Matthew Vander Werff, Founding Partner, MVW Partners

Long before Little River was landing on lists of the coolest neighborhoods on earth, Matthew Vander Werff was quietly buying it, nearly 80 properties at a time when the rest of Miami was still fighting over Wynwood.

This week the Founding Principal of MVW Partners joins us to trace the whole journey: an Iowa upbringing, a detour through the film and hospitality worlds, a Columbia real estate degree earned at the worst possible moment in 2007, and the decade of patient assemblage that turned a forgotten industrial pocket north of the Design District into the epicenter of Miami culture. We get into the mechanics of buying a neighborhood without tipping off the market, his hand-picked approach to tenants, the $79.9 million deal with AJ Capital, and why he stayed on to keep running the place after selling the majority. Plus the restaurant bets that keep paying off, from Sunny's Steakhouse to Ogawa, the 10-seat omakase that brought a Michelin star to Little River, and building it all in partnership with his wife and co-founder, Ashley Abess.

We poured a bottle of Samuel Billaud Les Grands Terroirs 2023 for this one, a Chablis with the kind of restraint and sense of place Matthew has spent a decade building into a neighborhood. It did not survive the episode.

Want to dive deeper into Miami’s commercial real estate scene?

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome, Matthew.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Fellow uh Miami Shores neighbor here.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Miami Shores in the motherfucking house, Ben. What about that, huh?

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Yeah, I guess I'm too south for you.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Yeah, you're too south. You're not Miami Shores. I'm on the north side. Yeah. Ben, where do you live?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Uh 39th in Biscayne. Oh, okay. So on the way, but not quite there. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Uh welcome, Matthew.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

We're excited to have you. Uh let's start with a cheers, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Oh, yeah. We're drinking white wine. What kind of wine is this? What do we pick?

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Drinking uh what did you pick? Uh right. Um, and uh thank you to uh Vinya for providing beverages. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers to see you guys. You ever been to uh Vinya on TV TVC?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I haven't.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

I think you should check that place out, being a retail guy. Yeah, I think you'd like the vibe over there.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

What is Vinya?

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Uh it's kind of like uh it they have like just super high-end wines and liquors and a nice little it's kind of a neighborhood vibe. Um I went there on a Friday afternoon and it was just kind of locals just drinking good beverages and eating good like little appetizers.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Oh, so they they actually serve on premise as well as sell bottles?

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Yeah, and so I think you can yeah, you can grab a bottle, pay a corking fee. Interesting. Yeah. Um, I think you'd like them. Cool. You should check them out. So cheers. Thank you, Vinya. Thank you, Nick Garcia, too, for for providing the beverages. The wine's great. Uh, and we're at Bureau, too. Um, you know, a good friend of ours, Mike Feinstein.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah, and met him recently. Yeah, he's a super good guy. He's been, you know, he's he was our first podcast guest.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Wow. Yeah. What year was that?

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Uh that was uh about almost five years ago, 2021, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Oh, during the pandemic.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Yeah, we started uh somewhat in the pandemic. And so Mike is Mike is a big supporter. Um and uh I'm glad you met him recently. Hopefully you guys will do a couple things together.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

We'll see.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Yeah, I like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So have you uh listened to any podcasts? I listened to a couple, okay. So you know where this is going. Yeah, we're going all the way back. Yeah. I saw you're an Iowa guy. I am from Iowa, yeah. I mean, we won't hold that against you.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Um I think you're the first Iowa guy here on the podcast. I'm for sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Um I think I'm one of like three in the state.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Yeah, they don't make it out.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

They don't for the most part. Yeah. Where in Iowa? A small town called Newton, Iowa. Newton. Where is that in the state? It's in central Iowa, about uh about an hour east of Des Moines. Okay. The claim to fame was uh yeah, a lot of corn and soybeans, soybeans. Um a Maytag uh headquarters of the world used to be there with before like it got acquired by uh Whirlpool. But it was like a you know factory town.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

15,000 people. Football was like a thing. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Your your last name is kind of uh is it Dutch? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us about the family history. How do they end up in Iowa?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I don't know actually. You don't, huh? I'm not super close with my uh with my father. Um but yeah, I'm half Dutch. Uh my mom's uh Swedish and German.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

All the all the Swedes, Germans, Norwegians went up there. Yeah, I'm from Minnesota. Oh, cool. Yeah, where? Um I grew up in a small town called Hastings, it's like on the border of Wisconsin. Uh so same, it's the same shit. Yeah, corn corn and soybeans, as far as you can see. Yeah, yeah. And high school football. Exactly, which I did not partake in. I was a snowboarder wakeforter. Oh, cool. I was the what's the word? The rebel, I guess. I guess. I guess.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Yeah. And so uh your town was what was the name of the town again?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Newton.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Newton. And it was kind of an industrial town.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah. How how many people do you know 15,000 people when I was there? It's probably like 12,000 now.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

My biggest employer was uh was Maytag. Maytag.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah, I bet. Bigger town than I was in. Yeah. I think Casting's like five.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. My my mom grew up like in the in the country, and the closest town was like 200 people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Dang.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

So what was it like growing up there?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Wholesome, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

I think it's changed quite a bit since you lived there since until you were in you went to college?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah. I uh I lived there until until uh in my early 20s. Yeah. I started off at the University of Iowa and then I studied abroad in Australia. And then I was like, what the heck am I doing in Iowa? So I uh that that's when I left.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

So you went to elementary school, high school?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

All in uh all in that same small town. Wow. Um play any sports?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah. Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and track, but football being the football was life. Like you start going to Canada.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Yeah, that's like as all American town as you can get. But yeah, Iowa. Like when I think when I like think of all American town, I'm like, it's someplace in Iowa.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Tall, big, corn fed people. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Friday night lights. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly how it was.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

What position did you play in football?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I was a corner.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

You're pretty you're pretty tall. What are you, six two, six three?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Just almost, almost six three, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Yeah. Um, and you played baseball as well? Yeah. Well, what position did you play in baseball?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Uh, center.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Center, huh? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Football was my main, my main sport.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

And you know a little basketball too?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

A little basketball. I I could uh I was blessed with a a pretty serious vertical leap. So um yeah, I could I could dunk by the time I was uh like in ninth grade, like five nine, five ten.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

White man can jump. I mean he all he had to do is roll to the gym, throw it on the dunk, like ladies, I'm going this way.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

I was, I mean, don't be wrong, I was like a hundred pounds. Like it was I was a pretty skinny kid growing up.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, but dunking in ninth grade is legit. Yeah, it was. That's legit.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

So were you a three-sport athlete in high school?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Four sport, but nearly every sport that you did other than football was just keeping you in shape for a football season. Like literally, like you start going to camp at I don't know, second grade and weightlifting camp in like fourth grade.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

This guy's a fucking jock.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yep. Uh used to be a long time ago.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Were you a good student?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I was a yeah, I was a very good student.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Really?

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Jack with brains. There you go. Look at that. The full package.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah, the full package. Did you like school? You guys are making me blush.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, you know, you know, school. Um, I'm the first to go to college in my family, so I didn't I didn't have like a lot of guidance. I didn't necessarily know what to do, where to go. I have one older sister.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

But when I was given, I was given an academic scholarship to the University of Iowa, instead of instead of looking outside of the state, which is what I probably should have done from day one, it just made sense to just go to the University of Iowa.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Of course. And you got the you got a sports academic scholarship. Academic scholarship. Did you play any sports at Iowa?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

I I uh wound up actually playing Ultimate Frisbee, which was also it was a very serious sport there. We really we traveled all over the country, we went to to nationals. It was like a legit, legit thing.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

It was like I mean, that's a D1 school, isn't it? Uh you know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, but I mean, back then Ultimate was still a club sport. Yeah. But um, we got some funding from the university, but ultimate was was legit. Some of my my teammates actually went on to world win the both the nationals championship in the United States and also the world championships.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Wow. Yeah, I love Ultimate Fisbee. Have you ever played it, Ben? I haven't. It's fucking sick, dude. It's like it's a combination of like American football with with with like proper football, soccer, right? Yeah, um, and uh, I mean, it's like it's the the dimension is pretty much a soccer field, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

And uh you just gotta and it's a little bit like basketball too. You can't run with the frisbee.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Um I I loved it. I played it a little bit in college. I played it on an intramural team there in college too. But uh it's a it's a really fun sport.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yeah, it's a good time.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Nice. Look at that.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

What else were you into uh growing up? Uh was just sports in school, was that your whole life? Pretty much. What was uh what did you have a job in high school or any early jobs that you were?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

What was your first job?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

My first job. Well, being from Minnesota, you probably know what detasseling is. Detassling corn. On the corn, yeah. So uh I think it was 12 years old was my first job, probably making like two or three bucks an hour.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

This is a just ripping this the this this is a terrible job.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

I bet that you would you would wake up at like four, go on a bus to the fields, and you walk through the fields and remove the tassels from the corn. You'd work all day in the sun and like I said, maybe make two or three bucks an hour.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Wow. Yeah. And why what made you do that? You just wanted your own money or oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I grew up with uh with a single mom, so we didn't have a lot, so I had to kind of fend for myself. And then uh working at the local grocery store, of course, all through high school. Nice. What did your mom do for a living? My mother worked at uh the local hospital.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Okay, yeah, and she she's a single mom raising two kids. Yeah, yeah. What was your sister like?

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Uh, she's five years older than me. Um, I think she was just trying to kind of figure it out as well.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

She could student as well?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

No.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

No, that's more our lane. Yeah, we should have her on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Yeah. And those winters are brutal. What did you guys do in the winter for fun? Because we did a lot of dumb shit.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Donuts in parking lots with your rear-wheel drive vehicle in your high school parking lot.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

No one can whip a car better than a Midwest. You know what's funny?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

It winds up teaching you how to drive so so well in clement weather, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Yeah, whenever I'm with people and it's like snowing, everyone's freaking out. Yeah, I'm just you want to see something sweet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Were you in uh the tornado alley over there too? You get a lot of tornadoes, sure. Yeah, you see any cool you come over up close to any tornadoes.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

It took out the middle school um when I was uh when I was in elementary school. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, it's real. It's it's I think they're way scarier than hurricanes.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Fuck yeah, way scarier. You just they they come up whenever, like carricanes you can prepare.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

You get a little bit of notice, like you'll feel like the humidity and the temperature drop like that. The sky will turn green, and then you the sirens come on, you know it's time to ride your bicycle home and go to the basement.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

We used to watch uh Twister just to scare ourselves whenever there was a storm, just to just just to get in the vibe.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

That's funny. Uh shit. Hell yeah. So what what was your town like? I mean, it you said it was like 15,000 people. Yeah. Um, did you live like near a main street? Um, did you live in the burbs?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

No, no, there's no burbs. Yeah. There's like uh it's a small town, and then you blink, and then you're in cornfields.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah, so you guys lived kind of near the street-ish area.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah. We literally had a you're exactly right, a main street. It's called First Avenue.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

And you could kind of walk everywhere from there and bike.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

It's a little bit bigger than that. I mean, you'd wait till you're 16 and had a car and and you'd go cruising.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

You know, scooping the loop.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Maybe go to Target.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

We didn't have a Target. Oh wow. We had a Walmart.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Maybe go to Walmart? That was a big deal. Yeah, a big deal. To go to the Walmart.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Yeah. What was the first time you left the town? Like to go to a big city.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Oh man. We didn't we didn't travel when I was a kid. Um, my first time on an airplane was when I was 18, and my second time was studying abroad in Australia. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

18, where'd you go on your airplane the first time?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I went to um Lake Tahoe with my high school girlfriend's uh family.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Nice. That's an epic getaway for uh first time on an airplane.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

And the second time was to Australia.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah. Great destinations.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

I know.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Dang. Studying abroad was probably one of the best things I could have I could have ever done because it got me out of my comfort zone, saw a bit of the world, start to rely on yourself and gain confidence, and came back to Iowa and said, Yeah, it's time to leave.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

So you you studied, you went to Iowa. What did you study undergrad?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

I was I thought I wanted to be a physician, so I was I was pre-med.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Okay. And then you tapped out after how many years?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I was there uh two and a half years, and then I wound up, I eventually transferred to Boston College.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Okay. And then what what what what what motivated you to go to Boston College?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Good question. Um I wanted to go to a private school. I realized that I had probably sold myself short coming out of high school. Like, you know, these schools, they need people from everywhere, including from Iowa and Minnesota, et cetera. And the competition, you know, like there'll be like 50 kids from Connecticut applying, but there might be like one person from Iowa. So um yeah. Um BC was a great school.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Did you get a scholarship to BC too?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

BC only as far as I know, they don't do uh they don't do academic scholarships except for presidential scholars. So no.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

So you were paying full boat yourself.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Full bowl myself.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

And I waited tables to I worked at high-end restaurants um all through college and thereafter.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

Gotcha. In in in Boston.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

In Boston, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

So you kind of paid your way through college waiting tables.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

I love it. Cost a lot of money to go to Boston College.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Yeah, Boston College is an expensive school, dude.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, it was back then.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Did you did you leave with that there?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Of course. Yeah, right. Took me a long time to pay it off.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

What were what were you studying once once you went to Boston? You you're not pre-mediction.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, so I so I wound up um graduating from BC. I still uh I was pre-med psych and didn't know what I wanted to do with myself because I didn't want to be a physician. And then I wound up uh uh taking three years and I wrote a screenplay thinking I want to be a filmmaker. What was it about? Uh a lot of it was autobiographical.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

That's cool. Yeah. I always thought it'd be so cool to be a writer, but then I'm like, I got what the fuck to write about.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

That's a great place to start. So you wrote a you wrote a screenplay about your life?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

About a uh a chunk of my life, yeah. Yeah. After uh after um Boston College, I I went on a road trip and my truck broke down in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Where where was this road trip to?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

And where was it was it was cross country from Boston all the way up. I was gonna go up to to uh to Vancouver, and I got I got all the way to Wyoming and my truck broke down.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Kind of truck were you driving? It's a tough place to break down.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

A 1985 Jeep Cherokee Two-door. Oh, okay. Oh yeah, that's nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

So Jeeps actually worked. That's a collector today. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

And I wound up uh to be honest, I wound up um living and working in on this ranch in in Wyoming. And uh and then when I decided to leave to go back to um so your car broke down in Wyoming, you ended up staying on at this ranch there?

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yeah, like destiny, huh?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, that was wild.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

So you were you how long did you work on this ranch for?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Maybe like three months.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yeah. That's like everyone's dream now. Now that Yellowstone came out, everyone wants a piece of that. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I learned how to properly ride a horse, like English style, and it was uh it was really interesting. But that's actually now what the screenplay about is about this. The screenplay, um my grandfather was was was dying uh back in Iowa, and I wanted to race back to try to see him. Um, so I started to drive back, and you can't make this up. That vehicle also broke down and I I had to start hitchhiking. And um uh the only person that would pick me up was this old cowboy. And um this is what the screenplay is about, by the way. Um he asked me to buy him a six-pack of beer in order in exchange for driving me. And when I shook his hand, I realized he was missing a finger. And then when I handed him a beer, I realized he was missing two other fingers. And so the name of the screenplay is Seven Fingers, and it's the story of my character and the seven-fingered cowboy traveling across the state.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

That's sick. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it's a great premise, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, so what happened with the screenplay? So the the specific restaurant that I worked at in Boston um was like it was the the it restaurant back then. This is like in the early 2000s.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

What was the name of the restaurant?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Mistraw. It's still there. It I mean, I never made less than six figures as a as a server, working like three to four days a week. Wow. Yeah. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

I was the you were a server.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I was the youngest server ever hired there. Again, this was in the early 2000s. And I worked there because I would make good money, but also because like any producers that were in town would would roll through there.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Isn't that like a theatric name, Mistral?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Isn't that like Mistral actually is a French name and it refers to the wind that blows out of the north of Africa?

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Maybe I think of Minstrel.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And uh anyway, I met a producer who offered to option my script, and then I realized I didn't want to sell it. And at that time, um, the digital film reserve uh revolution had just started, right? So the the cost to produce a film went down drastically, and I was like, all right, I don't want to sell this. Um, but I need to figure out something to do in order to make money to hopefully make my film someday. And then that's when I realized that producing a film and developing real estate are are similar products, but but different uh sorry, similar processes, but just different products. Meaning you have an idea for something, you raise money around it, you build a team around it, you build it, and then you sell it. And um that was the BS that I spun to get into grad school at Columbia because I had no real estate experience.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Those are two big jumps, though. How do you go from psych to making a movie to real estate? Like those two jumps are sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Like how do you get how do you go deviate so far from psych to movie making and then so I left I left out a big chunk. So when I when I quit the University of Iowa, um what had actually happened was that was when Abercrombie and Fitch was huge, and they were scouring the Midwest. Uh and like early 2000s, yeah. Yeah, late 90s for me. Okay, and a modeling scout, modeling and acting scout saw me at the University of Iowa, invited me to New York City.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Now I know why Ben's got a little man crush on his hand.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

So uh they actually brought me to New York City. I started acting and modeling. Um, but I realized it was it was not for me, but I was intrigued by filmmaking. And and so being in front of the camera was actually a means to an end to get behind the camera. And so when I was at BC, I I kept on modeling and acting and um and then waiting tables, and that's really ultimately how I got through it all. Um uh so it wasn't such a uh a huge jump, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Because you're already kind of in there, yeah. That's funny. I went to art school for photography too. Oh, cool. Yeah. Where? Uh Columbia College in Chicago and then art center in uh Pasadena. Nice. So similar Midwestern boys trying to be artists.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

And then I realized that uh and then real estate.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

That's right. The the risk involved with a film is far different than the risk involved with with real estate.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

What piqued your interest with real estate?

SPEAKER_01 18:49

You know, like um when I moved to New York City and kind of starting to get to know started to get to know neighborhoods and how cities changed and evolved and and the And I'm sorry, you moved to New York City.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

This is after college?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

No. So when I when I dropped out of the University of Iowa, okay, I left there to move to New York City. And that was in between um Iowa and Boston College.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

You were there for how long in New York?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

About a year. And that's when you were doing the modeling and then I just took my modeling portfolio, took it up to Boston, and I just kept on doing it. It was the best part-time job ever when you're a college kid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Um but real estate, he interrupted you. You're talking about when you moved to New York, seeing the neighborhoods.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, and I, you know, I I wound up living in a handful of different cities, and I st I really fell in love with the built environment. And the idea of being able to to affect that built, built environment um kind of changed me. And um I love the idea of of being able to have an effect on and shape the neighborhood that that you're in or the environment that you're in.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

You still feel that today, or has the bureaucracy hasn't beaten it out of you yet?

SPEAKER_01 19:55

No, I mean, obviously, like with Little River, that was uh, you know, that's a dream project, like a once-in-a-career lifetime kind of thing, where you can actually really truly affect change. Um we tend to like to work on projects like that where we can actually make a make a dent, but we really care a lot about the process as well. We care a lot about like really thinking through what is right for the neighborhood, what is the right group, what is the right tenant, what is the right feel, what is the right fit, what is the right look. Um yeah, it still drives me today.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

So, what neighborhood do you live in New York?

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I couch surfed.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Yeah, for a year.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

For a year, yeah. Holy shit. It was tough.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Unlike friends, girlfriends, whatever we talk here.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Friends. I I found out that I had a distant Swedish relative who then set me up and I'd stay at this friend's house for a month, or that friend's house for a month, or that person will be traveling, or it you know, the life of a broke model is is not a glamorous one, that's for sure. You know, you're you're you're broke all day and then you get invited to parties at night, and you you're not supposed to eat the food of cocktail parties. No, that's how we would feed ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Yeah. So were you uh were you kind of in a party scene there, or not really?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

No. No, not really. I mean, you'd go to like nightclubs now and again, but not really.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

And what year was this that you were living in New York?

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Man, that was uh 1997, 1998.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

That's a sick era to be in New York.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

It is a sick era to be in New York.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

It was a fun time.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

I mean, I cut my teeth. Like moving to New York City, not having anybody, not knowing anybody, it gives you a lot of confidence that you can be like, hey, you know what? I can move anywhere and kind of start from scratch.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

100%. 100%. Especially back then, there was no no Google, no nothing. You were just out there in the world, yeah, making it happen.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

So when did the Australia thing come about and how did that come about?

SPEAKER_01 21:54

So that was when I was still at the University of Iowa.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Oh, it was, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. And that, you know, coming back. Okay. Coming back from there, I was like, and then looking for a sign, and the modeling scout saw us, and I was like, All right, that's the sign, time to get out.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

How long were you in Australia? Nine months. Oh, that's a long time. Yeah, that's awesome.

unknown 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

And I'm sorry, how did you get discovered as a model again?

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Modeling scouts would would scour the Midwest and go to college campuses.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

And what they would like.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

And they just stop you and say, hey, hey, do you want to try this out? Or yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

No one's ever stopped me. I was in better shape back then.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

How is that possible? I don't know. I don't get it. I'm kind of tall.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

I was also 50 pounds heavier back then. Maybe that was it. I was in much better shape back then. Yeah, that's for sure. All that football working out, I'm sure. Yeah. So then so you start getting into real estate after you wrote your screenplay. What's uh what's the move towards real estate? Well, like what did you do to start getting into it?

SPEAKER_01 22:53

So um I had some friends in Denver at the time. Um I moved out to be with them and they were like fixing flipping houses. And um Great City, by the way, Denver. Great city.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

I love Denver.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Great city. Um but I I kind of got uh uh screwed on a deal, and I was like, you know what? I think I need to go back to grad school to really like learn more and like dive into the industry.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

You got screwed on a deal flipping a house.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

No, it was with some people that I was working for. I had a a small renovation company, so I'd do all the work.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

And then I got screwed on payment, and I was like, you know what? I think I want to be more on the principal side. That's when I went back to Columbia. And you know, when you evaluate that kind of going to grad school or going to a job, um, you know, going to a school at Columbia is basically like replacing like some you know mid-20-year-old job for me. And um, it was a great program and kind of got me in the door.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

So you're you're working in Denver, you're like, let me let me go back to graduate school. Yep. Um, no scholarship at Columbia. No, also very expensive. Are you making any money at uh in Denver? No. How many years did you live in Denver for? Two two years?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

All right. So you're like, all right, let me go, let me get more in dad. Let's go that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Let's go. Yep. Now let's go to the most expensive school in the country and the most expensive city in the United States.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

All right.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

And so you were there for two years?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

The Columbia MS Red program uh back then was uh three full semesters, so it's back basically a a full year.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Okay. Um, we didn't ask you this question. Uh, what were your favorite subjects in high school?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Calculus.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Calculus. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Calculus and physics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Wow. Dang dude. We're out. Yeah. So out.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Physics is cool, but I'm like a I'm like a passive.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

I was in physics for like three weeks. I'm like, I have no idea what these fuckers are saying. Well, they don't know either. That's the beauty of physics. Philippe, remind me where'd you grow up? I grew up in uh just outside New York City in Westchester County. Okay, got it. Rybrook.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

So I uh I can appreciate New York City too. I was in that, you know, I was in high school from from 88 to 92, and then college, so 92, 96. So I was always bouncing back and forth between Syracuse and New York. Sure. So uh those were some good days, good times in New York.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah. I remember I'm trying to remember what what the nightclubs were. Like some of the nightclubs were were fun.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Tunnel.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

I remember tunnel. I didn't go to it, but I remember it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Um the Limelight. I remember Limelight. Yeah. Uh those are the ones that those are the big ones I went to. Um, there were there were a handful of other ones too, I can't remember, but those were the two big ones I would go to.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Um, so you go to so you basically go to Columbia with not very much real estate experience.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Little to none. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

I imagine you had some pretty good grades through college. Yeah. And uh and then you go to Columbia real estate school. You you've basically been renovating homes as your the extent of of your real estate knowledge, right? Yeah. Um and there's probably people that have more experience, probably people uh don't have as much experience as you or similar experience as you. Um what what starts happening at Columbia?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

You know, real estate development is a very difficult thing to teach. What I've I think what I've learned is that you know, you really learn on the job. Um, I didn't realize it at the time. Now looking back on it, I realize it. And, you know, I think learning how to underwrite was probably the main thing that I took away from from grad school. And then kind of realizing that development is is mainly like, you know, you're problem solving. Thank you. Uh you're problem solving all the time and you're making it up on the job, on the f on on the fly. Um that's what I really kind of gathered. But remember, I was didn't have a lot of money when I was there either. And you know, grad school is so much about socializing.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

And so I mean, you start making some incredible connections there, right? Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

And I mean that's what it opens doors at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

I mean, that's why you end up going to schools like Columbia. That's right. You're really buying a network at the end. You're buying a network. I agree 100%. Like the education, like you can pretty much get a similar the fundamentals you're gonna learn in whatever school. You can probably go online and learn a lot of that shit. But you know, today, uh, it's the connections. That's right. So um, but there there's gotta be some you're you're taking courses and like what what other interesting what what were interesting courses in the Columbia program for you? Was there like an urbanism program?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Uh you know, we did real estate law, real estate finance, um, construction management.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Is there an entrepreneurship program? Not really. No.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

I mean, listen, the program has evolved quite a bit. I mean, we're going back now to uh 2000 2006, 2007, or so 20 years ago now.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

Because the program started in like 2000 or something like that, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 27:57

In the I think in the I think in the late 80s actually.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Is that when it started? Yeah, it's one of the schools that's one of the oldest, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Now there, I mean, there weren't a lot of schools to apply to when I was like you've got uh University of Denver. DU is actually the the oldest program by far. You got MIT, NYU, USC, Georgia, I don't remember all the funds. Yeah, and like I said, it's a difficult thing to teach. And like and and like you said, you're basically buying a network, and I decided to do it in New York City, thinking that you know, if you if you can learn it in New York City, where it's just like cutthroat, then hopefully that trains you to set you up for like Miami or somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Yeah. So what happens after graduate school?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

So I got recruited out of Colombia to uh by a Columbia alum to move down here to Miami to open uh open a new shop down here for a Texas-based developer.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

I'm sorry, Texas?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

A Texas-based developer. So do you guys remember Tramel Crow?

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So um uh when Trammel Crow blew up, um two of the guy, two of the five guys that kind of ran the country started a new company called Simmons Veter Partners, and they had just opened a Miami shop. Um, a guy by the name of Justin Toll. Uh he opened it and then he he hired me. And and then um, of course, I had perfect timing, right? This is 2007, right before the great financial crisis. And so, like all real estate developers, we became distressed investors. And um I'm sure you guys have heard these stories a million times. Like so many people were expecting another RTC crisis and expecting, you know, real estate to be trading for like pennies on the dollar, and they're passing on like deals that like 50 cents on the dollar. And now a lot of the people that actually did those transactions did quite well. Um but uh when you're partnered with with big funds, you know, they're looking for 20 unlevered IRRs on you know short-term holds, and it's it was it was tough. So we didn't we didn't really get much done. And then Justin and I were hired by 15 Group. I don't know if you guys know what the 15 groups are.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

They're like a they're like a ghost, I feel like, in uh in the Miami real estate scene.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yeah, you know, Mark and Ian um um very, very intelligent people with great timing. They had um They're based out of where? Here in Miami.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

15's based out of Miami.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah. And they had um they had bought up um a ton of uh of apartments all across the country and they ramped up to like 19,000 units and then sold the majority of that portfolio as as far as I know um to condo converters during the condo conversion craves and made a lot of money and then hired me and Justin to really kind of spearhead their their company and start doing more deals. And we did some really great deals. Um so then we've you know, this is post-financial crisis. We bought, you know, broken projects. So in Edgewater, you know, what is now Padaiso Bay, you know, that was that was our first major deal. We bought that for like 9 million and flipped it for 25 to related. And then two blocks south of that, that was the old platinum deal. Bought like 15 broken condos and the phase two site, and then flipped that. That's now Biscayne Beach. And these deals like did exceptionally well. Did some deals in the design district.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Yeah, I assembled the uh what was it called? Was it Westcare? The drug you remember?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Oh, yeah. I remember him. So I I I asked Matthew Gisson. Yeah, Matthew Gisson, yeah, yeah, yeah. Matthew Gidson.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Um I was one of the brokers that put all those houses together.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

So so for that deal, so for for the for Paddy Sobaye, I had assembled like 25 different properties and had to go door to door anonymously. It was rough, it was a rough go.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Um, but I think that's probably really where I cut my teeth on the assemblage side of things. And uh, you know, over there.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Why do you say that's where you cut your teeth on the assemblage? Like what what was it about that?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Because trying to like trying to stay low key when you're going door to door, trying to purchase properties that are not listed for sale while also not overpaying for them.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

And these are mostly like those are single family family, single families, all single family, all really sketchy. You were literally, I mean, it was like super sketchy. We were like knocking, literally knocking doors. And there were owners that were owner.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Do you remember suspect of me?

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Do you remember Porfidio Garcias? He was my favorite holdout. He had the corner.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

He lived with like the ducks, he had his door open, those bay ducks would water waddle, waddle into his house. He'd always bike around the block with no shirt on, slamming like big the big cans of beer. Yeah, like the canned 40s. Legend. He got like 800 grand for his shitbox house. Yeah, those people made a lot of money. Uh yeah, that's funny. And didn't 15 group buy the um that big church building on Biscayne in like 700.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah, I think that was that was after my time there.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

After it already left. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

It's a sick building, but yeah, it's probably impossible to develop.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

I don't know much about it. Interesting. But beautiful building, yeah. What a run. So what what happened after uh 15 group? So when I left 15 Group, I just I had just met Ashley, who is my wife and my business partner.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

All right, let's back that up a little bit. So uh what year is 15 Group?

SPEAKER_01 33:21

When you leave 15 Group, I think at the end of 2012. Okay. Early 2013.

SPEAKER_03 33:27

And you meet your wife where?

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Down here. We I had struck out. Um, I'd always wanted to be in a relationship and wanted to start a family, and I just wasn't really finding the right woman.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

And uh classic Midwestern guy problems.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, yeah. And um I think that you know, when I first moved down here and I was on the beach, I kind of thought Miami was Miami Beach, and of course it's not. And there's a whole nother, you know, uh portion of the city that is very different. And um anyway, um, I got introduced to my wife through uh uh a mutual friend uh Nina Johnson. If you guys know Nina Johnson, she was one of the the gallerists, early gallerists in in Wynwood.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Oh, cool. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

And now she's up in uh uh like on 63rd Street or so. But um she uh she introduced us. That's awesome. And then we were we were married uh a year to the date of of of of meeting.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Wow, dude. Yeah, pull the trigger quickly.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

I was older.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Is there a lot of pressure involved? No, no, no, you know not at all.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

I was just older and kind of knew what I wanted.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

So yeah, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

But Ashley's Ashley is super interesting. Um she has a a business degree from one of the top design schools in the country, Parsons School of Design. And so um That's in New York, right? Yeah, and she was she was actually commuting back and forth between Brooklyn and and Miami when we met. And um, I mean, we'll talk more about it, but but she's an amazing partner and she's like a business minded creative. And I kind of those are rare things. Business mind creatives are that's like an oxymoron. I know 100%. Yeah. And you know, there's a design element to to everything that we do, and and she she is really the the heart and soul of of that for our company.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

That's awesome. So you you left 15 group and then got married? Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Left 15 group had just started dating Ashley, and then um, and then we decided to start MBW partners.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Did you have a plan when you left, or you were just like, I just need to do something else?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

No. Um I didn't have a plan, didn't have any idea what we were gonna do. We considered moving back to New York, but we decided to uh to stay in the city to be closer to her family. Her family's been here for like many, many generations, I think like five or six generations. Oh wow, okay. She's like OG, Miami people. And um we got married, bought a house, and started Little River all in the same in the same month. You guys bought the house on the shores? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Okay. Wow, that's a busy month. Yeah, that was a busy month. So you got married in 2013, 2014? I should know this. You should.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

God, I hope it won't sound like I just I think it was 2014.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

We're gonna have to edit, we're gonna have to edit this out, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 36:13

I think we are. 2013, 2014. I think it was 2014. Yeah, all right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Um, my show was 2014.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

All right. Well, probably a great time to buy there.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

It was a great time to buy. It was right before people started really catching on to how great a community it is. We originally wanted to go into to Morningside. Um, we live we we live historic home uh architecture and historic homes, and we were actually under contract on a home in Morningside. And then our brokers were like, we really think you should check out Miami Shores. And I mean, you guys know it's such a great community, and it's easy to get to the interstate, it's like the northernmost edge of the city. So you're you still feel like you're you know in the city or part of the city or can be, um, but you get the beauty of a single family home and decent law size.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Yeah. No, it's it's one of the best neighborhoods. Like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

I agree. I live there, yeah. It's fucking great. I used to live in Belmade and uh sure and uh you know the houses there are pretty small, so yeah, especially during COVID, a 1400 square square foot home is uh it's a little tight.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah, you start to realize how small it is.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

So we started looking at the shores, but uh yeah, it's a great neighborhood. You you have kids?

SPEAKER_01 37:25

We have one daughter.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

Okay. How old?

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Uh she is seven and a half. All right. As she would remind you. Yeah, and a half.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Yeah, yeah, you can't fuck that up now, especially at that age. I have a seven-year-old daughter too. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Not quite half yet, though. Just turned seven in May. Got it. So when you guys started uh your company, uh, what was kind of the goal? What was the angle?

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah, so um, I mean, as you guys know, um, there's not a lot in downtown Miami Shores. At that time, all of Miami Shores was still on septic tank systems. And consequently, you can't really get good restaurants or bars or coffee shops or whatever. And so instead of just complaining about it, we decided to do something about it. And at that time, as you guys know, Winwood was was well on its way, but it wasn't really for us. Design District was obviously you know spectacular, but effectively a luxury outdoor mall. Um, it's grown so much more. But again, we wanted like to create some sort of neighborhood that was accessible to our place in Miami Shores with the right restaurants and bars and coffee shops and all the businesses that we kind of wanted.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

But hold hold on a second, you're going back to your better half here, like what where did her interest in real estate come from?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

So she actually uh when we met, she was working um with her family office, and they were actually building out uh a private uh airport terminal at Opalaka. And so they built um was what used to be called uh Orion Jet Center. So she would she would basically create the mood board, the vision board, and then interview, hire, and then manage all the creative professionals for that. That was a very large real estate project. And uh it was just a natural fit for her uh to come and work with me on on Little River.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

And so that was your goal. You guys were gonna start a company and we're gonna go after assets in Little River.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

We were looking for the right project, and then a Little River opportunity came up. You know, like I said, we wanted to kind of find somewhere nearby where we could kind of assemble critical mass and and and do our own thing and and create the neighborhood that we really wanted to spend time in.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

So the idea, the the idea was just to go buy as much as you could in the area and kind of re-innovate and reprogram?

SPEAKER_01 39:46

We were um we had a partner back then. Um I know you guys know Aver Jane. And we were partners with Avra, and we had um we'd uh tied up Steve Rhodes' old portfolio, which was like five buildings, and we started walking the neighborhood in the neighborhood, just it felt like a neighborhood, like short wide streets, buildings like built right up to the zero lot line, and it felt like a movie set to me, to be quite frank.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

Where were the five buildings? Were the five buildings, Steve Rhodes buildings close to each other?

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Oh yeah. Where Sonny's is now, where uh Legacy Fit is sure right now, right next door to that, where the flower shop is.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

Um it's just north of the railroad tracks.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

It's on north northwest Miami Cork, yeah. Uh both north and south of the railroad tracks, five buildings. Yeah. And then we started to tie up as much as we could as fast as we could.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Using your learnings from the Paraiso assemblage.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

That's right. And I and tried to stay as anonymous as possible, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

How do you do that? Like uh you know, maybe you don't want to share all your tricks of the trade, but what what are some tips to not tipping people off that you're assembling stuff? Well tall white guy walking around.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

First of all, make sure it's not me who's going out there. Um I guess fucking gringo, watch out for this guy. He's coming.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

So what we did was big pockets. Yeah, big pockets. Little did they know, by the way. Um what what we did was um, you know, I was like a a research data nerd, and so I looked at the entire neighborhood and I said, okay, let's put together dossiers on every property owner in the neighborhood to find out as much information as as we possibly could. And then we had five or six different brokerage teams, and I would send each broker out with very specific assignments, but they couldn't talk about it with anybody else.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

So you basically profiled the property owners and then matched them up to a different broker.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

To to like the least threatening broker to go knock on a door because if you're getting a knock on a door from a stranger asking to buy your property, you know, you don't want to tip them off to what we were doing. And then of course you have you know shell entities and you just keep your name off of everything and you do it as fast as you can before the neighbors can really talk and prices start to run.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Yeah, you gotta use like Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming entities where they don't show the the names. Is that what you use?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

I don't remember. Um, we would have our attorneys be like, you know, the registered agents and just keep my name off of everything as much as possible. And anybody is your friend when you're assembling, as you all very well are aware of. And in that first year, um man, we had like 60 transactions in the first 12 to 14 months, and no one had any idea what we were doing or who we were.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

But okay, so 60 transactions. I mean, what was the market? How much did you guys pay for those 60?

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Oh my goodness. It I mean, prices obviously have changed quite a bit.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

Um and what and how did you get the financing to Yeah, uh who are your partners?

SPEAKER_01 42:51

That's an interesting story. So um during the financial crisis, you know, I was I was a real estate analyst. I should probably be able to find a pretty decent deal on a rental apartment, right? And I wasn't making a ton of money, but there were all these broken condominiums all over Miami Beach, you know, where you'd have like a South American buyer that, you know, bought it for next to nothing and was leasing it out. So I actually, I think one of the best deals I ever did was I rented a uh an apartment in a uh broken condominium building, luxury broken condominium building called the the Caribbean at 37th and Collins. And I was like the third person that moved in. And then all these wealthy New Yorkers started moving in and they all became my friends. And um, they said, Hey, if you ever go off on your own, like let us know. We'd love to take a look at things. So when we were starting Little River, that's what I did. And I went to one neighbor and and they were interested, and they said, Hey, like, meet this person and this person and this person and fucking wealthy New Yorkers again, Ben.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Bringing their fucking big money down here. Good.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

It was um, yeah, that was my first time raising money, but I found out that I was I was decent at it.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

But how do you sell that story? Because you can't really comp out what you're doing. No. You know, you can't be like, once we do this, look at these similar things, look at the comps.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Like were these up in New Yorkers actually getting in a car and going to check out the neighborhood?

SPEAKER_01 44:09

I'm a very passionate person. Um, I'd like to think I'm fairly convincing. But um listen, that I mean at the end of the day, we knew that if if our vision didn't work out, we could turn around and rent the space out as as uh storage for 10 bucks a foot or so.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

You get even good enough basis to where you have some optionality.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Yeah. So on a risk-adjusted basis, it was it was fairly safe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

I mean, that's like every good trade, right? Limit your downside and shoot for the moon.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah. Yeah, we definitely shot for the moon.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Well, what was the moon shot vision on this one?

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Well, the portfolio, I mean, it feels it feels like a neighborhood, right? And um, I think it's now it's pretty obvious to a lot of people, but it was always just right there, right? You're you're just east of the interstate, you're surrounded by all these affluent um Upper East Side neighborhoods from Bay Point, you know, Morningside, Bellmead, Bayside, El Portal, uh, Shorecrest, Miami Shores, but they really have no downtowns to speak of or to walk to. And this is just right there in the middle. And with three interstate access points within five minutes of our portfolio, access is really great, you know, whether you're coming from the beach or coming from down south or coming from up north or coming from the airport. Just made a lot of sense. Well located, it's on higher ground. You know, most of the little river is between five and fifteen feet above sea level. So, you know, flooding wasn't really an issue. We love the fact that the railroad tracks went right through the middle of the neighborhood, kind of reminding you that you know this is still a working city. Yeah. And I mean, you guys have been there. You that you you walk around, it feels like a neighborhood.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Aver, I think I think I toured that area. Have you ever been in that pocket? Yeah. Yeah. I I think I went there probably shortly after she had bought the vagabond. Okay. Um, and uh so I think it was right right after you guys had acquired it. Yeah. And I mean, you walk you walked in there, you're like, it's like you go someplace, you're like, okay, there's something different about this area, right? Like the there's there's there's a grid, there's the the way the buildings interact, yeah. You know, there there's there's there's a certain like energy there where you can feel like you have all the elements to build a cool little neighborhood there. Yeah, and so you know, there were there there on the fringe, there were some single-family homes there, but there was a there was a two to three block area that there was commercial uh real estate that was either industrial or retail, and it just needed to be curated properly, I think.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

I mean, listen, uh agreed, and you saw the same thing that we saw. Um, there was a lot of drugs and prostitution and crime at the same time. Um, and that was something we had to deal with. Um, but you're right, the the palette, it was there. The the bones were were there. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

You just had to like there weren't empty lots, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Like not a ton of vacant lots, yeah. And you know, most of these you know buildings were old old manufacturing buildings that were being used for a bunch of different things. There was a lot of illegal businesses there too, like you know, like rag shops where they're you know rag consolidators that take discarded clothing and ship them off, ship them off to the islands. And um, but I think the city was also, I think, probably happy to see someone you know make some serious investments over there and start to clean it up as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Well, it's cool to see because we don't get a lot of that in Miami. They're really creative, adaptive, reuse because most of the the buildings aren't that old and yeah, and most of the buildings that are old kind of suck. So it's kind of it's cool to see those industrial buildings get reprogrammed.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

We we really liked the the balance between old and new. I think you know, all too often in Miami, developers have just torn everything down, a lot of our beautiful historic buildings, and I understand it makes way for progress in some ways, but um a lot of other cities have done a much better job of keeping their beautiful historic buildings. Now, there's nothing really historic in Little River, but we still like the bones, and we thought we could make something interesting. And you know, in the future there'll be a lot more ground-up development, but I think that layering effect between old and new is going to be very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

It always makes it. It's like the surf club, I think, is one of those they did such a good job with that.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

I agree.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

And I mean, if it was all just the Richard Meyer white glass stuff, it'd be kind of like, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

When you have that contrast, it's sick.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

It's sick. So so did you guys achieve the goal that you were setting up to do in uh in Little River?

SPEAKER_01 48:27

I like to think so. I mean, it was a heavy lift. My goodness, it was a heavy lift, but you know, decade later, man, the portfolio is is quite a bit larger. Um do you guys still own there or did you sell so we re we took on a partner and recapitalized about five years ago. Okay. With uh so Avra has been a hasn't been a part of the project for a while. Um Ashley and I really, really, really worked hard on bringing in the right things over time. You know, eventually we sold uh a full city block to Oolite Arts, which used to be known as uh Arts Center of South Florida, and they have a big campus planned there. And then um, you know, during the pandemic when we opened Sunny's and we had uh the Center for Subtropical Affairs, which was our outdoor music venue, um, we actually were partnering with someone to go vertical on our first uh ground up project. We had also gotten the entirety of Little River designated as an opportunity zone. But if you already owned when you got the designation, um, you couldn't benefit from the program unless you recapitalized and reduced your ownership. So the combination of needing to go vertical uh and wanting to benefit from the OZ program made us say, you know, I think it's time to recapitalize. And so we brought in AJ Capital, we took everything that we had, um, sold it into a fund controlled by them, and we are the local partners and they are the majority partners.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

That's awesome. They seem like a really cool group. Yeah. They built some really cool shit.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Yeah. They have a great eye and they've done a lot of great historic stuff all over the country and and internationally as well. And so um it was a really, you know, it was an ideal partnership uh where we could really kind of execute on our vision. Back then, interest rates were a lot lower, so money was a lot cheaper, and and you know, uh Sunny's was was just you know on fire at that time. So we were able to sign a bunch of our This is in 2021. 20 uh 2020, 2021 or so, yeah, five years ago. And um, of course, you guys have seen a lot of the results. So we have Sunny's and and Barbuce and Ogawa and Fuchs, La Natural, Imperial Moto. We've got a handful more coming in.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Wasn't there a really cool like old um Defender shop there too?

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah, that was um I brought those guys in. That was uh that's a company called Classic.com.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Yeah, they were uh Are they still there? No.

SPEAKER_03 50:54

Oh, okay. I feel like we should do a Cafecito Club at Imperial Moto. That'd be sweet, right? Yeah, that'd be a cool place to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

We should. We should. Introduce it. I always remember I always remember driving by and seeing those old defenders out there.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Oh yeah. I love it. They have a lot of classic car meetups at Imperial Moto.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Oh, that makes sense. Tom Brand. Yeah, it's a good vibe for the area. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

They were our first coffee shop and uh they're doing really well. They've expanded quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

And everything you did there was retail, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:23

It was all no um retail and restaurant. My goodness. Um over the years, we signed about a hundred commercial tenants, and that included restaurant, retail, creative office. We like we have about 200,000 square feet of creative office users. Most people don't realize how much how many office users we have from architects, interior designers, landscape architect firms, um, a lot of creative office.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. No one wants to drive to Prickle or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Yeah, and you know, as as you know, maybe it would be like a company that used to be in Winwood, but maybe parking was a nightmare or they wanted to they still like like the gritty urban neighborhood, but for whatever reason, Winwood was no longer right for them. So we we get a lot of those um types of companies.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

So that that that whole project sounds like it's kind of I don't know what the right word is. It's never on autopilot, but it's kind of like it's not on that autopilot. I mean but are you still actively managing that project?

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Are you AJ really AJ really runs the data? I mean, we're still you know partners on the project, but AJ really runs the the day-to-day. Um we have a lot of other projects going on though. Um at the corner of 82nd and 2nd, still in Little River, we have a um we have a large project planned. We bought a two-acre site. I think it's a spectacular ground-up multifamily site where we have a planned uh 28-story 450 unit apartment building. Um going up there. We're excited about that.

SPEAKER_03 52:57

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:58

You guys so that's a that's your first real ground up development.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

That'll be my first real ground-up development, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:02

And this is gonna be market rate apartments.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

It's a live local project, so it'll be part market rate and and part market.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

That's right by Evan Flow.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

It's just south of Evan Flow.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

Dang.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

It's a great site.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

When you guys when are you guys breaking ground on that?

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Probably about a year. Yeah. Yeah. Going through the design process right now.

SPEAKER_02 53:21

And how's that process been?

SPEAKER_01 53:23

It's been great. We've got a great partnership there. Uh, we're partnered with uh the guys from uh Infinity Collective who own like the Esme Hotel. David Berg. David Berg, yeah. David Berg and Steve Caston, wonderful partners. And uh Hexagon, which is also a family office. It's a great partnership.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

Are you guys doing more residential like that? You see more more opportunity for project like that on the horizon?

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Or you know, that's not a typical project for MVW partners. Um, you know, we love adaptive reuse, we love, you know, rehabbing old buildings. Um I'm also working on a a small, a small-scale um infill housing uh uh project where basically trying to figure out that little conundrum of how can you fit like a well-designed three to five story building on a smaller lot because I don't think everything needs to be like an overly amenitized high-rise. Um so really kind of working through that, and we want to deliver like a like a kind of like a no-frills, well-designed apartment building, but in on a smaller scale. And then um we bought our new headquarters in Miami Shores. We're about ready to move in there. That's another historic building that we've that we've renovated. Um, and uh we really like Miami Shores, obviously. Miami Shores is great, and we like to kind of keep it in our backyard. So we love that kind of upreast side area in general.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, because everything you've done has kind of been in that zone, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:52

North I mean, listen, the majority of my career, like an entire career was was in Little River. I mean, that was, you know, land assemblage, you know, a ton of renovation work, a ton of rezoning work, um, you know, commercial uh leases, residential leases, property management. Um yeah, that was a that was a big that was a big one.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

You don't have to say you don't have to say it here, but are there other neighborhoods that are similar to Little River that you kind of have your eye on?

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Because I wish.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Yeah. I mean, let's you know, it's like it's like we had you know Joe first, I'm sure. Of course, yeah. You know, and Joe was in Winwood and then he went and discovered, you know, uh West Palm. Yeah. Um I feel like you know, there's there are there's always neighborhoods that are overlooked, right? And are are are there still neighborhoods that are that haven't been picked over here in South Florida?

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Of course. Um of course. I I I spoke at an event recently and I think I had no real plan on what I was gonna talk about, but I think what I realized in the end is there are a ton of little rivers all across the country, and it just takes the right vision and and um and desire and effort to really kind of you know reveal them.

SPEAKER_04 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Um, but you know, I can't emphasize that enough how important the assemblage is. The assemblage is so important because if if your basis runs on you, if you can't get that key piece, it can just mess up the entire project.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

And I mean, that was a grueling project. I mean, it took you what a year or two to to assemble all that?

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Yeah, after the first year, the neighborhood caught on and we had to kind of pump the brakes because people had unrealistic expectations about what the property was worth. And then, you know, over time you just pick and choose what you wanted and what you didn't. And um I would say the core assemblage probably took place over like the first three or four years.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Would you do it again if you found the right neighborhood?

SPEAKER_01 56:55

In a heartbeat. Yeah. I learned so many lessons from it. Yeah. What to do, what not to do. And yeah, it's a lot of fun. I mean, uh I feel so fortunate. It's it's a it was a blast. It was a lot of hard work.

SPEAKER_02 57:09

I bet. Do you think there's any other neighborhoods like that in Miami, or or would you have to look outside?

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Man, it's hard. It is hard. It's hard. I think I think moving north is interesting. I think North Miami is interesting. Um, but I like to be able to drive to my projects if possible. Makes such a huge difference to drive it every day.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

Quality of life.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Quality of life, but also you see it differently. Like you'll drive that same street and then you'll get a great idea for this or that. And you know, I know that all these streets, I take the back roads all the time to look for new opportunities, and you see things that other people may not see.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

Is there a a dream project or something that you've wanted to do or build that you haven't done yet? Or would it be that again?

SPEAKER_01 57:54

I think it'd be that again. I'm excited about this small-scale housing thing. Like, you know, we we split time between Miami and then Brooklyn. And walking around, you know, Brooklyn, you have like these three and five-story buildings with no doorman, no amenities, but you they create vibrant communities. I love that scale. Like walking around, you know, as a human in a five-story building environment, it feels better. It feels more like a village almost. I'd love to find an area where I can really kind of kind of roll that out.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I have a friend that lives in Park Slope, and I think it's in one of those.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah, that's where we that's where we live.

SPEAKER_02 58:31

Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's that same Sesame Street vibe of Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

You know, Sesame Street. I think that's where it was, wasn't it? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

Probably it feels like it. It does. At least if my memory serves serves me correctly.

SPEAKER_02 58:46

The same big brown buildings with the stairs in front. Yeah, all the brownstones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Brownstone Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Yeah. Yeah, so I totally see that. But it it is hard to make in Miami. I I don't know why. My street would be great on 39th in Biscayne. You know where the police car is on the building? Yeah. Back in there.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

Little look, yeah. Yeah, back in there. I totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

There's actually one woman that owns four houses in a row. It's all I think it's all T4R or O. That'd be a sounds like an assemblage opportunity. I've tried, she's the one. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

The zoning really matters. T4 is really hard.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

I think it's O though. It might be O.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

Oh, it is T4.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

I can't remember if it's R or O.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

Yeah. But yeah, that makes sense. That'd be really cool. Miami definitely needs more of that. Just to cut that like more human scale.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:28

Rather than the 11 floors with parking and like I said, more like a village almost. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

With like, you know, corner ground floor commercial opportunities. You have a little bodega or your coffee shop or do you think Miami ever evolves to that point?

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Because it's still like we're a very dense city, but then we're not at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

Yeah, it's hard and it takes the right developer with the right vision, not looking to just squeeze every penny out of every entitlement, you know? Um but I think that if you do it right, you know, values in those types of areas become um I mean people want to live in those types of communities. So maybe then you know rents justify it or sales prices justify it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Yeah. That is the thing. I feel I see that a lot where a lot of times to build the best product, it's not necessarily the most profitable.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

But if you want to put the best product into the world, you kind of got to do some of that stuff. That's right. You ever look at hotels? You have a lot of hospitality background if all your lot of hospitality.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

We had a hotel coming into Little River before I I recapitalized. Um I love the idea of it. I think it's a tough business.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

It is a tough business. Especially in Little River, that'd be tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

Yeah. But we definitely need something up there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

There's I mean, AJ's obviously a pro at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

They build and sell brands all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Interesting. Because that that aesthetic would be cool in Miami. We don't have any hotels like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

That you guys do. Kind of like that adaptive reuse looking.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

Yeah. I wish we had more store buildings to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

It's true. That is the hard part. To find a cool building in a good location that that works for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

So your office is Miami Shores. Yeah. So like your Miami Shores through and through. That's right. Where's your child going to school? Your daughter in Miami Shores, yeah. In Miami Shores as well. You still uh what do you do to besides real estate? What do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

Uh I work.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Yeah. Okay, besides work. What do you do? That's it. Work?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

I love what I do. Yeah. I mean, we're we're so fortunate to do what we do. Um, I probably should have some more hobbies.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

A little travel.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

We travel a bit, yeah. But like I said, I'm you know, we're going back and forth to New York a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

How often do you how much time do you split between the two?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Man, I don't know. 75, 25, 75 down here, 25 up there.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

I got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

Having a place in New York or living in New York, you know, you you you think about space differently because what you're forced to do in New York and you know the constraints. I love the constraints. The constraints, you know, breeds creativity and you think about things differently.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:00

Yeah, of course. How big is your place in in New York? How many square feet? Oh really asking the penetrating questions here.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

Oh, I just I'm curious because it's like it's like it's a three-bedroom apartment. Okay, so it's it's comfortable. It's yeah, it's comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

Yeah. It's uh it's not uh you're not you're not living in a studio. No. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

Um but it's still less spacious than my new shores.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

Uh all right, cool. Anything else, Ben?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

I mean, you said work is your hobby, kind of. What's your favorite part about it? Like, what are you you love just looking at new properties, reviewing leases? Like, you know, talking to the talking to talking to what's the guy's name? Ro Pino at the building department about your tree permit. My favorite guy. Or the bats or the bat issue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

You know, like I don't know. Dreaming about what we wanted in Little River, it was like the best because you know, any new restaurant or coffee shop that you're checking out could be a potential tenant. So, like virtually everything you do, whether we're exploring in New York or exploring in Chicago or exploring in Los Angeles, um, wow, that's a great idea. It's a great concept. How could it fit over here? Or is there a local operator? We really like to focus on local operators. I think that was what we what we ultimately realized was there's a lot of local talent to celebrate. And then really kind of being a platform for that was also that's also a ton of fun. And to be a bit more of a creative landlord and and think about our our operators as partners and clients. Um, that's a lot of fun too. And and to just breathe life into an old forgotten neighborhood, it's a blast.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

I mean, that's refreshing to hear. I think, you know, we see what goes on with crazy rents in the areas, operators just get thrown to the side, and then you see the spaces sit vacant for years until reality comes crashing back in, and it's this constant like push and pull on trying to squeeze every dollar out of every operator.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

So yeah, I I mean if you want uh we've always thought that you need to give tenants the opportunity to really plant their their roots and grow. And you can't overburden them with some insane rent that might work out for the first six months, but then you know they fail. I mean, having a having a tenant fail is a is also a failure for the landlord oftentimes, right? And so we always tried to create structures that were creative, uh comfortable, um reasonable, but if they hit the ball out of the ballpark, then you share on that upside, you know, through percentage rent.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

So yeah, that makes sense. Well, awesome, man. It's really a fun day. Thanks for having me. We're definitely gonna be tailing them around the city now to see where the next spots are. I know, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

See what the next neighborhood is. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Thank you for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

Yeah, that was cool, Matthew. Thank you. Likewise.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Have a great afternoon, man. Take care. Later. Bye.