Dev Motwani - Managing Partner of Merrimac Ventures

In this episode, we sit down with Dev Motwani to dig into one of South Florida’s most unique real estate journeys - from growing up working the front desk of a struggling beach motel to leading over $3B in development across the region.

Dev shares how his family survived the collapse of Fort Lauderdale’s spring break era, pivoted into distressed hotel acquisitions, and ultimately helped reshape the city into a luxury destination. We get into the evolution of Merrimac Ventures, the lessons learned during the 2008 financial crisis, and the strategy behind landmark projects like the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale and beyond

It’s a conversation about resilience, long-term vision, and what it actually takes to assemble, entitle, and execute transformative projects; told by someone who’s been in the trenches since childhood.

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_02 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. We're at Bureau Central with Dev Montwani. Thanks for coming down, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, we've been uh looking forward to this. And we're drinking what are we drinking? Drinking a little tequila and soda. Well, Dev's drinking a little tequila and soda. We're just drinking tequila. Sweet.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah. Cheers. Cheers, Dev. It's daylight hour, so uh figured I would do the uh soda. Cheers. Cheers, guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

That's the añejo today, huh?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

That is.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I might be coming around to the año. It's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

It is pretty good, right? Yeah, looking the El Padrinho. The bucket of El Padrino. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

That's the uh that's the long week bottle. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Um we uh it's actually really good tequila. We got it at Total Wine and uh they recommended it, but it only came in the jug. So I was like, all right, we'll take the jug. We'll go through it. Yeah, exactly. I'm not sure. I feel like most of our guests end up drinking tequila too.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Well they now they know. Yeah. I'm a developer. We like buying in bulk, you know. Exactly. Average down our cost. Wholesale pricing.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Exactly. Well, uh, it's super awesome to have you here. Um we we had your brother here about two years two more than that, probably like three years ago. It was a while ago. And so we're gonna we're gonna talk to the better half of the of the company, is that right? It depends who you ask. Um, so uh we want to get into your story. Um who who's older? Nittness. Yeah, how many years?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Uh he's a year and a half older.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay. Yeah. Did you beat the shit out of him, or did he beat the shit out of you?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

No, no. You know, we he was the older brother, but I was a little bit bigger, stockier, so I I was able to defend myself. So we're kind of at a draw. Uh so it worked out. Are you guys about the same height? Uh no, he's taller. Yeah. Yeah, he's the taller, thinner one. So I'm the better-looking one. I had the better-looking one. I had the low center of gravity uh and the broad shoulders. So uh so you know, I think we early on just decided it was close enough to a draw that we would just, you know, we yell at each other, but but didn't get too physical.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

It's probably a good place to be. That's like everyone having you know nukes. It's like we're all gonna die if we go after this, so let's just call it a draw.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Usually assured destruction. So it's uh exactly. Uh no, we we've always been close, and so uh so it's been great. So we I we of course fought when we were kids just because every you know every set of brothers does, but um, but we grew out of it pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah. Um and remind me, do you guys have any other siblings? Just the two of us. All right. Um, so your your parents are both Indian, correct? Yes. Okay, and uh I I I vaguely remember the story. You got your your dad and mom uh immigrated to the US and they went somewhere in in the like the Atlantic states somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Well, actually in Missouri. So Missouri. Yeah, so so our dad came over for business school and then um at the University of Missouri? No, no, uh actually at Northern Illinois University.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

And then once he graduated and got a job, got settled, uh, my mom came over to join him. They were high school sweethearts, uh, which was very uncommon back then in India to you know have kind of a love marriage from that early age.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

It was always arranged, right? Um yeah, most of mostly. Um, and so uh once he got here and got established, she came over. Uh they moved to St. Louis, uh, which is where Nittin and I were born, started a business there.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Uh your dad started a business there?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, well they started together. What what was that business? So parents were importing uh things from India, like brass items and rugs and just you know textiles, things that they could get there cheap and then sell here. To decorators, or were they doing retail, wholesale? Originally it was wholesale. And so they were they were traveling all over the to the Midwest to different uh you know, different uh trade shows, selling uh selling to retailers. And then eventually when we started having kids, they had my brother, um they opened up a retail shop so they could sell directly. So my mom oversaw that while my dad would still travel and and do the wholesale business.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So he was was he going back to India and sourcing things too, or was he mostly just traveling in the US?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Uh I think they both were. I mean, my mom was was always pretty active and she had a good eye for this stuff, and so so I think she did a lot more of the buying and then he would do the business, kind of the negotiating and the sell, uh the sales um for the wholesale side. Uh and she she, like I said, she focused on the retail.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Okay. Um, so you had a little entrepreneur blood in you um from your parents for sure, right? From both of them. Yeah, from both of them.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah. So in in our first home in St. St. Charles, Missouri, which is outside of St. Louis, our garage was the like warehouse essentially for the store and for all the wholesale business. So, you know, we would cruise around the with the garage and there was just racks of all kinds of you know, trinkets and you know, things. So it was always like a little scavenger hunting, and I would go, you know, open stuff, which they hated because they didn't want us, you know, break in the packaging. But we were just curious what was there. And then, and then as we got a little bit older and we started going to the store with them, my mom had uh set up a our crib in one room, so we had a little nursery there. And then eventually we were allowed to roam around the store, and it was always like fun places to go hide, so we we just play hide and go seek and uh keep ourselves entertained, and you know, it was uh it was we so point is we grew up in the business. Um, and then when we moved to Fort Lauderdale, we bought a spring break motel.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And so so hold so you guys you guys have this business, it's a retail store. Is it in downtown? Is it where is it like strip mall or where is it?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

So good question. So in St. Charles, Missouri, uh where we were, there's a a kind of a historic main street. It has red brick road, it has these buildings that are from the late 1800s, early 1900s, and that's like the retail street. That's cool. Um, and and it was very touristy, um, and a lot of a lot of souvenir type places and and you know, other trinkets for for visitors near the river. So we had a store right on that street. And you lived there until you were how old? Uh I was six when we moved here.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So you remember it at all? I remember it. Um I remember a little before we moved, but we kept the business uh and would go back in the summers, and my mom would go run the business because that business was very busy in the summer, and the motels that we bought here were busy in the winter. So um my mom would take us back to St. Charles. We still had the house, we knew our neighbors, so they we'd either go play with our old friends and their parents would watch us, or we'd go to the store and we would spend time with her there while she was there running the shop and selling during the high season.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Were you guys like the only Indian kids in this town?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was uh I mean it wasn't it there was a little bit of diversity, but certainly not like South Florida. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we well, we had we had some cousins that lived nearby, so occasionally we would all we'll get together our families, um, and that's part of the reason we ended up there. So um, so we spent a lot of time together, but outside of our families, we didn't see a lot of uh lot of other Indians.

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SPEAKER_00 8:25

What made you guys go to Fort Lauderdale? So, so our dad had gotten a rare skin disease called scleroderma. And the doctor had said that he would be uh more comfortable living in a warm climate. And so we had family here that were in the motel business. We used to come and visit. And so our parents, you know, kind of knew the market. We had family here. So on one visit, when they were trying to figure out what to do, they just looked around and said, Well, you know, why not here? And uh, and so they literally were on Fort Lauderdale Beach and there was a motel with the four-sale sign in the window, and they went and payphone and called the called the the broker and and ended up buying the property. Um, and so uh how how much underwriting do you think they did? You know, were they looking at RevPar and really dig it into well my my dad had an MBA, so he was so he was had a pretty business mind. Um wasn't very sophisticated back then, the market here. So it was a and we didn't know the business directly. We had some family in it, but it was you know even new relatively new to them. Um but you know, Indians are are pretty popular in the hotel business.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

I was gonna say it's a racist question, but why are the what's with the patels in the hotels? They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Uh you know, look, I think why is that? Is it like the service thing or the hospitality thing? There was there's a great article actually that came out, I think, in the Financial Times or the journal last year, talking about kind of how the the Patel uh empire was built because it's a common name. It's like Smith in certain parts of India. Um, but how they that that cohort ended up in the hotel business. I think ultimately they were they're labor-intensive businesses, right? You needed people to you know to watch the front desk, you needed maintenance, you needed housekeeping, and um and that was a big part of your cost. So if you moved the family over, you had jobs for everyone, you know, you if everyone was able to work hard, you were able to make them really profitable. I mean, it's probably like you know, illegal child labor law somewhere in there. Uh I I made that joke on a stage one time. My mom was in the audience, she didn't not laugh. Uh so instead she's like, I was training you. I was like, all right, so educational purposes. Um but no, I I think that I think honestly a lot of it was just that. You know, these were businesses that um you could you could employ kind of the extended family, help bring people over. Um so for migrating families that wanted to work hard, it was a it was a good good opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Uh yeah, and they they always work like crazy and they they're really good at just keeping those margins low.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, I mean, well, again, when you have free labor, yeah, exactly. You can keep your operating costs down. But um, no, it's just it it looked again, it it was a business that if you're hands-on, um, can be very profitable. Uh, and uh to your point, you can you know manage a lot of those costs uh when you're doing it yourself. And so I think that's why I was popular.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

And your parents had some pretty rough timing, right? They wasn't it the year after where they cracked down on spring break.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And what year was this? So we bought an 86 and in 1987, this was the first spring break that the city of Fort Lauderdale had come and cracked down on. So it was our first season of owning the business, first winter season. Um, so we bought in '86, basically at the peak of the market, uh, not knowing that the city was about to come crack down and uh paid top dollar. Um, but the the one, the smartest thing that my dad uh or my parents did, but I think my dad really drove this decision was he he made sure that the motel was on the beach right in the middle of the action. And so he said, you know, I want the best location. So we stretched for sure, because obviously the better locations were more expensive. Um so they stretched themselves to be able to buy that. Um Do you remember how much he paid for it? Uh I want to say, I mean, it was like a I think like two million bucks.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Um and for how many, how many uh rooms? The the Merrimack, so it was the Merrimack, which is our our company name. I think the primary building was about 39 called 40 units, and then there was a back building that came with it that was 10 10 units, so about 50 rooms. Um and I can't remember because we assembled the block, so that 2 million might include the next building, which was another 10 units, but it was millions of dollars to people who did not have millions of dollars. Um, so big seller financing uh in order for us to be able to afford the closing. Uh and in retrospect, um, you know, I'm sure the sellers knew that what that was coming. And the broker. And and the broker. Fucking broker. And uh and so, you know, no one told us. And um, and so it was challenging.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

And um and and a period of over you guys assembled the whole block. How long did it take you guys to assemble that whole block?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

So the first building was bought in 86, probably bought the other small building in like the late 80s, and I think the last building was in '91. So it was relatively quick because the market tanked relatively quickly, and so there was a lot of foreclosures happening. You know, people were just walking away. They did not want to, you know, Fort Lauderdale wasn't a year-round destination. It was a one-trick pony, and that that you know, that that trick no longer worked, you know, once they kicked spring break out. So your overall basis for that entire block was reasonable. Well, ultimately after overpaying, right? Yeah, well, we dollar cost average down um and and were able to assemble the rest of it um because we were the one of the only few people probably willing to do that to step in, and also had a track record of doing it because everybody else that was you know in the market left. That you know, not everybody, but for the for the most part, and or they were just they certainly weren't looking to expand. Um our parents realized that we're now we're running the motels, but we're really in the real estate game, and so acquiring the whole block creates value. Um, and so we need to figure out how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

And meanwhile, you guys are still going back and forth to Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, so my so so eventually, like I think when we got into like middle school or maybe even late elementary school, we stopped doing that just because we wanted, you know, spend time here with our friends and you know, social uh lives became here. But but for the first yeah, four or five years we went back and forth um because the summer was dead here, and so our mom would go to St. Louis and you know, would basically that's how we made the mortgage payment. She would sell a bunch of stuff there when it was busy and send the money back here. We could make the mortgage payment. That's how we survived. Um, which is why I mean, I don't want to say we were lucky, but we were we were fortunate to have that option. A lot of people didn't have that option, which is why they handed the keys back and and went home. That allowed us to kind of fight through those dark days and hold on for for better days.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Is that the you think that was the one thing that helped you guys make it through that time when others on the block didn't? Because you kind of went before we kind of took you off course, but you were talking about the location.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, I was.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Was that part of it? Or what'd you guys do to make it through?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

I mean, it was certainly part of it. So that that that allowed some additional cash flow. Um the the reason we got through it was because of our parents' hard work. I mean, they just rolled up their sleeves and had a you know uh you know, they're not gonna take no you know attitude and to get through it. And so um, and then quite frankly, I mean they both, but really my dad at that time in the late 80s, early 90s, got very involved with the city and the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors Bureau and really pushed the them to figure out additional uh business because when spring break left, there was nobody left. And so they they weren't just they weren't hands-off, they were hands-on, not only in the business, but in the community and and um, you know, really kind of exploring where was there additional business. My dad spent a lot of time coming to Miami Beach, which um was getting a lot of European visitors, there were European tour operators, so he convinced some locally to take trips over to Europe and said, let's sell this destination to Europeans, but because they were old dumpy spring break motels, you know, you got the low-end business. And so it took time to build up the reputation beyond a spring break destination. Um, we had to invest when we had no money, you had to find a way to invest to upgrade the properties as much as you could so you could appeal to a different demographic. Um, so it was just a it was a grind. Um, and but it's just just you know, good old-fashioned hard work, roll up your sleeves and and you know, not take no for an answer.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

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SPEAKER_01 17:30

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SPEAKER_01 17:55

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SPEAKER_00 18:14

Well, you know, the because when we bought more motels, it we we couldn't provide all the labor. So it actually helped us. Uh, you know, we had we had a good amount of uh staff. And um, but yeah, I mean, I was watching the front desk at eight years old, uh, and I would I was very good at math at an early age. So I used to do the you know, first I would negotiate with people walking in. So imagine you're walking into a place and uh you know you got an eight-year-old says, you know, you know, rooms fifty-nine dollars a night, you know, and and then you there people would negotiate back then. Well, I you know, I saw a sign for 39. Okay, I'll take 49. And so now you you got a eight-year-old negotiating with you, and then you know, you'd have I would do like, okay, three days with the sales tax and the bed tax, and I would do it in my head to practice my multiplication and uh without a calculator. So I'd come back and say, okay, that's you know, 127.48, and they would they would look at me and I'd have to go on the calculator and show them that it was right. And I remember I used to get offended when they would question my skills, but like thinking about now how absurd it would be if I walked in somewhere and an eight-year-old's like telling me, you know, the math in his head, I probably would have thought it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

But anyway, it was um so so that was how many rooms did you guys have uh all together then?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

So that block I think ended up to about 110. Uh maybe just shy of that, but in that range. Um, and then we bought a 44-room motel next across the street. Uh, we had a couple other properties in the area, uh, and um and then and unfortunately our dad passed away in 94. And so um we were how old were you? I was 14. Holy shit. He was 15, yeah. I was a freshman in high school, he was a sophomore, and uh and it was tough because our parents together were working 24-7. I mean, it was like if they weren't sleeping, they were working, and they didn't sleep that much. So when my dad passed, you know, it was basically the work of like you know, two people doing four people's jobs all fell onto my mom's shoulders, and um, you know, and we helped where we could, but sh education was important to her. We were very active in school, she wanted that to be our priority. Nitton was valedictory of his class, I was salutatorian in my class, she wasn't gonna let anything get in the way of our education, so so she really bore the brunt of it mostly herself.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

And you guys were going to public school?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah, yeah, we went to Fort Lauderdale High School.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

And you guys lived in the hotel, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Yeah, yeah. Hotels makes it sound fancy. It was a motel. Uh and uh originally we were in the the Merrimack and um which was the first motel we bought, and our living room had a door connecting it to the front desk. And so, I mean, literally, if if a desk clerk was sick or if we just were you know off season trying to save money and didn't want to call in somebody, we would just prop the door open and whoever was closest to the door when you know guests walked in would would take the the call or take the uh the inquiry. And so that it was literally you couldn't live any more in the business than we did. Eventually, we bought the Gold Coast next door, and that had a nice little three-bedroom apartment uh up on the fourth floor that we were able to take. So we kind of got to move up to the penthouse uh on the fourth floor, and and then so that was a little bit more of a normal uh but that was in high school at that point. That and it was in middle school, so we yeah, and um and so that at least gave us a little bit of separation from the business, but we were still living in the business.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Did you guys have fun growing up in that environment?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

I mean, I think you must have seen some crazy shit in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I mean, yeah, we've we saw a lot of crazy things. Uh yeah, a lot of it we were just too young to understand, and we're like, why? Hey, why are those people jumping off the balcony and like, you know, into the pool, or like people, you know, passed out on the lawn chairs by the pool. One guy I remember was sleeping in the pool and he was hugging the uh the railing when I came out and and you know, spring breaker. And because we still got spring break after after 86. It just it died by about you know 70, 80 percent. So it wasn't as crowded, but it was still pretty wild. And um yeah, college kids were still coming down.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

You can't really regulate that, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:29

I still got it today. It's just they're staying in the four seasons that we built, two to a room, and you know, using their parents' Amex versus back then it was 10 people to a room in this dumpy motel, people sleeping on tiled floors, and you know, and paying you like in cash, you know, that you know they were divvying up amongst the the the ten of them. Dude, that spring break crowd's gotta be brutal, dude.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Like I mean, just people throwing up, alcohol, like and I see some parallels to your story to like what Miami Beach is doing today, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Because they cracked down on spring break pretty hard these last couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah, I mean, look, it it it it got wild. Um, I think now it's a different kind of crowd, like wild probably in a different way. Um, because I think you have a lot of people that aren't on necessarily spring break that are coming to crash the party and do other things, the social media has just kind of like allowed crowds to to multiply. Back then it was, you know, it was college kids doing college kid things, so it was a lot of drinking and letting loose. Um and so yeah, but eventually eventually enough booze, like someone always got the bright idea that they could jump from the roof into the pool. And some guys made it and some didn't. And I don't think that's changed. I'm sure that did Mexico and other markets are still people jumping from the roof.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

But do you think that helped Fort Lauderdale in the long run to crack down on spring break? So I'm like wondering how that helps or hurts Miami Beach.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Like, what's No, I I I do. I think like that the the reality is is with spring break, you were always gonna be a one-trick pony because you alienated all a big other demographics, nobody else wanted to come, no families, no one wants to tolerate that. Nobody else wants to tolerate that or experience that. And so and it would rush in and rush out. And so, you know, at first it was a six-week period, now it's down to two weeks. So, is it really worth alienating an entire democra different demographic and beating up your property for two weeks of business? So I do think it was it was smart where the mistake was made was the city transitioned out of spring break without a plan um afterwards, and that was always our dad's big issue with them was like it's fine if you don't want to be a spring break destination, but you have to have an alternative. You have to say, What do I want to be? And so there was a transition period where no one had asked or answered that question, no one had really asked it, at least not publicly, and there wasn't consensus. So you had a period where the market just languished and um and look the reputation still kind of follows Fort Lauderdale around to this day as a spring as a spring break place. I think that's being lost, you know, as no, you know, memories fade, you know, generational change. Um, and in some ways, you know, we're selling condos luxury condos uh now to people who came and have these fond memories, you know, of going in in high school or college and spring break, and now they're tank is coming back. Yeah, getting white girl wasted. No, you know, but they have a fond memory, and uh, and you know, but now it's like you can buy a luxury condo and go to a Michelin restaurant or just go to the Elbow Room, which was there is since the like 50s or 60s, the dive bar where supposedly you know they credit spring break, you know, basically uh originating as a dive bar at Las Oulas and A1A, and it's still there. So you got some of that old world charm uh still, but you also you know moved upscale.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

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SPEAKER_00 26:54

So um no, um the answer short answer is no. We did not want to be in the family business. Um we we thought we were in the motel business. We didn't understand that we were really in the real estate business. So that was part of the reason. We watched the motel business where our parents worked 24-7. Didn't seem like you always seemed like you were racing to catch up, never like a getting ahead. Um, anytime you got business into a good place, there'd be a recession and then or a hurricane, or like there was always something that was um either local or national that was affecting you. So it was very volatile. So we didn't make sense to us to be in that. So you know, I wanted to be a lawyer, ironically. I didn't want to be uh anything to do with math. I liked arguing that then, and so it seemed like a good profession. The negotiator, yeah. And then I uh and then and I think Nintendo early on wanted to be a doctor. I mean, I think these are just like you know, he didn't I didn't you know, neither had an affinity to that. They were just professions where you could like make good money and you know seemed like people didn't work at crazy like our parents did. So um and then we both went away to college, both went to Duca.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

But but just going back to high school, you um you were good at math. Were there any other subjects that you enjoyed, or the other subjects that you liked?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Um, I mean math-based sciences, uh, you know, so physics and chemistry. Uh shit. I uh I never failed all those classes.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

I lasted I was in physics for like six weeks. I'm like, what are these fucking people talking about? And chemistry, I was not so good at either. The physics guys still don't know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, it's I well I to be odd, to be honest, I didn't like those. I was just good at them. I liked the math. Um I was also pre-law in high school, so we had a magnet program, and and so I loved the the mock trial side of it and and and you know the debate side of it, but I realized how much reading you had to do and like and and I did not reading wasn't your thing? Uh you know, I mean I can read, uh but I'd rather not. I'd rather like you know do some math and be done with it. So um you played any sports growing up? Uh I did, I did. I played uh not the sports you'd think when uh when looking at my build. I uh I was a swimmer, uh, I played tennis and uh I did one year of volleyball um just because we would play beach volleyball all the time and all my buddies were on the volleyball team, um, but it conflicted with tennis. So one year I was able to make both work. Who's a better athlete, you or your brother? Uh I think my I think my times in swimming were better than his, and I think I uh I think I played higher than him on the the tennis ladder. Oh nice. So you still play tennis? Uh I do, although it's been a little more Padel lately. Okay. Um but I do play tennis, and I mean I'll I'll love that sport until I can't play it. Yeah. So you played in high school? I did. But remember, we went to public high school, so the the uh the bar was a little lower than than some of the local private schools at the end.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah, but I mean Florida was always had a competitive tennis, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

See, it must have been pretty good. I I started playing in middle school, so I I you know I w I didn't have that you know country club stroke that you know the kids that grow up.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, the motel stroke there. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Yeah. But I hustled, you know, I hustled around and that's all it's about getting to that ball. So then you went to you went to Duke or I also saw uh University of Florida?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

No, no, no, uh Duke. Duke in Columbia. Yeah, both uh yeah, Nintend and I, we kept it easy, we followed the same path. So both went to Duke undergrad. Uh I studied economics and then public policy. And um while we were there, uh I I was was interested in finance and economics, and you know, and everyone I was kind of fancied myself a little day trader at the time. And so I I got an interest in in finance and Wall Street and figured that's what I would go do after.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And your mom's running the hotel, the motels by herself. Yeah, yeah. What a beast. Yeah, what a badass. Mama's a beast. We gotta get Mama Bear on the pot. Will she have a cocktail with us?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Uh I think she'll probably have a glass of wine with you.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Yeah, it's not a big drinker, but I probably want Mama Bear here. Yeah, she'd be awesome. She's a real G.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

She's uh yeah, she she did most of the hard work, uh, that's for sure. Both our parents, but yeah, she she carried the you know the torch after my dad and until we came home. Yeah. And then you took a little detour while you were at Duke Duke to go work on a campaign. Yeah, yeah. So I I did an internship at the White House one summer in the West Wing, and um it was the summer of 2000, so it was the uh election year.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

And um That's all that was right after the Monica Lewinsky.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yes, it was yeah, thank you for reminding me. So my my clever friends shit show my friend my clever friends had a lot of uh White House intern jokes for me. I bet um uh as I was doing that. And uh stay away from Bill. And so you don't know what you're gonna get with that. So I was in the butt and I was in the West Wing, I was in the vice president's office in Gore's office uh for the summer and uh eventually got to know his staff and I was ready to go to Spain to study abroad, and uh I got called in by uh one of his staff members and they said, Hey, what do you think about taking a semester off and working on the campaign? And um, you know, we'll give you, we'll pay you, and you get a full-time job, not an internship. And so I I yeah, and so I went to lunch with uh a friend's uh stepdad who's kind of a mentor and helped me get the internship, and I I ran it by him and for advice, and he was like, listen, yeah, you can go study abroad the following semester, whatever you can always. I took the semester off and I traveled around doing advanced work uh for the vice president.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

What is what does advanced work mean?

SPEAKER_00 32:40

So uh anytime the president or the vice president goes anywhere, uh and some other high-ranking officials, but I was working with the VP, um, there's a team that goes in advance. Um, so it's not that clever of a name. Uh and and that team consists of three components, um, Secret Service, uh, White House Communications, and uh staff. And they're and they would work together to plan the trip to um, and then because this was the campaign time, we actually had press advance as well. Um, and we would have to coordinate the trip of each of the where how they were traveling, who's traveling with them, you know, making sure they had secure ways to get around, um, how they were going to meet and greet people, shake hands, Secret Service obviously controlled security, White House communications made sure they always had a secure line nearby. Um, and then we as the advanced team would work with the the staff would work with the locals to put the event on, you know, if it was political, you know, coordinating with local politicians to make sure they were there and you know, and talking points and working back with the campaign to, you know, make sure the backdrop looked good for the TVs, and so it was a lot of just logistical preparation um for for executing.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

So you did that for six months. Yeah. Yeah. And you were just traveling where he was campaigning. City to city, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yeah. And the last day of the trip, they would say, you know, you got a flight tomorrow at this time, and uh, or sometimes that same night, like you're gonna go fly to uh you know Columbus, Ohio, and you've got an event in Ohio State in five days. So go to this hotel and you meet Secret Service and the team, and boom, you start setting up.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

So you're like you're basically five days out before he's going.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Yeah, exactly. Okay, yeah, and sometimes it's a week and sometimes three days. I mean, it's just yeah, um, but but yeah, kind of on average five days.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Did you get to meet Al? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, spent spent a fair amount of time uh with with the vice president, and then also uh Senator Joe Lieberman was our VP candidate. So once he came on board, uh I did a number of trips for imagine that a Democrat and a Republican are one ticket. No, well, no, not at that time. He wasn't he was a he was a very good thing. Yeah, he was a Democrat and then independent, yeah. So um, but he um he was a great man, uh Senator Lieberman, and he was very independent-minded. Um, and so it was really cool to to work with him because that was he was very popular in Connecticut and in the Senate, but he wasn't as well known um nationally or internationally, and uh the world got to see him as just a good good person.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

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SPEAKER_01 35:18

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SPEAKER_02 35:51

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SPEAKER_01 36:00

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SPEAKER_02 36:08

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SPEAKER_00 36:16

So, what happened after Duke? After the internship. Well, after the internship, I actually went back to school. So um, because I was that yeah, uh, I studied at uh I did a summer uh in London uh at the LLC. Um, but I wanted to graduate on time with um with my class. And so because I took the semester off, I had to take extra classes uh the remaining three semesters to to catch up. So um so I went back to college, finished up, next summer did an internship at uh with Credit Suisse, um and then ultimately went to Wall Street when I graduated.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

What'd you do your internship with Credit Suisse?

SPEAKER_00 36:52

So I did it in DC actually, in one of their uh satellite offices. Um so I didn't do it in I missed uh some of the in the interviewing and stuff on campus when I was uh when I was traveling, and so uh didn't get the New York internship, but had because I had relationships in DC, I was able to get in there. Yeah. And did you like it? Or what'd you think of it? Uh banking or banking, yeah. Yeah, um I didn't love it. Uh, you know, it was interesting. It was everything I thought, and um, and it was it was high paced, you know, it was uh it was yeah, very you're very active, it was quick. Uh you were doing a lot of math because I was doing structured derivatives, so it was very interesting work. Umready for 08. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

I was long gone before then, but um but you know, I think set the foundation for yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

You know what's interesting is all the things that I thought I didn't like about watching our parents, like you know, there was no, you know, working 24-7, the stress of it, you know, the the unpredictability of it, uh all those things um that I didn't like about the business. Uh when I got to Credit Suisse, I realized that I was bored kind of almost with the repetitiveness, the predictability of the markets, um of of that job. I shouldn't say the markets, but of the job, because the markets are unpredictable. But but um but it was like Groundhog Day. And and because you know you're there as an employee and you get an annual bonus, like it was I did the entrepreneurial spirit didn't match what what I was used to. So after a while, I just kind of realized it wasn't an environment that that I that I wanted to thrive in.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

And you were in New York for how long with credits in finance? Uh I was there for about four years. The entire time at Credit Suisse.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah, entire time at Credit Suisse.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Okay. And after four years, what happens? You're you got you got bored?

SPEAKER_00 38:52

No, well, about halfway through that, um, I was I was a credit suisse, Nitton was at Goldman Sachs, and um our mom uh calls us one day and she's like, you know, hey, I'm coming to New York next week for lunch, uh, for lunch meeting. Can you guys get off of work and join me?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

And your brother's working at Goldman too at this time?

SPEAKER_00 39:11

He was working at Goldman, also in derivative, so you know again, we kept it simple. Um and um and uh my mom calls us and says, Do you want to join us for this work lunch? And we're like, Mom, you're work running motels in Fort Lauderdale. Like, what do you come into the city for? And what lunch meeting could you possibly have? And she's like, Well, I have lunch with Donald Trump, and I thought you guys would want to join. And we were like, What? And this is in like 2003, so this is like before The Apprentice, before you know any politics. This was, you know, he was a big name and obviously real estate.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

So how did she get connected with Donald Trump?

SPEAKER_00 39:47

So, so while we were in college, she had gotten a project approved on our site, which was very hard to do. So she got a 320-unit condo hotel approved on that first block that we had. And um, and that was where the original hotel was.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yes, yeah, put the assemblage together.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah. Where exactly her parents had assembled the whole block, and at one point she had a contract to sell it to Hilton. They couldn't get the approvals because it was very hard to get the entitlements in Fort Lauderdale. Back then, it was in the 90s. So she went and just did it herself. No experience, no land use attorney, just rolled down to downtown with a roll of plans and a set you know, set of physical plans to the city manager's office and said, I need to get this approved. And uh he said, Who's your land use attorney? She said, What's that? And uh he said, Well, that's usually who does this. She's like, Well, my husband used to do this himself. You know, my dad got a bar, a little bar, patio bar approved, a little restaurant that they built out. And uh, you know, he's like, Ramola, this is a big like political thing. And she's like, Well, I don't have the money for a land use attorney, so you just tell me the process uh and I'll figure it out. And she had a she had a law degree from India. Um, and uh, and so that's what she did. She went around and and got a unanimous approval at a time when nothing was getting approved. So because she had those approved plans, over the next number of years, developers would come knocking on the door. They would come to town and you'd start to see some rumblings of some redevelopment happening, and everyone would say, Oh, this lady, this woman's running these motels and she's got an approved project. So eventually, one developer that came had wanted to do a Trump International and said, Let's go meet Trump and um and you know, we'll he'll explain to you that he's in, basically. Uh it was a licensing and management deal. It wasn't like uh a div uh we were the developers with this group uh that came in. Um but anyway, so that's how that you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

So you had lunch with Donald Trump in 2003.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah, well, we went to Trump Tower, we we had we met with him, we met with a team, we had lunch with Don Jr. and and some of the other guys running the team, but you know, went into his office, said hi, and he told my mom, no uncertain terms, like I'm in, you know, for the deal. Uh, because she said I'm not gonna move forward, uh, she told these developers, unless I hear from Trump himself that he's in. And uh, which was funny because you know, decade later I'm at Mar-a-Lago at a friend's wedding, and uh and the deal's long gone at this point, but um but when we built it and and we did sign it, but you know, Great Recession happened, whatever. It was it had been years since we had seen him. And um I mentioned to him, he walked by me at the wedding, I said, Oh, Mr. Trump, you know, we were partners on that deal in Fort Lauderdale, and at this point the apprentice was going on, he was kind of in a different stratosphere for his you know publicity or whatever. But he walked around and he came back to me, and on the way back, he looked at me and he pointed and he said, Your mother, tough negotiator. And he walked out. I guess he, you know, he he figured it out in his head that like, oh, I remember that that that was an Indian lady that made me have you know meet with her. That's awesome. And so, but but it was that meeting where we sat with her and we listened to the plan and we learned that you know there was a lot more to real estate than what we thought, or certainly to our family business than we thought. And so that's when Nittin and I both got the bug to okay, you know, maybe we'll come back and and and do this.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

What's up, build these? 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_02 43:20

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

SPEAKER_01 43:25

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

SPEAKER_02 43:27

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

SPEAKER_01 43:33

I mean, Class A-ish, industrial.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

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 beast.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

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 you met with Donald Trump in 2003. The plans that have been approved. Um you guys are just now building the four seasons, right? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

We finished the four seasons already. We finished that project. That project is now the Conrad Hilton in Fort Lauderdale.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

And when when when so that that project's the Conrad Hilton.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

First project, yeah. The one that was originally going to be a Trump International is now is the Conrad Hilton.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

So Trump wasn't willing to give a good enough deal on the licensing, huh?

SPEAKER_00 44:41

No, no, no. We did the licensing deal, but then the Great Recession happened and then we kind of unraveled everything. Unraveled and then um did the Conrad get built? So we finished the building in 2009, 2010, and then it was sold to uh new owners uh who opened it, I think, in 2014, um, as the Conrad, something like that, maybe 2015.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

All right. So the deal did get done eventually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

So after that, after that Trump meeting, is that when you guys both bailed on the banks and were like, we're gonna go be real estate developers?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Nittin uh was the smarter one, so he moved faster. He he he decided. You don't have to say that you shouldn't say that on it. He shouldn't be on tape with that one. He's gonna use that for our that's okay. Um that's his new rink done right there. So we um no, we um he was like, listen, I'm gonna go kind of work with mom, and and uh and he found out that Columbia had this real estate development program, so he he went and did his master's there while working out of our the developer that we partnered with was out of New York. So he worked out of their office and and kind of did his did his master's, and I stayed in finance for a little bit longer, and then um eventually he moved home, he started working, he got pretty busy, and he called me one day and just said, Hey, you know, what are you thinking? Because um I'm gonna have to make some decisions here about hiring if you're not coming back. And I was like, Yeah, I kind of at that point felt satisfied that I did my, you know, worked enough outside the family, had my fill of New York. So I said, you know what, I'll come home.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

And and and and in the meantime, he's starting to get Miami World Center going.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

No, no, no. This is before Miami World happened. So so um what happened? So I end up um going to Columbia. Actually, at his suggestion, he said, Listen, uh, I really recommend don't coming home right away. Go do your master's, you can help me from up there. Same program. Same program. Um, I looked at the MIT has a program as well, and I looked at that and ultimately just decided I wanted to stay in New York and uh kind of enjoy New York without banking hours. Um and so did Columbia program helped him from afar. And during that time, he got to know uh our Falcone, Mark Roberts, and they were buying up the land for Miami World. And so basically, as I was moving home, uh opportunity presented itself for him to work with them, to partner with them and do Miami World. Uh, and so it kind of just transitioned almost naturally. Where I I stepped in to run Merrimack day to day while he moved to Miami to run Miami World. And what year was that, more or less? I moved at the end of 06. Okay. And so, but I was I was going to India for a bit of time. Uh, we were looking at some real estate stuff there, and then I had a my place in New York, so I was kind of back and forth. So I was a little gray as to when the official move was, but kind of call it later. Well, I was just trying to peg it to 08, so you came down just in time to get slapped by that. Yeah, yeah. Like the the guy who shows up to the you know the party, everybody's like, you know, drunk and you know, you're ready to go, and everyone's running out the back door, you're like, what's going on? The cops rolls come in, and yeah. So that was like me, that was like oh seven for me. I'm like, wait, where's everybody going? This seems great. And uh and and then you got to deal with the aftermath. So what was that like? It was tough. I mean, I'd be honest, like um, you know, we had great assets um as a family. We had South Florida real estate, which is which was great, except for in 2008, 2009, uh, 2010, all that stuff, you know, on the books went to to zero and the great recession, the hospitality world imploded, yeah, people weren't traveling, they didn't have money. So the the the motel business that we had was was down. And so it was tough, even though we weren't over-levered. Um, if you had any sort of leverage on anything, you had problems. Because even if you had a stable asset, if your bank had a problem, then all of a sudden it became your problem because you know they would they would try to get force you to pay them off because they needed liquidity or you know, whatever, or their hands were tied, even if they wanted to do something, they couldn't. So it was it was challenging to refinance. So had to battle through that. Um, and as a family, like my parents had been through a lot of tough times. Um when we did the original deal, the one with the what's now the Conrad, the Trump deal, um, we had created liquidity and we thought kind of that was behind us. And, you know, but for a great recession, the second worst, you know, recession uh the the century, like um we would have been fine, but but that was a unique time and and uh forced me to us, but yeah, I was running it day to day to just have to dig in. And so I got a small taste of the I'm sure it wasn't nearly as tough and stressful as what my parents went through and what my mom went through. Um, but it was difficult for sure.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

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_01 49:48

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SPEAKER_02 49:59

Built World Advisors, real estate for the people who get shit done. You can check us out at builtworld advisors.com. I mean, cash flow dried up, banks are being assholes. How do you navigate that? Is it just dealing with negotiating with the banks, trying to get the cash flow back?

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Like what's what levels are you common combination of both. I mean, I started going to um these little travel shows that my my I told you my dad started taking people in the 80s and 90s, early 90s. I was traveling there myself to go get business for the motels. Um, you know, and and every day it was just uh a different headache um to get through. And because even when you know your business was doing okay, then you'd have a vendor go under and they owed you money or something. And so, because everyone had problems. It's coming at you from all angles, yeah. Yeah, so it was just a just a constant, constant grind to get through it. And um fortunately we were we got through it. We whatever liquidity we had, we used that to get through it. We did right by all of our lenders, um, and um, you know, had to refinance where we could, in some cases, brought in partners and brought in additional capital, but we didn't want to sell anything, you know, at the bottom. We knew the market would come back, and we knew if we just fought through their better days would be ahead. So it was really just about surviving. Um, but we didn't want to sell, you know, obviously uh at at rock bottom prices. So um it paid off in the end, but it was a tough couple years. You learned some ninja moves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I uh it and and there wasn't like regular recent history to look back to because it was such a unique time um with these banks and what everything was going through that um you know it was just now you know you're learning on the fly. And I was in my 20s, late 20s, you know, and and my mom was there to help, of course. I mean, she she had fought through much tougher stuff, but we had grown the business, so the the magnitude of the problems were were larger. Uh, and I didn't want her to stress over it, you know. And so um, and I say I, I mean, I was dealing with it day to day, but Nitt and I are partners, we talk every day. We were he was helping me all the way through it. Um, he had his own headaches, I'm sure he walked through those and surviving and keeping Miami World together through the crisis. Um, but it was just a a little different type of stress, probably. Like his loans were bigger, his deal was bigger, but you know, I was dealing with the family business. So I was, you know, I had it, so it was just a both stressful situations, but different type of stress.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

So the the you said the the the Conrad Hotel is built in 2013?

SPEAKER_00 52:36

It was we finished it in I think 2009, 2010. Okay. But it reoped it opened as a Conrad in I think 2013, 2014. So it was under con under construction during this 08 period? It finished, yeah, I think in 09 or 2010. But even our lender there went under. So the lender was Chorus Bank. So they got they failed and they got taken over by the FDIC. And no one ever remembered like uh you know what happens when a bank gets taken over by the FDIC. Like they obviously you had the RTC, we didn't have any issues then, like we didn't know what that was like, and and quite frankly, the FDIC didn't know. So when our partner called the vet them to say, hey, you know, we finished the project, you know, you're our lender. What do we do? They're like, we're trying to save the economy, you know. Like, I don't know what to tell you. And we're like, well, we asked the lawyer. They're like, I don't know. You could, you know, sick, no debt pay, no debt service. Yeah, well, the lawyer's like, yeah, you could maybe, but in six months they could call you and say, hey, you owe default interest on uh 140 million dollars or for for two years. So that wasn't a risk worth taking. So it was um interesting times, but uh, you know, in the end, we just watched, did what our parents did. We worked hard, you know, you treat out with uh honesty, like work hard and and work as hard as you can and um roll up your sleeves. And that's that's what we did, and eventually it worked out. And how did you guys finance a deal like that?

SPEAKER_02 53:52

That's a monster deal to go from uh a motel to this giant 300-room Conrad. I mean, was that like where you guys contributed the land and the developer brought the rest of the the pre-dev and every uh the other equity? Or how does that how does that come together? And how does mom even like think about that and put that together?

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Even more interesting of a time, because it was the first time for us at a time when you know all this crazy financing stuff was going on. So it was, you know, where there were like new high-leverage loans. I mean, all this stuff was was crazy. So um the project got financed by with a combination of uh of construction loan and preferred equity, basically. Um very high leverage because we had pre-sales, and uh our our partner, the development partner, they bought a majority of the property from us, so we stayed in as a partner, but they became the controlling partner and they put that cap stack together and and um and so we watched and we learned and we learned what worked and we learned what didn't work. And um, you know, in the end we th we were selling and we were 70, 80 percent sold and had dwat deposits that we thought nobody would walk from because they were 20 percent. And when the market goes down 50%, they people walk from 20% deposits. So um, but that wasn't just us. I mean, that was everybody, right? It's been really so it wasn't pure hotel, it was 300 keys, but it was condo hotel. It was all those units were condo hotels. Yeah, all of those.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

That makes a little I mean, going it going heavy on a 300 key hotel for pure hotel sounds pretty, pretty gnarly.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Yeah, I mean, look, again, at that time, anything and everything was getting financed and financed with high leverage, um, which is what a recipe for you know a bubble, you know, bubble market that uh that eventually popped. So what happened after all that?

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Kind of cleaned that shit up, got the Conrad delivered.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Now what? And so starting in about 2000, uh late 2010, as cleaned up the balance sheet and you know, kind of restructured things um with the lenders and got all of our stuff our house in order, I wanted to start looking at new deals. I had also learned a lot about why the banks were having issues, because I would call a friend at the treasury and say, hey, like explain to me what's going on, like in the back room when you're talking to these banks. Like, what are their issues? And I came to find out that you know, banks were taking back tons of assets and they needed to get them off the books quickly. And they, you know, at some point they didn't care what the price was because at this point the the government was doing these, you know, with these guarantees when they were um on the loan portfolios when they were taking over banks and the feds are making them sell some of that stuff too.

SPEAKER_02 56:25

The feds are making them sell stuff, like you have too much commercial loan exposure and this asset class, you gotta dump it for whatever price you can get.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

But they would also do loss share agreements. They say you take the first 10%, after that, that government will cover it. So once the bank marked it down 10%, they didn't really care what they sold it for. So so I watched that and I said, Oh, okay. So at the end of the quarter, when they got to get their, or and that really at the end of the year, they got to get their ratios in line. And so then, and then it doesn't cost them anything, it costs the government something for them to sell it. So why wouldn't you just dump it? So I started looking at deals, but we didn't have any liquidity at that time because we had spent all of our liquidity paying down loans and and kind of maintaining the existing portfolio. So I had to raise capital. And so I eventually I met some investors, high net worth investors, and created kind of a I call it a fund. It was like a fund construct where I had a couple high net worth investors that backed me and going and buying deals. And I'm my thesis was like, listen, we're buying this land. Uh, it was mostly land or land properties that we could redevelop.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Where are you where are you guys buying this these properties?

SPEAKER_00 57:29

It was mostly Broward County, like it was it was around Greater Fort Lauderdale. And um, I said, look, I know these markets, I know these corners, I grew up here, I'll figure out what to do with the properties. We're not gonna develop it anytime soon because nobody was building anything then. Um, but we're gonna get this land at rock bottom prices. And um, and we did it unlevered, so we didn't have to worry about you know when the market came back. We just knew we were able to pick up great assets. How much money did you raise? So we about a hundred million dollars of equity.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

So um And yes, so you guys were paying uh you were paying cash for these properties.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Yep, paying cash. And um part of the portfolio we used to go buy houses up in Atlanta. So I was one of the guys that would go to the courthouse steps with a bag full of cashiers checks, and we were buying foreclosed properties. So we we did put some leverage on that. Um we bought about 600 houses up in Atlanta. We still own about 500. Um, that now just cash flow. Um, and um, but most of what we bought was land for development here in South Florida.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

And where did you meet these guys?

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Uh you know, it's funny. We we were bidding against each other on a property, and uh I lost to them. The uh the investor that kind of I was talking to uh decided to just kind of go bid on his own and and so um without me. And so I thought I lost the property and and he did too, went to these guys. And uh they were just you know finance investors from Canada who who saw, like, hey, here's something cheap to buy, great property. But then they started learning after they bought it about zoning and it was a historic designation. I got very lucky. Luck is always a component of anyone, you know, anyone's story, or uh if someone doesn't acknowledge it, then uh they're full of shit. Yeah, they're full of shit. Uh but um I got lucky that they ended up with it and they didn't know what the hell they were buying, and they had gotten bad advice from a lawyer or something, and they're like, and all of a sudden there's all this hair on it. It had a it was a PUD, which is a very complicated zoning construct. Uh it was a historic district, so there was a historic property on it. Uh the district commissioner was very anti-development, and the neighbors were anti-development. So, like all of a sudden, they think they're in their minds are gonna come build this tower, and then they find out they can't do anything, and they're like, How do we figure this out? And so someone said you should call the Matwanis, and so we met and and I helped them for a number of months. I gave them advice, I showed them my whole plan, and uh they said, Why are you giving us your business plan? And I just said, Look, like, not for nothing, but you you don't know how to go execute on this. You know, at this point, like I had gotten entitlements for what's now the four seasons. I had, you know, our family had we had built the Conrad and and uh we had a very good reputation in the area for delivering, and and and so I said, I you can't get this thing approved. Like um it's complicated and um and it takes you know these relationships. And so they figured that out pretty quickly. And so they were smart enough to figure that part out and said, Okay, will you partner with us? And so I said, sure. And they said, What else are you doing? Uh how how are you gonna buy this? They said, Well, I had an investor, and you know, he kind of changed his mind last minute, and they said, Well, we want to do exactly what you're doing, we want to do it with you, and uh, we don't want to make the decisions, we we trust you to make them yours$100 million.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

It was it wasn't that easy.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

There was some discretion, there was discretion involved. Um, but they only turned they only ever said no to one deal, which for the record ended up being a really good deal. I have one of them still a partner and a best friend to this day, and uh, and so I remind him of that often. Um you should, as you should, and so uh, but everything else turned out great, and we were very, very lucky. And then after that capital ran out, um, because we bought a lot, um, we ended up selling some stuff and buying one of the other partners out because he wanted to just, you know, he the returns were very good and uh he was you know moving on and he was more of a trader. And me and the other guy were he was long term and he said, I want to do this, you know, for a long period. I don't need to sell. So we bought the other guy out. So we still have some of those assets to this day. Um, in fact, we're we're doing the Waldorf Astoria on Pompano Beach. That's on a one of the properties that we bought in 2011. So um, so very good uh good deal. And um, and then I just started doing one-off deals. Um, and I would either we'd buy them on the for the family or Nittin and I, or or bring in capital partners and uh just depended on the size of the deal and and uh the nature of the risk. And that's kind of that's still how we do it today. Um, and we've gone through institutional capital partners, like we've done deals with Carlisle and Blackstone, and obviously CIM was a partner, Miami World Center. Uh, we've done it with high net worth individuals. So um we've we've you know done it with a bunch of investors, we've done deals with single-family offices. So we've done a little bit of of everything. Um, but ultimately we've just found if you have a good deal, there's always capital for it. Um I like to do some riskier stuff in terms of buying deals with hair on it or very complicated deals. Um, I actually I think Nittin and I both do, um, because obviously there's nothing more complicated that we've done than Miami World. Um, but um, but I'll like I like to take that risk and you know and make the upside. But it's hard sometimes to have uh you know to go with investor capital and do that and take that kind of risk. I'll always bet on myself, but probably be a little bit more uh cautious when have others' capital. So um so yeah, so the lot of stuff we'll just buy on our own. And then once we've de-risked it and gotten the entitlements or whatever, we'll whatever our plan is, then we and if we need capital, that point we might bring someone in where it's at least a detailed business plan. Um, but you know, look, my original investors, they've always invested without a clear business plan. We just knew we were buying great dirt at a great price, and they trusted me, and it worked out very well for all of us, and and and they were rewarded for that, that risk and that trust. So um after that, I was just like, wait, I got some money now, I should just do this for myself.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Totally. I mean, are you still finding deals like that today? Because that all dried up in like 2012, I would say. No, no, no. They're really crazy deals.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Yeah, look, I yeah, for sure. I mean, look at at that point, we've still bought plenty of real estate since then. There's other ways to to create value assemblages like our parents did, you know, like you can create value that way. Um, sometimes it's just buying at market price, but knowing that you're in the path of growth. And uh sometimes it's um it might be rezoning or you know, creating value. So so yeah, the the super distressed isn't there. Um, but there's other ways to kind of create that upside. And how much are you guys doing hotel versus other asset classes? So right now, about a third of what we do are apartments, so class A apartment development. Uh a third are probably straight condos, and then the last third is kind of mixed-use other stuff. So it could be hotel with condos like the uh like the four seasons. Um we have Watson Island here in Miami, um, that are we with some partners that we bought that's a mixed-use project. Um, obviously Miami World, like you know, the four seasons Fort Lauderdale. So that's kind of our third bucket. And those are those longer-term deals that you know have more kind of upside, but that you're probably going to carry through a couple cycles and you just have to have that long-term conviction on.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:50

And what do you think of hotels these days? I mean, hospitality in South Florida is slowing down after the COVID highs.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

Yeah. I mean, I look, I love staying in hotels. I love staying in nice hotels. Uh but after living in one for so long, uh, I don't love to run them. Um, it was funny when we were, I'll get back to your question, but I'll tell you a story. My mom, since uh everyone loves Ramola, when we were finishing the four seasons, she was she had bought a condo in the Paramount that we developed down the street on Fort Lardo Beach. And she said, you know, I'm thinking about buying a uh buying a unit in the four seasons and and maybe living there. And uh wouldn't that be great? And I was like, Mom, you are not living in the four seasons because I know that every single morning you will go down and ask the front desk, how many walk-ins did we have and how many and you know? How many check-ins today? Yeah, how many check-ins? And I'm like, you know, and and I said, You can't do that. Like, for so I said, You've you've lived those times, you've lived in a hotel, you don't need to do it anymore. Um, so we all try to steer clear and just enjoy them as as guests. No, look, the hotel business in Florida I think is great. Tourism is is much better because it's more year round, right? More robust than it was back in the day. There is a lot of inventory. And so you do go through waves. But great hotels and great and great and great locations here are, I think, are just great long-term assets. It's really just about what's your time horizon, because if you catch a bad cycle, the value can go down for sure. Whether that be a bad time in the hospitality cycle or the bad time in the capital markets. So you got added volatility in those deals. So the good times are really good and the bad times can be a little tougher than say apartments. But we still we still like the business. And we usually just we'll do deals that either have a big resie component like Telluride. So the hot so you minimize that volatility of the deal, or we'll partner with people who have a platform and who can manage it day to day so that we can be involved more at a high level and not have to get into the nitty-gritty. Telluride's a cool project because it's it's small, right? It's like only 53 hotel rooms. It's uh small in terms of density. It's 50, 52 hotel keys, it's uh 43 hotel residences and then 26 private residences. So so 69 total. It's a four seasons, right? Yeah, four seasons.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

How how did you guys come into that deal?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:17

Um just again, random luck. Um, well, it depends on the day. If it well, if it was good luck.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

Some days it's good luck, some days I say it's bad luck, but uh Telluride is like it it it's it's so difficult to get there. Yeah, um, I mean, there's an airport there, but even so, like it's that's what makes it special.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

You know, when you get there, yeah, you know, it's um it it makes it worthwhile because it's less crowded, it's very beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

I mean, I think it's six or seven hours from Denver, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

Like five to six hour drive to Denver.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Yeah, okay. And then that I mean that's pretty much there's no other city that's close to you you fly into Montrose and it's an hour and 15-minute drive.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

So and Montrose is a pretty big airport that's got direct flights from Newark, from Atlanta, from Dallas, from Chicago, so Salt Lake, all the West Coast markets. Um, there are direct commercial flights into Telluride, uh, just not many of them. There's only one a day from Denver and two from Phoenix. So it's easier to get to in the West Coast. Um, but um, but you go to Montrose and drive an hour and 15 minutes. It's like, you know, if you go to Jackson Hole and you go to Teton Village, it's a 40-minute drive to get to the ski area. So, you know, it's a little bit further than that. And you've got and it's a much more beautiful ride because you're going through the San Juan Mountains.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

I mean, Telly Rai is a I think one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. It's sick. Like they got that waterfall in the background. Like it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

It's uh yeah, it's like yeah, it's like an old cowboy town, like plopped in the middle of the Swiss Alps.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

I went to a wedding there, it's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

Yeah. But I was at a YPO event in New York, and YPO tech event, uh, ironically, and uh not there to do real estate, and I just wanted to do something outside of my box, my comfort zone, and so I went to a tech conference, which meant nobody wanted to talk to me because everybody was a tech person and they didn't care about the real estate guy. And the sponsor of the event was the Tailoride Ski and Golf Company. So the CEO was there, and nobody really cared to talk to him either because he wasn't a tech guy. So we ended up at the bar together, it was like the two like lone lone wolves. And uh I mentioned I was you know, I asked me what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

What's his name?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

His name is Bill Jensen. He's no longer there, he was CEO, uh, amazing, amazing gentleman. Uh was left in I think 2021. And this was goes back till 2018. So I've been working on the deal for almost eight years. And um and anyway, so he mentioned to me that they had a site there that they wanted four seasons, and we were building our four seasons in Fort Lauderdale, and he asked, would I, you know, could he host me for a visit? And I said, sure, but it's a long way away, so send me some info and let me do some due diligence. And I had two friends, one who was kind of like a mentor to me, um, and another buddy who from Fort Lauderdale who had homes there. And so that's all I knew about Telluride was hearing from them. So I called both of them and I said, Hey, what do you think? And they said, Amazing site, amazing guy, you're talking to the right guy. It's worth a visit. Um, they said, I can't tell you, you know, it's your business to figure out if four seasons make sense or not there, but can tell you if you're gonna do it, that's the right site. And if you're gonna be talking to someone, that's the right guy. Okay. So we did some research and started looking. It spent a couple years doing due diligence, had four seasons come out, really to get to learn the market. I went out in the winter, I went out in the summer, went out for festivals, I went to just kind of went in the off season. And um, right as we were getting ready to kind of pull the trigger and move forward, COVID hit. And so um I call the deal like, you know, Humpty Dumpty, because you know, like fell off the wall and I had to put it back together after COVID. I I thought we would, you know, never go back to it. And and about six months into COVID, they said, hey, once things kind of settle down, I said, you know, come visit again and reconsider this. And and so we picked it back up. And what's an ADR for something like that? The ADR?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

It'll be high.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:05

It has to be for 43 hotel or I'm sorry, 52 rooms.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

When are you guys planning on closing it? Or is it construction finished?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Well, yeah, yeah. No, no, we're under construction now and we'll finish it in the uh the end of fourth quarter of 2028.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Going back to Ben's question. It's like 2K a night. Yeah, I mean, there'll certainly be nights that were like that. I think year-round we're targeting a little over uh 1,100. Yeah, you know, including the office. It is so really what we're doing there, uh, and Nadeem, who built the surf club, who was my partner in Fort Lauderdale, is also our partner in Telluride. And actually, we were doing it on our own, Nitt and I, and when we found out Nadeem had a telly ride history and a fondness for Telluride and knew the market, and we decided to partner together, he said, let's do the surf club in Telluride. Let's let's follow this model and let's elevate it and let's build the best ski resort in North America. Not the biggest, the best. And then the best meaning like, you know, using some of the elephant uh uh elements of boutique ish kind of property, higher residential, super elevated design and finishes. Um, and so that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

I mean, I think that's what people from from that like demographic want, right? They don't want to be in a 300-room hotel, they want high touch service, they want, they don't want a ton of people around, and they want, you know, the most beautiful surroundings. And that's what the surf club's like, one of my favorite properties in South Florida. It's insane.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

Like uh it's it's a special, it's definitely one of a kind. Uh a lot of lessons learned from that. And um, and so yeah, it's been uh it's been a great model for what we're doing. So what's next? What's on what's on the horizon for Merrimack? Well, uh I get married next month.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:45

So yeah, so let's back this up because uh we have pictures of uh of your bachelor party in uh Costa Rica from a couple weeks ago. So we're gonna get the realt. So we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna get uh all the real talk together. Go for it. Uh go for it. It was um how how was the bachelor party? Let's talk about that. It was fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:05

It was fun that we went, you know, went fishing. My goal was to catch a uh a Marlin and uh we get out and they're like, yeah, it's uh a little rough out there and nobody wanted to fight the the wave. So we caught like basically we had better fishing in Miami uh than where we went.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:21

But um it was I know you went uh with Patrick Murphy. I ran into him at the uh impact conference on Friday. He's like, bring it up.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:31

Well our flight bag was delayed, so like it was so on Sunday, and so I don't know. So we ended up, we were like you were at this resort, we're at the Ritz Reserve there at Papagayo, and we didn't have anything planned, so we went to the beach, we had some lunch, we had a couple drinks, and then like next thing you know, we're like getting massages and and uh you know and hitting the sauna on the steam while we waited for our flight. And you know, someone like was like, I've never left a pastor party feeling better than when I showed up. So so not as eventful, but uh listen, uh I'm getting married at 45 and I've lived a plenty uh eventful life. So really who's uh heavier partier, you or your brother? Uh it probably just depends on he's got three kids, so so you know when he gets stepped out early, huh? No, no. I mean when he gets he just has less opportunity with three boys running around um to to go, but um, but he did his, you know, he did plenty of uh enjoying himself back in the day. Um I think we're both pretty balanced, you know. I like to I like to travel and you know race cars and do stuff like that in Europe with friends. And um, like I said, I don't have I don't have kids right now, so I've got a little more flexibility. And you do you get on the boat here in my in uh South Florida?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:43

You big fisherman?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:45

Uh well, uh big fisherman. I we get on the boat a lot. Uh I'm you know more of a I'm a leisurely fisherman. So if we're on a you know sport fish and you know someone else is you know kind of doing most of the work and uh Patrick loves, you know, he's like uh he'll be the first mate on his own boat, which is great. So he loves keeping himself busy doing the work, and I'll hang out and have some drinks, and then when they hand me a rod or the fish is on, I'll reel it in. There you go. So that's the way to do it right there. That's fishing. I'm uh that's my type of fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:12

How did you get connected with Patrick on uh through Coastal?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:15

No, funny enough, our Nitton knew the the Murphy's knew his dad and his brothers through Coastal and Miami World Center. Uh we met when he was running for for Congress the first time and through a mutual friend, and uh he was running up in Broward and I lived up there, and so we were connected to uh just so he could, you know, he was looking to meet people that were were active up there and and potential donors, I'm sure. And uh we just hit it off. We just became good friends uh uh from then and from then on and uh you know through his campaign and post, and obviously our our families, we do a lot of business together. Um, but we've just been um yeah, we just became close friends over the last decade and have traveled with the family, and obviously he's like part of our family, and so uh it's been great. Did Nitton make it out to the bachelor party? Uh Nitton did. So actually, so there's actually another one next weekend. Uh yeah. So there's we're going to that one then. And uh so Nitton will be on both. He's he's quarterbacking both, um, which is not a fun, easy job. The one the next one's about I think like almost 30 people. Oh wow. And so um, so he's gonna have to uh you know be dealing with the Where's that one gonna be at? Over at Baja Mar. It's the first weekend of the uh the NCAA tournament, and so wanted to go somewhere where there's a sports book and we could you know watch games and gamble, but we did not want to go to you know Vegas. I didn't want to go to Vegas in general, let alone uh this time of year. So um, you know, having Baja Mar right here was uh easy. Epic.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:45

So so you have you know all these projects that you're working on now. You can basically kind of pick and choose what you want to do. Like what makes you pull the trigger on a project these days? You know, uh math aside, right? Obviously it has to make sense, but what gets you excited about a project?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

Something like I mean telluride level, is that what it has to be? Yeah, that was um well, first of all, thank you. I I wish I I don't think we we don't have to pick a litter on every deal, but we do we are fortunate that we can kind of um be a little more selective than we used to be. Um it's funny, it's kind of barbelled. We either have deals that are like really uh kind of like safe and secure and stable, like the apartment business that we have, and then we have these like big, more complicated long-term ones that I think satisfy that risks taking our brain, the the creativity that it takes to put a deal like that together. Um, but you can't you can't just live on those. I mean, Miami World took you know almost 20 years to become a reality, and um, you know, and it's fortunately it worked out, but like it was a lot of stress and a lot of ups and downs along the way. Um, so it's nice that we kind of barbell it with the more stable, consistent business like which would be the either the condo developments or the apartments. Um and so when we look at something, we look at the risk profile. Um, obviously you mentioned the returns. The I'd say it's probably a lot of it is just how much time it's gonna take. And time management um is the most probably important thing that we knit and I try to keep each other both cognizant of and um and honest about because you know a small deal can take just as much time and and energy as a big deal. And um and so the question is like uh you know, it's not like one deal is more important than the other, is it is it worth taking time away from in his case it's three boys, or for me, it's like my fiance and I'm getting married and I'm gonna wanna, you know, I'm hopefully having kids soon. And and so uh managing time is is probably the biggest factor in terms of decision making.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:45

That makes sense. And like how many deals do you think you can comfortably juggle at once? Because is your job more on the front end of like sourcing and putting together and negotiating it? I assume you're not going back and forth with the cities getting it permitted and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:57

Like what's well no, I mean we do we do kind of soup to nuts now. So when when I was growing Merrimack um kind of on my own, um, and I say on my own meaning day-to-day, because I'm sure Nittin explained this. We've always been partners in everything. So I had an equal piece of Miami World, he obviously had an equal piece of Merrimack. When I did the fund, he had a partner in that. So everything we do, we do together. It was just about how we were dividing up our time. So when I was 100% focused on Merrimack before he had time to come back in, I would do the front end work. I would go find the deal, I would buy the site, I would design something, I would entitle it, rezone it, whatever, maybe get the financing in place. And then I would bring in a development partner to manage the construction or manage the sales if it was a condo, and I would go on to doing the next two or three deals. Um and um as brought Nitton came in, because he'd managed so much construction, like I didn't have a good sense, you know, a good uh background in that, and quite frankly, I don't have a good affinity for it. Um, but he did because he did so much of it at Miami World and he had managed multiple condo deals. So the sales teams, like he was he had that expertise that I didn't. So we decided to build out our full team so we could do a deal soup to nuts, or we could still partner on deals if it makes sense. So um so we still do, I'd say half of our business are just Merrimack, uh, and then half are joint ventures.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:23

That's really cool. I mean, it's such a cool relationship you have with him to be you know on equal footing, and you guys ever get into fights about stuff? Like you guys get along well? Do we settle it with like a an arm wrestle these days?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:34

You know, funny enough, so so my mom, well when we moved home and and we're gonna work together, she said, okay, I'm handing you guys the the keys, you know, to you know, you guys go run it. I'm here if you need my advice, but you know, you guys make the decisions as long as you agree, you don't have to check with me. But I don't want you all fighting over money or business. So if you're gonna fight, then come to me and I'll I'll basically be the tiebreaker. And we've never once had to do that. I mean, we she sits in our month weekly meetings, she knows everything going on with all the projects, she'll talk to us individually with questions she has or ideas. Um, but we've never had we've never had to call in the tiebreaker. And usually it's because who's the favorite? Who's your mom's favorite? I'm the youngest, I'll leave it at that. Well, it's funny, I can say that, but he's given her three grandchildren. So so um I can assure you the grandchildren are feeling that pressure, yeah. Yeah. Um, but in terms of, yeah, no, we've never we never had a big fight. We have disagreements, I mean, uh for for sure. And um, and usually we'll if we find ourselves starting to argue, like one of us will kind of just kind of end it, and then we'll both both go back and think about what the other said. And you it's usually whoever has a stronger conviction on something um is is who who wins, so to speak. But we're equal partners. I mean, it's like there's no pride of ownership. To be honest, like halftime I'm like, wait, you want to go deal with that? Go for it. I make the same whether or not deal with it or not. Like and uh and vice versa. So it's it's really just who's who's more equipped to handle whatever aspect of the deal it is at that moment, whether it's relationships or skill set or or just you know, pain tolerance for whatever headache it is. Um and uh and we're pretty easygoing as terms of who who does that. And he worked hard and I work hard, and um, you know, we've never had any sort of issues where like, you know, one was carrying more weight than the other. It just sometimes it works out that someone's deals are more busy than the others, but that's you know, that sh easily shifts the other direction. I mean, sometimes it's day by day and sometimes it's week by week.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:40

I mean, it takes a really well-rounded individual to be able to have a relationship like that. It's pretty cool to see. And mom's still involved, you guys are still briefing mom on projects?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

Yeah, yeah. So we have a Monday team meeting with our whole development team in person, and um, we go through every deal. And uh, and so our team gets to hear what's going on on each other's deals. And so, like, I might solve a problem in a tell your ride, and then we find out that Waldorf's got a similar problem, and so now that team member knows kind of how to deal with it. Um, and um, and so mom's but she sits in on those meetings, and she hears all the projects that are going on. And if we're looking at an acquisition, then we'll bring it up during that meeting too and go through it. Um, and so so she's full, yeah, she's fully active. She's not required to be there, obviously. Like we're it's running on its own. We've got a great team, and Nitton and I are 90% of the time both there, but always one of us. The team, you know, neither of us will be gone. At the same time, if we're on vacation together, on a family vacation, we'll we'll do it remotely together. Um and um and that way the cadence of the team is always consistent um and everybody knows what's going on. And more importantly, if if someone has a decision that needs to be made on a deal and it needs both of our input, then they know that within a week they're gonna have both of us in the same room to go through it. So we have to go through some value engineering stuff uh on something and on a project. And you know, I our development guy came in today and said, Hey, can I walk you through this? And I said, You're gonna have to walk Nintendo through it anyways. We're both gonna be here Monday, so let's do it Monday while we're together, and we'll just you'll get both of our opinions at the same time. So um we find that um in development, you know, a lack of decision making is usually causes a lot of the problems and uh certainly delays and and delays are money in you know in our business. So we don't ever want to leave our team out to dry for you know not making a decision. That's so cool. You guys are building a dynasty. Thank you. Well, we're we're fortunate we're carrying on you know a legacy. I don't know about a dynasty, but a a legacy from our parents and and they did a business a certain way. We inherited their reputation, we inherited their hard work and their work ethic. And so um, you know, and I say that with you know pride, but there's also, you know, there's some there's some weight to it because every decision I make, I you know, when I went to tell you ride, the mayor said to me, said, How do I know that what you're telling me is is the truth? And I said, I'll tell you why. I said, because when I go home, if I were to lie to you, I'm not worried, I I could I I don't worry about what you think of me. I have to worry about what my mother thinks of me. And I said, No, sure. And I said, and and she would, she would, she would be so disappointed if if I uh you know if I said something and dishonest, right? I didn't live up to my word. And that's my guiding light for for how we run the business, which is like funny because like here I am as a now a grown man, like you know 45, talking about mom and whatever, but I'm very fortunate that the mom I'm talking about is you know very accomplished and very well respected.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:43

Yeah, I think there's yeah, there's no shame in that at all. And quite the opposite, actually. It's pretty incredible. That's awesome. Well, man, thank you for coming down and sharing your story. Yeah, this was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:53

It was really nice to to get to know you. Uh and I don't think we've ever crossed paths before until um until we went to the Simon Ziff event. Oh, yeah. And so everything points back to Simon Ziff. So uh super cool. Um really, really loved spending time with you today. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:12

Thanks for having me and uh congrats with everything. I I hear a lot about the podcast so uh from the community. So those of us in the real estate world know about it. I'm glad to finally be invited, only two years after Nitton. So uh that that stings less than being after Patrick Murphy. I don't know how to you know. So uh but I'll I'll try not to let it hurt my ego.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:36

Good to hear it. Absolutely cool with Deb. Have a great evening. Thank you.