grow and expand and just gain momentum in their culinary careers as they're moving forward and it's something pretty special.
Speaker 1:
So Joseph, you talked a little bit about what this is going to look like when we eventually open it. It doesn't just happen right. We don't just renovate this and open the doors. There needs to be some level of financial resources associated and allocated towards doing this. So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:
Sure. So obviously we're still pretty early in the process and really going off of kind of some high level cost analysis with the help of the finance committee and ultimately to be approved by the board of directors. But when we're looking at those analysis we take a look at what we could have offset with rental from the commercial tenants that we had versus what we'd be saving based on bringing that in-house and not paying rental terms otherwise. So with that we feel very confident that we're looking at about a 10-year payback kind of at worst case scenario, based on what we'd be saving from an operational perspective.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean the net amount was multiples seven figures over the course of time, right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:
So, peggy, when we eventually get this done and I know that there's a lot that goes into this and we'll add a little bit to that but what's our target occupancy time? When are we going to get people in the rooms with sleeping on their beds?
Speaker 2:
Our hope is that we will be live in season 2025-2026.
Speaker 1:
That is our goal. That's a little ways off what's involved in getting from here to there.
Speaker 3:
Well, so far we're only in schematic design phase. So we're going back with our architect now so we can rough out all the rest of those details, go to permitting and a bid set. Then we could, upon board approval, then move forward with that renovation, hopefully by next summer, which will position us, as Peggy had said, for the following fall to bring in those candidates.
Speaker 1:
Fantastic and that sort of tells, I think, a lot of us what we're planning on doing with that building and what we aspire to do to be the leaders in our particular area and maybe be the first ones up and running for employee housing. It's a really exciting time. I want to thank Joseph and Richard and Peggy for the opportunity to discuss this today and with that we'll say thanks so much for joining us and we'll look forward to another podcast.