Carlos Lago, Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Carlos came in with a beautiful bottle of Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia on a Friday afternoon. As a land use lawyer at Greenberg Traurig, he's spent his career navigating the intersection of development, politics, zoning, and city-building; he is one of the attorneys behind many of Miami's most impactful real estate projects. We discuss how major projects actually get approved, the evolution of neighborhoods like Wynwood and Edgewater, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the deals, negotiations, and public processes that are shaping the future of Miami.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:14

All right. It's Friday. It is Friday. And we're drinking. We're drinking. I was telling Felipe, I was like, one thing I will give lawyers, they all drink.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Yeah. We gotta get the good shit.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Carlos Lago came through with uh, what is this? Reserva de la familia from Jose Cuervo.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Jose Cuervo's reserva de la familia. It is their top tequila. It is a beautiful and smooth tequila. And my favorite. How did you guys enjoy it? I mean, this is the one I think the best one.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

This is our first class. We're gonna the first of many. Probably. Well, we're here at Bureau Central on the Florida.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Thanks, Carlos. Cheers.

unknown 0:50

You can chill.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Thank you, Carlos. We we always love gifts, especially tequila gifts. We're we're stoked to have you on the podcast. Oh, it's so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Thank you for inviting smooth. Yeah, this is dangerous. Keep that bottle close to me for this one. So it's beautiful. The presentation is also very beautiful. Like it comes. Yeah, look at this fucking box. Yeah, the box is so cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Hand painted. I mean, this is beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

We're gonna have to put make that a permanent part of the bar card.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

I know. I feel like we should, right? I got it. I want it's like it's a piece of artwork.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

Totally. And they change the artwork, the the artists every so often. So you have different artwork uh every couple months or every year, and it's also engraved with a special number. Yeah, we're enumerated.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

We're drinking bottle number. How are those old eyes doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

You know, I just got glasses, yeah. You know, that's why I'm giving you shit. So uh I feel like my my sight gets worse and worse every day. I think it's uh 473. Who who knows? How old are you guys? I'm 52. I'll be 52 this summer. I'm 45. Yeah, I'm 39. Ben is a young buck still. Oh, yeah. You're the youngin of the group here. Yeah, yeah. You don't look 52, man. 51. No, I'm not there yet. Okay, that's what I'm gonna be watching. I look 51, right? No, no, no, no. When's your birthday? Uh July, July 20th. Oh, it's coming up. Yeah, it's coming up right there.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

A summer guy. Yeah, it's hot today. I know. Hot today. It feels like the summer's coming. It's oh, it's here. It's here already. It feels like it's here. And it's gonna be a hot one this year, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Yeah, you know, and you're uh you're a Miami guy, so you're used to this. Born and raised. Born and raised in 305.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

Not coming, and very, very, very proud of it. Yeah, yeah, of course. You know, I love the city, and it it's given me so much, you know, it's given my family so much and this country, you know, as well.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Um, you know, my parents, you know, my parents arrived here. I'm Cuban American. Uh, my parents are both Peter Pan, Pedro Pan.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Oh, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the Pedro Pan because that's a that's a cool story. I think we've talked about that a couple of times. I think so, yeah. But uh, you know who you know who was on that was uh Jorge Garcia. I was gonna say, yeah, Jorge. Do you know Jorge Garcia from Garcia Stromberg?

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Uh yes. Actually, I I know of him. Yeah, there's a lot of George Garcia.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

That's a common name. That's like that's like uh John Smith.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

From uh I think he was a Pedro Pan baby too, or a child. So tell us a little bit about uh Pedro Pan and how old were your parents when they got here?

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Yeah, so my parents my parents were from two different cities. My my mom, my father was from Havana. He came when he was 14. My mother was younger, she was eight or nine. My father, it was a program that got about 14,000 kids out of Cuba uh at the time. It was it was a program and what what year was what what year was this? It was 1959, 1960, at the start of the revolution. Um, and it was uh done in conjunction with a Catholic Church. It wasn't I I call it a program, but it was an operation really. Um the CIA was involved, um, and the Catholic Church committed to putting these kids and uh locating these kids in the United States, giving them a home, and also giving them a home throughout the United States, right? In different places.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

And they they were they were the the these children were flying on airplanes over here, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:17

So, and I'll tell you the this is this is a really interesting story because my my my my father's aunt uh polagarau was very involved in it, right? She was the CIA person in Havana, and what they did was they but she wasn't in the CIA.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Well, she was or not that you know of.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

Well, now that we have the Kennedy files, you know, we've gone through them. Yeah. Um, yeah, you know, at that time I think she was had what you would call CIA affiliations.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Okay, but she was she was a consultant for this some NGO bullshit.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Yeah, yeah, reporting back to the Americans, right? On on some of the computer activities there. But what she did was she was the main contact in Cuba. She took, I don't know if they stole it, uh, I don't know if they created a false one, but they basically created, I think, with a Swiss passport stamp that was used to let to get these 14,000 children out of Cuba. And a lot of great people, a lot of people that you know, for example, Manu Colina, um, you know, huge developer, businessman, philophilanthropist was Pedro Pan. He was also my father's bunk bunkmate, bunkmate. Um, so they transported them first to bunkmate where? So they yeah, so they first they transported them to this uh to the Florida Keys to a camp called Camp Matacumbe. And they were held there for a while until they found their permanent home.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Because what was happening, right? Kids were coming over without their parents, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Yes, yes, without your parents. The kids were coming by themselves, uh, which was a very hard decision, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

For um Fuck yeah, I can't imagine putting my son on a on a plane to see, like, yo, dude, yeah, you're going to the United States, you know, you're going to Cuba right now. Like best of luck. Yeah, hope to see you uh, I don't know when.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

That's crazy. Right. So um it was, you know, I got a little emotional because I could imagine, you know, what a difficult decision that was for my grandparents, but for both set of grandparents, right? But what that, you know, has become, right? What what came out of that, right? You know, and and me myself, myself and my brothers and my sister. Um, yes, I have two kids. I have actually uh that that four-year-old and a six-month-old.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Okay, wow. So that hits so much harder once you have kids and you realize what that must fit what it felt like. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Right, of course.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

But but let me ask you a question about Pedro Pan because I, you know, I I I don't know that much about it. Um so this this was the parents of these children were like, let me get my kids out of here because the shit's gonna hit the fan pretty soon. And the idea is um we're gonna we're gonna Castro's not in power at this point, is he? Yes. He is okay. And so um they and people could leave Cuba at their own will at this point? No. No, so he knew very well that the the the children of these um people from Cuba were leaving without their parents.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

He knew um they had a stamp from I think it was either Switzerland or US or from other countries, right? For giving them the visa stamp, right, with these exits. But what he wouldn't allow were the parents to leave with the kids. So he separated families. But these parents had the foresight to say, what we know what's coming here, right? And we have to do we have to make this decision to send our children to the United States to safety. And uh it's a decision that I think as a parent would be a very, very difficult decision. But I'm very thankful to my grandparents for having made that decision. Um and you know, it was a hard time. My my my father, they were held in Matacumbe. My father went to uh North Florida, my mother went to Texas, and it was about for each of them, I think three or four years until their grandpar their parents, my grandparents, get out of Cuba and were reunited.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

And how did your grandparents get out of Cuba?

SPEAKER_04 8:36

So that's actually one of them is a very interesting story. Um, when it comes to my father. Um, my father's parents, uh, my uncle was already before the revolution, he's older than my father, who was already studying in the United States. He was at Chapel Hill. And um after Fidel comes into power, he's one day in class.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Fidel comes to power what year?

SPEAKER_04 9:01

59.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:02

So he could after Fidel comes to power, he's in class one day, and a friend of his says, Hey, you know, Julio, what's up? What's wrong with you? I see that you're very sad, you're very depressed. He goes, You know, my parents, you know, are stuck in Cuba, and it doesn't seem like they're gonna be getting out. My father, my grandfather was a politician, a very, you know, he had fought against the Batista government as well. He had fought against the Castro government, so they weren't letting him out. And uh, you know, he said he tells, you know, his friend, you know, I'm very depressed, you know, about this and very sad. Ended up uh that his friend Miguel, a Mexican, he his mother was the secretary of the president of Mexico. And he says, let me talk to my mom and spoke to it and was able to get my grandparents' visas to get out of Cuba in I think it was 63 or 64.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

So they've gone four years without seeing their children.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because now that the Kennedy doc the Kennedy, you know, documents have been released, um, there's reports that I read now, you know, uh about my grandparents where they were spying on them and at a dinner. And who was spying on them? The the Q. Well, the US, the CIA. It was the CIA operative. I don't know if they were spying on them, but you know, but they were you know monitoring you know these activities, right? And and they talk about my grandmother, they describe my grandfather, certain things that he's up to, whatever. And then they describe my grandmother being very concerned and very missing her children very much, you know. And that that when I read that, it's it really hit me hard.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

So what what what did your grandparents do in Cuba? What line of business were they in?

SPEAKER_04 10:57

So my father, my grandfather was a physician. Um, he was a very well-known physician, but he was also a politician. He was uh a representative. Um, he was also in in the one of the pre previous Democratic governments as you know um health secretary in Havana. So he held various positions in the government and was, you know, elected official. And um my grandmother was also studied. She went to the University of Havana. She uh studied literature. Um, and on my mom's side, my grandmother was a nutritionist, and my grandfather was they had a bottling plant for uh soda pop, pineapple soda pop. Yeah, like hoopy. Soft drinks. Yeah, like soft drinks. Got it.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

So where did where did you come into the picture? Where did you where were you born? Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_04 11:54

So my parents end up uh like I mentioned, my mom goes to Texas, my dad goes to uh Palm Beach, and their families come out.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Sounds like your your dad was in Palm Beach?

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Yeah, my dad was in Palm Beach.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

He made it out better than your mom. He made it out better than my mom. Both very gringo places, yeah, but fucking Texas. Where in Texas? Uh San Antonio. Okay. Yeah. So that's there was good food there. A lot of cowboys there.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

Yeah, a lot of cowboys. But my par my dad actually, you know, so he was 14. He he he graduates high school and gets into Tulane, into Cornell, both, accepted into both, goes to Cornell. My grandparents get out and they moved to New Orleans. I'm sorry, my dad went to Tulane. I apologize. Uh, so my grandparents get out and they and they join them in New Orleans. And my brother via Mexico. You're correct. Mexico, then you know, they were in Miami first stint, yeah, and then New Orleans. And they lived in New Orleans for like 25 years. So my father went to undergrad there, he went to medical school in at Tulene, and my mother had at that point her family was living in Atlanta. She had lived in Atlanta, you know, for she went to high school in Atlanta for many, many years. She goes to study uh to do her master's in New Orleans at a school that now, you know, it's I think it was called St. Mary's Dominican. I think now it's it was it's part of another college, Loyola. Um, and they met in New Orleans. My parents met in New Orleans. Uh the Cubans, you know, used to hang out there. There used to be a large Cuban community there. In New Orleans? In New Orleans, really interesting. Why, why New Orleans was there well, because people at that time remember were spread out like I, you know, throughout the US, there was a huge community. There's always been a large Cuban community in Tampa. Yeah. Even before from the you know, from like the 1800s, late 1800s, um, a large Cuban community in New Jersey, in Union City, in New York, but also in LA, New Orleans, and and in some of the these major cities. So it's kind of everyone back like in the 60s, 70s, 80s was working hard, living, you know, throughout the United States, and a lot of them with the main goal of coming to Miami. Of course. They would come on vacation to Miami to visit their cousins, visit their family members, visit their friends, but go back, right? But their goal was to eventually make it back to Miami. So, for example, in my parents' story, my brother was born in New Orleans, my dad was doing his residency, and 1980, they get to they moved back to Miami. They moved to Miami, and I was born in Miami.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Okay. Hell of a time to move to Miami. 1980. Our favorite era. I know it is our favorite era.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Some of our guests, too. Yeah. The glory days. Yeah, they were all at the mutiny. They were partying. They were. Um, and so what what kind of what type of doctor was your dad?

SPEAKER_04 15:01

So my father is a gastroenterologist internist.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

He uh he does, you know, everything. It's your stomach, internal medicine, but also he's a hepatologist, which is, you know, uh specializes in the liver. Okay. And how about your mom? And my mom, she studied uh microbiology. She used to read slides. Uh, but she ended up mostly, most of her career was working with my father and supporting him in his office. Gotcha. And running running his office and running running the home.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

So when they moved back, where did they move to? Like was that where you were born? Did you guys live in the same house the whole time? Or so we I was born in Coral Gables. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Uh we lived there for a while, and then we moved right outside of Coral Gables, a block away, to uh right by UM, by University of Miami in South Miami. Great end. And yeah, and I think we moved, my parents must have moved there in 1985, 86, and they lived there ever since. So what was it?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

What was it like growing up in Miami at in that time?

SPEAKER_04 16:00

It was, you know what? It was a what I used to call a small big city. Yeah. You know, I went to Gulliver. I before going to Gulliver, actually, I started at uh a preschool called the Ulanda Garden School, which is uh off of the June in the Little Gables, like 16th Street in the June. And um it was it was I call it a Cuban school, but we would because we would sing the Cuban national anthem in the morning and the American national anthem both at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

So Miami.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

And then from there, my parents decided to put me in Gulliver, and I didn't speak much English at the time, so you know it was it was hard. It was uh, you know, I had some teachers that had to help me get there, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

So you grew up speaking English or Spanish, yes, yeah. I I grew up speaking Spanish as my first language, and and even when pre in preschool, you were Spanish was the the first language, correct?

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Yes, but back then, you know, I mean you would drive down um you know old color drive on a Saturday and a Sunday, and sometimes you wouldn't see a car. That's yeah, you know, and it was old color with the tree tunnel, like yeah, yeah, yeah, the best beautiful, and everybody knew everybody, so it was it was you know, it was it had uh it was on its way of becoming a big city, but you had that small town feel.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

I think the big city thing didn't even happen until post-COVID. Like, and even now we're still kind of a we're still kind of a fake big city.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

Yeah, well, man, but Miami was growing, you know. At that time, you know, it was growing and Latin America, you know, was growing as the capital of Latin America, the financial capital of Latin America. So it had his hiccups to get there, you know, but it has grown exponentially and it's huge.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

What were you into as a kid? Like um any sports or hobbies stand out? So I love to fish. Um very Florida of you. Yeah. Salt Life, you got a salt life sticker on your car? No. Flow grown. Flow grown.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Um I, you know, my parents taught my brother and I and my sister how to collect art. We that's how I met my wife as well. So we collect art. Um, I played sports when I was smaller, you know. I played soccer, I played um baseball at this place called the Big Five. Um, but I didn't play much in high school because I wasn't that that good in team sports by that time. Uh, but that's mostly been my interest. You know, I love to travel as well. What do they how do you teach kids how to collect art?

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Like what is what do they tell you?

SPEAKER_04 18:36

So, you know, in our house art, it was interesting because my parents, you you don't really teach kids how to collect art, you just make them a part of it, right? So in our house, uh, we had a seat at the table. And at you know, the dinner table, you would have a great friend of my dad who was an artist, right? And we were allowed to ask questions, and we were taken to you know the gallery openings, and we knew, and we were taken to the private art studios, right? So we grew up in that world, and we grew up having the relationships with these artists that were friends of our parents. So we learned a lot about that type of art, Latin American, Cuban art at that time when we were younger, and then that flourished um in my brother and I mostly into and that grew.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

There's only two of you? It's it's three of us. It's three of us. So you have an older brother?

SPEAKER_04 19:33

I'm in the middle, okay, and then I have a little sister, okay, a younger sister. All right. And uh that flourished and that grew into contemporary art. And, you know, we go to fairs. Uh my brother and I have a uh a longstanding uh uh and a couple of friends of ours as well. We have a long-standing tradition of going to New York at least once a once a year to one of the art fairs, whether it's you know, the armory or another art fair, you know. So it's it's a tradition, it's something that we share and something that we really love to do.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

And do you guys are you artists yourselves? Do you create anything? No, it's your artistic skills. Yeah, no, it's so interesting because like I feel like your dad is a doctor, yes, and you're a lawyer, like it's not very like art adjacent, so it's interesting that you guys are like into art like that. Right, it's cool.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

And um, funny story is that you know, there's uh a gallery owner by the name of Fred Stitcher. I don't know if you know him, but you should probably have him on the show. And he's he's been here for 50 years. You know, he's had a gallery in Coral Gables and Wynwood and you know, downtown Miami throughout 50 years. And um I think this was probably like 2012, 13. I walk into the gallery and I see a girl. And I knew I knew her from somewhere, but I wasn't sure. And I keep on seeing her, she's working at the gallery, and I keep on seeing her because we'd go to the gallery every single weekend, right, to hang out with our to Fred and to see the different shows that he had going on just to talk about art. And we we connect that she had gone to Gulliver and I had gone to Gulliver, but she had left Gulliver when she was in fourth grade because her father had passed, and she had gone to Costa Rica. And so we connected that moment and kind of remembered it, you know, had friends in common, right? Some people that we knew in common. And I had a girlfriend at the time, she had a boyfriend at the time. And I don't, you know, after that, I don't see her for three and a half years. And then I run into her at a party. And I said to her, I go, Hey, um, how how how are you and your husband doing? I thought she had married this guy that had gone together with me as well, right? And she goes, What are you talking about? She goes, you know, I broke up with him a long time ago So and then after that, you know, it's history. So I actually met my wife at an art gallery through art. So it's it's it's incredible, like with when you do certain things or your hobbies and things that you love, that so much can come from it, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:15

So but going back to your your high school, so you're in high school. What are you what are you into? Like what are you what subjects are you good at? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

So in high school, one of the things uh and in grade school, I had taken drafting in middle school, actually. And I had taken architecture in I thought you weren't good at drawing.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

No, terrible. That's why you didn't come and argue that's why you well, I guess architecture can use a ruler, so you don't have to freehand it. Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

And then I took architecture.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

So you were kind of interested in real estate or at least buildings.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

Yeah. So and then I took architecture in high school, and and I remember actually even one summer, uh UM, the UM School of Architecture had a program. It was like a four-week program for high school kids, where you came and did a project, and they, you know, it was a course, and I did that for a summer. For a summer, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

I gotta, I gotta the guy's a nerd, dude. Like I graduated going to summer school for shits and giggles. Super nerdy.

SPEAKER_04 23:21

So um, you know, I I I loved it. I loved it. Um what did you like about it?

SPEAKER_02 23:26

So, what was the course?

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Um, it was like an architecture drafting course. I think I took it, I think I took it two years. I think they offered it like in high school. You doubled down on it, huh? Yeah, it took it both years, right? Oh, well, I'm talking about the UM program, I'm talking about the architecture likes credit school, the courses in high school, right? Um and but then I get to college and I really realized that the side of my brain wasn't that that that was really good, wasn't really math, and wasn't really, you know, the the the science part. I hadn't done really well in science and biology. Uh I but I always did very good in English. And I always did, I was a good reader, I was a good writer. Um, so and then I was like, you know, I rethought it. Um, you know, what I was gonna do. I you enter, you know, college and you kind of don't know what what it is you're gonna do. And I think at that point, you know, is where I decided to go a different path because but I always loved design and architecture. So now, you know, through this, I'm doing something that is just very related to to architecture and design.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

But but hold on. So you're you're at UM, you what did you major in?

SPEAKER_04 24:39

No, so I went to my undergrad at FIU.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Oh, you went to FIU?

SPEAKER_04 24:43

Yeah, okay. And I majored in finance. And then after that, how'd you do in the finance?

SPEAKER_02 24:50

You said you weren't very good at math. Yeah, that's how I realized I wasn't good at math. Just brute forced your way through. Were you were you a good student in high school? I I I I got by. Yeah, you know, what is get by? Like B, C, so I was D's like Ben. I was more like a B student.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

B student? I was a B student. And then, you know, I I I would I wouldn't pay too much attention, I wouldn't try too much, but I would get a B or an A without trying too hard. Okay. Right. And then I went to FIU. And uh after my first year at FIU is when I really started applying myself to study, and I really learned how to study. Yeah. And I had a friend of mine who taught me how to study. Um, so you did you did you did all right uh at FIU? Yeah, I started doing better my second year, yeah, and I started taking things more serious. Um, because I had that person um who told me they go, you you know, you go to class, you don't pay attention, and you do well. You know, if you just apply yourself and study a little bit, you know, you may do even better. Yeah. And I followed her advice and I started doing great. And then I really became very applied and would study for everything. And um when I graduated, I knew or before a little bit before I graduated, I knew that I wanted to eventually go to law school, but I knew that I also wanted to get an MBA because I felt that you know, anything that you do, you have to know how to read financial statements. You have to be financially savvy, you have to know the basics. And although I had gone to business school, I didn't feel like I had was sharp, as sharp as I wanted to be on in those fields, right? So I decided at that point to do them separately, and I went to UM and got my MBA. I spent two years there doing doing my MBA.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

So you straight from FIU, you went to UM to get your MBA?

SPEAKER_04 26:57

Straight straight from FIU, two years at UM. And you went back to FIU for your J D. And then just love school. And then I took a year off. Um what'd you do on your year off? Study for the LSAT. Oh, okay. That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Party. Yeah. Where were you partying at? That was a good time. Where were you partying at? Oh man. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 27:21

I mean, Miami, you know, in my 20s and early 30s was a lot of fun. I'm sure. A lot of fun. Where were you living? Um, so I lived in Edgewater and the Gables mostly. Okay. Um, I also lived in the grove for a while. All right. Uh, but you know, we were I was at the grove every Thursday night. Sandbar? Oh dude, even maybe that's where you recognize me from.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Even before even what was the Fat Tuesdays? Or you know, you know, or my frogs? Dude, Senior Frogs. Dude, senior frogs on Thursday night was insane.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

What about oxygen? That basement.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Uh, you know, I did I go in there? I don't remember oxygen. This is before me. I think that was before that was I was probably in elementary school. I don't know if you got old guys are talking about.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

So oxygen was this club, which was in the basement of the Mayfair, and it was a dungeon. Yeah, I don't think I ever went in there. That's pretty sweet. A dungeon. I mean, what's there now? Is it still there?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

I don't know what's here now.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

I mean, there's something there. It's probably parking. Lame. But you would walk in there, dude, and your phone would not work. Perfect. Beautiful. So none of your friends who were outside could call you, get me in. No one could call you and tell you there was an emergency boy on here. So you walk out of there and you'd have like 30 missed calls and like 20 messages. But uh that that was a heyday. The grove was so much fun. We'd go to the beach lot, and I even remember, like, you know, at the beginning of you know the club scene growing up in downtown Miami in the arts and entertainments district, like, you know, when the first space opened up, yeah a lot different than the space today, right? It had an outdoor area, it was it had a hip hop room, it had a Latin room. So we would go to we'd be there at you know, space almost every weekend.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Did you know, did you know Emmy Guerra back then? Of course. Oh, that's a friend of mine.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

Which is I love that picture that you guys have on your Instagram of him.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Which uh I don't know, I don't know which one. There's a really funny photo where the three he's sitting oh yeah, he was in a classroom with us, some guys look at him like this saying something. And uh Emmy is a great guy. Yeah, we had him at the uh in the uh real estate development. Be the one that would get me and all my friends, yeah. So he's like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

Come that's cool, get around, let him in. Yeah, but it was all because of my brother because my brother and Emmy were uh the same are the same age.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Oh, is that right?

SPEAKER_04 29:53

And uh grew up together.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Your brother's like the mayor of Coral Gables or something like that, isn't it? All right, it's a nice hookup, yeah. It is give me a parking spot, bro. Give these guys another 50 stories, make it happen. It doesn't really work like that. It doesn't just fucking with you.

SPEAKER_04 30:13

Uh but you know, we're very proud of him and the job that he has done, and the you know, he has a tremendous passion for giving back. And like I said, you know, that's something that uh my dad, my grandfather instilled in us, and public service is is he an attorney as well?

SPEAKER_03 30:29

You're you're no? No, okay. So what made you pursue law? Because you were did you have any idea what did you know you wanted to do law when you were going for your MBA?

SPEAKER_04 30:37

Or so I knew that that I was a good writer, I knew that I was a you know good at reading, or I thought I was because we go to law school, you realize you're not good at anything, right? You're like right. I they and they tell you too, you think you're a good writer, but you're you're not, you'll see that you're not. Um so I knew that that was my forte, and I I knew, and I still tell this to people today that even if you don't become a lawyer, even if you don't practice, this is it's the best education that anybody could get. And there's so many people that you know you see out there that you know went to law school and did something else, right? But it's that education, that formation that they get in law school that really, you know, helped them in their career. So And why do you say that? Well, because uh like I said before, you thought you knew how to read, you thought, you know, you become an analytical thinker, you know, and everything you do. And they force you, right? They they they break you basically. And and in law school, you know, in throughout the United States, you know, if you're not uh within the first, you know, within a certain percentage, you're dropped, right? After your first year, you don't make it. So um they break you into you know, into writing analytic analytically, into thinking critically, into so it it gives you a tool and a set and a foundation that you can apply to anything and be extremely successful.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

Yeah. Um and how did you find how did you find law school? Did you enjoy it or? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

Yeah. Uh enjoyed it after the first year. It it was a lot of work. Once you got used to the beatings, yeah. It was it was a lot of work. I mean, the first the first year is a lot of work. Um, you know, the second, the second year, the second and third years, things are a little bit more flexible, and you get to choose some of your classes. So it eases up the the course load also eases up, and the pressure, you know, that you have your your first year is not is not as big. If you've made it the first year, you're there to stay.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

And did you know you wanted to do something in real estate or land use? Or what was the sound funny? Yeah. Um you wanted to go to court and yell objection.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

I thought I did. I thought I did. You know, I I I remember I went to the the dean's office, um, the career dean or the you know, dean of students, right? And I and I was talking to them and you know, asking them some some advice, right? Um what what where do I go from here? What do I do? You know, it was my second year or first year. And they said, well, you know, you kind of like start off by thinking, you know, there's two paths to go, either litigation or transactional. And yeah, transactional is nice, but this is what the lady told me. She goes, but litigation, you know, Miami is a litigation city, and that's where the business is at, you know, and that's where most of the work is everything is litigation in Miami. So I thought I wanted to be a litigator, I thought it was gonna be, you know, exciting. Um, I took land use my second year, you know, I found it pretty interesting. It's a lot of theory, right? Uh, you know, in in the course, uh, not you know, is that an elective or is that one of the regards? Yeah, it was an elective, yeah. It was an elective, and I did pretty well in it. And um, so I uh graduated in 2009 and we were in the recession. And things were, you know, from law school. I graduated from law school in 2009 and we're in the midst of the recession. And uh at that time a I took I had to take the bar exam. I wasn't doing much uh waiting for my bar exam results. And you know, I was keeping up with Miami 21. Miami 21 was being instituted in the city of Miami, and Francis Suarez had just become a young commissioner. So I I saw this great opportunity to go work with him in his office uh as a young commissioner. It was his first term, and uh a great opportunity to be part of you know this great, you know, first foreign-based zoning code that was being instituted in the United States um in the city of Miami. And I I said, you know what, uh it doesn't look like there's a lot of legal jobs out there right now. And I thought I had wanted to be a litigator and I fell into this path. And that's in 2009, I started his office at the city of Miami.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

What were you doing at his office?

SPEAKER_04 35:36

So I was uh policy, I was a senior policy analyst, but what he you know really assigned me to was land use and zoning in you know, policy, you know, in general, but a lot of mostly land use and zoning. And what was the hot thing going on at that time was Miami 21 and the the adoption of Miami 21.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

So because Miami 21 passed in in 2009, right? 2010. 2010.

SPEAKER_04 36:03

Yeah, it was adopted in pieces, it was a it was a process, but it was finalized by May 2010. Okay. So then uh, you know, Francis, a lot of the new commissioners had come in, had modifications, they were still voting on things, um, they were still doing some community meetings, and so I was very involved in that process, and it it was a great opportunity to learn zoning. And we did great things. Uh Francis uh with in conjunction with the commissioner at the time because Regolato's mayor at this point, right? Right, Regolato's mayor, Frank Corroy's uh district three commissioner, uh Sarnoff.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

This is this is crazy Frank Corroyo, right? No, it's Frank Corello, not Joe Caroyo. Oh, not Joe Corroyo. Okay, Corroyo. Crazy Joe, Crazy Joe, that's his nickname.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

So um, so I was at uh Sarnoff was uh was a district two commissioner as well. And um they so one of the things one of the programs that we or one of the things that we wrote or Francis uh we did was create one we created one of the first bonus programs for uh affordable and workforce housing in Miami 21. So before I even knew you know much about affordable bonus programs, you know, we wrote the first uh workforce and affordable bonus program and that and then the city has built upon that in the code in Miami 21.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

How did you like uh politics or working in that realm?

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Well, I still work in that realm.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

But you switch you kind of switch sides, right?

SPEAKER_04 37:48

Like you Oh, I mean, you mean so like working for like working in the city? Yeah, I loved working in the city.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

How how long did you work in the city for?

SPEAKER_04 37:56

I was at the city for two and a half years. Okay, and then from there, um at the same time, um Carlos Magoya was manager, right? He had just if you recall, um He was city manager and then he went over to Jackson, right? If you recall, um Regalado brought him in for a dollar a year, okay, and the city was you know not it was it was it financial it had big financial issues, and he spent two and a half years there um while I was at you know I was at the commissioner's office in the city manager. I got close to him and I got to know him. And when he gets named president CEO of Jackson, he asked me to go with him. Got it, and he asked me to be his chief of staff. So I spent about approximately two and a half years there at Jackson with him. And it was an incredible experience because Jackson at that at that point was in the red. You know, uh there had been a the county had um assigned a uh like an oversight board that was overseeing um Jackson. Um and there was a you know they're at we were at a very big risk of losing the hospital at that time. And we went in there for two and a half in two years, he got that place, you know, in the black, back into the positive, making money. Well, what was and what was Carlos's background? So Carlos was a banker back in the in the 70s and 80s. He started off as a banker, I think in Ready State Bank, that or one of these that grew. Um he was one of the uh you know first to loan a lot of money to a lot of the developers and a lot of entrepreneurs here in Miami, in Miami, and that's how he established a lot of his relationships. Got it. But he um at some point, you know, was at he he made his way up the ladder in the in the banking world.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Gotcha. And then he went to to try to clean things up at the city and then and then at Jackson.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

And then at Jackson, and he's been at Jackson so uh since 2012. He's still there, and he's still there, he's retiring at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Yeah, yeah. Dang. Um so after two and a half years, what happens? You're like at Jackson?

SPEAKER_04 40:31

So so at the time, you know, before before I joined Jackson, while I was at GT, I mean, sorry, while I was at the city of Miami, I met Lucia Doherty, you know, who's my mentor, Iris' mentor, and I met Iris as well. And we were working closely with them, you know, on these Miami 21, and I would see, you know, Lucia do these presentations, go before uh, you know, the the commission and get these crazy, incredible projects approved. And um it was amazing to me see her up there because she would she would win one after the other, and everyone would walk out happy. The applicant would walk out happy, the city was happy, the neighbors were happy, and the elected officials were happy for record.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Lucia's a Syracuse grad as well.

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Me too.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

So I met them, you know, I met them during my time at the city of Miami. Um, I leave to the county. Um, I'm working at the county, uh Jackson, sorry, um, during this period, and there wasn't a lot of development going on. Um, and I was working actually, I was Greenberg's client because we had hired Greenberg uh at Jackson to do the helipad, to get the helipad approved at Jackson North. And I was working with Mario Garcia Serra, um, who's an attorney, a lands attorney, who was at GT at that time, and I was working closely with him. And um he asked me during that time, he said, Hey, you know, uh would you consider coming to GT? And they did not have an associate at the time because you know it was a recession. And I thought about it, and I thought the first thing I thought was what the hell is Magoyo gonna say? You know, because um, you know, he's because you're you're his right hand, yeah. Yeah. Um and you know, I thought about it hard, and I interviewed at Greenberg, and you know, I obviously took the job. And um that's that's you know, I I when I joined, there wasn't any associate, and there wasn't a lot going on. So things were starting to ramp up.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Perfect timing.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

What year 2013?

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Perfect time. So it's uh yeah. Lucia, Iris, and then you, you guys are the team. Right.

SPEAKER_04 43:07

So I was uh Lucia, there was there was others, but in the city of Miami, uh Lucia and Iris were leading it. Uh Iris had just was a young shareholder. Yep. Uh Lucia was still doing the majority. This is right when I got there, and then I was the associate doing a lot of the work. All the groundwork. Right. And then uh within four or five years, I I mean, you know, I got in there. I looked at the track, you know, of what and as you know, how long it takes to become a partner there. And I said to myself, I go, you know, I I I want to be a partner, but I I don't want to, you know, I want to do this as fast as possible. And so I applied myself, I worked hard, and I said in five years I became partner, and I became

SPEAKER_02 44:01

Were you married? No. No? No.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

So you just married to GT.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

So what you're saying is Iris worked you well. Yeah. She worked you good, huh? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

So you said you were the youngest shareholder in GT or one of the youngest?

SPEAKER_04 44:16

I was at that time, yeah. I was one of the youngest uh shareholders, one of the youngest associates to become shareholder at GT. How old were you? 35. Okay. 35 years old.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

And how does that work? Like, do they just award you sorry, award you partnership, or do you have to like buy in? Or like how does that work to achieve a partner at a big law firm like that?

SPEAKER_04 44:36

So it's uh there's a track, you know, most the big law billable hours, like what is yeah. So it's so you have to have a certain amount of years, right? As an associate, you have to have have been, you know, nine, nine and a half, it's a certain places, it's eight years, I've worked, um, so you know, somewhere, right? You have to have an amount of experience, you know, uh call a certain amount of experience. Um, and then you're asked, you have to have a certain amount of business as well, and a certain amount of hours that you bill. And yes, and then there's multiple layers or multiple levels within the partnership. But you're asked and you have to pay it. You pay in. Yeah. Some firms have equity partnerships, some firms don't have equity partnerships, they're different forms.

SPEAKER_03 45:25

We have we're we're a shareholder system, and we so you basically buy like a piece of the business, you buy future cash flows essentially. Correct. Yeah, you buy shares, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

That's sweet, you know. So there's level 300, you buy 300 shares, level 500, 500 shares, and level 1000, 1000 shares.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

That's cool. So, what was the first like big real estate project you worked on coming into to land use? So 2013 was but was Brickle House? I think that was related, like first project in Brickle, like coming out of the recession. My Brickle. My Brickle that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, my brickle. I was gonna say related hadn't done much. It was my brickle. Um Brickle House was uh Newgard.

SPEAKER_04 46:06

That's right. Yeah, that was an early project as well that we had worked on as well. Okay, at the start of the recession. So was my brickle the first one? My Brickle was the first one that I worked on. I would caught the tail end of that. Irish did most of that, and then we did from there related to shot off. Yeah, they they were the first uh in in you know at the recession in around 2012-13 just to uh start building it. We did Baltas House, we did SLS Lux. I think we did SLS Brickle first, actually. Then we did SLS Lux, we did Brickle Heights, we did um trying to remember now the name of the one project, all the related projects, but it was one, it was back to back. Um, you know, during those years, 2000, I would say 12 to like I mean 13 to like 2016, 17.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Weren't any of those that that complicated? Those are all pretty much like stamped and go forward, right?

SPEAKER_04 47:06

Those were all within the code, like they were complicated, they were complicated because no one really had applied Miami 21. Miami 21 was fresh, right, was new, and there had to be many projects. So everything was complicated at that point because you know no one had built uh high rise in a long time or gotten one approved since Miami 21 was officially stamped in 2010. Right. Remember, I mean, you know, we started the recession around 2008, and it was uh like two thousand up to 2013. So, you know, there wasn't a lot of projects going on at the at you know in that period of time.

SPEAKER_03 47:43

No, I think my brickle broke around in 12 or 13, probably, right? Right, around there, right? And then from there, that's when it started ripping again, right? But it was slow, everyone was scared. I kept everyone's been saying it's gonna be a uh a crash in Miami since 2014, 2015. It's coming again every seven years. Yeah, such bullshit.

SPEAKER_04 48:00

And if you remember um the icon project, of course, right? Icon Biscayne, right? We got that approved during that time, yeah. And then they put it on hold because of that reason, and now it's being built. So it was on hold for a couple of years because you know, just what you were saying, like you know, at that time string projects had been the brakes were put on.

SPEAKER_03 48:24

Everyone was scared, everyone was scared, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. So 17, and then once you make partner, what is it? Just bus just kind of business as usual, just pounding through projects.

SPEAKER_04 48:36

Yeah, so that was a crazy time too, you know. I mean, things had been picking up at you know, 2017. Um, then we got hit by COVID, but you know, from 2007, 16, 17, 18, 90, you know, 19, uh we were non-stop. Um, Winwood, you know, we were doing, you know, we did all the early projects in Winwood. Um, also for like, you know, related was an early entrant there too. And they're all the projects were you know named the same thing. Winwood 25, Winwood 26, Winwood 29, Windwood 35.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

They're very creative.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Yeah, yeah. These were all these were all related projects. Those were all well, yeah. I'm just saying generally all the projects had yeah, Winwood something. Did you work on Winwood 25? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

Was that did you work on the whole shit with the short-term rental with Domeo? Did you see were you part of any of that or no?

SPEAKER_04 49:27

I that that came later on. So early on, there was a there was a couple of variations of that project. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually the first project I did in Winwood was um was for trying to remember the name of it. Was before the NRD. Oh, okay. Before the NRD for um I'll remember the name.

SPEAKER_03 49:54

Got it. Yeah, because with the with with 25, there was a short-term, that was when all the short-term rental stuff was popping off from like 16 to 20 2020, basically. And there's a company called Domeo that had pre-leased or was going to master lease the entire building. It was 180 units, and then they went bankrupt in 2020, I think, and they had to pivot back from that master lease, but it was a fucking mess. There were a bunch of those short-term rental companies popping up everywhere, and then COVID just wiped them all out.

SPEAKER_04 50:20

Well, you know, I I the I I remember the first actual short-term rental project that we did that I recall is U Hotel.

SPEAKER_03 50:28

Okay. RDD. Yeah, RTD. That's more of a pure hotel, though. That's like a true hotel concept.

SPEAKER_04 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Downtown. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. David's been on. Yes. David's a close friend of the pod.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Yeah, we love David. He is. He's a legend.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

So how was COVID? Did that affect you at all? Or was it just still plowing? Maybe it affected you for like six months, and then everyone's like, Yeah, it affected us.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

I mean, obviously, at the beginning was very scary, right? The first three months.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

You were like, oh shit, it's happening again.

SPEAKER_04 50:53

Right. We didn't nobody knew what was going on, right? Um, but I think six months in, we just started getting calls and and a lot of calls from out of towners.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

Um and all these fucking New Yorkers, huh? Yeah, yeah. Well, you're an OG, so you can call them fucking fucking New Yorkers.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

A lot of New Yorkers. So things picked up, you know, a lot. And you know, our Miami clients started becoming more active as well. But and as people started moving down to Miami, the demand grew and grew and grew, and the projects grew.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

And uh what do you got what are you guys seeing now? You guys, how's how's the pipeline? I mean, you guys are kind of at the front end of everything. Yes. Um, yes. And uh, you know, you guys are basically trying to help developers and title projects that they probably won't build for another two or three years. Right. Um what's what's your sense? Where are we in the cycle?

SPEAKER_04 51:51

So things have started picking up, I think, towards you know, the end of last year, the during the fall, we did see a little bit of a, you know, the summer fall, we saw a little bit of a dip, right, in new projects. We really haven't had many projects, you know, existing projects or projects in the pipeline that have been canceled, or you know, maybe they didn't pencil for other, you know, for other reasons, but not, you know, we really haven't seen a lot of projects. Uh the number of projects decrease that were existing. What we've seen, what we have seen is that there hasn't been as many new projects. But lately, in the last, I would say the last two or three months, we've seen clients looking at a lot a lot more projects, and they're actually starting to move.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

But it's all condo, right? High-end condo. Yeah, there's a lot of high condo. If you're not charging $2K a foot, you're not building problems.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

So I would say about like a year and a half ago, right? Rental two years ago, rental was hot. Yeah, but nothing pencils anymore. And now it's we saw that rental has dropped and that luxury is back. Yeah. Which is always like, well, our bread and butter was luxury.

SPEAKER_03 53:03

Yeah, yeah. It's everyone can pay for everything with luxury. Everything, everything gets paid for. It actually pencils out much if people are buying. And and you've you've had a little experience with Live Local, haven't you? Yeah. I mean, what have you been have you been seeing a lot of Live Local projects get built, or if any, or what's going on with with Live Local?

SPEAKER_04 53:21

So you know, I was thinking about that on my way in here, and I think that we have He knew he was gonna get quizzed on this.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Because it's a it's a question that everybody because no one knows how to use it, right? Like, I mean, I think the way I've seen guys use it is they're already building over like whatever 70 plus units, and they can get a tax break on those 70 units if they fall under 120 anyway. So it's kind of like, let's use it that way, but actually true workforce housing projects, like it's just I feel like a broken record, I keep saying it, but like nothing pencils. So, like, how how are people finding and use it utilizing it?

SPEAKER_04 53:54

So we haven't seen a lot of projects get permits or break grounds, right? On the local, I think I've had one. Uh, we do have a lot of projects that are in the pipeline that uh that are coming, you know, that we've uh we hope they're coming. We hope they're coming, right? They've been approved. But they've been approved by site plan and entitled.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

But now now it's the financing issue that I think becomes that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

That's where I am. Yeah. I know. Yeah. We're building a 142-unit live local project right now. It's 100% live local, but it's it's the same thing, just finding the equity that'll that's into it for you know for the yield on costs that we can hit. And the the tax breaks great, but it's it's like you still need more subsidy to make to make the deal work.

SPEAKER_04 54:36

Right. And the tax, so there's as you know, it's like as you're saying, there's two components to the live local. You know, there's the zoning, you know, component, and then there's the property tax component. You know, I think my understanding is a lot of the property tax appraisers in these counties throughout Florida are pushing back, you know, so it's not as easy. I'm not an expert on the property tax portion of it, but my understanding is that uh there's been a lot of pushback, but it's not that easy to to you know to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 55:08

Well, and the problem is a lot of banks won't underwrite it either because it's like a three-year rolling certification. So it's correct. You have to getting that getting that underwritten is really tough too. What's what's a three-year rolling certification? The property tax abatement? Yeah, you have to certify every three years that you are truly like under that 120% AMI level, and they'll recertify that for the next three years, you get this 75% tax abatement on your units that are 120 or less. But it's not like a long-term commitment. So a bank giving you a 30-year mortgage isn't gonna underwrite the whole deal as getting this 75% tax abatement. So their DSCR that they're loaning on, their debt service coverage ratio, they're giving you X amount of dollars. You have to be able to service that debt, and they're not gonna underwrite that 75% tax abatement. They're gonna pretend like you're still paying full taxes for the sake of underwriting, because in case you don't qualify for that in three years, they're preparing for the worst case.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 55:55

Yeah, so you can't really blame them either. So it's a tough spot to be in.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

Yeah, and the property tax appraisers in each county have a lot of latitude, I think, or they have some C.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

Yeah. Well, I think Miami Dave's been pretty good about it.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

Yes. It's other counties. That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 56:10

The property appraiser here has been.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

It's the NIME's in the rest of the state, huh?

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I don't know if it's the NIME's even. I think it's just the cities, the municipalities themselves. They want that revenue. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So they don't want to give that up. And so, like, what do you think about affordability in Miami? I mean, you said at the front lines of a lot of these deals. Do you see any do you have any uh do you see anybody figuring out ways to make deals make sense?

SPEAKER_04 56:33

Oh, you know what I think is missing? I think one of the big things that's that's missing is is workforce. We see a lot of we don't see a lot of affordable projects, but people talk a lot about affordable. But we also have to talk about workforce because well that's what I that's what we are talking about.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Because we're not doing like Litech, it's not tax credits, that's purely workforce. But 100%. But how do you get that to build? Because the problem that we run into is the equity side. Like the equity wants to see certain yields that you can't hit. Like, even if our land was free, we couldn't hit the yields that most LPs want to see. And then if you get closer into the urban core where rents are a little bit higher, the land is so ridiculously expensive. Sure, you're not even close. Like it's like, dude, like even if I even if I was hitting the 120s, I can't find anywhere where land makes sense where the 120s can be hit. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 57:23

But when it comes in this context of uh workforce and affordable housing, look, for example, live local, not this past year, but prior year, they revised it, they modified it at the state level. That if you're in a TOD, then all your uses get 100% parking reduction. So they got to do things like that.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

And that's cool, but like as it from a developer's perspective, like I don't want to build a project with no parking. Well, it's not true. If I want to sell it in 10 years, that's where it's at. And no one's gonna buy a project with no parking because it's just no one in Miami is gonna buy a project. Like, yeah. I mean, we're up on like 54th Street, like you need to have a car, like there's no public transit up there.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Yeah, if you're downtown, it works. Well, well, that's what I'm saying. The the like the 100% parking reduction for all the uses that you have in a lived local project is only if you're in a TOD, right? So only if you're in the urban core in an urban area, yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's but those are the things that they can do to uh I'm saying to relieve the the pressure uh on the cost, uh on the developer so that these projects can actually become, you know, come to fruition.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

Yeah, the only other thing they could do is like subsidy. Um it's tough. Yeah, which basically goes back to your tax credit program. Yeah, which is impossible also. Which is impossible. Yeah, you gotta win a lottery. Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, it's a tough problem for sure. Uh, and and then the other side is the tenure is at like damn near five percent. So it's like as an investor, why would I take this risk on real estate development if I can just go throw it in the tenure and call it a day? Which I don't blame them. So it's like a more of a macroeconomic issue too on the equity side. We need rates to come down.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

Right. And you know, I I haven't seen this year, I was just thinking the live local art, you know, added in the churches and schools, right? Um, the ability to do that for churches and schools. So maybe there's where we see, you know, some plays.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

And there's some plays with TDRs too. That's common.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

What do you mean churches and schools?

SPEAKER_03 59:23

Like you can build on churches and schools, yeah, on church-owned land or school-owned land, school board-owned land. It's eligible for live local.

SPEAKER_02 59:29

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 59:30

So, what I'm saying is like, you know, you see that they're working towards, like they're working to try to find solutions, but you know, and then developers are going into ASI and talking to the legislators and pointing it out, pointing out the these flaws and these kinks, but they gotta continue to fix it. Yeah, it's it's you know, they've modified it, I think, three or four times already.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

But we're you were mentioning something about TDRs. Yeah, TDRs came up recently where you they're now uh eligible for like I think it's max max density as of right. You can get t you can sell off the TDRs if it's a live local project. I think that's still getting fleshed out, but that would be great. I mean, what's what's the market like for TDRs even right now? Do you know? Like, I'm yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it hot? Like it's are people buying TDRs? Because the zoning's pretty like that's okay, double double TD. There's TDRs and there's TDDs. What's what's transport development? What's TDD? So TDD is density. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:23

TDR is intensity square footage.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:28

So TDRs came first in the city of Miami. Yeah. Right? And uh we had a lot to do with that. And um we in conjunction with the city, we have we helped write the TDD, both the TDR ordinance and the TDD ordinance. But the TDR ordinance came around 2010, um 2012, I believe, around there. And what it does is that it allows historic property owners to sell their excess development rights or excess square footage, right? Because to redress their loss in property rights. Okay, Aver did a lot of that. Every day that with the Bank of Bond. So we started, we did it, we we we worked to Abra's our clan, we worked on that. You know, she was the first, you know, perfect, you know, example of it. Uh, so and then, you know, the in order to encourage preservation in order and and to redress the property owner for their loss, right? We want you to keep the building here, although your zoning allows you to build it here. So you have you know, all that square footage, you're allowed to sell that and transfer it somewhere else in the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

And what's a typical buyer of that? Like, who's buying those?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

And so uh it won't like are people still buying that today? I mean, because the only one I've heard of really is Avra. And I've heard of like I think there was another historic property on Bishop. Avra's selling. Yeah, Avra sold her Ts. She's a seller, she's she's sold her TDRs.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

But who's the buyer?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

Because because yeah, yeah, I'm curious what the market's like. And are there still sellers in the market today?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

Yes, yes, yeah. So almost every project in the city of Miami, you know, commercial uh T68 and up, right, in the T6 transit zone has bonus floor, uh has bonus height or bonus FLR. And bonus FR, sorry. Right? In order for you to satisfy the bonus height or the bonus FLR in Miami 21, you you have to participate in one of one of the programs. There's some nerd shit here. I like it. Yeah, I'm gonna get into it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

No, we both love this shit. This is nice. This is this is like I'm glad we're at least one glass of deep.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:44

I'm really gonna talk about this stuff. So so all so there's about let's say 10 or 12 different programs in the code. You know, you can donate as a developer in order to get your bonus height, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:58

Yeah, I thought it was like a donation, like you had to be in.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:00

Yeah, you can donate your uh public uh land for you know a park. You can uh dedicate property, you know, you can dedicate units to affordable or workforce housing, uh, you can make park improvements, etc. One of those programs is a TDRs. So if you have four bonus stories, right, in your project in the Grove or somewhere else, um you have four bonus stories and that's a hundred thousand square feet, you can buy up to 50% in TDRs. So up to you buy 50,000 square feet of TDRs from a historic property owner like Avra, and then you just transfer that to satisfy the bonus stories. And on a T Tiger 12.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:50

You can go up to what? You can go up to 20. 20 stories. Okay. With bonus. With bonus. And you can satisfy that by buying TDRs. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

Interesting. By buying TDRs, you can also do it by monetary contribution to the city, right? Or the park thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

Sounds like a payoff.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:08

It is, but it's it's work goes into a public funds trust and around.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

Hey, it's the Miami Wave, man. He came up in the 80s, he knows. Bags of money.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:19

So then you know, and the TDD program. Well, you just go back to your question on the TDRs. TDRs actually, we have not seen a um much of a change in the market. They're still in the range, I would say, four, four to six dollars a short foot. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

But you can buy TDRs directly from the city as well, can't you? No. Or you can no you can. Just Winwood. Just just Winwood? Just Winwood. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:49

Just just the NRD. Gotcha. That's the only one that has its own TDR program that you can buy from the city directly. Got it. So and then that was instituted first.

unknown 1:04:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

And it was the TDD transfer development density. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

That's all I was. So the TDR was instituted first, which is a square footage. And then five, I would say five or six years later, and actually we we worked with uh the DHT, the DAD Heritage Trust on this, we created the the TDD program, which allowed the transfer of density. And we did that, and we I'll tell you, we finished that right before COVID. I mean, or even a little bit before that. And I think that TDD program is really what has saved or has really helped Miami in uh the development cycles and you know, the downturns that we've had was that additional bonus density, like during the COVID time. Um, and that's the same concept, Felipe. But a little bit more expensive, right? Because you're instead of training square footage, you're training units. Um Selling as a historic property to access units that you're not going to use, but you have the right to under your zoning. And those um are you can only use in certain parts of the city, right? As a receiving site, as a developer, uh, like TODs, uh, where you're close to train stations and you're close to you know in Brickle, downtown. So you can increase your density up to 50% through the purchase of density from excess uh from historic property owners.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:34

I saw a note somewhere recently that Edgewater just upped their density. Yeah, what was that? I haven't wasn't aware of that. What what's going on there? Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:43

So the story so uh recently the city passed this ordinance, I mean, uh a program, it's called the Resiliency Program. Um, and it the it really starts with the story of Edgewater. Okay. Edgewater has for many, many years plagued with flooding.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:03

It's all fake, by the way. Yeah, it's all it's uh I um Phil. Yeah, I I I sold part of the Paraiso Bay site back in 2013. The not the waterfront part, but the interior part used to be like the drug rehab center. I did that project, the village. So I was part of the I was one of the brokers that assembled like the 23 houses that we sold to related. And I remember there for a geotech report, I met the geotech guy, and we were standing where the Walgreens is looking towards the bay, and he was telling me, He's like, You see where the road dips down, and I was like, Yeah, he's like, All that, like from half it's basically it's all filled during like the Army Corps of Engineers, all filled that in, so it's all lower elevation and it gets flooded like constantly.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:43

Well, I mean, if you really follow the bluff from north to south, everything east of the bluff is filled. Yeah, it's wild for the most part. Yeah, that's where our shoreline was, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

And everything else has been filled. And the bluff basically runs where the the train runs, the FEC, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:01

A little west, a little east, a little east, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:04

The bluff goes all the way down to Homestead. I mean, like, you know, you know, down south, like Deering Bay, yeah, yeah, and all that, you know. It's it's beautiful, it's one of our most amazing resources, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:17

And and I'm down for filling shit in. I think we should do it more. I think it's pretty cool. We used to be able to do that. Army Corp could be like, we're gonna build an island over there, build another one. Like, why not, dude? It's all shallow, who cares? Seagrass, man. Yeah, oh, manatees, yeah. God forbid.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:30

Well, manatees manatees are not as protected as seagrass. Really? Seagrass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, there's a lot of manatees now, I think. Seagrass is where, you know. That's the shit, huh? You literally have to. If you if if you're gonna and the federal government's the one that proves this.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:46

It's the FWC, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:48

Yeah, and those five state and the federal government. And but if you disturb seagrass because you're you know putting in a dock or whatever, you're gonna have to mitigate that somewhere else. And you're gonna well, you do what's called a seagrass study first. So you gotta get a surveyor to go down there, scuba gear, to take a survey of the seagrass under at the at the bottom of the water.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:17

And why is seagrass so important?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:19

Well, I think I mean it's like a mangrove, it filters. Okay, yeah, it's part of our ecosystem.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

Meanwhile, we're we have a we have a sewage pipeline just pumping shit into the ocean opposite the skin. But we're worried about the seagrass. Well, you know, it's fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:34

I mean, we I think I think you know, I think the the city of Miami, Miami, Dade County, most government tries not to look back at the mistakes of the past.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:44

Ignore the pipe pumping shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

We're focused on the grass.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:47

Come on. Because there's a lot of outfalls all over the place that lead to some very sensitive areas.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:57

It's crazy. Yeah, but anyway, the uh the fill edgewater, the density increase.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:01

Oh, so getting back to that, yeah. So for many, many years, um, you know, the residents in in Edgewater and and and you know, business owners and I plagued by flooding. I mean, the worst flooding in Miami was in that area, broken sidewalks, or I mean, you go down. Floating trees, yeah. No curbs, no gutter. There's no curb, there's no gutter, the streets are half streets, and the city just didn't have money to put into improving, making these improvements, these resiliency improvements in Edgewater. And what happened was you know, once Miami 21 came into effect, it upzoned Edgewater. And that was asked by the neighbors. That was T636, right? It was T6, it was even lower. Oh, it was yeah, they asked for 36. It was 36 when I sold that land. Yeah, they asked, yes, they asked for 36. Okay, and they asked for more density, they gave them the height and the intensity, they gave them the 36, but they didn't give them the density. Okay. Because it's 150 back then, right? Yeah, yeah, correct. Yeah, it's still the base is still 150 back then. So then projects started coming in and uh into Edgewater, and that's when things started getting better in Edgewater because they started as developers started redoing the streets, raising and elevating the streets, building seawalls that were crumbling, right? Building um cross passages for connectivity. They have long blocks in Edgewater that like you know, so now they have access, you know, through blocks, and started doing, and that's when neighbors started saying they're making our neighborhood better. They're actually fixing our problems, they're fixing our flooding problems, they're fixing all these different issues that we have. And this is so these neighbors got together recently, say like in the last two years, and they went to the city, they went to the commissioner and the city and they said, Look, developers have been resolving our issues here. We need more of it. And what the city uh did was create a bonus program uh that's tied to the trust fund that's called the resiliency trust fund. And uh you can purchase the base density, there's 150 units. You they increase the bonus density by up to I think 100% in some cases, and you can buy units, density units directly from the city at a cost of $35,000 uh a unit to build in this prescribed area, which runs from like which runs from like 19th Street up the Biscayne Corridor, all of East Edgewater, and a portion of Est uh West Edgewater, uh West Wedgewater uh West Edgewater that fronts Biscayne.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

So you can build up to 300 units an acre there?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:11

In certain areas, yeah. Yeah. With bonus, you're saying with bonus. So you get like 150 base by right, and then you get the ability to increase that by up to 100% with bonus. So it's about and each unit sells with, I think it's $35,000 per unit.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:30

Interesting. And are people utilizing that yet? Anyone going after that? Well, it was just passed. Okay. So it was just passed in January, and yeah, people are utilized are gonna start utilizing it. I mean it's still a great area because there's still so much to do there. You have great views, like it's so geographically close, it makes so much sense. The views there are are insane.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

Insane. And you know what happened there was that originally in and and we've done, you know, in GT Arrison, I have done the majority of all the projects in Edgewater. Um when uh when developers started building there in 2014, 15, 16, they thought it was gonna be a more of a luxury, uh, you know, bigger units, right? Or larger units, not a luxury because it is luxury, but larger units. Uh and it ended up being more of a smaller unit. So, like, you know, original plans for projects were like 2,000, 3,000 square feet units, right? And then when they got to sales, things weren't moving as well. Well, they cut those units in half, they started making smaller units, and bam, it took off. Is it a price point thing or what is it? Like an absolute price point thing. I just think it's more of like the the the urban core. The you know, people that are living here may not be like you know, a complete family, but you know, they have it as their second home, uh, or people that work closer downtown and it's a couple maybe with one child or an older couple. Um, but it it it has done very, very well that typology and that you know model of uh not the huge luxury units, but you know, smaller, not small, small units either, but a smaller type.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:19

Interesting. And there's also there's a new hotel coming there on 36 and Biscayne. Are you working on that one? Have you seen that? Which one? I don't remember the name of it, but it's right on the corner where there used to be that gas station. I think it was a shell on the northeast quadrant of 36 and Biscayne. Kubitsky? Maybe, yeah. I think it's north. Northeast.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:38

I think Max Alvarez saw that site, wasn't it? From Sunshine Gasoline. I'm not sure who owned that. I think it was, I think it was. It could be. That gas station did very well. Yeah. Let me tell you. Well, he did much better on the exit than the gas station. I'm sure. I think it was Max Alvarez. Okay. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, directly east, directly east of that. Uh I haven't met him yet. We're trying to get him on the pod. You know Max?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:59

Uh, my brother knows him all.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, we've been introduced to him. Are we gonna go to his office and interview? Yeah, we've been going back and forth, and it's just playing hard to get hard to get. We and we like it when a guy plays hard to get. So we're gonna get him.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:13

It would be a great honor to have him.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna try to get him on. He's got he's like a like a deep cut legend. Like if you're in Miami Real Estate deep, you know who that guy is.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:23

You may have to go to him. Yeah, we will yeah, because I saw him in an interview the other day on TV and he was at his house. Nice legend, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

Um the hotel on 36.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:35

I I don't think it's a shell station. Uh are you talking about the one that's on the other side of the design district? It's south of 185.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:45

It's south of 195, but directly across the street from the old Denny's, directly east of where Denny's just got demoed. No, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:52

So I what I'm doing, what I did was the Kapinski residence, is which is north of 195. The old police museum, the old police 3801 and 3883. Got it. Which you guys need to look at this project, it is spectacular.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:07

I live on 39th. So I live, I live right there.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:09

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

Yeah. I live like in the townhouse development just down the street. So oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:15

Like mid-block project. The Milton project. No, before that. Okay, got it. The white one, right before that. Got it. On the north side of 39th. Got it. Yeah. That's a beautiful. So you love the park? Yeah. My kids love the park. Park is. I've been there since 2019, 2018.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:30

Irish did that park.

unknown 1:17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:33

Yeah. We moved in before the park was finished. I remember like looking through like the gate, like just waiting for it to open. What a view, man. Yeah, yeah, it's sick. It's sick. My kids ride their bikes down to the park, and yeah, it's super chill. And 39th has that is a beautiful street. Yeah. When people aren't ripping down it to cut to Biscayne from where I drive.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

What a fucking tear down that road today.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

I need some big speed bumps.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:55

I need those tabletop speed bumps. Yeah. So that's gonna be a cool project there. Oh, it's gonna be a really cool project. What is it?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:02

Residences? It's uh yes, it's uh luxury residential, and it's some commercial on biscayne, and that's it. Cool. Um a lot of beautiful, beautiful amenities.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:15

Sick location. Yeah, yeah. The location is great, and that's T612 there, right? Because it drops off right behind there to T4, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:23

It's T612 on the two lots, the big lots front biscayne, and then T4 in the back.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:29

Did they get that family to do anything that owns all those houses right there? Which one? There's one family. She owns like four houses she inherited from her parents. I think it's all of T4. They don't maintain them for shit. They look like they look like garbage houses, but they rent them.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:43

I've ridden my bike back there. You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:45

Yeah. But they're all, I think, T4, I think. I don't know. And I think they were trying to get them to partner with them. I don't know if they did or not. Not sure. Not sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:55

It could be, it could be, it could be part of the project or not.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:57

Not sure there's a couple of owners there. So if you could build uh if you could build whatever you wanted in Miami, you had you had all the equity in the world, what kind of project would you build? Like what do you think makes sense these days? Boutique office.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:10

Really? Boutique office. I would want to have where?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:13

Like the Grove. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. South Miami. Yeah. Where do you live? I I I I live in um I live down south. I live like South Gables.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:25

So I think, you know, for me, I think that the trend of people wanting to drive long distances to their offices is not it's it's over. It's gonna, it's gonna completely die one day. And I think it's you see, you know, all these large companies and billionaires and millionaires, you know, opening up offices in different areas, closer to home, closer to you know their employees' homes. And I think that trend is just gonna continue. People don't want to be stuck in traffic for you know 45 minutes, an hour each way, and they arrive there in the worst mood, you know. It's I think that we're gonna see a you know, big, a big trend, which we already see, you know what I mean? We already see that, but the the trend will continue, boutique office in areas in these sub markets that are closer.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:18

I like that because yeah, because because working from home is tough. Like people want to be there in person, but yeah, to your point, no one wants to drive, deal with traffic and stuff. So if you could go somewhere, a nice little office building. Imagine, I mean, look at it related.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:30

Yeah, they move their offices to the Grove.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:33

The Grove. Yeah, sick office building, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:35

Sick office building. The terrace is beautiful. Yeah, you go to lunch, you you go to Coco, yeah, you go to across the street to Omakai. Yep, you know, it's it's just it's that coffee shop across the street.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:47

There's a really good new that thing is great. Emissary, I think. Yeah, it's emissary. Yeah, really, really nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:53

But you your office is in downtown. Yeah. How how many times a week do you go to the office?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:58

So I you know, I try to structure, we're very, very busy. So we try to plan our week, right? So we have a lot of meetings outside of the office. So I try to structure it in a way that I'm in the office at least two or three days a week, then I'm out in meetings, whatever, you know, two or you know, two days a week, uh, you know, two days a week, either working at home or out in meetings.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:22

It's a sick office, too, though. The views from GT are unreal. That conference room view is unmatched. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:27

You know that that the 44th floor is all conference rooms, right? But you can take all those walls down and it just becomes a huge room. Oh, really? I didn't know. So we'll we'll do that for like we do that for Christmas party and just clear the room.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:41

We had the closing for Paraiso at uh in one of those conference rooms. I remember going there, I was I was a young kid, and when we closed that deal, I was like, fuck, this is so badass. What a great way to close it. You you made me feel old, man. Yeah, why? Because I worked on that project when I was oh yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

So uh I want to talk to you a little bit about AI. Um and what kind of impact is it having on your business? Uh because I I've spoken to, I'm not gonna name names here, that uh another land use attorney that he's seeing that um he's he's seeing the impact of it. Uh clients coming with a lot of questions answered. Um so curious what you're seeing.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

I mean, they they I think he he seemed to say they're coming armed with a lot of good information. Yeah. Um, and uh, you know, it's stuff that he would be able to bill, you know, for a couple weeks, you know, they're already coming with answers. Um and how is how how are you using AI? How's a firm using it? Yeah, how are how are how are you using AI? How are your clients using AI to reduce costs with you guys? Um, and uh and yeah, if you could kind of just talk about this because uh I think laws is one of the areas where AI can be disruptive.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:09

Yeah, we're well the firm is definitely preparing itself for that, you know, next phase AI. So we're there's a lot going on at the firm level, you know, it's just generally, but you know, in development, I see more and more clients coming in every day um with you know these like AI reports, and but what I've what I've what I've seen that's the most surprising is that they've actually come in, they come in with drawings, with actual drawings. And what I have seen and what I've reviewed uh based on these programs, and I don't know what programs sometimes some of these clients are using. A lot of times the information is wrong. Remember, zoning is not so black and white, zoning is based on interpretation a lot of times. The reason that I think we're so successful is that we have a model that we are on top of what the city is, cities and counties are doing and interpreting at every moment. And AI isn't, you know what I mean? Um isn't making those extrapolations interpretations or able to apply those interpretations um to your project, you know. It just it's more black and white. So I have not seen AI be as being as accurate in the zoning world as it should be, probably. Maybe it will get there, but at this moment I would I would really caution anybody from just relying on information based on AI because I've almost every single report or you know, anything that's been given to me has been has had something wrong in it.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:54

It's probably the quality of the data that we always talk about. Like, imagine if you had like you can't just go ask chat to design a site plan, it doesn't work. I've tried it, people have been doing it, I've tried it just to see what it does. And it's like even just for like presentation purposes, it's like it's dog shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:09

What what what do you what do you guys do? What do you do you use any AI yourself?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:13

Yeah, so I started like I started not much. I've never really been a very techie person. I want to be more techie, um, but I do use chat GPT. I tried to use Claude, and I felt like it was like trying to be my friend.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:31

You don't need any more, yeah. I don't need any more friends. I need I need AI friends. I need AI friends.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:37

I need you to be like precise and accurate, not like you know, friendly and just happy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:44

But does but does does Greenberg say you have a contract with a per particular AI provider that you guys can only use one particular so we have a few.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:56

Yeah. Um we there's no they're discourag uh discouraging people from using or attorneys from you just using the general ones like you know, Claude, ChatGPT, just I mean there's a lot of client information that can't be right, right. So and then they they have uh we have one that's actually right now in development.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:18

I think it's called Orbital. Is that is that being developed by GT or is that something that's well it's being adapted right to GT.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:28

It's like uh outside AI system, but they're gonna now they're feeding it the data. Yeah, right that'd be cool. Yeah, it's to create it. They're starting, I think starting with litigation and then going to real estate. Uh we we think that that's gonna be more customized, that system. They also use others, they they have other ones like you know, or um what's the one on Microsoft? Copilot. Yeah, right. Uh I just have I just got it. I'm I haven't really been trained in it too much, but that one I have. And there's like three or four other ones that they're they're working on or have been implemented. But I think one of the things that you're not worried about is a big one. No, not worried about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:07

I think there's so much like political like work and land use and so much like human interaction that AI can be useful, but not replaceable. Yeah. It's my sort of right.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:18

I I agree. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:20

I mean, you have to agree. I agree. You don't have an option.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:24

I think I think if I were I think my I think I would give you a different answer if I was a young associate, yeah starting off.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:32

Yeah. But but you're entrenched and you see how the shit goes.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:37

Yeah. And you know, there's that human component to it, like you're saying. Yeah. That AI cannot reproduce. But it could be a tool. And you know, there's interpretations are just change and not everything is black and white, you know, pro every property is different. There's interpretations on every single regulation almost. So you I don't know if AI is able to get to that point. I think one day, but not anytime soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:07

Where do you think, you know, from where you sit in the projects that you see getting done? We talked about luxury residential. Where do you think we're at in the cycle today in Miami? Do you have any insight into like projects that maybe aren't getting built or that are getting built?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:22

Oh no, I think there's some great exciting things coming.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:25

You think we're still just charging ahead full speed, like shit's going?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:29

Oh yeah. I mean, we may see look, guys, there's there's always you know little ups and downs, right? You may see a little down, but Miami's always hot.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:37

We haven't seen a down since really 08.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:39

I would say you may see a little like you know, a little dip. I'm still saying like a little small minor dip.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:44

But it's always been historically like a boom bust town. We love getting over our skis here, right? Like we love over the sky.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

But I feel like we haven't done that in a while. That's what I'm saying. It hasn't happened in a long time. It hasn't, it's been almost 20 years. Yeah, I know. We haven't fucked it up. I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:57

Have we learned? I don't know. I don't know either. Yeah, seems too good to be true, but it's we keep charging.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:04

Yeah, I mean, this is the best fucking thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:06

Mondami keeps fucking up, Citadel's coming down. Like, I don't know. It seems great. Like, I don't I'm just trying to to to to argue the other side here. You think we're ripping?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:17

I think we're ripping, yeah. I think we're ripping. I think the best is yet to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna continue. The growth is just gonna continue. We're a baby, guys. Yeah, you gotta think about it. Uh, how long New York is so old. Philadelphia, all that northeast is old. Miami's 120 years old.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:33

Yeah, since since AC got invented, basically. That's when we're a baby.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:37

Yeah, I mean, I've I've been here 25 years, and uh like I I think this city keeps getting better. Yeah. Um, and the last when I first came out came to Miami, I was like, what the fuck is wrong with this place? You know, I I I came from New York, you know. I came from New York. I'm like, this place sucks. This place is like, you know, the sidewalks are fucking garbage, like nothing works here, and it's it's it's just gotten better, you know. Like we actually have like a little more arts and cultural institutions, you know. And uh, you know, 25 years ago, Brickle didn't exist. There wasn't the Adrian Ars Center.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:13

Um I think the Paris Art Museum, yeah, there wasn't the Frost. Yeah, yeah. We still need more of that. Yeah, we do. There wasn't the ICA, yeah, which is probably the best museum in town. Yeah, it's free. You know, is it still free?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:26

Yeah, it's free.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:26

It's easy. Uh, you know, I just I I don't I don't see anything slowing this down.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:31

I mean, I hate to to be the cheerleader here from Miami, but um all the agents you see like a mini slowdown is what I was saying here and there may happen, but the overall it almost seems like sector slowdown, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:44

It's like a slowdown in multifamily right now because it doesn't make sense. Hotels, I know, are eating shit right now. Yeah, um everyone's scared.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:51

You working on any hotels?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:53

Hmm. Yeah, one. One. Can you talk about it or no? No. Oh lame.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:59

No, I can talk about it. Well, I can talk about it, but it's a different, it's it's it's it's a different concept, right? Yeah, it's it's it's now these different short-term, it's more of a short-term residential.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:10

Oh, yeah, people love that shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:11

Short-term stay. Yeah, it's not a branded.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:16

I do think that model fits Miami well with all the foreign investment we have. Correct. To be able to generate income from your network.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:22

That's the target of this project. Yeah. So that like kind of hybrid model, yeah. What I haven't seen pure hotel uh as much yet is pure hotel. Yeah, it's tough. I haven't seen it, hasn't picked up again. I if you're not on the C did last, I think. That's a sick project.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:38

Which one in Grove?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:39

I did both.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:40

Mr. C's Hotel. That's one of my favorite restaurants. Mr. C's residence. Tellini on the rooftop of Mr. C's a fantastic experience, always married there. Really? Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:51

I did the pro I did that project, and then I go. And then I called Bernardo and I said, Hey, can I get married there? That's sick. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:58

It's like walking into a yacht every time you go in there. It's so I love that. I love that Italian high gloss stuff. Yeah, it's so sick. It's like so it just makes everything nice. Even down to the photography and like the elevator. You know, all that sailing. I I have to order a Negroni every time I get to that rooftop. I love that. On the right away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:15

So what's your what's your biggest pet peeve of uh Miami 21? What would you change in the zoning code if you could may wave your magic GT wand and say fix this?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:27

There's some things where it just make no sense. But I out off my list, my large long list. Nah. Um, I know Iris said floor plates, and I and I agree with her on floor plates, but I think minimum lot sizes, yeah. I mean sorry, maximum lot sizes in like T68, T612, just doesn't make any sense. Um, especially in certain projects for so there shouldn't there shouldn't be maximum lot size. You should be able to I think when it comes to like affordable and workforce housing, no, it shouldn't. Um it's a benefit, right? Uh but 40,000 square feet for like you know, maximum lot size on T68, that's not an that that that doesn't reach an acre. Yeah. You know, and then uh you know it opens itself up to uh appeal, right? Because then you have to go to if you know if you're 43,000 square feet, which uh you know that's an acre, uh, and I think in a T68, right, that would be normal, right? Or be contextual, right? If you don't meet one of the exceptions, you have to go to public hearing, right? You know, and for an actual exception. Um, and that just puts projects at risk, and there's not even an exception for affordable workforce housing. So you're putting or live local, live local would be sub is subject to max lot size. So you put a lot of projects at risk and it just it I think it's unnecessary. I think in certain areas, uh, you know, yes. Uh but I think that you know, you know, certain neighborhoods, right? You you know, you need that because you don't want over too oversized projects. But for the most part, I think in T68 that should be done away with.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:17

I love it. I think we did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:20

Yeah? We're good?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:21

Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:22

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:23

Yeah, that was pretty comprehensive.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

It was. I love I love talking about zoning, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:27

We could do it all day. All day long. I could see did you know Felipe was one of the founders of Gritdix?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:34

Yes, okay, and I was gonna tell, I was gonna say, Felipe, that you know, you critics is actually more updated, more actualized, faster than the city. Yeah, then the city does, you know, updates for Miami 21.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:49

But but I think the updates are done through Gritx through I mean yeah, now they are before they weren't, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:55

Before they weren't, you guys were like updating your stuff, and you know, but listen, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:00

I I don't I don't think I had met with you. What when did you start with Greenberg? 2013? 2013. So maybe we did meet. Um, because when we were starting Gritdix, you met with Lucian Iris. I met with Lucia and Iris, and then we met with the city too. Yeah, and that's when we started like talking about ideas and what we can do. We still haven't figured out how to to process a fucking permit in in six months. No, but six months, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:26

Whoa, that's fast. Whoa, you should you know you should definitely invite the new mayor, yeah. Because let me tell you, she that's one of her top priorities, yeah. That's one of her top initiatives. And that was at the LBA luncheon the other day, and she announced that they uh gave out a permit in 24 hours, and they they have now at the on the ground floor the MRC, right? For those who are listening, the MRC is the Miami River City building, which is uh the city administration building, they have a small business uh window, or let's call it window, whatever, on the ground floor. If you're a small business owner, that you know that encompasses a lot, you can go there and say, Hey, listen, I'm having a hard time with my building permit, I'm not getting a response from my from the reviewer, I'm not getting her, you know, the X, Y, and Z. And it works. You're resolving people's problems. And she's made this a top priority, and I am sure that she's gonna fix it. Yeah, because she when the this, you know, she was a commissioner and now is the you know, as mayor, when she sets her mindset to something to something, she gets it done.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:40

So, how how quickly do you think we're actually gonna start being able to permit to process entitlements and and building permits realistically? I mean, there's many billionaires breathing down their neck, they're gonna crank it up. I mean, what what what does it typically take? It takes at least a year, year and a half to have a year, yeah, 12 months.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:56

So I would say for so for entitlement, yeah, you're talking about, you know, even by right, like four to six months minimum, you know, if you're you know, uh if you have a waiver or if you have a special zoning permit up to a year, right? So you could be, you know, for entitlements up for four months up to a year, and then a building permit takes a year and a half, yeah. Minimum minimum. Yeah, I'm talking about a house to freak out people talking about commercial, big commercial building takes forever. It does. I mean, they've done a lot of things to expedite. God forbid you have trees on your site, right? Then you're fucked. But that's why people go to the county, and that's why I think look, a lot of people uh talk shit about RTZs, right? Or may say they may not agree with RTZs, but a lot of the reasoning that some people some uh developers and property owners decided to go RTZ is because uh the city of Miami takes too long.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:56

Can you can you explain RTZ please?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:59

Yeah, that's so the city so RTZ is county rapid transit zoning. It's Miami Dade County zoning that is connected to the metro rail and the metro mover. It basically the lines and the facilities and the metro lines and the facilities are all zoned under the county's RTZ zoning, but also the stations. Well, I would say, you know, seven five or seven years ago, the county started saying it's not you know more than just the station. We have to start looking at the properties around these stations.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:35

So that's so that so the underlying county zoning supersedes the municipality zoning, right? That is the county's uh uh position.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:43

Yeah, the city has a different position on that, right? Um, and it's throughout it's in other jurisdictions as well, not just Manager, right? The county has RTZ jurisdiction and other like Coral Yesworth. If if the metro rail goes through it, they you know so they started extending that into a bigger radius around stations into private properties, and they're increasing density and intensity, right? Is what they're saying. So the property we're sitting in now today, this the borough, well, is an RTZ. This is part of the Lyric Overtown RTZ. And I actually put this property, we rezoned this property into the RTZ for the owner, Larga Vista and Marcello Porcelli, who's a great guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:28

Yeah, I've met him once. I think we've met him once. I haven't met him, you've met him? I think I think we met him once uh with Mike. Um all right, this is cool. I love talking zoning. I don't I don't know if our our listeners like to talk nerd out on this shit, but I do.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:45

Hey, if they're active in commercial real estate in Miami, this is all very valuable. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:49

Yeah, um, well, cool, Carlos. Thank you for so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome tequila.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:55

Yeah, I may have a little more.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:56

It's fire. And uh yeah, we uh we wish you much success. Let's keep building the city and uh you know let's let's get that that uh let's let's convince Higgins to get the approval process done in six months. Be sick, right? Yeah, we don't do politicians on we don't do politicians on our podcast. We haven't yet. We haven't yet. I don't know if we will. Yeah, yeah, it's just too full of shit. You gotta open that door.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:23

Oh, if you open the door, they're all gonna want to come.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:26

Yeah, you know, we'd rather shit talk them here and maybe maybe maybe they'll start you know moving shit and getting the the permits done in six months if if we talk shit enough. Maybe what about the manager? Maybe you have the city manager. Yeah, I mean I or the playing. I'm not a poet. You know, we we talked about getting uh the planning director on here. You should, you know, he's a young, dynamic guy. What's his name again? David Snow. David Snow. I think he's a Miami Shores resident. Oh, there you go. Go kick it.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:54

Kick his ass at beach tennis and get him on here.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:56

Exactly, right? Beach tennis.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:59

Um, what's beach tennis?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:00

That's his game, man. Yeah, that's what is it? It's uh so it's played on uh on a beach volleyball court.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:07

Um, but it's it's on a lower net. Um you play doubles. Uh the ball doesn't bounce, but it's the ball doesn't bounce. It doesn't bounce. So you're playing doubles, right? So you're you're hitting over back. It's it's like volleyball. It's on the sand. It's on the sand, yeah. It's like volleyball with tennis rackets. Yeah, with tennis rackets. And a deflated tennis ball, right? Oh, it's deflated tennis ball. Yeah, it's not it's not a hard tennis ball. But it's larger. No, no, no, it's the same size tennis ball. Same size. Yeah, different rackets, though. It's like it's like a wooden, it's like what it's like a big ping pong paddle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's so it bounces. I've never bounced.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:45

I stick to wakeboarding. He's a he's a tennis player.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:47

Yeah. I'm not really t I played tennis when I was younger, but um I've uh I've discovered beach tennis over a lot. You play tennis? I used to. Yeah? I used to. So yeah, oh I see. We can have a building. We're gonna go back into beach tennis club. Listen, I uh maybe maybe Greenberg wants to be the the sponsor of this. I think we gotta do a beach tennis like competition? Beach tennis, like, yeah, a tournament. I want to take you to a wake party, but people are gonna just gonna get hurt. Yeah, exactly. Blow their biceps. Do you still play tennis or no? Uh yeah, I can. I'm probably not gonna beat you, but I'm not that great, to be honest. Mike Feinstein beats my ass every time. I'm tall. I'd like to come come fuck with you guys one day.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:27

So wait, is there any public tennis, beach tennis facility? Well, he got one in the shores path. That's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:33

No, so so right now there's um you go to Miami Beach, and on 73rd by the band show, there's like it's all about the girls and bikinis for this guy. Exactly. And the beach tennis. My wife is not listening to this podcast. There's no chance you made at this point. I did not laugh. That's what we talked about, zoning first.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:53

So then she thinks it's about zoning, and she's like, This is more. Yeah, yeah, I'm out. I'm out. He's sweating.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:59

But there are there's like nine courts out there on uh by the band shell, and they've just opened up a bunch of uh courts on South Beach too.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:07

And are the paddle ball people getting like pissed? Because you know how like the paddle ball people were against the tennis people. Now we've introduced a third uh I think I think there's to compete for space.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:19

Yeah, uh, I think there's uh people within racket sports are tolerant of each other. Me and Ben, not so much. Like we like to shit on paddle players and pickleball pickle players, yeah. So we're we're kind of intolerant of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:32

But the paddle ball and pickleball players hate the tennis players, and the tennis players hate paddleball and pickleball players. Oh, do they? Uh just a bunch of pussies hating each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:42

I know just a bunch of racket pickleballs.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:43

I think what happened what happened was that in a lot of areas, and this is not just here, is that like obviously, you know, you had existing tennis courts, right? Public tennis sports and all that. And then paddleball came in.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:55

Or pickleball, pickleball. Pickleball, paddle.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:58

No, well, they had existing tennis courts, and then you know, for years, right? And then paddleball and pickleball came in as a new sport, and these people and people started putting pressure on their local government tape, you know. So then they started to convert convert these things, and then they started to create try to create a program. Oh, you use it 50% of the time, you use it 50% of the time. And there would be physical altercations. Oh, nice, you know, between paddle ball and tennis ball players because you know, over the court.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:24

70-year-olds beating the shit out of each other with tennis dragons. I'm for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:29

Uh shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:30

But I'll stick to the water. You know, you know what I did here today? Um, we did a we we do these these monthly Cafecito Club uh events. I'd love to go to one. Yeah, so today we did our first one on Brickle, and uh we had uh a woman that works for the commissioner um for this district. Who who's the commissioner downtown in Brickle? Uh Mr. King. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:53

Is it Christine? Christine King.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:55

It's a city commissioner, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:56

Christine King, but was the Eve Evet from her office?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:59

No, no. Uh we we we run these, we do a monthly network. The person you met from her office. Yeah, so it was Alex. I don't know what her name is. Um, she works for the commissioner. Um, and uh I guess what they're doing now with Moish Mana, which is super cool. They're I don't know if we're supposed to announce this, but fuck it. Um they're they're gonna put um soccer courts, soccer fields on some of Moish Mana's um empty sights downtown. Empty sites downtown, and it's gonna be run through like Airbnb, so then you can book these to to play. I thought this was fucking genius. It's it's it's a great way to activate these empty spaces. And what I was telling her is like you guys need to do this with beach tennis as well, because this is I I I think it's a it's a it's a growing sport.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:45

When will it be in the Olympics?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:47

Beach tennis. I I think it's actually slated to be in the Olympics um in in the next Olympics, I believe. I gotta see this. Wow, I gotta see this. I'm for it. Have you have you have you paid? Have you paid about playing? You haven't gotten them out there? It requires a certain letter of certain level of athleticism. Come on, dude. So it's it's it's not for everyone. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:16

You gotta be you gotta be in good shape because it's like beach volleyball. You gotta take your shirt off. Yeah, yeah. Where you pay where you pay uh beach tennis, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:24

But uh it's actually it's it's uh it's it's one of the largest sports in Brazil right now. Amazing. After after soccer or football. Um, and uh it's really growing quickly here in Miami and LA. And I think it's gonna start, I think it's got legs. So that's super cool. I think we need some beach tennis courts sprinkled around Miami.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:45

I will tell you this. I have at least like three or four. Well, I've had I've done at least two or three paddleball uh courts projects. Four. Yeah. Actually did one for Moish. Every rich guy's sons. Yeah, I did one for Moish like 10 years ago when no one was doing it. Uh, but now, you know, since pickleball and paddleball or paddleball has taken off, I have like three or four projects that have, you know, pickleball uh sorry, paddleball. Paddle and pickleball project uh paddleball uh courts in the project. Yeah, it's like great. Everybody's doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:18

Everyone's trying to generate revenue off of land they can't build on right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:23

But but yeah, I I I I think I think saying that as part of many in-the-luxury projects.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:28

Yeah, they gotta have paddleball courts now. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. But a lot of popular, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:35

No, I was gonna say there's a lot of empty sites that they haven't been able to get their deals to pencil, so they're putting like temporary paddle courts on there to try to generate revenue. I do a lot of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:43

Yeah. All right, Carlos. Thank you again. This is awesome, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:50

Yeah, have a great year. Yeah, and uh have a great weekend. You too.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:53

Take care.