Company: Marin Ventures Outdoor
Markets: California
Headquarters: 1325 Howard Ave, Suite 816, Burlingame, CA 94010
Phone: 650-343-4789
Email: information@marinventuresllc.com
Marin Ventures is a privately held outdoor advertising company which owns signs in California. The company’s trade name is MV Outdoor. The company is run by Grant Leschin. Insider talked with Leschin last week.
Grant, how did you enter the outdoor advertising business?
By accident actually. We developed a large shopping center years ago. It opened to moderate success. There was an available billboard located on the freeway at the exit to the shopping center. We decided to take a flyer and take the board for a year to advertise the shopping center. Three months later, the traffic and sales at the shopping center had dramatically improved! We ended up purchasing that display, along with several others and never looked back. Today our main focus is the outdoor advertising business.
Tell us about your outdoor plant.
Our plant is located in Northern California, where we specialize in high impact bulletins along major interstate highways.
What’s the California market like.
The California market is extremely competitive. Existing plants rarely come to market for sale. New development is particularly challenging as well. There are only a handful of quality, permitable freeway locations in each market and every market has several active participants chasing the same sites and deals. Add to the this the exceptionally lengthy and demanding permit and approval process in the State of California and you have a very difficult operating environment. On the flip side, the scarcity of development sites and quality available displays leads to very positive economics for advertising sales and occupancy.
You’ve been a real estate entrepreneur for 27 years. How has a real estate background helped you in the outdoor business.
Tremendously! We have found our commercial real estate development experience to be an invaluable resource in operating and developing our outdoor plant. There are many similarities between the two and our extensive development experience in California has opened up many opportunities for us. There are also certain “cross pollination” effects. Our shopping center tenants have been some of our best clients in the outdoor business. On the development side, our expertise in navigating complex entitlements and land use issues has been extraordinarily helpful. We pride ourselves on being skilled deal makers and consummate negotiators. There’s always something new and exciting, even after 27+ years. We love the outdoor advertising business!
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