Gate Petroleum

key people

John Peyton (President & CEO) Mitchell Rhodes (COO) Herb Peyton (chairman of the board)

industry

Convenience store, petroleum transport, precast concrete, hospitality, real estate development

products

Gasoline, Construction material, Real estate, Food services, lodging, conventions, meetings,

type

Privately held company

revenue

$1.44 billion (2021)

num employees

3,500 (2021)

homepage

Gate Petroleum

foundation

July 9, 1960

founder

Herb Peyton

area served

Southeastern United States

location

Jacksonville, Florida, US

subsid

List Gate Marketing * Gate Retail Stores * Gate Express Car Wash * Gate Fleet Service * Gate Fuel Service * Gate Lubricants * Gate Security Gate Hospitality * Epping Forest Yacht Club * River Club of Jacksonville * Ponte Vedra Inn and Club * The Lodge & Club Ponte Vedra Beach Gate Construction Materials * Gate Precast * Gate Concrete Products Gate Real Estate * Gate Lands * Gate Maritime Properties * Ponte Vedra Club Realty * Gate Title Company

Gate Petroleum is a privately held diversified corporation headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the 11th largest in Florida in 2022. In FY 2022, the company ranked No. 338 on the Forbes list of America's Largest Private Companies and had sales of $1.44 billion and employment of 3,500.

History

Herbert Hill Peyton started the company in 1960 with a single gas station on Jacksonville's Northside. The company grew during the 1960s with additional stations in Jacksonville and then the southeast United States. The name "Gate" comes from the city of Jacksonville's slogan at that time, "The Gateway to Florida". In response to the 1973 oil crisis, the company began to diversify and added convenience items to their filling station shelves.

Filling stations and convenience stores are still the core business of the company, which operates from a 57000 sqft corporate headquarters in Sunbeam. Elkins Constructors built the facility in 1999.[18] The Peyton family owns 80% of the company, and the rest belongs to "Brothers": long-term employees (both male and female).[19]

John Peyton, the oldest son of company founder Herb Peyton, took an eight-year leave from Gate to serve two terms as Jacksonville's mayor from 2003 to 2011.

Divisions

Gate Construction Materials

The Construction Materials division consists of two companies and operates throughout the eastern, southeastern, and midwestern United States. They are members of the AltusGroup national partnership of companies that provide precast concrete products and services.

Gate Precast manufactures architectural precast concrete at facilities in Kissimmee, Florida; Monroeville, Alabama; Oxford, North Carolina; Ashland City, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Winchester, Kentucky and until they closed due to lack of market demand, Little Rock, Arkansas and Sarasota, Florida.

Gate Concrete Products manufactures structural precast and hollow core concrete fabrication at facilities in Jacksonville, Florida and Pearland, Texas.[21] Surplus concrete is donated to non-profit organizations to build artificial reefs miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.[22]

Gate Hospitality Group

The company owns and operates four private clubs in the Jacksonville area. Management of the four resorts and clubs was consolidated in 2013 under the banner, Gate Hospitality Group.[23] Nearly 900 employees work in the group:

Deerwood Country Club was owned by Gate from 1983 to 1999, when it was purchased by the club membership.[26]

Epping Forest Yacht Club, originally the St. Johns riverfront estate of industrialist Alfred I. du Pont.[23]
River Club of Jacksonville, a members-only dining establishment located in the top 2 floors of the 37-story Wells Fargo Center was purchased in March, 2004.[24][23]

Real estate development

Gate Lands is the commercial real estate division of Gate, created after the acquisition of SWD. Herb Peyton hired Ken Wilson in 1983 to work with the new real estate partly because Wilson had worked with Joe Davin and SWD properties.[27] Epping Forest, the 58 acre former estate of Alfred I. du Pont, was developed into the Epping Forest Yacht Club and the Epping Forest gated community, comprising 90 – $1 million homes and 80+ condominiums. Other real estate projects have included Deerwood Park, a 1000 acre office park on the south side of Jacksonville, the adjacent 250 acre Southpoint Office Park, the Shops at Ponte Vedra, the Shops at Bartram Walk, Riverplace Tower, 150 West Main Street (in Norfolk, Virginia), the 5400 acre Cummer Trust Property in northern St. Johns County[28] and Kendall Town at Regency.[29][30]

The Gate Outpost is a 100-acre parcel of land effectively surrounded by the Guana River Wildlife Management Area in St. Johns County, Florida.

Gate marketing

Gate Retail Stores once encompassed 225 gas and convenience stores in 6 states.[38] The retail management uses Retalix software and is split into two divisions. The southern division in Jacksonville includes Gate stores in Florida, and the northern division, managed from Charlotte, controls the stores in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky. Since 2000, the company's Modus operandi has been to renovate or rebuild the profitable stores, close the marginally profitable locations, and create new stores where a good opportunity exists. Stores in Virginia and Kentucky have since been sold.

As of 2016, the division operated 73 Gate Stores. They also provided fuel to +/-150 dealer fuel/convenience stores. The company had petroleum sales of 1 million gallons per day.[39] In 2021, Gate Stores numbered 72.[40] The company updated their brand name in 2016 by using all capital letters for GATE.[39] Their store format changed in 2019.

History

Divisions

Gate Construction Materials

Gate Hospitality Group

Real estate development

Gate marketing

Sponsored Events

Gate Foundation

Future

External links

References