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Growing up on the Caribbean island-nation of Antigua, Egbert L. J. Perry recalls, "I never felt poor." True, his father, Percival E. Perry, earned only about $1,000 a year running a chicken feed business, and Egbert was one of 11 children.
But wealth comes in many forms. For years after his father's death, people would come to the family store to pay back money Percival Perry had lent them with little expectation of repayment. The goodwill of Antiguans was shown when Percival died, and the capital city of St. John's shut down for the funeral.
"My father was kind, generous and highly principled, no matter the cost to him personally," Egbert Perry remarked in 2006 when he established a scholarship named for his parents.
Perry has received numerous honors of his own, and at an event Dec. 2, the leadership of Atlanta's real estate industry lauded him for his principles and achievements. The Real Estate Investment Advisory Council (REIAC) and Georgia State University inducted Perry into the REIAC "Hall of Distinction."
The highlight of the ceremony was a 45-minute question-and-answer session with Perry, moderated by National Real Estate Investor Editor-in-Chief Matt Valley. What emerged from the interview was a depiction of the adage of "doing well by doing good."
For example, when asked to describe his guiding value, Perry didn't cite profit expectations or even the number of developments he has built or plans to build. Rather, he said his goal was "to create value in cities and to rebuild the fabric of communities."
That mission is reflected in developments of The Integral Group, the Atlanta-based company where Perry is chairman and CEO. When he launched Integral in 1993, Perry recalls, "no one was knocking themselves out to develop in urban centers. People who had choices left. What remained were people who didn't have choices."
The result was that inner cities were characterized by "concentrated poverty," Perry says. Atlanta was one of the worst, with a higher percentage of its population living in deteriorated housing projects than any other large American city.
No small plans
What Perry cobbled together - after extensive investigation of the urban cores of America's East Coast cities - was a new approach. "All of us are comfortable with the concept...