Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Myers.
Hi Tim, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up in Ohio, left for the Army at age 18 with no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I spent 6 years in the Army and got out and settled in Atlanta, GA where I started a career in IT that over 26 years progressed to the highest levels, primarily in financial services, tech and cloud companies. I held multiple CIO roles at companies including publically traded companies. I was part of very progressive technology trends during my IT career. My wife Vicky is a banking executive and was working for USAA in San Antonio flying back and forth between Altanta and San Antonio. When I landed a job in San Antonio as well our family officially relocated to San Antonio.
And then “the big idea” occurred. I have been a race car driver and race team owner in my spare time since 1997. I have a race team that was traveling all across the country and I kept seeing more and more garage condos popping up at race tracks and I was facinated by them. We then attended an event at Road America in Wisconsin and there were two garage condo complexes built outside the race track, but very close by. This launched an idea – let’s build some of these in Texas. Within a few minutes of driving thru both of these complexes in Wisconsin we were in a restaurant and Chris Taylor, owner of Chris Taylor racing was in the same restaurant. Chris owned land near Circuit Of The Americas and we had a discussion about working together on acquiring his land and Chris having an onsite vehicle repair, vehicle prep, race car shop etc. Four days after returning to Texas I had sketches in hand and met with Chris at his property we had a handshake deal to acquire Chris’s property and we were off to the races (pun intended). Vicky was incredibly supportive and she encouraged me to quit my job and go for it and she would hold down the household. In hindsight, never could have happened with all her ongoing support.
I quit my executive technology role and almost overnight became a commercial developer with zero experience but a lot of good advisors! After many many months of initial plans and many changes, we were in flight for Garages Of The Americas “Autominiums” complex with plans to build up to 155 garage “Autominium” condos with Chris’s shop, an onsite vehicle detail, PPF and wrap shop and a couple of other little surprises that are coming soon. In addition, my business partner Rafael “Rafa” Martinez has named our location as a 2nd Rafa Racing Club location in addition to the one already open in Houston. Rafa has big plans for the Austin location and plans to build as many as 15 Rafa Race Club locations across the globe.
Very early on also I met with Bobby Epstein the owner of Circuit Of The Americas and he told me about plans for them to build garage condos as well on the Circuit Property long before it was even announced! He also gave me early glimpses into the overall plans for the Circuit property and all the things we are starting to see them develop now. The garage condo news was shocking news to me because if I had known that already I would have bought one of theirs and likely never did our project, but we were already too far down the road. Bobby and I spent a good bit of time brainstorming back and forth and I was able to share some early lessons learned with them. I won’t forget Bobby saying that the Austin car scene could probably support as many garage condos as could possibly be built. He recognized the community and was supportive and dead on with his comments I believe.
Our complex has officially opened with Phase 1 sale closings and people moving in and it is an exciting time. Reflecting back on all the lost sleep with a huge career change and taking on a tens of millions of dollars development project has all been worth it to see the smiling people moving into their Autominiums. More importanly watching over several years my vision for a complex coming to life culminated with early renders that nearly nailed it and dreaming at night what it would all look like has been amazing to say the least. All of our units that we have put up for sale are sold. And our neighbors across the road at the Circuit are crushing it as well. The end result being a terrific epicenter for the car community in this area. Also watching how these developments are lighting a fire under other surrounding property plans is amazing for this underdeveloped area of Austin. I am very excited about some of the things I have seen and I am hearing planned for this area.
My journey is an amazing one. Not without a lot of uncertainty, fear of failure and also financial failure and nearly giving up dozens of times and throwing in the towell. The number of challenges were unbelievable and I found myself quite alone often thinking thru what to do. Perhaps one of the most amazing parts of my journey was being in career for so long (IT) and not learning much anymore. Years and years of learning were fantastic and suddenly I found myself in a brand new career learning every single day, and I loved this part of my story, very much. I studied, and read and read and read and old school printed stuff out, highlighted stuff, read again and again. And asked a lot of questions. I relied on friends of friends a lot for advice and counsel and directionally pointing me in the right direction. The construction industry, especially for this large of a project is very, very difficult and hard to interpret alone. I also found some terrific people along the way while working on my plans that gave terrific advice, including people from the city, county, regulatory and Austin Energy organizations. Without their help and guidance, would never have gotten to the finish line.
My advice for taking a big swing like I did: The first step – swing big and go for it! Dream big! Don’t be afraid! The first step is called the first step for a reason. You have to be brave and take your first step. Be a student, and study and then study some more. Find people you can trust and rely on and write everything down! I cannot tell you how much I went back to read notes on things I had talked about even years before. It matters. Write down what your goals are and decide what you are willing to compromise and what really matters to you that you don’t really want to deviate from.
Be ready for challenges and disappointments ahead of time and mitigate your risks while finding avenues for solutions or even compromises that often occur that actually make a lot of sense to change. Never lose sight of your goals, ever. Remind yourself what matters to you. Keep working toward solutions that don’t fall out of the goals column into a compromise column only to land in a I can’t do it column or I give up column. Keep reflecting on what matters.
Lastly, celebrate small wins. You will need it and it reminds you that what you are doing matters and you will need every little win to keep you motivated to continue. Rely on others to keep you motivated as well, family, friends, co-workers, advisors. Give yourself credit along the way also that you really can do it. Have confidence even when it is shattered. You are absolutely stronger than you think. In closing – there is a reason the road less traveled is less traveled…
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not smooth at all.
The struggles were many. From concept to design to financial, permitting, changes to plans and even inspections and subsequent move ins from owners.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What sets me apart is my desire for knowledge. I really enjoy learning things at a not so young age. And things that I don’t know about or understand, I study a lot and have a natural curiousity to learn all about this. This is why my radical career change after so many years was a bit right up my alley.
From the technology space (my first 25+ year career) which will seem like dinosauers to some technology readers, I was a pioneer in virtualization, blade server technology and cloud computing. I was part of a group of people that really set the stage for rollouts of all three of those technologies and there was a time when the company I worked for was a top 3 consumer of all of those technologies. I was often considered a resident expert in those fields and very well known in the technology space for many years.
In terms of the Garage Condo space, I found myself again a pioneer. When I started my project there were just over 50 garage condo projects in the United States. Now there are nearly 1,000. I somewhat pioneered a garage condo design that I believe is the finest in the entire country and with features at a price point that cannot yet really be replicated. The blueprint for this was doing what I do best – being brave, a natural curiosity that forces me to study and read a lot and study some more. But also meeting with a lot of garage condo owners across the country and developers as well and asking simple questions like: If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently. And asking owners what do you love and what do you hate about your garage condo. Taking all that feedback and turning a vision of what would a near perfect garage condo be like and turning it into a reality has been very satisfying.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I think we will see a trend of housing and commercial property that is smart density focused. There is an ongoing housing struggle when balanced with density requirements that are too stringent in my opinion. This is a careful balance that is needed, but one that many communities are figuring out well. On the garage condo front specifically I think those 2 words will become household names and people will see a lot more of them being built across the entire country.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://garagesOTA.com
