Michael Goldban - Founder & CEO, Magellan Realty Group

In this episode, we sit down over a glass of tequila with Michael Goldban, founder of Magellan Realty Group and a commercial real estate veteran with over 25 years of experience across law, development, and retail leasing.

Michael has held senior leadership positions at Brookfield Property Partners, CIM Group, EQ Office, and Forest City Ratner Companies. Through Magellan Realty Group, he has expanded into sports and entertainment real estate — including retail leasing at Inter Miami CF's stadium — applying institutional-grade tenant curation to some of the most high-profile and complex venues in the country.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Retail leasing inside sports and entertainment venues, including Inter Miami CF
• Why ground-floor retail is the most consequential — and most challenging — component of mixed-use projects
• How strategic tenant curation shapes placemaking and drives long-term asset value
• The shift toward experiential retail and what it demands from developers and leasing teams
• Lessons from 25+ years inside major institutional platforms
• Michael's transition from institutional real estate to entrepreneurship

A must-listen for anyone working at the intersection of real estate, sports, and live experience.

Want to dive deeper into Miami’s commercial real estate scene?
It’s our favorite topic and we’re always up for a good conversation. Whether you're just exploring or already making big moves, feel free to reach out at info@builtworldadvisors.com or give us a call at 305.498.9410.

Prefer to connect online? Find us on LinkedIn or Instagram - we’re always open to expanding the conversation.

Ben Hoffman: LinkedIn
Felipe Azenha: LinkedIn 

We extend our sincere gratitude to Büro coworking space for generously granting us the opportunity to record all our podcasts at any of their 8 convenient locations across South Florida.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Bureau, our title sponsor. With eight vibrant locations in Miami's best neighborhoods, Bureau is the perfect co-working place to work, network, and thrive alongside other entrepreneurs, creatives, professionals, and local businesses. Find your space at BureMiami.com.

SPEAKER_07 0:20

Thank you for joining us. You flew in from New York when?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I flew in uh Wednesday. Okay. And uh listen, I'm I come to Miami often. It's an easy flight. And particularly this winter, it has been very enjoyable getting out of the colds. Yeah, we've had a tough winter.

SPEAKER_07 0:38

So well, uh you're here because of uh one of our favorite people, um, Lyle Stern.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, he's the one. By the way, I bumped into him last night in the gables. Oh, that's fine. And it was like 7:30, and Lyle was out there, and he had a client, a restaurant client, and I saw him pointing out all the different things, and I'm like, this guy's always working. So he's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

I forgot to tell him that I was seeing you guys.

SPEAKER_07 1:05

So I think I've I think I sent him a text. I'm like, Michael's on, he's in. We're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

It took a while, but here we are. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad we could we could make it happen. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_07 1:14

Um, so uh we're gonna take this way back because um you're from Long Island. Yeah, yeah. What uh what town in Long Island?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I grew up in Rockville Center, South Shore of Long Island, great town, great town.

SPEAKER_07 1:28

How far from the city?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Uh we were like uh 40 some odd minute train ride. Okay. Um and really close-knit community, still friends with all my high school buddies. We still we have reunions every year, honestly. We don't even wait for the big ones. So that's awesome. Very, very tight-knit, uh, tight-knit crowd.

SPEAKER_07 1:48

Yeah, so we had similar upbringings in terms of our distance from New York City, you know, like Westchester and where you grew up in Long Island. It's like a suburb of New York City. We both had trains to get into.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, yeah. No, it was great in the old days going into the garden and taking the train. We were Long Island Railroad. You were you were Metro North. Metro North, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:08

But uh similar demographics, um, but you guys had the beach, so uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Well Rockville Center was not on the beach, but yeah, but um beach, you got ride beach. That's pretty pretty close. It's not really a beach, it's like dirty water over there.

SPEAKER_07 2:22

It's true, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:24

They shut down the beaches there every summer. It's true, right?

SPEAKER_07 2:28

So um, and where are your parents from?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Uh my mother was from Westchester, actually. She grew up in Bronxville. Okay. And my dad is a Brooklyn boy.

SPEAKER_07 2:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 2:39

Well, were they in real estate?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

You know, uh no, they were not. I mean, you know, they they ended up more residential just for their own for their own living. Um, but it sort of got a little bit of the bug from from my dad. And he had he had a rental property in Florida um when we were kids, and that was always exciting to us to hear about it. I had an uncle that was was big in real estate. Um and yeah, real estate was it kind of was always a a career that was interesting, but it was not my choice. It's sort of more of a happy accident.

SPEAKER_07 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

You know, and my background, I started out, I started out as a real estate lawyer. I went to law school.

SPEAKER_07 3:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Um and you know, wanted to do transactional work because I liked the transaction. I'd never wanted to do litigation. Um, and ended up getting into into real estate law and um never look back, you know. That was in the late 1990s.

SPEAKER_07 3:41

Okay, but let's uh let's go, let's bring this way back because we uh we want to get to know the real you, um not the not the lawyer you. We'll get to that boring part later, right Ben? So what what what did your what was your dad's business? What did you do?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

My dad was a dentist. He was a dentist, yeah. Okay. He's a dentist, he he uh his office was about a mile away, like literally a bike ride away. Yeah, home for dinner every night, yeah, home for lunch. In those days, actually, when I was a kid, they used to let us uh in elementary school, they would let us come home for lunch. Yep. So we would walk home. So we it was like a five, 10-minute walk. So we would walk home. That's cool. He wasn't home every day for lunch, but my mom was home every day for lunch. So it was a very, you know, nowadays, uh, you know, my kids are older now, but you know, we had a lot more freedom, let's just say, in those days than even at that age, you know, at a young age. Like my kids would not be walking home from school in elementary school, and we all did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:41

Um I don't think our parents gave a shit about us or something like that. They're like, I think they were doing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Go figure it out. I think it was, yeah, it was go figure it out. And by every other parent was doing the same thing. So it wasn't like you were an outlier. Yeah, it was just, you know, yeah, go figure out. By the way, which is great advice for the business world, go figure it out. Well, a little bit, right? Independence, no phones. Yeah. So we had that kind of life growing up and just on our bikes, hanging out with friends, playing, you know, we were big into sports and playing.

SPEAKER_07 5:12

Any siblings, any siblings?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

I I do. I have an older brother and I have a twin brother, actually, too. Yeah, who's also in real estate. All right. So identical twin. Uh I mean, no, but obviously it's just often, you know, every cup, not as much now, but you know, it used to be a lot more, but everybody would be like looking at us, and we'd look at them, and you know, so only in that way.

SPEAKER_07 5:38

That's cool. Um, and uh, and so rode your bikes around. What kind of sports were you into?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I mean, we played everything, but uh, you know, basketball was a big one, you know, tack, you know, as little kids, just football, baseball, we make up games, you know, we just uh it was it was a very nice suburban, idyllic um town to grow up in in a time. Listen, the 80s was was was, you know, you look back now. What year did you graduate high school? I graduated in in 88. High school.

SPEAKER_07 6:12

Okay, yeah. So you're four years older than I am. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so you know it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

So one nice thing about which Westchester, at least where I live, there's no sidewalks, but or there's some sidewalks, but my town was filled with sidewalks, so it was just easy to get around. Um, you knew all your neighbors, all the kids would be out. Yeah, it was it was, it was, and it's funny back to my dad who grew up in Brooklyn. He talks about that was more of an urban, he was in Bensonhurst. Um, but same thing. It was it was, you know, everybody knew the neighbors, people would be on the stoops. Yeah, um, you know, it's kind of like the Jane Jacobs. I don't know, you guys have read it. Yeah, so it's like Jane Jacobs. I mean, it he had more of the Jane Jacobs just because the shopkeeper was there because it was more dense, but we had that in the suburban way. Um, and now it's you know, I don't know what it's like for you guys live here, but it's it's not the same way. The neighbors don't really know each other the same way.

SPEAKER_07 7:06

Um well they you know, I I imagine that um your your town, what was the name of the town?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Rockville Center.

SPEAKER_07 7:12

Rockville Center is probably uh older than some of the towns in Westchester, maybe, right? Like, I mean, if you go some of the towns in Westchester is do have main streets, yeah. Um, but yeah, it's eventually it became those town centers really.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Well, Rai Rybrook is a new town, right? But you know that uh White Plains, George Washington. Well, George Washington apparently was on the post road, yeah. And he, you know, was on a caravan, and I think he, you know, he was in there was a battle of White Plains during the Revolutionary War. So yeah. Actually, Scarsdale, where I live, there is uh there's a little museum in town that I think it's dated early 1700s, like an old building.

SPEAKER_07 7:51

So yeah, I mean there's some really like Rai Rye's got a cool main street, yeah. It's a great main street, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, um well Greenwich, which is in Connecticut, you know. But listen, when you're in the real estate business, especially my world in retail, uh you do focus a lot on on streets, neighborhoods, um, and uh yeah, and and I'll tell you that's one of them we'll get to it, but I just that's one of the reasons why I love Miami so much and I'm so drawn to it, because it really is a neighborhood, it's a city of neighborhoods, yeah. And they all have distinct character, um, and uh, you know, it's just vibrant and growing, and it's it's a great town. It really is. It's a great town. I'm a huge fan.

SPEAKER_07 8:32

Ben, you know what they say in real estate, if people don't know you, they're not doing business with you.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

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SPEAKER_07 8:44

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SPEAKER_04 8:51

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SPEAKER_07 8:59

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SPEAKER_04 9:06

Want to stand out? Hit up tofmind-pr.com or email info at topofmind-pr.com. Because in real estate, if you're not visible, you're invisible. It was safer growing up in the 80s, like when you were allowed to just do whatever, or do you think it's the same now, more or less, or you're just more aware of all the badges?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I think it's just I I think it's that it's the phones that we're more aware. One thing happens, it goes viral, and it freaks everybody out. The West Coast. Yeah, and then it freaks everybody out. I mean, listen, it's helmets on your bicycle, like who, you know, seatbelts. Like some of the stuff was kind of stupid that we did, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Like, right. Right?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

And uh, well, you know when that happened? I don't know. Remember Sonny Bono from uh Sonny and sure? He died in a ski accident, and after that everybody wore, you know, same thing. Like I'm sure uh there were always people getting injured, and uh, but a high profile thing happens and you know everything changes.

SPEAKER_05 10:07

So I think so.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Well that's nice, yes, but I don't have the data. Yeah. Well, I I mean, listen, but my own kids are very independent, but I just think about how they grew up versus how we I grew up, and you know, there was no find my phone. Let's just say that. So and how old are your kids? Uh I have my oldest is a sophomore in college. Um, and I have twins who are uh juniors in high school.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Okay, and and yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Well they're they're fraternal, but uh but yeah, it is, it is, and they're all very, very close and they're great kids.

SPEAKER_07 10:44

And so they've grown up in Scarsdale with you? Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Well, my oldest, we lived in the city, you know, we lived in the city, and then you know, we had our first, and then we got pregnant with twins, and we're like, three kids, New York City, I think it's time to move out. Yeah, so and then we let's we uh again back to the real estate thing. We you know, we wanted to move to um Westchester. We looked at all the town, we looked at Rye, made an offer on a house in Rye. It was right after Lehman Brothers collapsed. And I remember lowballing an offer in Rye, beautiful house. And I figured, oh, they're gonna take, you know, I offered, I don't know, something very low ball, and they didn't even respond, you know, and and that was a good lesson about like the intrinsic value of real estate with a seller who is not in distress, so right, because you always think, oh, it's distress. So obviously I didn't get and we looked around a lot. We looked at Larchmont, we looked at uh Edgemont, and yeah, and actually Scarsdale, at least for us, is the best value. Yeah, and that's where we ended up and now whatever, 15, 17 years later. Um, and now planning uh the the the trip down south at some point when the when the twins go up to college, we'll see you're gonna be my wife to uh to move down here.

SPEAKER_07 12:04

Another post-COVID New Yorker coming down, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, well, listen, you come down, and it's you know, in the old days, you would come down here, no offense to the well, you're a New Yorker. Ben, where are you from, Ben? Minnesota. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Well, my oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

So my wife's Wisconsin, so yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, but you used to come down here and you would notice the difference, you know, just in everything. Um, it was just different, yeah. In the old days. Yeah. No, but now I end up turning signals and T first.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah, well, uh yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Well, New York's not so much like that, that's for sure. But no, now you come down here, and it's the opportunities are the same, the restaurants, the culture. In fact, it's in some ways it's better.

SPEAKER_08 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Uh I'm shocked actually about how expensive everything is here is really expensive, Miami. Yeah, like even like a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_07 13:00

Yeah, all the New Yorkers that came down here. Yeah, we blame it all on you guys. Kind of.

unknown 13:06

Pre-COVID was a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah. Was it? Yeah. See, I didn't know. I mean, I only knew it more as a tourist. And when we would come down, we would go to the west coast of Florida and Sarasota, which is where my grandparents used to uh live. So yeah, I think Miami, obviously, uh, you know, I always thought about the beach and then I didn't know that much about it. I'd been here a few times. Well, I had been here once before for a conference, but I hadn't really started coming down here until COVID, really. Okay, and uh yeah, and it's been a a love affair ever since. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 13:41

Yeah, so real quick though, uh going back to to high school, did you play any high school sports?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I played uh yeah, I played tennis, I played basketball, and um played some baseball, and yeah.

SPEAKER_07 13:53

So uh and uh what subjects were you good at?

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Well, I was always into the liberal arts. Yeah, I I was uh I was a history major in college um and government and English, and so I was much yeah, I was not business. I never took a business class, I never took a finance class, honestly. Um and then you know that was sort of a natural transition to law school.

SPEAKER_07 14:17

And you went to Connecticut College?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I went to Connecticut College, yeah. Small liberal arts.

SPEAKER_07 14:22

Any any any jobs in high school that you did?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Uh I was uh I I was a paper boy when I was and then I was a Chinese, I was a deliver I was a Chinese delivery driver, all right, which was uh it was actually the only downside was that my car smelled like Chinese food. Um, but that was a fun job, and you know, I was a camp counselor and so you had some jobs in high school as well. Yeah, yeah. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:48

Did you have any sense of what you wanted to do?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Not really. Um I I I always thought it's funny, I never took any business classes, but I I always thought I would end up, you know, in business. When I graduated from college, I had no idea, and the easy thing was to go to law school. I was into the liberal arts and um seemed like an easy transition. But I I you know, I never thought I would spend my career as a lawyer. Um and I didn't, and you know, I I I was prescient about that. I think I just didn't know what else to do.

SPEAKER_07 15:19

And uh so you graduated college, Connecticut College with 92 with uh what was it?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

I had a BA in history. History, yeah, and uh and then I went to law school straight straight out of straight out, straight out. You went to Card Cardozo Cardozo, yeah. Where's Cardozo? It's in New York City, yeah. Okay, and um um yeah, so I did that for for you know three years, and that was really fun, actually. Law school for me actually was shockingly fun. Also a great group of friends from law school.

SPEAKER_07 15:47

And Connecticut college is in what town?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

It's in New London, Connecticut. Okay, small very small school, yeah. Um which funny in those days, you know, it was much more the the smaller liberal, at least in in my world was lots of people would go to these now. Yeah, nowadays everybody wants Big Ten.

SPEAKER_07 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

But uh it was it was a really nice college experience, you know, it was it was a chill place and kind of intellectual, but super fun. Were you a good student in high school? Uh I was okay. Yeah, it wasn't great. I was okay. Uh I would say I I I kept my okay uh through college and into law school. I uh I was not a yeah, well, I was the I was kind of uh I was a last minute studier, let's say. I was a procrastinator. I've had many, many um all-nighters. Yeah, many all-nighters in my uh that's how I like to operate too.

SPEAKER_07 16:40

It it drives my wife crazy.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my wife, same thing, same thing. So I've gotten better about that, actually, as I've as I've aged. Um, I've definitely gotten better about that. Um and a lot, listen, a lot of that is is I was in the professional world, I've been very lucky um to work in environments where it was like, you know, there's no such thing as procrastinating. It's like, let's get it done. And uh, and and I'm much happier actually in that especially listen in the deal making world, you know, and I say this all the time is time kills all deals. You got to keep pushing forward. Like there, if you procrastinate, you're in the wrong business. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 17:23

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SPEAKER_04 17:31

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SPEAKER_07 17:44

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SPEAKER_04 17:58

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SPEAKER_07 18:09

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SPEAKER_00 18:16

I graduated, no, I kind of had some jobs, you know, different jobs, I smaller firms, and then I've worked my way up and I got to a big fancy New York City law firm, um, which at the time they had the guy who was the dean of zoning in New York City. And this guy was a legend, and he had every big developer client. Who was it? His name was Sandy Lindenbaum.

SPEAKER_07 18:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

And yeah, it's funny how you know, generations like you know, people might not know him, but anybody who's my age or or older in the business, I mean, his father, I think, was one of the people that wrote like the zoning code and either worked at the city or was just very tied in. And his son, Sandy, um, he was just this legendary lawyer. So he he got all this great development. Um these all these great developer clients. And um so they had they had this great, you know, in those days it was called dirt law. And real estate law, like at the big fancy firms, was kind of like tossed to the side because it was all corporate, right? But uh it changed actually around, I mean it probably changed before, but but real estate when I was a lawyer, kind of it was the dirt side, but it also um it was like the start of the CMBS pooling of mortgages and then selling them off as kind of securities. And and and this is kind of in the mid-90s, is when a lot of at least when I started. So so the firm as a young kid who wanted to learn and you know was you know, whatever, ambitious and wanted to move up, it was a great place because you got the dirt side and zoning and development, but you had all this kind of interesting financing stuff that was going on. So it was really fun. But I realized, I mean, I said fun, it was not fun. Being a being a uh a junior associate at at a big law firm is definitely not fun. It's a grind. Yeah, I mean, I was working, you know, billing, you know, you're billing 80 hours a week. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, you're just working nonstop. Yeah, you're just all you're there all the time. It's funny. My nephew 40 in billing for 80, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Double billing, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Uh my nephew is is uh an analyst or whatever this, he just graduated from college, he started at Morgan Stanley. He worked, those guys work more than the than the lawyers like that's a grind. But um it so it was a grind, and I realized I'm like, listen, I'm I can't sit in an office all day long doing you know grinding. Um but you know, it was a great time to learn, was really smart people. I was working, well, I was doing a lot of leasing. Um, one of the big clients was uh was the Economic Development Corporation of the state of New York. So they had these big deals. Yeah, yeah, right. Big deal. I did a lot of financing, I did a little bit of everything, you know. I didn't do that much zoning, um, but I did, you know, acquisitions, a lot of leasing. I did a lot of financing because we were doing all these, you know, it was at the time it was first union bank. It was a huge client, and they were they were pooling all these loans and securitizing them. So we were just closing, you know, loan like crazy loans all over the country, you know, just literally, it was like the go-go days where there's just a lot of money because they knew they could sell the notes and pool them together. Um and uh yeah I saw it.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Honestly, I I was too in the weeds to even know. I was like, wait, we're close.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

When you have like so many deals that you're working on at the same time, you just so you know, it's such a grind. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, so I I didn't, so that was on the corporate, I didn't get involved in the corporate side. I was like the bar were, you know, in I don't know, what you know, I remember there was one like movie theater deal that we were doing in Texas. Um, but I remember because it got complicated, but you know, you'd have dozens of these things, it would be 15 to 30 million dollars. You know, these weren't hundreds, you know, it was just these smaller pools, smaller projects. Um, and it was just volume, and you'd you know, get and it would all go like upstairs to the other floor, and those were the kind of corporate real estate guys, and they would do this.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Ultra volate. So we didn't do residential, so uh we didn't cause the stuff that I did didn't cause the whole meltdown. So I sleep very well at night.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Well, exposure to real estate complexity, almost backwards.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Yeah, it's listen, the on the legal side, the the the most you know useful thing about my my early career as a lawyer was learning how to close, honestly, and and learning how to get to yes and bridge that gap. And I and and I and when I went in-house afterwards, uh it was like a because first, you know, you're just learning the skills, but then you know, which is really X's and O's of just writing documents and document review and you know, drafting contracts in tight language. Um but you know, the good lawyers is like, how do you bridge the gap? How do you solve, you know, the you know, whatever these legal issues, you know, obviously the business people are always solving the business, but you know, there's you know, if you when in any transaction, there's like all these legal issues, and before you even get to the business, and and I got very good and I liked finding the middle ground. And how do you kind of bridge kind of you know, two sides? Yeah, problem solving.

unknown 24:26

What do you think is there any takeaway? Like, how do you how do you make that happen?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

I think it's experience, you know. I think it's and it yeah, and listen, it's it's like also when you're young, you know, I was very blessed that I got to work with really smart people and I got to watch and learn and learn, you know, good and bad. Some people's styles were not my styles, and were I didn't, you know, endorse. Um, but you know, it worked when you see lots of transactions in a very fast pace of time, you do pick up a lot, and then you get to do it. And I I actually remember my my as a lawyer, my first big negotiation, I was um like in my late 20s, and there was I was going up against a senior partner, um, like a top, top lawyer in New York City at one of the top firms, and he also was was uh he lived in my town. I knew his kids because his kids were were you know a little bit younger than me. And my parents were not friends, but they were acquaintances, and but I remember going up against and at first being like, holy shit, like I'm going up against like my dad, like I have to like negotiate this. And then I realized like I could hold my own. Yeah, yeah. And the guy was tough, he was tough as nails, you know, tough guy. And uh, so yeah, so you know, listen, when you're young and you have successes, it you know, it builds on itself and and you and you see what worked, and then you know, you try to replicate it as as you go on. So that well, he was tough, man. He he was very, very tough. What was the i i it was uh it was a uh a big ground lease. Um he was representing um we and at this point I I was representing the landlord, he was representing one of the city agencies. Um it was MTA, I think was was his client. It was a long-term ground lease. And uh, I don't even remember, it was just everything when this guy was a bat. And I think part of it was he also saw me as like this punk kid, you know, riding his bike around town, you know, staying out, you know, from town. Like he was and uh yeah, exactly. So I just remember it was like a bruising battle, but then you know, we got the deal done, we got it done fast, and uh, you know, that that was like a happy success. I mean, at the time, um, I don't think I've really, I mean, whatever, we've had tough negotiations, but like I it was it was a tough one. And uh, and I'm like, all right, I can do this. And and that sort of is kind of what you know each success that you have, it's like, all right, what's next? Right? And what what what can I do after this one?

SPEAKER_05 27:28

And uh I like that the deep diagnosis negotiations, yeah. It's like it's the fucking but really it's listening to each other and working through the problems, the manual contract, like how to resolve this, how to do it. It's not really like I'm gonna punch you hard. Right. Because very rarely do you have that kind of leverage where you can tell someone to find off.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

No, well, I as having spent most of my career on the landlord side on retail development projects, we usually don't have, and I'll deny this, you know, even though I'm on tape, we don't usually have as much leverage as the tenant because you need your tenant, and it's not like there's a you know, it's not a commodity business where it's just there's like another, like if you're in residential and you're trying to sell a condo, you know, somebody else is in most markets, some markets, if it's, you know, whatever, massive recession, but or if it's overpriced, but you know, oftentimes, and that's another area where I feel like I've gotten learned a lot about how do you create leverage when you have none. Because every negotiation is all about who has leverage, right? And usually it's the tenants because they're being feded by everybody and can go anywhere. Um, and you don't usually have that many backups for your space. Those vacancies kill you. Vacancies kill you. And on development projects, it's all it's like a puzzle. And if you lose one piece of the puzzle, it's like a house of cards, you know, and what is it, like Jenga? It's like if you lose something, the whole thing comes crashing down. And um, so yeah, it but at the same time, like, hey, we have a pro forma, right? We gotta hit our numbers, and you know, you there are certain things that are not market, you're not gonna agree, you're just not gonna agree to certain things. So, you know, it is a healthy push and pull. And at the end of the day, though, if it doesn't close, you know, like you gotta close.

SPEAKER_05 29:33

So landlords have a real example of Lincoln mode a lot.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah. Right. What do we do? Right. Yeah. Well, listen, some landlords can often be very h, you know, uh I use the term heavies, like you're right, and they're rich and they can say no. And and that's easier. It's like if you just own the asset in a development project, it's a lot, lot harder because there's also financing that you have to get, and you have leasing thresholds that you have to satisfy. Um, so you know, each deal, you know, and I said the small deal is often just as important as the big deal, and often it's just as hard, which is a crazy thing, also. Um, but you really have to nurture it and you gotta fight to to get you know, to get it done. And um, you know, it's it's fun, but retail is it's you know, like sh mind blowing a little bit. It's it's a lot of effort for for what we do for sure.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

Sports did you have your partners you first didn't have?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, so I I left the law firm. I went to Far City. And far city.

SPEAKER_07 30:41

How did you get the job over there?

SPEAKER_00 30:42

How did you get I actually I got it actually through my brother? My brother was was a lawyer and he was working in a law firm also in the city. Um, and his partner, one of the partners that he worked for, that he was close, one day said, Hey, we and they had been working for Far City that was one of their clients. And he and the partner told my brother, hey, do you know an associate? Far city's looking to hire a junior associate. He's like, Oh, my brother's looking because he because I had wanted to leave, because I was like, I'm done with law for you know, I don't want to work, you know, 80-hour weeks. And it's just also you're in the weeds and it's a grind. So uh, you know, and that was a great, I mean, Far City at the time, a lot of people might not know it. Um, but far city was, you know, such a talented development company, the smartest people, um, and a great environment, especially if you were young and you really wanted to learn and and and immerse yourself in the business. And it was all young people, and it was it was a great, you know, when you're at a law firm, I always felt like you know, you have 300 partners, you have 300 bosses, you know. Here it was just like I had we were in all in it together, obviously, Bruce Ratner, who was who was the owner, founder of it. Um, but it was a great company, and Bruce actually was a visionary in many ways. Um, one of the things that, though he, you know, if there's fame in real estate, um, he realized the power of the outer boroughs. So everybody in New York was always focused, obviously, on Midtown and the city, you know, in Manhattan. And Bruce realized very early, and it started actually with office buildings, is that he realized that, you know, you have all these at that time it was all financial services in New York City, the real estate, and that you had all these big firms and they were taking very expensive office space for functions that didn't need to be at the corporate headquarters, right? Now you're seeing that's all moving to North Carolina or Texas. But in those days, they were all in New York City and they were paying this big rent. And Bruce had the idea: well, hey, I'm gonna, and and one other thing is not just the money, the the employee base that had these jobs were also living in the outer boroughs, right? These weren't necessarily the C-suite or whatever who were living in Park Avenue and walking to work. They were taking long subways, changing subways. So he realized that Brooklyn was like a great place for back office, um for back office office staff and much cheaper rents. Um, so he started building office buildings that are much cheaper in Brooklyn, which is now like the coolest place, you know, ever, but in downtown Brooklyn, Metro Tech, and he built, I don't know, eight buildings or something like that. And it was all like, you know, A plus, Credit, Chase, and and JP Morgan, um, Morgan Stanley, like all these, and there were a bunch of city tenants there. So he so he realized that very early. And the the second thing that he realized about the boroughs was that they were under-retailed. And the national retailers did not understand the boroughs, they were scared of the boroughs, um, movie theaters were scared of the boroughs, and actually, he actually, which was very smart at the time, he found some like genius kid who was at MIT who was like some economist, you know, PhD student, or just and and he commissioned this kid to write a white paper about proving out that the boroughs were under-retailed. So, and one of the things they realized it was also it was under movie theater, like this number of screens. So all these people in the boroughs would come to Times Square, wherever they would go to Long Island and and whatever. Um, so he starts, so he had this office platform, and then he started a retail platform to build, you know, big box retail and movie theaters in the boroughs. And and he he was a great hire of talent, and it was just it was a great place to work and really, really smart people. Um, you know, they talk about like I I guess like in the tech world, it's like the PayPal mafia, right? All those guys that worked with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Like, I kind of think of of Far City as kind of like our own little mafia, and we're all like close and you know, we're in touch with a lot of the people from there and just a lot of a lot of smart people. So it was a great place to learn the business. And you were focused only on retail too. Well, I started well, I when I was there as a lawyer and I was working on everything.

SPEAKER_07 35:27

Okay, but I were you you were working on leases for retailers?

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Leases and financings and a little acquisitions. Um, but I ended up sort of just gravitating toward the retail. The retail guys were like, I was at that time I was probably like 30, and they were 35, 4, you know, so they were young and they were just cool guys, and they they you know worked hard and played hard, and just it was just like a I I had this natural, you know, attraction to them and to the business. Um, at the time it was run by this guy who I'm sure you who's now a Miami guy, Sandeep Mathrani, who was you know, kind of also a legend in the business, and he ended up being this the CEO of GGP, and then he was CEO of We Work, and I don't know what he's doing now, but you know, he he you know was obviously a really smart, um, you know, demanding, but like, you know, he created this environment about hard work, which is the story I was gonna tell you before. The first day, you know, I I had come from a law firm and you were you we were worked really hard as a very hard as lawyers, but it's also it's like a client, and you know, it's it's very kind of like fancy, and everybody, you know, acts very kind of staid. And I remember that like my first day, my first lease that they wanted me to work on was um um uh what I can't remember the name. It was what it's a store in the malls that has the ear piercings. Yeah, Claire's. So this is like a 900 square foot lease, and the guy comes in and he's like, All right, here's the issues with Claire's. I'm like, great, you know, put it on the desk. And and he's like, All right, let's call him. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, so you know, look at my calendar, how's how's Friday, you know, how's Thursday? He goes, No, let's call him right now, right? I'm like, really? And he's like, Yeah, let's call him right now. So I'm like, okay. And it was that that mentality of let's do it right now. Yeah, you know, and to learn that when you're young in your career, and you know, now you just take it for granted. But you know, at that time, that was not, you know, the lawyers are like, oh, okay, like I have 20 other things to do. Yeah, but it's like, let's do it right now. You know, we're here, let's go. Um, so that was kind of the culture there. Um, and yeah, it was a great learning experience. And and Bruce ended up, you know, buying the nets. He moved them from New Jersey to Brooklyn. It was like uh uh, you know, and uh, you know, again, it was somebody's gonna write a book about, you know, it's like the Robert Moses story of just that project and kind of what what he did to change real estate in New York. Um and uh yeah, no, it was a lot of fun. You know, it was it was a great run.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

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SPEAKER_07 39:10

Speaking of Robert Moses, I I imagine you wrote you you read the book Power Broker, right? Yeah. That's a great book. That's a great book. Yeah, if anyone wants to learn about New York history in uh from like basically the 20s till the 70s, right? Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, you got 1200 pages in here.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

So you know what? Get it on a Kindle. Because if you sketch the the the paper, yeah, I really too. And it it's like monster. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

It's like a paperweight or something. It's massive. Yeah, get shit done. And uh listen, we see that in you know, Miami is a is a city that you know, and I'm very pro-Mami, but and it's very business friendly, but it's it's hard to get it, takes a long time to get stuff done in this town. Oh, yeah, you know, it really does. You know, and and and it surprises me sometimes how long things take. Um, and uh, you know, listen, hopefully AI will solve it at some point.

SPEAKER_07 40:10

Let me ask you where you see like where where do you see bottlenecks in what you're doing that that takes longer here than in New York?

SPEAKER_00 40:17

I mean, I would I wouldn't say I think there's perception and reality. I think, you know, so I started selling Miami, let's say. So uh, you know, fast forward, I was working for CIM, which is a big, you know, kind of private equity real estate company with assets all over. And CIM got involved with Nittin and R Falcone at Miami World Center. So when I was at CIM, I got brought in and the retail there, I mean, World Center obviously comes, I think you told me that you you had people on that were involved. You could do a whole uh episode on that, but you know, the retail was a little bit floundering, and so I got involved in the retail. And you know, when I first got involved in it, part of at least my pitch is like, oh, it's so you know, it's Miami and it's so much cheaper here, and it's so much faster here. I didn't necessarily know that that was true a hundred percent. So I don't know if it's if it's actually slower than anywhere else, it's just slow, you know. And you know, is it worse? And listen, you know, Miami is unique because you do have to think about, you know, hurricanes are a real thing. You have to like plan for that. A B, listen, there's just a lot of things going on. So there's like manpower. Um, but I think you know, I I think that you know, the new administration I think is very, from what I understand, very, you know, growth oriented, and it's probably like a good thing at some point. You're talking about the city of Miami, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I mean you guys would be closer to that than I am, but um, you know, it's um listen, I I would say that every jurisdiction is much harder than you think it it should be. Yeah, you know, and that's also sitting as like a deal person who, you know, and again, my my mu much of my experience is on big projects. And like I said, it's like it's like this intricate intricate puzzle, and it's like, you know, we're always like, we want to get people open as fast as possible. And anytime there's a hiccup, you know, we're always like, why is that? Let's go, you know. So um, you know, I do think, you know, I saw some statistic where they talked about innovation in different industries, and uh, you know, from the 70s until you know now, and every industry has had orders of magnitude, more efficiency, other than a few, um, one of which was real estate. That real estate actually has gotten harder, things take longer to build and gotten more expensive relative to almost every other industry where it's been the opposite, it's more efficient, costs come down. And real estate, it's a tricky thing because you know, we are the old economy in a lot of ways. Um, but you know, as an industry, we probably could be, and I listen, I I'm no expert, I don't have any of the solutions, but as an industry, if we could figure out how to streamline and make things faster, you know, listen, we just get more shit built faster. Yeah, it's it's really in everybody's interest.

SPEAKER_07 43:33

It's bring the cost down in a lot of things, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, it's also it's not as cheap here as as you would think. Also, I mean, again, it's just it's a busy market and there's a lot going on. Listen, that said though, what I would say it is very business friendly. Um A B it's a market that retailers uh want to be in because they do the sales, and in a weird way, it's You know, I wouldn't necessarily call it under-retailed, but it kind of is in the sense that, you know, just from a supply-demand imbalance, there really is a supply-demand imbalance. Um, and you know, as a you know, developer, mixed use, you know, consultant, advisor, which is what I'm doing now, like it's a great place to be. You know, it's like money, capital's flowing here, people are flowing here, tenants want to flow here. Um, you know, it has become this, and listen, I don't need to sell you guys, but I see it. I also have perspective from you know, not being from here and just to see, you know, not that it's it's boom town, but it's just it's a high growth market. Um, and uh there's a reason why all these New Yorkers are coming, and now Californians are coming.

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SPEAKER_04 45:47

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SPEAKER_07 45:55

Later. Going back, when did you um when did you be become interested in like mixed-use developments? Were you you you you mentioned Jane Jane Jacobs earlier. Um when when was the first time you read her book?

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah. Um so I I didn't I had never taken any urban planning classes. It wasn't something that I had thought about at all.

SPEAKER_07 46:19

But you but the interesting thing is that you grew up in a in a neighbor in a town that was very mixed use, right? I mean, you had the main street, you were able to walk to town. Yeah. Um so you understood like how great it can be.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah. And I certainly had this image of Brooklyn as I, you know, uh idealized from my father and talking about what that was growing up. Um you know, let's as I got into real estate and I got more and more interested, like I had I didn't take any of those classes, but I I self-taught. Like when you're learning, you talk to the smart older people, and you hear somebody mention Robert Moses, and you're like, who's that guy? I know there's a Robert Moses beach, or you know, but like what's that all about? And you know, Jane, so it's just soaking in, and and listen, that's A, it was fun, you know, for me to learn about it. Um, but it does kind of, you know, you know, and I guess just talking it through now, yeah. It it that inspired my interest in mixed use, and and you know, at Far City it was a lot of mixed use. And since then, I would say, you know, I've worked on all kinds of retail assets, and you know, I've worked on office leasing and I'm doing that now um as well. But you know, mixed use is the best asset class, um, because it's it, you know, and it's so overspoken, but you know, live, work, play. Um people do, they want to be able to walk places, you know, and and they want to be close to other people. And you know, it's it's um i in some ways it it seems so obvious now, but but you know, it wasn't always the case. Obviously you know, they wanted to keep uses separated for a long time.

SPEAKER_05 48:06

And uh yeah. Right. So all these things kind of influence your perspective.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Yeah, you've seen yeah, and and listen, the mixed use is you know, again, is most interesting. The other thing that was interesting about sort of my career in these companies because I was thinking about this before we were speaking, it just seems like far city was just like a a developer and great developers and super smart. Um, you know, EQ at the time was equity office, but it was really Blackstone. Um no, that was he had equity residential. Well, he sold he's Sam Zell created it. Blackstone bought it for like a crazy right before Lehman Brothers, honestly, it like a crazy valuation. And so for me, there it was really the education that I got there was was more of private equity than about mixed use. Because it it it was it's kind of it was a wholly owned company for for um for Blackstone because they like I said they bought it at the height of the market. Um and there, and I was I was running the retail for them. I wasn't really working on their office stuff, I was running retail. Um but I really learned you know, Far City had more of a development, developer perspective. Um EQ and and really Blackstone, it was private equity, you know, and that's a very different mindset. And that's all about you know, the focus there is like buy, fix, sell, and about creating value and about thinking about you know these as assets, uh, creating value in assets and then and trading them because it's these are short-term holds. Like Far City was all was more buy well, buy, develop, hold. Um, this was you know, buy fix because they weren't doing ground up um hold. And how are you creating value so that when you whatever you bought it at, you're getting X return? And that was a very interesting change just in thinking about the business, thinking about the way investors look at it rather than the way and developers obviously are investors too, but it it you know, and learning from Blackstone people, talk about a great education because they are so smart, great organization. Um and just, you know, it's just they do everything the right way. And it's interesting, and then I went to Brookfield, and Brookfield was really like, you know, which is what I would always say about Brookfield when I was there, is they they're not the best because they're the biggest, they're the biggest because they're the best. And they really were the combination of amazing developers and amazing like private equity, and then merging that together. Um you know, and that's you know, they they're it's an amazing company and just great.

SPEAKER_05 51:12

What makes firms like Fort Field and Blackstone growth about that?

unknown 51:16

What makes them so good?

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Well, culture. It's all it's it's it starts from the top, you know, and the culture there is just of excellence, respect. Um it's it's yeah, I mean it it being the like literally you'd walk in and you you you think you you you feel smarter, you stand, you sit up straighter. Something about the culture, and again, it's just it starts from any business, it starts from the top. Um so great leadership, savvy business people, um, do the right thing. It's probably even down to the office.

unknown 51:54

You just feel like you're the best.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

Well, I it the offices are beautiful. I mean, yeah, I mean, they are. It's like I I remember uh walking into Brookfield the first time, and that's in Lower Manhattan, and there's water views, and you walk in, and it's this beautiful, like marble, and it's yeah, I mean it's like everybody's dressed, you know. I don't know what it's like now, you know, if people still get dressed up, but yeah, people were dressed up, and you just you come every day ready to play, ready to work, and that's the environment that you're in. And and you know, I yeah, I you the way I used to describe it's like you know, if Brookfield or Blackstone was was um you know, the 29 Yankees, right? Far City I always describes the 86 Mets a little bit, right? But but they're like, you know, it's just all around. It's just you know, it's as an organization, like why do the Patriots win all the time? It doesn't, you know, with this new because it starts from the top. It's great leadership. Why do the Jets always suck? Right? So uh so yeah, it's great. And listen, it's just the private equity has they they do, they have there's a reason why they're able to raise so much money because they know how to create value, you know, and they're very focused on being making smart decisions, like, oh, if I spend this and I I you know financially engineer that, I can sell it for a hundred basis points more, you know, and and that's how they think and they create value.

SPEAKER_05 53:25

And throw that around all the time, by the way, creating value.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Yeah, how do you create value?

SPEAKER_05 53:30

You know, what does that mean on some of these processes?

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Well, I mean, there's lots of ways to create value. I mean, a lot uh well when I was at Equity Office, I mean, they were buying a lot of it, what which was good for me, there was you know, retail stuff, you know, that uh could help like you know, you'd have these again about mixed use, you'd have these like boring office buildings, and what was going on at the ground floor, how how did you make it more um uh the best example actually I would say was Brookfield. Um, at I don't, you know, you guys are Miami guys, but you might know. Like Brookfield owned at the time, it's now called Brookfield Place, but it was called um World Financial Center. And it was eight million square feet of office, and there was this like you know, atrium that was beautiful, but there was like nothing going on inside. And at the time, you know, it had been fully leased. Um, but they had like uh I think it was Lehman, I can't remember who it was, maybe Lehman Brothers, that was taking like over a million square feet of of office space, and they told them that they were gonna leave. And so they had to fill, you know, this massive hole in this complex. And, you know, necessity is the mother invention. It's like, okay, well, how do we make this an attractive, you know, office environment? It was downtown, you know, it had lots of attributes, but it was downtown. It was after 9-11. So it was like there was a lot of hesitancy about going downtown. A lot of the rebuilding hadn't happened yet. So they made a huge bet. Like, we're gonna invest, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, and we're gonna create what was this like very boring, you know, office park. You know, it's an urban office park, it wasn't a suburban office park, but we're gonna create like a dynamic mixed use environment. We're gonna bring in great retail, we're gonna bring in great restaurants. You know, they had some food, but it was fast food, and maybe they had a shop here and there. Um, but it was nothing uh spectacular. And they would never would have done that if they hadn't had this, you know, massive hole that they had to fill. Um, and listen, short, lots of hard work. And I don't know, if you ever get you know to Manhattan, you should go downtown and see it. It's beautiful. And that's yeah, and that so and then yeah, and they re they re create, I mean, they always had this great um um winter garden, they called it, which you know is beautiful, spectacular space. But you know, added restaurants, added shops, changed lobbies. Listen, in the office world, it's easy. A lot of it is let's buy it, let's just make a nice lobby, and we'll, you know, have a conference space and add a coffee shop and small. Brookfield did it much bigger. And again, so adding value is is to some you're putting good dollars after whatever your initial investment was because you think that between whatever you paid plus what you put in, you're gonna get like a much greater return. And listen, these guys, you buy it right, you you invest in it, and then you sell, and the smart you know, investors you know, if you're good and you buy it right and you make the right smart, you know, improvements to it, you're you're gonna create value.

SPEAKER_07 56:59

So Lehman leaves are a million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Yeah, they start with the retail because they're gonna attract. Yeah. Because, you know, again, it was also it's like uh and this is the challenge that you know we see big time post-COVID. It's like it was less so there at that time, but it was a similar concept. It's like, how do you make an environment that people want to go to work to? You know, because especially now, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:26

For Brookfield the problem, they're so huge that they'd believe in them, but if you're not in Brookfield and you have this thesis that we're gonna create value, we're gonna hit these higher renewables because we're doing these renovations, right? Sometimes it's a really hard case to make any any insights into like how to sell things.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

Listen, the pri well well, listen, that the pri the I mean that's the whole balance.

SPEAKER_05 57:47

Yeah, like I see deals in like Winwood, for example, where guys have huge vets on big renovations, big, big number of like purchases, and then those are the things that we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Right. Well, that's not so much so that's not value creation in the same way because those are new a lot of that's new build. Yeah, and that's a whole different ball game when you're building spec and in emerging markets. And listen, I've done a lot of that, versus like you're buying existing assets um that are underpriced in the market for some reason, something's happening. In this case, it was a looming very large vacancy. Um, listen, their whole business model is getting investors and giving them returns and get, you know, so you know, they have huge um capital raising arms. You know, if you're just a regular guy, you're doing it friends and family, you know, it's a different ballgame. And that's why, listen, I I don't follow it anymore because I'm not there, but it's like you see what these you know, private equity real estate firms, how much capital they're raising, you know, massive amounts because you know, they have a secret sauce. A, they have the scale to buy things, you know, and they have the capital to put into it, um, and the patience, you know, and again, not that I'm the expert on this, but when Blackstone bought Equity Office's office portfolio, it was literally like right before the world blew up, and they spent this fortune. Uh, and it happened to them also with Hilton Hotels, I think. They bought that also at the height. And because they have so much money and so much capital, they can wait out the cycle. So it does, it gives them huge advantages. Where if you're just a small developer, um, you know, it's obviously it's much harder. You need to have, you know, and listen, it's it's a tough business. I mean, real estate, you hit it right, and every it's easy. You know, my projects that I work on are very long life cycles, and you gotta have big balls, you gotta have a lot of patience, and you do, you need to have the capital to withstand it. Um, and yeah, I mean, when it works, there's no greater thing in the world, but it's like overnight success. You know, there's a lot of late nights and a lot of nights lost sleeping as you're executing on your business plan.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:12

What's up, builds? We're interrupting the podcast because we want to make some money together with you guys. We have a uh lease coming up that we're representing the uh landlord on. It's in East Hylia. This thing is sweet, Ben.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

It's a really sick warehouse. I mean, probably one of the nicest warehouses we've ever been in. It is the nicest warehouse we've ever been in.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:30

Probably been the nicest warehouse we've ever been in.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:32

This thing's got 25,000 square feet of total space, 5,000 feet on two floors of class A office.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:38

I mean, Class A-ish, industrial.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Dude, no, this is sick. This is a sick office. It is a sick office. It's the sickest office I've seen in industrial space. Yeah, marble floors, really nice bathrooms. These guys built it out for themselves, but aren't ready to occupy this space yet, so they hired us to find a short-term tenant looking for a three-year lease term on this thing. Uh, 18 bucks a foot modified gross. The the 20,000 square feet of the industrial space has 19 foot clear ceiling heights, and everything's brand new. Brand new LED lighting, everything's clean, 2400 amps of power, three phase, more than you could ever use. It's a it's a beast.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:10

Fully air conditioned, too. Fully AC'd. Yeah. So um they're looking for a short-term lease. They're super reasonable. If you got a tenant, reach out to us. Cheers. So, quick question though. You so you were really mostly on the uh on the landlord website. Yeah. Um, and then you you left um Brookfield in 2019.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Yeah, and I went to CIM. Yeah, I went to CIM. Yeah. And CIM also, you know, what was interesting about them was, you know, in some way, like that's just an entrepreneurial shop. They are in every asset class. Um, you name it, they were in it. If there was opportunities, they were great at raising money, great developers. Um, and they listen, for me, it's you know, as a retail, they had assets, great assets all over the country. Um, and that's sort of what got me. So that got me to Miami, um, which was great. And my the other thing that that I got through my experience there um was kind of the back to mixed use, the sports adjacent uh projects, and the power of or or listen, if it's done wrong, kind of the downside of it, but if it's done right, the power of the adjacency around the stadium. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. So like you see what people do right and what people do wrong. So well, actually, uh the first time and I was not involved with this, it was, you know, when I was at Forest City, Bruce bought he bought the Nets and he moved them from New Jersey to Brooklyn and built a whole district around that. And that that was a story for another day. Um, and that was a bruising experience and just the community, and it was political and just very bruising. But on the positive side of it, when I was at CIM, they had a project called Centennial Yards, and that was right across the street from um State Farm Arena where the Hawks play, and Mercedes-Benz Arena, where the Falcons played. It also had the convention center, which is one of the busiest convention centers um in the country, and it had a whole bunch of other cultural things, the College Football Hall of Fame, and there was a park, Centennial Park or uh Olympic, whatever. It was lots of things going. Um, and then right next to it, though, was what they called the gulch, which was just this sunken area that was old train tracks and parking lots, and it was like you know, 50, 60 acres, right literally outside. Um, and you know, the owner of the Hawks um was Tony Ressler, who was, you know, a private equity guy, also. His brother was Richard Ressler, and Richard was one of the founders of CIM. Um, you know, Tony owned the team, and Richard had the real estate company, and it was kind of like, duh, like, how do we not develop this area? We have this amazing location, it's in this historically underutilized area. The cost to renovate this for almost any other developer would never have penciled, but because of them, and because a they had deep pockets and patience, um, and it was also part of a team and the stadium, and you know, to be able to, you know, build a district around it, just it it it when you see it after the fact you cannot see it. How did this not make sense? Well, you still had to build for because it was a gulch, it was 40 feet below kind of the level where State Farm Arena was. So you did have to build up was super expensive. But you know, uh so that you know that went on, and just seeing again mixed use, seeing deep pocketed developers with long horizon, and and having a built-in anchor that's dry bringing people at a place that you'd go downtown in Atlanta, and Atlanta is an amazing city, too. I mean, it's uh it's thriving and it's a great place. Um, no, it's not as cool as Miami, but it's pretty cool, Atlanta. It's pretty cool, it's a culture. Yeah, have you spent time in Atlanta? No, okay, yeah. Yeah. Um but you know, when you have, you know, especially a new development project, it's like, how do you get people there? Well, people are already there. So we already have them captured. How do we build something that's gonna make people want to stay and live and work and play? And, you know, so that sort of is what led me to the next process. Project that I'm which I'm currently working on, which is Freedom Park.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:04

But you you left and started your own.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

Yeah, after so I, you know, listen, our business is a transactional business, it's a project business. I had fallen in love with Miami. I wanted to work more in Miami. And also, listen, I've been working for these big companies, and I uh I'm only telling you all the great stuff, but there's also downsides to working for these big companies because you're like, however high you get up, you know, you you don't own, you know, uh I was never in the C-suite, let's just say. So I always wanted to work for myself and kind of do my own thing and start my own thing, and and you know, I I always wanted to have clients and partners, not bosses. Yeah, and then you know, I took the plunge. Yeah, salaried corporate real estate guy. Uh yeah, it was a big switch. Well, it was an easy transition because when I when I left, like I I was working on Miami World Center uh on World Center, so I I that was like my first client as uh as you know when I started my company. Um and then like the next day. And yeah, right. So and at that point we were, you know, kind of not that you're ever done. We were it was really more kind of you know just closing out the last stuff. But it was that was my first client, and I stayed on that. And then I I got, you know, very shortly thereafter, I got involved in world uh in Freedom Park. So, you know, when I was at CIM and I was saying about Centennial Yards, the guy that was running the Centennial Yards project, he he had left uh CIM and he he was working, his name is Devin McCorkle, who would probably be a great guy to have on this. When we can start telling all the stories, he'd be a great guy to have. So Devin really became an expert on you know stadiums and not just from a leasing, but from financing. And that's the other thing. It's it's very attractive. The markets and the capital markets look very fondly in these types of projects as well. So he was very um, you know, on the financial side, on the zoning side, on structuring the way that these deals work. Because a lot of this, you you know, you either have long-term ground leases or you know, you have to buy the land from the city or whoever has it all. So he got really great at assemblages and financing structures and learned it, you know, backward and forward. Anyway, he got hired by the Moss family to run the project at Freedom Park because you know they had gone through a whole entitlement to get it uh uh uh entitled. And then it was time to actually, okay, we got to build this thing, we gotta lease it, we gotta finance it. Like we need to bring on somebody who's done this before. So they hired Devin as the president, and you know, we were buds, we worked together, and uh, you know, and again, that was one of the beauties of going out on your own, is that you get to work with your hopefully, if it works out, you get to work with your friends um and people that you admire and like and you know that you work well together, and so it was a perfect fit. And literally that was my second client. Now I'm like, oh shit, I'm suit like I don't really have time to do anything else. And Freedom Park has really been, you know, a pleasure to work on, and it's you know, it's the right project in the right city at the right time. Um, and uh, you know, listen, the stadium is opening April 4th, and uh, you know, it's like you go down there and you see what's going on. It's actually you know, I'll give a shout out to the whole team that's that's working to get that finished. I mean, that that's been a remarkable effort by that team, and just you know it build construction is you know, they say like a soccer stadium's out of all the different stadiums is a little bit easier. It's really still really hard. And they built it in near record time, and it's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and listen, you know, the it's a lot of effort and it's beautiful. And listen, it's gonna be a great thing for the city.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:11

What was your thesis of the gel that you left you left the is it a consulting, is it a program?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Uh it's a little bit of everything. I mean, the thesis really was you know that there are the retail's hard, right?

unknown 1:10:27

What's hard about retail?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:30

Yeah, well, it's curating, it's the deals are hard, it's complicated. Yeah, exactly, right. Right. It's just it's and especially on project-based. It's just things move so fast and it's complicated, and you gotta know the market and the players, and just you know, so what I what I found that there was like a a niche where you'd have um you'd have great developers who are great, but they were either building condos or office buildings, and but in order to make great places, you needed great retail. And while they were great at developing what was going on above, they weren't focused. They maybe they could have been. It's not like this is secret sauce, it's just you got to grind it. And I and I noticed that even at when I was working, you know, with the Blackstone guys and the Brookfield guys, they were like the smartest people ever, but they all hated retail too. They hated retail because retail's tough, because even when you finish, like if you have an office tenant, you're kind of done with them, whatever their bankruptcies happen, you sign the deal, it's hard, whatever. And it's but it's a commodity, and then typically you don't hear from them again until it's time to renew. And retail is always something, and it's very high touch. Um, you're also it's also it's a business that has it's not a place to do business, it is a business. So, you know, it adds all these complexities because little things like where's the trash? And how am I gonna deal with, you know, whatever it is. Like, you know, there's a lot of like practical, you know, and and often in the design, you really do want to get involved early because the architects also don't care what's going on at the ground plane. So columns are in the wrong, you know, so all these things that that developers realize, and they just don't want to. So I I saw that there was a niche that, yeah, they could do it, but like I do it all day, every day. Why not, you know, bring somebody on? You know, you're already gonna pay all these fees to the brokers anyway. Um, you know, I'm gonna you're gonna end up paying double to fix it if you don't do it right in the uh up front. So like there was uh you know, this niche that I found that the that could help serve the market, and um, and so far, you know, I've been proven right, you know.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:02

So let's just take uh Miami Freedom Park, for example.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:05

So the the project is approved. Um are they uh are you already involved in trying to help them with the design of the retail?

SPEAKER_07 1:13:20

Um at one point, because yeah, I think the design is really important, right? And how you know the different retailers are gonna interact and interact with this with the stadium, the people coming in. Right. There's also an office component there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:36

The city of Miami's bringing their um offices over there as well. Yeah.

unknown 1:13:41

Um hopefully you're brought in very early in this process.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:44

Yeah, well, I was brought in very early. So um, I mean you know, the re retail, especially when it's project retail, merchandising. Design is less important for not that it's not important. Design is it's more like massing, programming. How do all these pieces fit together? How do the buildings fit together? Um, how is it connected to parking? What is like the pedestrian shopper experience? How do you create a listen? It's how do you create a place that people want to go to that's comfortable to get to, which is parking, from parking as you meander around, that is, you know, there's a logic to it that it sort of makes sense. Um, and it's part of that that's wayfinding, uh, design is a part of it, you know, public spaces are super important. So these were all the things like very early, and then you know, we so at very high listen, I'm not a designer um or a landscape architect, but what the first thing that we we did, and you do one of these, is is really just blocking and tackling and massing. It's like, how does this master plan um and and there was a master plan as part of the entitlements, but it was very um high level, let's say it was from 30,000 feet. It wasn't at ground plane level, like how is this gonna work? So listen, the first you know, year it was really like okay. And by the way, you could be the smartest on paper, the greatest planner in the whole world, but once you go to the market, the market's very unforgiving. The market's gonna tell you real time if they like it or they don't like it. Um, so a lot of that is getting feedback from the the tenant, the end user. Like, does this have a logic? Does this make sense? Um at this point, you're you're there's interest from tenants that are coming to the yeah. So so I started on the project um in I think it was like April of 2023. I started my company in March of 2023. I started April of 2023 in the retail world, like the big um, there's a big, you know, ICSC and there's a big retail conference in Las Vegas in May. So the first thing we wanted to do was like, okay, we got this, it's improved. We're gonna we're gonna announce this project to the market. We got to go to Vegas and we're gonna meet with every single person we can. We got to get a deck together, and we're gonna go in and let's just see what everybody says um and get you know real feedback. Because, like I said, in a in a room, you could be the smartest person in the world, but if you bring it out to the world and it doesn't survive. You guys are going to because everyone else has a so yeah. So, well, I I had access to a friend who let me kind of crash at his booth. So we we figured out I got a table, and we just basically for three days, we put to like together a really quick deck, and for three days at this thing, nonstop, we just went out to the market and started talking, you know, selling Freedom Park. Um, I can't remember if Messi had officially come to the team at that. I think he had. Um, but you know, so a lot of it is just educating, you know, it's supposed like any kind of uh, you know, sales is just getting it out there. Yeah. Uh Vegas, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:17

Yeah, this is the biggest retail conference where you guys walking the floor and talking to potential attendants.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

So yeah, so Vegas, so it's a combination. So Vegas is cocktail parties, pool parties, um uh actual show where you're walking the floor, we had a table, breakfast meeting. It's like basically from the second that you and by the way, it's really starts when you get to the airport because you're way you're sitting there waiting to get on a plane, and there's people that you see, and then you're you know, you get to sleep on the plane, and from the second you get there to the second that you leave, you're just networking, talking to people, trying to get in front of and we had, you know, listen, I spent the two months before is like setting up meetings, who are, you know, and really focused on anchors. You know, who are the anchors that we wanted to focus on? Um, you know, because you know you can always find, you know, your small, you can you're gonna have your coffee guy, you're gonna have lots of shorts. Uh we announced a couple of deals. We are gonna be announcing um several more, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:25

Uh breaking news.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:27

Um I cannot. Sorry. Sorry. So yeah, exactly. I I cannot. Um we announced so so far we've announced three three deals. Um so the first one is Pop Stroke, which is a Tiger Woods um mini golf concept, which is awesome. And we, you know, it's part of the fun part of the job. Oh, yeah. Oh, you guys gotta go. He's up in uh he's got something uh in West. Yeah, he he has like 20 of them. It's great. It's a great concept, it's fun. And one of the things, listen, it's it's they they were our first tenant, but you know, when you when you ask uh, you know, the guy who started it, who's great, you know, great business guy, really small great brand. Um, you know, who's your customer? He said, we're from five to 95. And I think, you know, to us that was always like, hey, that's what you know, we're building a soccer stadium in Miami. Like this is we're building like this huge public park. This is for the community. Like we loved that, like hearing that became sort of like a mantra, not everybody's, you know, obviously it's Miami, so we're gonna have night stuff, we're gonna have lots of family stuff, but we liked kind of you know, starting the process with a tenant that that had that large of a of a you know customer base. So they take 75,000 square feet. So they have two 18-hole uh mini golf courses are outside, and then they have bar restaurant. Um, and you know, it's just it's just fun. Like I took my kids there. Yeah, or just uh come whenever. Yeah, weekend. I mean, they they they draw people uh all the time, and uh it's and it's just fun, yeah. Yeah, and it's summertime when you don't have anything to do with a kid, right? You take him out, and he's got like you know, the uh things that put out like the water to cool you down a little bit, and you can order food and drinks outdoors, yeah. Outdoors, so uh yeah, top golf mini, and uh yeah, you should. I mean, it's it's great. He you know, he's all over Florida, he's gone out west, he's you know, growing. Um they actually they found us. They found I mean we we kind of you know, we hadn't really been, I mean, they called literally they called the coming soon sign. Because they were you know, it's not so easy in Miami to find that much land, yeah, you know, and uh so yeah, no, they found us. And so, you know, it was it was a tough deal, but we we got through it, and uh, so that's gonna be really exciting. And they're uh in for permit, they should be pulling their permit, you know, hopefully any day now. Similar to the next structure.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:15

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:16

Right. You know, and they build it fast, um, really uh, you know, impressive, uh, impressive group. And listen, so you know what the overall thesis, though, is that you know, again, back to Miami is as you know, and I see this as just as an outsider too, but it's it's a city of neighborhoods and districts, and we're the next districts, right? And and what we are is you know a fun entertainment district. So lots of food and beverage, lots of entertainment options. Yep, there's gonna be a hotel, there's gonna be office buildings. Uh, as of we're not entitled for her for a residential right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:56

This episode is brought to you by Built World Advisors. Yeah, that's us. We're not your typical commercial brokerage. We combine deep market knowledge with a media platform that actually connects to people doing deals. The developers, brokers, architects, and attorneys.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:10

Let's not forget the investors, Ben. From warehouses in East Hialia to off-market gems in Alapata, we help you find value where others aren't looking. If you're tired of waiting for opportunities to land in your inbox, let's talk.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:21

Built World Advisors, real estate for the people who get shit done. You can check us out at builtworld advisors.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:27

Um, and then who are the other tenants that you should do? So we um we we announced uh like a kind of it's sort of like a Dave and Busters concept, but it's it's a zip line operator also. That's great. So we're gonna have zip lines. So that's called Toro Verde. We actually found them, they were based in Puerto Rico at a great entertainment district in Puerto Rico.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

I've done some zip mining in Puerto Rico, have you? Yeah, building over the soccer. All over, yeah, all over. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:02

So uh, yeah, well, we have 130 acres, so you know there's rooms, there's room to do it. Um, but just this is like a fun to have you zip line. Yeah, it's so I I went, so they they're in an entertainment district in in Puerto Rico near where the convention center is, um, which is a very nicely executed project. So we went down there and I zipline there and it was it was fun. And we're like, this is great. Yeah, exactly.

unknown 1:23:29

Who found them on that?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:30

We found them. Yeah, we found them. Yeah, we found them. And uh um, and then they're um we're doing a deal with a concept called Fever. Um, fever is it's actually a it's a big global business, it's a ticketing platform. Candlelight orchestra thing? Um I don't know. It's uh what's that candlelight orchestra? That sounds familiar. Well, so fever was was in they're a ticketing platform, and they were providing ticketing for all these traveling exhibitions, like the messy exhibit that was down in in the the grove, and you know, the bodies or Van Gogh, all these traveling shows, and they realized that it was such a great business. They're like, we let's get in the business. So they started buying content, and so what they're gonna do for us a 30,000 square foot box. Um, every 90 days, they're gonna bring a different attraction, and they keep rotating it out so it's it's fresh, and just to again, also five to ninety-five. They have kids stuff, they have more adult stuff. So is that the yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:35

My kids haven't tried to see some blueies, right? But they loved it. Yeah, right.

unknown 1:24:45

And they go ahead and play for like an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:47

Right. Yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:51

Yeah, it's kind of dumb when you're like it's kind of like people are running through that place paying 50 bucks a pop. Yeah. And the kids love it, and like give them something to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:01

Right, and uh exactly. And and listen, it's things like that, and that's the right now why you know when you think about retail just as a as an asset class, um, you know, everybody's spending so much time on their phones, COVID, you know, you don't even know need to go to work anymore. Being around people, doing fun things, having experiences, that becomes so, so important. Um, and that's why these districts, you know, listen, we're not curing cancer, but you know, creating a place that people want to go, bring their kids, go out on a date, hang out with, you know, just their friends and and have fun and do have memorable experiences in real life. It's essential. And listen, it's evolving. Like this a few this this thing didn't exist a few years ago, and now like every 90 days, there'll be another reason for you to go somewhere with your kids, and you're gonna go to Freedom Park, and that's where you're gonna experience it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:00

I mean you have such an interesting perspective because you grew up in the era when like the mollus king.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:06

Yeah, right, 80s and 90s evolved. Yeah, it was 90s, and you roll around rock girls, and hang out at the mall. Food court, yeah, right. Right now we're in the experiential.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:18

What's your take on retail? Well, listen, yeah. I mean, listen, retail retail suffered, I would say, two existential level body blows. So the first was the internet, right? When you don't have to go to the store anymore, you can buy it. So how do you survive? Um, the second was COVID, where you know, nobody let went anywhere and people were afraid to go places. Um, and listen, it it called out a lot of like the you know, the not good businesses, and the good businesses and the good assets won. So, what won? So class A malls won for sure. The top tier of 150 malls have only gotten stronger. Yeah, those Aventura mall is as strong. Exactly. Those things have only gotten better and stronger, and rents are going up and sales are going up. Check grocery anchor, you know. While you could order the stuff to your house, people still want to go to the grocery store. You still need to go to the barber, you know, you still need to go to the phone store or whatever it is. Um, so that worked. Um, and and what's the other? So mixed use uh and entertainment. Like that's the other one. Because again, people need to, we're social, we're humans, we're social beings, right? You want to see others, you want to be seen by others, you want to, you know, go out, drink, you want to meet girls, it's girls want to meet boys, and um yeah, yeah, exactly. Gen Z, right? And uh, and by the way, in shopping. Online sucks. Like you want to try it on. You want to feel it. So, like, you know, so the good stuff survived. Um, you know, the other thing about the sports and entertainment, there's not a lot of new development going on because you're not built, you know, we were over-retailed, you know, clearly. So a lot of that stuff has gotten repurposed to other things and industrial or whatever else. I mean, the market is very efficient. It works. Um, so now we're less we're less under-retailed, but retail it it just has changed. I mean, it's it it is much more F and B, much more than you know, like crazy amounts of F and B. You know, in this market, you can you can do it. Um, but again, anything that that's fun, or we call it eatertainment, where you know, there's some food and beverage, but you're doing something. There's a game involved. And you know, the most the classic example is bowling, which, you know, listen, they've been doing that forever. But we, you know, a lot of the biggest challenge that we have now is there's so many new concepts coming. It's picking the winners and losers, right? Like which of these concepts are put in these tables.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

I don't know why, you don't like them, or it's too many. Oh, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:19

You guys also bowling bowling's fun. Um, yeah, it's just picking, you know, who who are the right um who has it's not even the concept, it's who can execute it, who who has the, you know, A, who has got the money, right? Do they have the money to actually do what they say? But do they have the operating shops to build a business or expand a business? And again, it it's it's hard. And that's why I think so many landlords hate dealing with it. It's because I just want to build my condo. I know what my units mix is, I'm gonna finish my finish, do my finishes. It's an office building, industrial is its own thing, right? Retail, it's just it's so entwined, um, and there's so much hand holding. Um, and I guess I have a high threshold for annoyances that uh it makes it makes me kind of I'll I'll take the um the headache away from you and I'll figure it out for you guys, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:20

Well, I think you mean an incredible thing because I think lawyers are having I wouldn't say existential crisis, but I had a conversation with an attorney yesterday.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:30

He's like, you know, we can't build by the hour anymore. Like AI is people are coming prepared, it's cutting into our hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

Right. No, it is. I listen, I don't know how you guys are using it, but it's kind of hard not to uh it's kind of hard not to. And you're crazy not to use it. You know, the lawyer, like there's uh ethical things and it would involve with that, but yeah, I mean they can draft something fast. Uh listen, I use it also. I always have questions about something, you know. I use chat mostly. Yeah. I I I'm actually I've just started using I'm you know, I've started using Claude, I'm still learning that a little bit. Um, but I mean listen, it's it it it'll be interesting to see how real estate adapts to it because it does, you know, it used to be right, knowledge in this world was was smarts, were were rewarded. Now it's because it was it was rare, right? There's only so many really smart people. Now it's democratized, everybody has access to it. So what does that mean? I think our business is a relationship business in real estate. So listen, I I hope that we are you know immune to much of it. I think it's gonna make us much better, much smarter, much more efficient, but you know it's a relationship business, it's a shaking hands business. Um it is good. Right.

unknown 1:32:07

You know, kind of groups out.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:09

Yeah, chat can't really do that.

unknown 1:32:11

I mean, it can help for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:12

I think, yeah, well, chat will will uh could give you like here's you know what what a mathematical equation tells you what it should look like. You know, it's almost like it's like a to use a baseball analogy, it's like moneyball coming to everything where it's all uh and and do they work more often than the old time guy? Maybe, you know, but a combination of both is how I think because it's the old time, you know, chat's not gonna, you know. I I I feel immune enough. I don't know about for my kids, but for for I think for what I do, I think in in our world and in the brokerage world.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:00

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:01

So AI's not gonna suggest you, you know, a uh a zipline.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:06

Yeah, right. Well, also they might say it, but it's like you still gotta go to Puerto Rico, you gotta have dinner with the guy, you gotta spend time, you gotta show interest, you gotta AI's not getting on the zipline. All right, yeah. So, but hopefully we can figure out how to use it to back to where we started making things more efficient. And certainly if there's a way to I I was at some conference recently where I was speaking at some chamber event here, and somebody came up to me afterwards, and it was one of some engineering firm, and they they have like an AI plan review that you know they're trying to get you know, some proprietary system where it's like they'll do it and it's it knows exactly what the code is. So things like that, hopefully, one day we'll be able to really speed up. You know someone's gonna build a poll on how to like prompt it in a way where it allows for like a 150-story.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:04

Yeah. Wait, isn't that live local unless you do that? Uh before. So, Michael, um, when are you guys gonna make some more uh announcements?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:19

Um well, um there was a big announcement yesterday on the naming rights. I don't know if you guys saw that, so there's a naming rights partner. Uh Newbank. Okay. Yeah, so that was a big thing. The name it's the name of the new New Bank's new stadium. Yeah, it's great. It was, it's not crypto. It's a pr it's it's uh from Brazil. Yeah, it's actually a huge bank from Brazil. It was just announced yesterday. Um we're I would say, you know, listen, that we're very strategic on how we communicate things, and you know, it's a big project, and um, so we're we're I I would use the term strategic. So there there will be uh a very nice uh announcement. And listen, we're we're trying we are deliberately trying to space things out, you know, there, you know, you you want each announcement to get the appropriate, you know, attention and not overwhelm the market. Um, so I would say probably in the next 30 days we're gonna and a very so a couple of very, very exciting things. Like, you know, I would say like project making types of things are around the corner. Um, which, you know, listen, it's been it's been great. And like I said, it's it's the right project in the right time in the right city. Um and I think, you know, listen, it's it's gonna we're gonna be the next, you know, district in the in a city of great districts, yeah.

unknown 1:35:52

What's your perspective on Miami?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:53

You come from New York, you're still out there, yeah. I I you know, I I love it here. Well, you got another two years in Miami.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:01

Uh well, my yeah, I've I've juniors, uh I'm like one of my kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:06

I have one of my kids, I'm like, how about UM, right? No, I'll tell you. So my so when I got, you know, when I first started learning about Miami, it was in um during COVID. And at the time I was at CIM and I had this platform of retail all over the country, right? So we had assets everywhere. Chicago, New York, Chicago, um, Seattle, California, um, Denver, like all over. And it's like, I'll tell you, you really saw how different cities handled COVID, what happened in those communities during COVID, and you know Miami just, and just Florida in general. I mean, just to like we would have get out, you know, we'd still, you know, we had to stay busy, right? So we would have our you know, weekly calls, and you'd have these calls and San Francisco, you know, assets in San Francisco or in downtown Seattle, and you'd hear about, or in vegan, even like in you know, Vegas and whatever, um, you'd hear about what was going on in these places, and you're like, you know, what the heck? It's like I don't know, it was almost like it was chaos, honestly. And it's like you had to board up buildings, and it's just like, and you're just like, how are they letting this happen in these cities? And then you'd come, you know, and you'd come down here and everything was open, and it's like, let's go to Komodo, baby, you know, and it's like it was just it was night and day, and and I realized though that that was you know, it's it's it's different the way that and it's the state too. And I don't know if it's DeSantis or the mayor or whatever, but you guys just have a different perspective about governing. And I I saw it like again from a very close-up experience. I'm like, wow, like I want that. I don't want that, you know, I want to be here, right? Yeah, right. And freedom and and you know, right. And uh so that was a big eye opener.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:09

Listen, in all fairness to to New York and in New York especially, right? Like and it was probably happening here for two weeks, and then it would be dead, right? Right.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:20

And I couldn't be happier to be down there. Right. But New York is it's a different monster, right? Because um it it's so dense, and people get on metros and train stations. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:30

So Yeah, that's fair. You know, outside Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:37

That's fair. Yeah, you know, it's spread out. Yeah. No, listen, I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:48

Yeah. I can I can understand people's initial skepticism, but they needed to go on to the case.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:54

Yeah. And listen, I think a lot of it though is just there was just a lot of crime in some of these places that did really Yeah, and you know, literally people, you know, in Chicago, like you'd hear stories about just you know, people would go into these shops and just take stuff, and you know, so so that was one thing. And then listen, so the New Yorkers started coming down, and I don't think that's slowed down, and now, you know, now we're seeing a lot, and you know, and I'm also you know, we're doing office at uh Freedom Park, so I'm I'm close to you know what's going on in the office market, and listen, it's a real thing too. That people uh office occupiers are looking down here, they are they're they're hedging bets, they're dipping toes because people want to be here, so if the talent's willing to go there, um, then they're definitely dipping toes, and you see that in the office market here.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:49

And a quick question on the retail in the office do you guys represent yourselves or is there another one?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:54

Yeah, we have uh we have brokers, so we have a team on the office, we have a great team from Cushman, uh Brian Gale and Andrew Trench, great guys. I don't know if you know that on the podcast. Has he? Yeah, Brian's great. Yeah, Brian's great. Brian's great. And on retails, we have Jared Robbins. I don't know if you know him, but Jared's great. He's from in-house commercial, um, you know, real estate family. Craig Robbins is his uncle, and uh Jackie Sophie is his aunt. So and his family's been, you know, he's I think fourth generation Miami Beach. Yeah, and uh we had Don Silfer on the podcast. Oh, you did?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:30

Yeah, that was legendary.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:31

Yeah, I'm sure the stories uh that he told, right? So so uh yeah, that must have been a lot of fun. So uh, but yeah, so Jar Jared's great. So we you know, and they they're just like I don't live here, they're just much closer to the the ins and outs. But you know, listen, so just like I said, like on both retail and office, like there's just there's a lot of demand um to be here. Um so listen, a lot of it's is is um opportunistic. So, you know, I think in our first phase of retail, we're in the four to five hundred thousand square foot range. Um office, we have our first office building that you know we're in design for, planning to break around. It's about 250,000 feet. Um, planning to break round um third quarter. So, you know, we're getting close on a bunch of stuff. And again, we're talking to lots of people. So we see real time, you know, we're shovel ready essentially. Um, we we see a lot of the interest. And what's good for our site actually is just, you know, especially new to market tenants, they don't really know where their employee base is going to live. So we found that people just like being by us because of the proximity of the airport and the the transportation network, public transportation that's at the mix just to the north of us, gives them a lot of options. You know, when you really, if you're new, you like where are people coming from? They have no idea. So it that has been like a very nice, you know, characteristic of our project is just flexibility of uh and the ease of of access to it, you know, from everywhere. Yeah, well, we're right across those those streets, so you just kind of yeah, it's a two-minute walk, and there's there's shuttle buses, uh intermodal center, yeah. So the trains, yeah, yeah. Metro rail, tri rail and metro rail. So we don't have the people mover, but tri rail and metro rail both go through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you can go tri rail will take you all the way to West Palm. Metro Rail takes you down to downtown. You can get on the Bright Line. Um, so uh, so you know, it's not yet, you know, a public transportation city, but you know, listen, I I look at at the potential here, and to me, like that's like the density is gonna continue. Um, I know you know the new mayor is super focused on more residential, more affordable residential, so it's not all you know multi-million dollar condos. So the growth in the city, well, yeah, well, land prices are are pretty high, right? Yeah, that's that's the problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:18

Yeah, so let's talk celebrities. Have you been backstead or no? I've not, no. No, no, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:26

I know it's gonna be uh it's gonna be great. I don't know. It's funny. I think that when I come first, I uh I I think it's gonna be the beach because I think we'll just enjoy being on the beach. But like when we're ready to stay, listen, I the office, you know, Maztech office isn't is in the gables, so I spent a lot of time in the gables, which I love. I love the Grove. Um, so I would say one of those or the beach is probably would be uh I don't know. I don't know. Uh probably condo, just because I mean I'll probably always have my East Coast home. And I I haven't, I mean, I've been here just for work in the summertime, but I'm not sure I'm ready for full-time summer. Yeah, yeah. So I think we'll definitely want to keep a little uh a little spot in in New York. And yeah, and listen, New York City, whatever, it's always gonna go up and down, and it has gone up and down as long as I've been there. So maybe now we're in a little bit of a down, but you know, again, you can't bet that city out. So I could definitely you know see getting an apartment there also. So good choices to have, I would say. Yeah, yeah. Uh last question are you are you working in many other cities? Yeah, so I I I do stuff in New York also. Um, and yeah, looking for more stuff. I want to do more stuff here because I do want to. I I'll tell you, it's just again, it's like you look at New York, the barriers to entry are so so high. And here it's just there's you look around. I mean, and people I I just there's lots of projects, and there's more and it's all up and down the state. Um these new urbanists that live down here? No, no. What do they tell me about the new urbanists that are down here?

SPEAKER_06 1:45:14

The University of Miami's got uh, you know, it's got this very urbanism. I don't think so. It's basically their big proponents of mixed use development.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:26

Oh, okay. And I think those are just urbanists. No.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:37

Urban design and you know, proper planning. Very like change A.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:42

Yeah. So I can see you getting connected to the case. Yeah, I would love that with those folks over there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:47

Because uh I think you'd be friends with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:49

Yeah, I just play in the same setup. That's cool. Yeah, I've heard great things about uh UM and the real estate and you know, architecture and all this other stuff. Yeah. So uh alright, set me up with some some new urbanists. All right. All right.

unknown 1:46:04

Well, Michael's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:06

Yeah, you guys were great.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:07

Honestly, you made it very uh you were gentle on me.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:14

I'll tell you once once we uh once we turn off the uh recording, I'll I'll I'll give you all the dirt. Sorry, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:26

Yeah, thanks, guys. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, cool.

unknown 1:46:29

Thanks a lot, uh