Company: 4R Outdoor
Markets: Texas, Florida
Address: Houston, Texas
Email: ops@rrrrinvestments.com
Phone: 850-860-4425
4R outdoor is a family owned business based on Houston Texas. The company’s executive team has over 100 years developing, permitting and building billboard sites in the United States. The firm is run by Barbara Roberts and currently operates 16 total billboard faces, including 6 digital faces. The company is targeting growth in the Southeast US. One of the company’s sign’s was featured as SignBird’s April 5, 2023 location of the week. Billboard Insider talked with Managing Director Geoff Roberts.
Tell us about the 4R’s name.
The 4 R’s of RRRR Outdoor LLC refer to the owners of the company, which is a majority woman owned business. 3 of the 4 R’s are women.
How did 4R’s get into the out of home business?
The principals of 4R Outdoor LLC were originally involved as partners and key employees involved in building RTM Media. At RTM we developed greenfield sites across 7 states, developing over 750 faces about 5 years. We learned some lessons (yes – some of them were expensive ones) along the way, including determining our strengths and weaknesses. We could successfully develop hard to get sites but did our best when we focused more narrowly in an area where we developed deep insight about the market, its rules and regulations. It costs the same to build a sign in a high value location as it does in a low value location – so why not focus on the high value sites?
We also realized that we don’t have to do it all ourselves. There are partners that bring exceptional skills from operating a plant that complements our development skills, to helping us sell new inventory, like David Jernigan. But key relationships extend beyond that to include financing creativity from Chris Stark and Craig Berry of Stark Capital. Mike Morrill and Marty Williamson at William & Associates have been terrific partners through multiple sale processes and they always provide deep insight and wisdom to potential transactions. We know we can’t do it alone and we’ve consistently looked to the best to partner with in what we do.
We brought these ideas and experiences to 4R Outdoor along with industry partners that complement us to focus on developing new, high value sites in the Panhandle of Florida and southern Alabama. We love the challenges and the market opportunities.
What’s new at the company over the past year.
Covid proved to be challenging period for any business. Everything took longer than expected from working with landowners to permitting. In some cases, permits that should have taken 1-2 days took as long as 12-15 months to get with lots of skirmishes along the way. We have 8 new digital faces up and running in Pensacola, another 3 sites in late stage permitting along the Emerald Coast and portfolio of an additional 15-20 high value sites. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are good sites in markets that have been shut down. It takes perseverance and hard work and a little bit of luck to get the find the right locations. We never stop learning.
Whose digital units do you use and what have you learned?
We build out sites with the perspective of a long-term owner. Marcus Hardin, Matt Schulze and the Selective Structures team have always gone above and beyond to fabricate, build and install a great structure. We’ve been a long-term fan of Watchfire digital faces and found our rep John Carter to always be available to bounce ideas off and help create value. We installed 8 x 16mm Watchfire units with 10-year warranties. It takes a great team to help build a great sign.
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