About Gardens Group

Gardens Group Development represents an evolution of years of development effort and thinking about the kinds of projects that we wanted to pursue. After many years of combined development experience gained by working for notable national developers, brothers Randy and Mark Mineo ventured out in 2000 to create their own real estate development company, Praxis Resources. In short order, Praxis hit the ground running and was engaged in multiple high-profile projects primarily in Pittsburgh and Las Vegas. Praxis developed the vision, completed the property acquisitions, and secured the governmental entitlements that were required to make these projects happen. Among the notable achievements were Collier Town Square, in Collier Township, Pittsburgh, PA; Tanger Outlets and Bass Pro, Washington, PA; and the Pinnacle Condominiums, Las Vegas, NV.

Rendering of Pinnacle Condominiums and Casino, Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV

With the economic downturn in 2007, a/k/a the Great Recession, Praxis was forced to abandon its prized 1,100 unit Pinnacle Condominium project which had been approved and was well underway, but did see the completion of both Collier Town Square and the Tanger Outlets. Both remain successful projects today.

The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA

Randy subsequently moved on to a business association with Core Realty in Philadelphia, PA and has been largely responsible for the leasing and direction taken at a large inner city, Delaware River waterfront project called Penn Treaty. This 12-block area of Philadelphia lay dormant and decrepit for decades with multiple large national developers making unsuccessful attempts at revitalization. Randy, realizing entertainment uses as perhaps the area's only salvation, brought to Penn Treaty the highly-regarded entertainment anchor, Live Nation, to open one of its popular Fillmore Concert venues.

He complemented that with a strong mix of entertainment provided by other large users, the Philadelphia Distillery, Punchline Comedy Club, Goose Island Brewery and Revolutions Bowling. With this injection of new life to the district, the Delaware waterfront has been miraculously revived - despite the opinions of most of the local "real estate experts" that it couldn't be done. Although it's still a work in progress, the area has now been well established as a popular Philadelphia metro area entertainment district thanks to some good development insight, instinct and a stubborn refusal to be discouraged by the naysayers.

From this point and with the economy clearly improving for development opportunity, the Mineo brothers, Randy, Mark and Chuck, determined to team up once again to pursue developments that de-emphasized traditional retail (a troubled category) and instead focused on entertainment, food, and other uses that could serve to bring people together and build stronger communities.

The first opportunity arose on a 70-acre parcel in Wellington, Florida referred to as "K Park". It was here that the "Gardens" concept was born and battle-tested through an RFP (bid) process in which newcomer, Praxis, was pitted against five established national developers to determine which project would prevail for Wellington's K Park. In the end, Wellington curiously awarded the bid to no one, but through this process we gained many valuable lessons and many strong supporters. We learned that community residents held our development ideas in extremely high regard. We learned that communities, when approached and engaged, would take both interest and action with respect to the type of development that occurred in their community.

Proposed botanical garden, rainforest entrance at Wellington Gardens.

And, most importantly, we learned that large numbers of people in the community could be mobilized to insure that the right kind of development happened in their neighborhood. See WellingtonGardens.net.

Our passion and ideas for this type of community-centered development have only grown broader and stronger since that time. In fact, our commitment to this kind of green, community-building, sustainable development has become so strong and tightly focused that we finally determined that the name of our organization should, in a more meaningful way, represent and reflect our standards. As a result, Praxis Resources transitioned to become Gardens Group Development. That makes us officially "all in" in our commitment to the Gardens themed development concept.

The Gardens Group Team

Randy Mineo - Randy has more than 30 years' experience with real estate development leasing of several "ground up" and redevelopments. Before forming Gardens Group, Randy worked with some of the country's largest shopping center developers: The Herring Group in Dallas; Corporate Property Investors, New York; Kravco, Philadelphia; and Core Asset Management, Philadelphia. Randy managed the merchandising & leasing at several top national enclosed malls (King of Prussia-Philadelphia, Northbridge-Chicago, Quaker Bridge Mall, Westminster Mall-Orange County, CA ). Following a long history with development companies Randy, together with brother, Mark, formed Praxis Resources and conceived projects that ranged in scope from entertainment, to hotels and condo development. Randy has been instrumental in the creation and development of numerous projects including Pittssburgh, PA; Collier Town Square, Collier Township, PA; The Pinnacle Condominium, Las Vegas, NV; Tanger Outlets, Washington, PA; and most recently Penn Treaty Village, downtown Philadelphia; the Macy's building (downtown) redevelopment, Pittsburgh, PA, and; One Chatham Center redevelopment, Pittsburgh (downtown), PA . Randy majored in Real Estate/Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University.

Chuck Mineo - Chuck has served as Vice President of Real Estate and Construction for several category-leading international retailers. Over a period of approximately 15 years, Chuck oversaw the real estate, construction and legal functions for such highly regarded retailers as Clarks/Bostonian Shoes, Walden/Borders Books and Sunglass Hut International. During that time Chuck managed more than 2,500 real estate transactions in over 20 countries along with overseeing annual construction budgets in the range of $80MM per year. Chuck recently presented on one of his passions, community-centered development, to a highly engaged crowd of 400 or more - see video. Chuck is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is a licensed Pennsylvania lawyer (currently inactive) and a Florida licensed real estate broker.

Mark Mineo - Mark has worked in various facets of commercial real estate over nearly 30 years, including most recently, six years selecting and acquiring sites for new U.S. embassies and consulates in Russia (Moscow & St. Petersburg), Vietnam, Mexico, Denmark, Mauritius, Afghanistan and Iraq with the U.S. Department of State.

Prior to the U.S. State Department, Mark managed the merchandising, leasing and redevelopment of over fifteen regional malls and shopping centers (Northridge, Los Angeles, CA; Del Monte Center, Monterey, CA; Clackamas Town Ctr, Portland, OR; Park Plaza, Little Rock, AR) mixed-use and entertainment projects throughout the U.S. for both national real estate development and management firms including Clarion Partners, Yarmouth Group (Now Lend Lease),Westfield Corp and Canadian Pacific, Ltd., and with his own firm, Praxis Resources, founded with brother Randy in 2000. As VP of Real Estate for women's apparel retailer White House/Black Market, Mark developed and managed an in-house real estate function and expansion strategy, leading to the sale of the firm to Chico's FAS. Mark also managed site selection and lease negotiation for national apparel retailer Eddie Bauer throughout the U.S. and Canada, Mexico City and Germany, with German partner Otto Versand.

Mark holds a B.S. in Economics with a German Language minor from the Pennsylvania State University, is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and longstanding member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Urban Land Institute (ULI).