Max + Chris Show

Mark Ansara With Advantage Commercial Real Estate

February 14, 2023 Max & Chris Episode 1
Mark Ansara With Advantage Commercial Real Estate
Max + Chris Show
More Info
Max + Chris Show
Mark Ansara With Advantage Commercial Real Estate
Feb 14, 2023 Episode 1
Max & Chris

Get the opportunity to hear from Mark Ansara about his career, how he got into the industry, words of wisdom and discuss a new development project in Grand Rapids!

Show Notes Transcript

Get the opportunity to hear from Mark Ansara about his career, how he got into the industry, words of wisdom and discuss a new development project in Grand Rapids!

00;00;10;15 - 00;00;18;25
Unknown
Oh, I hope.

00;00;18;27 - 00;00;20;16
Unknown
Hi.

00;00;20;19 - 00;00;43;06
Chris Prins
Hi. This is Chris. Approved DA commercial real estate company. Nice girl. Very nice. I've decided to launch a pop up commercial line for real tourist West Michigan. During this podcast, we're going to discuss commercial real estate projects, completed deals and trends happening within the West Michigan market. Growing up in West Michigan my entire life, I was fortunate enough to get into the commercial real estate industry right out of college.

00;00;43;08 - 00;01;05;14
Chris Prins
Since then, I primarily specialize in the retail and restaurant sector. The downside of this is that I have missed out on a few deals within specific categories and want to become more knowledgeable regarding those. Max was gracious enough to host this podcast with me, which we intend to highlight one project per month and be able to interview the broker, developer or tenant within the project.

00;01;05;16 - 00;01;25;13
Chris Prins
During these podcasts, we hope to become more familiar with the project and what is happening within our community. Get to know the experts involved, some of their back story and learn more about market insights and what trends they foresee happening within their respective fields. We hope that this podcast allows you to stay more connected and become stronger advisors for your clients.

00;01;25;15 - 00;01;48;21
Chris Prins
If you are interested in becoming part of this podcast or being a guest, please feel free to reach out to Sheri, myself or Max. Thank you. Hello, This is Chris Prinz with our commercial real estate company. I've a couple of guests here today, My co-host, Max Grover, and as well as our guest, Mark and Sarah. So thank you both for being here today.

00;01;48;21 - 00;02;13;18
Chris Prins
And I just want to make a quick, quick introduction about Mark and what kind of talk dive and a little bit of his backstory, how he got into commercial real estate, some of his advice, and then dive into one of his most recent projects. Well, first and foremost, we're going to call this take two because we take this a couple of weeks ago, 42 minute segment, and one of the two of you clowns didn't get it recorded.

00;02;13;18 - 00;02;21;03
Chris Prins
We talked, but it didn't record. So it was really a fun project. So here we are round to take two.

00;02;21;06 - 00;02;28;26
Max Grover
We're going, we're going for it. But this time to make it a different conversation to it. We decided that maybe we better have a drink too.

00;02;28;26 - 00;02;29;21
Chris Prins
Yeah, So?

00;02;29;23 - 00;02;30;14
Max Grover
So we got.

00;02;30;14 - 00;02;39;25
Chris Prins
These fine gentleman supplies of Maker's Mark. So we're a bit of a cheers of toast here to the first podcast. This was the.

00;02;39;25 - 00;02;43;18
Max Grover
First second the first second episode here.

00;02;43;20 - 00;03;08;13
Chris Prins
So what we do so thank you guys for everybody. Greatly appreciate it. Let's get to Market zero managing principal and partner at Advanced Commercial Real Estate. But in the real estate world since 2008, when everybody was getting out of the business, when the market turned, I decided to get in, got in the industry pretty late in my life after working in a lot of big box retail, growing up in the restaurant industry, owning a couple of restaurants.

00;03;08;13 - 00;03;33;07
Chris Prins
And then finally, when I grew up, I think I want to be a commercial real estate. So I checked in to some of my sources around town and ended up chatting with Marcel Burglar, an heir to our prime development. Those guys gave me my start in small, little boutique firm. And then after about two years, two and a half years there and got started getting my name out there on signs and listing.

00;03;33;07 - 00;03;52;01
Chris Prins
So I did that and came and knocked on my door and said, Hey, you should come over and work with me at Colliers. So a little soul searching and sort of see what the grass is greener on the other side. Going over to Colliers for a little while, actually nine years and then a couple years ago left Colliers and started advanced commercial real estate and such great people.

00;03;52;03 - 00;04;11;28
Chris Prins
We're in our second year and second month, so we are doing fairly well. We do commercial real estate only and we buy, sell and lease all categories of office industrial investment, retail, which is what I do, a little bit of multifamily, a lot of vacant land. So that's a little bit about me. I'm not sure how much more you want to know.

00;04;11;29 - 00;04;32;03
Chris Prins
Yeah, so Mark, you mentioned that your primary focus is in retail. Could you talk a little bit about your story of getting into the real estate industry and kind of what you did before, especially in that retail sector? Yeah, I didn't get into real estate until I was in my early forties, so all those years before that I started working in a grocery store called Mayfair Market.

00;04;32;06 - 00;04;59;05
Chris Prins
But around the corner from my parents house and then at Road, 12 years old, sweep and floors and stocking shelves. I'm the youngest of seven kids, youngest clients, older brothers, so we all kind of got our start at Mayfair Store with the owner Charlie there, just sweeping and stocking shelves. We all kind of made our way through there and our dad uncle sold some restaurants in the Toledo, Ohio area, and then we all started progressing into the food side.

00;04;59;12 - 00;05;23;26
Chris Prins
You know, of course, you're younger a little bit back then you could work essentially 12, 13, 14 years old, 15 years old, you know, doing dishes, busing tables, you know, working on Fridays and Saturday nights. No, I just would go in there and clean up and got the taste of that. And I got out of high school. I got a job in the retail world, Detroit, Michigan.

00;05;23;28 - 00;05;45;05
Chris Prins
It was called Copenhagen's men's clothing. So I saw suits and suits for a couple of years and kind of got my start into retail. And then from there I just progressed to companies like American Eagle. If our Longs did at Best Buy or as a general manager, area manager, kind of just helped to open the West Michigan market for best buys.

00;05;45;05 - 00;06;04;19
Chris Prins
I worked in seven stores in five years. I kind of just helped elevate it to what it was that with all different breed, with e-commerce and whatnot, but then owned a couple of restaurants in between and between jobs and whatnot. And finally I says, I'm done up in 80, 90 hours a week. I'm going to go try something different.

00;06;04;19 - 00;06;26;24
Chris Prins
So my kids were a little bit younger, so I got into real estate, work my way into that and here I am today, what, 15 years in? Wow. And primarily retail. A lot of restaurants like landlord representation, folks that own properties on land need to sell them, sell them, help them get people in and out of business. We get two ways of this.

00;06;26;24 - 00;06;37;07
Chris Prins
The real estate business either helping someone open a business or a restaurant or they didn't succeed in or helping them get out of it. So, I mean, it's there's a beauty on both sides. I met the getting in part.

00;06;37;11 - 00;06;42;19
Max Grover
And that's why you're always bragging on how I'm dressed to sell because of the clothing.

00;06;42;19 - 00;06;47;11
Chris Prins
We're not on video here. I'm fortunate if book is sweat pants.

00;06;47;11 - 00;06;50;14
Max Grover
So I have sleeves on. So that's good. Yeah, I got sleeves.

00;06;50;14 - 00;07;04;11
Chris Prins
White tennis shoes, which he wears a black access to the president about real estate association this year needs a haircut This friends has got to be asked on in the white t shirt and I'm here and I know.

00;07;04;14 - 00;07;12;28
Max Grover
We're doing everything we can to level the playing field for you guys. Yes. Whatever disadvantage we can give ourselves to, to even the plain real.

00;07;13;01 - 00;07;18;28
Chris Prins
You 2030 somethings you really.

00;07;19;00 - 00;07;19;14
Max Grover
I.

00;07;19;17 - 00;07;32;21
Chris Prins
Get up, I get dressed, I go to work like I'm back and I'm going to go meet someone for the first time. And you have an existing clientele. You don't care where you're going to go to the playground after this. I'm not sure what you're going to go for. You know? Yeah, I mean, some of.

00;07;32;23 - 00;07;58;27
Max Grover
Now that's fair, I think not to get completely off topic, but it's been interesting to see over just since COVID, the change in dress style, not just in commercial real estate, but across the board. And it seems like it's definitely gotten into more of a relaxed style. I wouldn't say were quite to like, what's Sam Bankman-Fried? Yeah, but it's getting closer to that.

00;07;58;27 - 00;08;18;07
Chris Prins
They definitely got more casual. You know, I don't wear a suit everyday, but I do a couple times a week in the summertime during COVID, whenever I work, you know, Lululemon's or the offshoot of Blue Jeans, maybe for a quarter of the price. Yeah. And then the polo shirt or dress shirt and that worked. But I still like, get dressed up.

00;08;18;07 - 00;08;20;19
Chris Prins
It helps me get in the door. Yeah.

00;08;20;22 - 00;08;24;01
Max Grover
Always prepared then too. You don't have to have a question.

00;08;24;01 - 00;08;40;23
Chris Prins
I kind of prepared for my day. I'll look at my calendar. I'll meet someone for the first time today I got Zoom Call with a bunch of high net worth individuals and they're in their very, very expensive suits. And I wonder you can join a look the part. But, you know, my suit's not as much as they're you know, it is what I'm.

00;08;40;23 - 00;08;46;13
Max Grover
Doing as long as it's tailored and fits right, that's all that matters, right? For my it fits great.

00;08;46;15 - 00;08;56;28
Chris Prins
Casual like like don't have to have board meetings. So I like to dress up for that too. So maybe Thursday I'll change color my old maybe casual pants.

00;08;57;01 - 00;09;07;25
Max Grover
Some flip flops, no flip flops. And then as far as the advantage side, how many guys are on the your brokerage, your team?

00;09;07;25 - 00;09;29;13
Chris Prins
So we as I said, we do every facet of real estate, virtual side office, industrial warehouse, vacant land. We've got multifamily on land. So there's 12 sales agents, all ten 99% commission folks. And then we got a support staff of about ten or so, the property management division we started about a year and a half. Shawn Beale is our director of property Management.

00;09;29;15 - 00;09;35;10
Chris Prins
So we started really that business a little earlier than we thought, but we had to do it because our clients want.

00;09;35;13 - 00;09;38;07
Max Grover
Their skin in the door.

00;09;38;14 - 00;09;58;21
Chris Prins
Shell and Roger and Kelly, all of our support staff for property management, I think we're up to 17 or 18 buildings and a year and a half, you know, I don't even know what it is and scored 4.1 million square feet or something like that. It's heavy industrial, but you know, that division has really taken off for us and they're doing a good job.

00;09;58;21 - 00;10;15;27
Chris Prins
So, you know, the customer owns property. A lot of times they're on state. They got to find someone that's going to help manage it, who's going to cut the grass, who's going to plow the snow, Who's going to fix a leaky roof? And that's what that's where our team comes in. We just you know, whether we collect the rent or we don't collect the rent or pay their bills, we'll do all facets of property management.

00;10;15;29 - 00;10;40;21
Max Grover
And even though it's commercial, it still does put that extra level of like professionalism in between the tenant and the landlord as far as when there's something going on and the landlord getting that call. And sometimes it's hard to hear the stories and this and then that and having to tell somebody, read the lease, read the lease, and that's not and you're the buffer.

00;10;40;21 - 00;10;41;12
Max Grover
Yeah. Thank you.

00;10;41;12 - 00;10;42;23
Chris Prins
Yeah. And the landlord.

00;10;42;23 - 00;10;43;18
Max Grover
Cracks.

00;10;43;21 - 00;10;50;16
Chris Prins
Saying that he doesn't want the room got three ASMs that the fire suppression system versus open the building or even.

00;10;50;18 - 00;11;02;08
Max Grover
Or even even the small scale like getting the call of hey the snowplow guy didn't show up tonight or there was somebody parked there. So they missed the main spot where my guys park. I need somebody to come back out.

00;11;02;10 - 00;11;05;07
Chris Prins
Who handles assault on the sidewalk.

00;11;05;09 - 00;11;05;25
Max Grover
I guess.

00;11;06;01 - 00;11;12;23
Chris Prins
Yeah, or excuse our system for our sidewalks, but it's not. Our guys keep putting some snowmelt system.

00;11;12;26 - 00;11;15;23
Max Grover
And it's not nonstop.

00;11;15;26 - 00;11;22;18
Chris Prins
So yeah, so we do all of that sense of it. So like I said, we've been in business two years and two months and we're really growing very well right now.

00;11;22;21 - 00;11;38;20
Max Grover
And I would say outside looking in, I mean, and I think everyone would feel this way is like, you know, advantage in in the industrial team, the industrial team. And they're doing a lot Sometimes I feel like a leasing agent for them. Yeah, but anyways.

00;11;38;23 - 00;11;40;04
Chris Prins
We got five guys and.

00;11;40;04 - 00;11;40;24
Max Grover
Really strong.

00;11;40;24 - 00;11;54;11
Chris Prins
Team They're doing really well. Yeah. Our top producing division. I will not lie about that. They've really done a good job in West Michigan as a manufacturing and work leader. So, you know, we could maybe use another person in that category someday.

00;11;54;18 - 00;12;02;18
Max Grover
But then on with that, you're more focused on the retail side in that team and you guys are doing big stuff too, and good stuff.

00;12;02;18 - 00;12;19;15
Chris Prins
So team with Mike Murry and Earl Clements looking for a junior blocker to join us here, hopefully sometime in the future as well because we've got a little bit more business. I tend I tend to focus a lot on them. My landlord owns a strip center. They got a vacancy they call me to fill it up. They've got a piece of dirt next door that they want to sell.

00;12;19;15 - 00;12;41;01
Chris Prins
They call me to fill it up. So I do a lot of my work as landlord side. Mike and Earl do a little bit more tenant rep side. Yeah. So they get the nationals. My focus is a lot on AutoZone and Jimmie Johnson in unreality Taco Bell. Earl does a lot of Chick fil A's and some other other big ones that I can't mention on this podcast that they do.

00;12;41;01 - 00;13;02;09
Chris Prins
So they go out and find the sites for these people and then sometimes they're my sites, which is good and sometimes they're not. But they focus primarily on just getting sites for them. Where I find my time being used best is landlord representation. You fill in the holes that they need selling their strip center, selling their empty restaurant if they fail, or getting a better restaurant if they want to.

00;13;02;09 - 00;13;26;07
Max Grover
And and always from the perspective to of being on the listing side is if you have the listing you have yeah. How many brokers out there with different clients that you might know about but you control the property and help the landlord get the best deal possible, but you don't have to have that one in the million shot of this site works if you're if you're on the on the tenant side.

00;13;26;07 - 00;13;27;05
Max Grover
Right. I mean, this.

00;13;27;12 - 00;13;48;12
Chris Prins
You know, the good thing about being a landlord, you know, Earl and I represented we're going to talk about this in 5 minutes. The shots at 7.4, eight or nine years. Right. That's of been a main shopping center on the corner of about 28th Street. 88,000 cars go by day between we're going insulin shots at Centrepoint. You know, we do you know, it's a great place to have signs.

00;13;48;14 - 00;14;07;19
Chris Prins
Everybody wants to be in there. Not a lot of vacancy, but the phone rings all the time. And at one point at about 1.3 million square feet that we represented up and down 20 street. So somebody called me on Center point, didn't fit for their needs. I would have two or three or four other locations on Drug Street that I can show them as well.

00;14;07;24 - 00;14;28;24
Chris Prins
So one hand feeds the other. If that doesn't work there, it could work somewhere else. So that's why I like the landlord Web site, because it gives me opportunities. But people in business to do well, especially to on the retail side where you're not necessarily just going to one location on the market where you may represent a landlord who has a building over in grant or a building on the old time, the avenue that you could maybe slide them into for another, another operative.

00;14;28;24 - 00;14;45;21
Chris Prins
Yeah, well, yeah, but folks come to the market. They don't know Grand Rapids very well. They're going to come to 28th Street first. That's your biggest bang for your buck. You get your exposure there. See how it goes. Then from there, they're going to fill the market in. But go to Alpine next, or they'll go to Granville next at River Towns, uptown area.

00;14;45;28 - 00;15;01;08
Chris Prins
That's kind of the triangle where retailers, no matter whether it's food or soft goods, that's a triangle if you're coming in through multiple stores and then later you fill in tertiary markets with M6 and Kalamazoo and some of the others in the lakeshore. But you're going to come to Grand Rapids, you're going to hit those three markets.

00;15;01;10 - 00;15;07;14
Max Grover
And end with that. Like when the majority and we talked about this last time, but when the majority.

00;15;07;15 - 00;15;08;07
Chris Prins
Time, that is.

00;15;08;10 - 00;15;11;07
Max Grover
The last the last episode one.

00;15;11;10 - 00;15;12;25
Chris Prins
Is just one. So we want to.

00;15;12;26 - 00;15;35;26
Max Grover
Be yeah, this is this is one be absolute one the but when you have these tenants coming to you to enter market and obviously those are the main focus points but how even to get them excited to enter the market is that kind of predetermined or are you guys meeting with them and trying to get them excited to come to Grand Rapids or is it is it both?

00;15;35;29 - 00;15;50;13
Chris Prins
It's both depending on if there are one store market. You know, there's some retailers, let's just call it like trader Joe's. They believe that Grand Rapids is a one store market. They wanted to get the highest and best traffic spot. Maybe they didn't go in the right spot. Maybe they did. But they're going to be a one store market.

00;15;50;13 - 00;16;05;00
Chris Prins
Now. Whole Foods is going to be a one store market. It's not They're going to go across town. So then they want to be where the highest traffic is in a retail trade zone. You'd think grocery like that would want to be by more rooftops, but they want people by traffic. So you get a fast casual drive thru restaurant.

00;16;05;02 - 00;16;26;03
Chris Prins
They're going to want to be on that area. But it's hard to find that schedule. With drive thrus on 28th Street. So they may have to settle for somewhere else, but then they're going to be want to go somewhere else. It all depends on the user, but mostly the tenant. Particular tenants dictates how many stores they want. So it's like if you're buying a franchise for a food or QSR, yeah, I'm buying Grand Rapids.

00;16;26;03 - 00;16;43;23
Chris Prins
I'm buying 3 to 5 stores within 3 to 5 years. But my first one, I got six months to open my second. Yeah. Okay. Where your predetermined where they're going to go, which one's going to be first. Most of that's dictated by inventory, what's available, where and how fast can I get it? Right now we don't have a lot of inventory, so it's a challenge buying spots for those folks.

00;16;43;24 - 00;16;48;09
Chris Prins
And then as well as staffing too, I feel like we're seeing that throughout all the sectors right now. Just trying to find.

00;16;48;11 - 00;17;02;05
Max Grover
That seems to be the thing I hear most on the retail expansion side right now is staffing. And we'd love to open another store, but we don't have the right manager, we don't have the right, we can't get people, whatever the story is.

00;17;02;05 - 00;17;25;26
Chris Prins
And a bunch of food guys, just multiple stores. And they they've slowed their expansion to a halt because they have the funds to do it. Their businesses are very successful. They want to do more. But it's Labor because labor now is hard to get. As you know, you're paying top dollar for it. You got dishwashers, you know, used to make ten, $11 an hour making 15 or $18 an hour.

00;17;26;01 - 00;17;40;02
Chris Prins
Then you got line guys that are make used to make 15 to 18. Now they're making 20 to 25. You know, there's just not enough margin in food right now to be able to be hiring in that level. That's why you see some of these places. If you go downtown on a monday to try and find lunch, you're slim pickings.

00;17;40;02 - 00;17;56;21
Chris Prins
Most of the restaurants now open at 4:00. Yeah, we just don't have enough downtown traffic yet because the office buildings aren't full. They're still letting people work remotely or work remotely a day or two a week. And then in the office two or three days a week until we get more parts of the seats downtown. It's not going to take the next level during the week.

00;17;56;23 - 00;18;05;16
Chris Prins
Weekends are good because there's a lot of activity at the arenas and all the entertainment venues. But you know, during the week it's a challenge, you know, a monday or Tuesday to find lunch at 12:00.

00;18;05;16 - 00;18;16;02
Max Grover
And then even like I took the after hockey practice yesterday, I took the kids to get a milkshake at Steak n Shake. And the first time I've been in there in ten years.

00;18;16;02 - 00;18;17;20
Chris Prins
Which one you go to? But the other one, you're.

00;18;17;26 - 00;18;20;13
Max Grover
Kalamazoo, and I'm sitting right by my house.

00;18;20;19 - 00;18;22;03
Chris Prins
That's the only one open.

00;18;22;05 - 00;18;22;14
Max Grover
There you.

00;18;22;14 - 00;18;24;18
Chris Prins
Go. The other ones are all for sale. You know.

00;18;24;21 - 00;18;35;22
Max Grover
I walk in and it's just a kiosk, and it used to be sit down, waitress or waiter, and now it's just a kiosk order. And then they serve the food up to the counter. It's more of a fast, fast casual setting.

00;18;35;22 - 00;18;54;09
Chris Prins
Something go back a little bit to COVID. You think about these fast casual restaurants, You know, you're not anyone specifically, but you talk about the Taco Bell is the Jimmy John's. You know, Dunkin Donuts, all these other that they closed their indoor dining, they just went drive thru, only didn't have staffing to do both.

00;18;54;12 - 00;19;07;18
Max Grover
And it ended and it margin wise actually worked out better because they cut the staff. They still have drive thru activity because there was no sit down dining experience. You couldn't go sit down if you wanted to.

00;19;07;21 - 00;19;26;16
Chris Prins
Get in some stores. It's still that way, which is kind of crazy if you think about going to a fast casual place on 28th Street in a high traffic zone and you can't go sit down, eat because the dining room is closed, but the drive thru is open. It's the craziest thing in the world. But it all boils back down to the Intersect.

00;19;26;17 - 00;19;28;11
Max Grover
That's crazy.

00;19;28;13 - 00;19;44;23
Chris Prins
So that's a little bit about what's going on in the market, you know? Yeah. Tell you a little bit more what we think about 2023. But you know, we're here to talk about one particular project that Earl and I did at the shopping center pointed out forever. So you want you want to leave me a message that.

00;19;44;23 - 00;19;47;15
Max Grover
Is new.

00;19;47;18 - 00;19;52;07
Chris Prins
Ideas. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a beautiful train. Great cover. They that you.

00;19;52;12 - 00;19;53;15
Max Grover
Really transition it.

00;19;53;15 - 00;20;12;01
Chris Prins
I like it, you know. So I think we all remember driving by 28th Street in that East Beltline and kind of seeing the old Toys R US, the old giraffe in the parking lot and everything. So last couple months, we've also seen some construction happen over that to work and some some building being torn down and stuff happening over there.

00;20;12;01 - 00;20;27;05
Chris Prins
So Mark would be great to just hear what's happening with that project as well as everything else. Like the shopping center. Boy. Yeah, well, we don't, you know, the shops. The Centrepoint was a great project that Earl and I worked on for many, many years. It was sold to a group of New York investors, and they hired Earl and I to do all the lease up.

00;20;27;05 - 00;20;46;01
Chris Prins
They're going to do quite a few vacancies and some turnover there. So we put a lot of tenants in there over the years, you know, and all facets, whether it's in line with the car deals, NZ deal, you know, the launch and we did a whole bunch of other stuff. It brought their vitality was Prebble cookies and a whole bunch of other stuff there.

00;20;46;01 - 00;21;02;29
Chris Prins
So we're here really to talk about the Toys R US because that's really the key. You know, you got a building that sat there for 40 years. All right, Toys R US did well, didn't change to the times and it goes dark. They go bankrupt. What do you do with this 40 year old building that's not rated properly?

00;21;02;29 - 00;21;20;14
Chris Prins
You got to walk up steps or a ramp to get to it. You know, you can't re tenant it for today's users. And it's just it's it's antiquated. It's all so, you know when they went dark took the landlord a couple of years to get possession of the property, went through bankruptcy and all that kind of stuff. They ended up getting possession of it.

00;21;20;14 - 00;21;22;26
Chris Prins
That took a while. All kinds of phone calls.

00;21;22;26 - 00;21;36;07
Max Grover
So you're just talking about just because we grew up, because they have the lease or they have the lease in place. Yeah. And so the landlord can't even get he can't even re rent the space out or release the space.

00;21;36;07 - 00;21;37;22
Chris Prins
So yeah, when it went.

00;21;37;23 - 00;21;38;28
Max Grover
Because it's in court.

00;21;38;28 - 00;22;03;27
Chris Prins
When it went dark, they had a lease in place. Yeah. Automatically renewed every five years even though it's closed they went bankrupt. Landlord really doesn't have rights to the property if they're paying rent. Bankruptcy people were still paying rent to keep the property so it wouldn't go default. So we had to work through that whole process. So it set vacant for two, three years.

00;22;03;29 - 00;22;21;19
Chris Prins
They finally got possession of it in one way or the other. They got possession of it. We started fielding calls for stuff to do. There. It was all over the place from other big box stuff. No one wanted to use the building. It was staged, antiquated, totally not non compliant and double standards.

00;22;21;22 - 00;22;30;14
Max Grover
And that's how we talked about episode one A is where the how you had to go up the ramp because there's such a great difference from the back of the building. So the.

00;22;30;14 - 00;22;32;15
Chris Prins
First difference from the front to the back.

00;22;32;15 - 00;22;36;18
Max Grover
Now which is a challenge in itself just in trying to get a new tenant in there.

00;22;36;21 - 00;22;53;25
Chris Prins
So we, you know, did a lot of iterations on what we could do there. And at the end of the day, we found out that the best case scenario is to scrape it, do something different, you know. So we fielded a bunch of calls. We ended up getting a lot of offers and interested parties. But the one we decided to go with, there was two pieces that are going to happen.

00;22;53;25 - 00;23;17;01
Chris Prins
There are ones under construction now is we fielded a offer from BJ's Brewhouse, California based restaurant group, up 220 stores, three stores on the east side of the state. Lansing opened up last year and they wanted to be here while this process with them started over two years ago and now they're under construction. So we're talking about the lifecycle of a deal.

00;23;17;04 - 00;23;46;02
Chris Prins
It go in some cases it takes that long, sometimes longer. So they decide they want to get there. We negotiate a deal. We got a deal on the table. Everybody signed off on it. Then the process begins to go get the municipality approvals. We got multiple tenants that needed to get waivers because they have site restrictions like T.J. Max HomeGoods You got to be able to see the building from all four corners.

00;23;46;07 - 00;24;06;06
Chris Prins
There was a height restriction on what the BJ's could be, so they could have their thing and all that and had to reconfigure the parking lot. If you've been by there, you see that the building's gone. All the infrastructure's brand new truck and sewer, water, parking, all the curb cuts are all brand new. So you're going to get a BJ's Restaurant about 8000 square feet next to Chick-Fil-A.

00;24;06;07 - 00;24;25;15
Chris Prins
Then you're going to get a bank eventually next to that so that all infrastructure's in. Now, BJ's has got their footings in yet walls were delivered yesterday I saw that they're sitting on pallets and the walls would be going up real soon and they hope to be open in October. Now, BJ's Brewhouse is kind of a bigger brewpub.

00;24;25;15 - 00;24;45;00
Chris Prins
They got a big outdoor patio, a beer club, you know, pizza sandwiches, burgers, their own beer and wine to go have it there and go. So we're excited for it to be there. It's going to be something new that has an ugly building on it for 40 plus years. And I really believe it's going to change the dynamics of that.

00;24;45;02 - 00;25;08;00
Chris Prins
Hydrographer Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So bring those two years. You're probably getting quite a few of calls from different brokers, local folks. What made you guys go in that they would be just brewhouse over the other interested parties that you had there? Was it some concept or some couldn't fit, some needed more space? We had one user that wanted to put 100,000 square foot retail boxes on the space.

00;25;08;03 - 00;25;12;07
Chris Prins
Could be you're not going to get the waivers. Didn't have enough parking. The building would have blocked everything.

00;25;12;09 - 00;25;14;20
Max Grover
How many marijuana shops.

00;25;14;22 - 00;25;15;05
Chris Prins
And grow.

00;25;15;07 - 00;25;16;06
Max Grover
Facilities.

00;25;16;06 - 00;25;43;21
Chris Prins
And money know what was it, 2019, 2021? Yeah. Yeah it was. The phone was ringing off the hook. So yeah, but we had multiple interested parties there. We went with the landlords, went with BJ's because number one, they're growing, they're moving to the side of the country, 220 stores. It's a corporate lease which is, you know, it's not a mom and pop or a local or regional corporate guaranteed lease, you know, release the ground with that.

00;25;43;21 - 00;25;59;10
Chris Prins
We didn't sell it to them. So they released in the ground to them. They're building their own building and then they pay the landlord every month or whatever that is. So that was something that was appealing to the landlord. And then the bank next door is doing their own getting I can't name the bank, but there's a bank and they go door.

00;25;59;12 - 00;26;19;27
Max Grover
Which I feel like that's to get to that point and all the way there and the risk and everything, the money spent on designs, your time, your energy, just to get to the point of finally getting to the ground lease to kick this whole thing off from start to finish. Two years is.

00;26;19;27 - 00;26;56;01
Chris Prins
Two plus years in. We still haven't gotten we haven't gotten paid yet, not the rent commencement. Yeah. Imagine you know, this is we're talking about broker world and the deals are you know you go do this big deal and you're like go back to cash. Check that you know every deal is different. This deal here is this It literally sucks your energy up for a two plus year and you touch it almost every day or every other day to see where things are at in the process, because you've got you got signed, signed a letter written, you got to go to lease, you spend three or four or six months negotiating a lease.

00;26;56;03 - 00;27;02;21
Max Grover
And that's and that's dealing with the landlord and that's also dealing with construction and making sure the numbers all.

00;27;02;21 - 00;27;21;16
Chris Prins
Work. So you get you get a lease signed, then the tenant goes to bed, the tenant doesn't like the beds, they go rebid and then you got to go to the planning commission and we went to the Planning Commission for three things and one thing which we it's unheard of. We went the Planning Commission for the BJ's went to the Planning Commission for Bank.

00;27;21;22 - 00;27;43;04
Chris Prins
We were the planning commission for Chick-Fil-A to expand their drive thru and put the overhangs like you've seen us do our stores. We went to planning commission for three things in the same day and thankfully in 45 minutes they all got approved unanimously, which was unheard of, getting what things are but getting three in the same thing, you know, got 14 and out of shops in center point.

00;27;43;04 - 00;27;59;11
Chris Prins
So, you know, the traffic wasn't the issue. It was just making sure that it was work there. So then you got that. Then you're ready, you think, to sign the lease and then the owners get an unsolicited offer to buy the property and they accept that offer, then they sell.

00;27;59;13 - 00;28;05;08
Max Grover
So you're talking not just this specific parcel, you're talking about the entire center point mall.

00;28;05;09 - 00;28;22;01
Chris Prins
Unsolicited offer that we. So then they went into negotiations with them and then that slowed the deal down. Then the buyers bought it and then they had to have their due diligence to vet BJ's brewhouse and get through the lease again, get the waivers needed from the six tenants.

00;28;22;05 - 00;28;35;05
Max Grover
It's it's amazing that BJ's hung in there through all that too. Yeah. And I mean not just your landlord switched but then on top of that that they hang in the whole process because.

00;28;35;07 - 00;29;00;22
Chris Prins
This is why when you work with great co brokers, whether it's east side of the West End state, we have great relations with Eastern State. Matt Swan Go from Landmark Commercial. You know, he stood with us the whole time, He got BJ's got it, they didn't like it, but they understood and you know, we got through the process because we have a good relationship and you know, at the end of the day they wanted to be there.

00;29;00;26 - 00;29;03;03
Chris Prins
They needed to be there. But it was there were no other good signs.

00;29;03;04 - 00;29;10;02
Max Grover
But was it slated to be a 2022 project versus 20 and now all of a sudden that pushes them out?

00;29;10;05 - 00;29;14;05
Chris Prins
Spring 2022. Now it's fall 2023.

00;29;14;09 - 00;29;14;17
Max Grover
There you.

00;29;14;17 - 00;29;16;06
Chris Prins
Go. So, so a year and a half.

00;29;16;08 - 00;29;30;12
Max Grover
And that has a major effect on so many different parts of it of like, okay, well, if you're BJ's, I'm going to go find it. Even if it's on Grand Rapids, maybe there's a different market that I could allocate the funds to and move on. They could have.

00;29;30;14 - 00;29;31;11
Chris Prins
So many a day.

00;29;31;11 - 00;29;32;07
Max Grover
Correct? That's my.

00;29;32;07 - 00;29;39;11
Chris Prins
Point. They want to get their California company. They don't understand what it's like to build in the winter. They didn't want to build it.

00;29;39;13 - 00;29;40;20
Max Grover
I don't want to build.

00;29;40;23 - 00;29;54;01
Chris Prins
From here now. They got the footings. Yeah, they put this stuff up and you know, we're going to be in winter til, you know, another two months. Adding the winter bill, the build, the winter with the plastic and all the other stuff. You got.

00;29;54;04 - 00;29;55;13
Max Grover
Winter conditions.

00;29;55;15 - 00;30;11;18
Chris Prins
Yeah. It could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the project. Right. So but then I want to be here and they stuck with it and I give Matt a lot of credit and I'll actually get earlier myself a lot of patience on this one because we saw it through an impact. You know, it's going to be great for the community and they do have great product.

00;30;11;22 - 00;30;12;05
Chris Prins
Yeah.

00;30;12;08 - 00;30;32;02
Max Grover
So then then I can also say too, that Mark sold the project once to the tenant, to the landlord, to a new a second landlord to the city, and then BJs again to city through and state through this house. Yeah. He's, he's really got to sell the you got to sell the project four times.

00;30;32;09 - 00;30;33;16
Chris Prins
Only get paid once. Okay.

00;30;33;20 - 00;30;34;17
Max Grover
You haven't even. Yeah.

00;30;34;23 - 00;31;00;06
Chris Prins
Yeah. I was going to say Young spent the money probably once in a while. For God's sake again, it's a pipe dream until it's done. But, you know, that's what's fascinating about this industry. It's not. It's not for the faint of heart. Yeah. You really got to be in this business for the long. You can't be in it for the short end if you don't have the right wherewithal and the interpersonal skills to be able to bother yourself around every other person because it got challenging.

00;31;00;08 - 00;31;04;28
Chris Prins
Every deal gets you. It's how you work through it to make sure it's going to happen in the right way.

00;31;05;00 - 00;31;24;26
Max Grover
And and even all the way through to the fact that you go you get this lease done and where you think you're done. Letter of intent to not have the mindset of being like, this is done. Yeah, it's a done deal. And all the different changes see that through and not getting frustrated or getting ahead of yourselves and spending the money.

00;31;24;26 - 00;31;27;05
Max Grover
That's not that's still not even there.

00;31;27;07 - 00;31;44;06
Chris Prins
Any newbie in this business. Five years or you know, I know you guys have been in Chris you're almost five years, right? I mean, it's seven, eight years down here now. Over the long term, you've got leverage with that, trying to make it through with Max you've been in this business is not for the faint of heart. Yeah, look at a lot.

00;31;44;13 - 00;31;46;14
Chris Prins
And you got to have the good guys to stick with it.

00;31;46;16 - 00;32;10;13
Max Grover
And, and sometimes do. And I'm assuming it's mostly going to be brokers listening this anyway, so preaching to the choir. But when some people see the commission amount on a closing statement of a lease or or a sale, sometimes it can be off putting to people, but they don't realize that have that this whole thing that happened over the last two and a half years, you make zero.

00;32;10;13 - 00;32;28;10
Chris Prins
Zero out, you still work every day and you try to move it forward for your client or the other brokers client. You do your best to make it move forward. Then there's no guarantees. I've been through a closing where you think you're done something. The buyer or seller gets up and walks out and you work months and months and months.

00;32;28;14 - 00;32;50;03
Chris Prins
Maybe you get it put back together or maybe there's miscommunication. But the the day you you don't I don't feel success until I know the deal is done and there's a check being distributed. There's no greed about that. We earn our success from done deals, right? We don't feed our families with hopes and prayers and dreams. And you got a deal on the table.

00;32;50;05 - 00;33;00;06
Chris Prins
It's when we close a deal. That's why I get so much satisfaction that deals not necessarily for the payday because you get paid. Everybody's happy. The buyer seller, the tenant, the landlord and you.

00;33;00;13 - 00;33;19;28
Max Grover
Yeah, it's done. It's finally it's arrived for everyone. Everyone's excited, happy and but at the same time it's and I've noticed this I don't know if you guys have either but you almost after two and a half years and you get there and you're like, holy cow. Like, I don't even know if it was worth.

00;33;20;00 - 00;33;21;15
Chris Prins
We haven't even seen.

00;33;21;18 - 00;33;23;13
Max Grover
So you have any envoys out that.

00;33;23;16 - 00;33;45;07
Chris Prins
But still, you know, they're under construction. Yeah. There's so many contingencies still just slated for 24. Exactly. So it is what it is. That's that's why as a young broker or a do a broker in this industry, you got to have multiple deals in your pipeline. You can't just work on one thing. That's why I like to be a listing guy.

00;33;45;09 - 00;34;01;27
Chris Prins
I have, you know, 30 or 40 listings. I represent a lot of landlords. I got consistent business, inconsistent calls. If I was just, you know, a one off, I got the strip center over here. I'm just representing this one person. That's all I'm doing. I'm not going to make it, you know, I'm going to go work somewhere for a part time job.

00;34;01;29 - 00;34;21;17
Chris Prins
We agreed. Or Costco, I don't know, whatever it is, but you got to have a full pipeline right now and maybe to 15 or 17 deals in the pipeline going. All right, now move it all over the all over West Michigan. You have to have that right. You end up a little bit more seasoned than someone younger. But, you know, it's you've got to have that because you want to close a couple of deals every month.

00;34;21;17 - 00;34;39;06
Chris Prins
Yeah, I was at that point, too. I remember early on my career where you get a deal done, you're so excited and then you realize you have nothing in the pipeline. What's new? What in the world that we do? And so you always have to be at the point where you have a couple showing scheduled. Oh, I signed a couple of leases, right, to get signed purchase agreements very rarely in this industry.

00;34;39;06 - 00;34;56;06
Chris Prins
And you have a 30 day deal. Yeah. Or a 60 or a 90. Yeah, very rarely. So when you get those, cherish them, make your client happy, make your tenant happy, and then go sell it. If they lucky, if they, if they have to do their due diligence make sure they're the real deal. Yeah exactly.

00;34;56;06 - 00;35;17;09
Max Grover
And heard it. Exactly. Yeah. That's, that's always like and that's what I when I meet with young brokers and they're like, yeah, you know, I'm excited about this. Yeah. I can make it through the two year grind then, and then I explain to them I'm like, but you at the same time, you have to also be mentally prepared to start getting your feet under you, getting going.

00;35;17;09 - 00;35;31;28
Max Grover
Then you finally get your first big deal underway and you're like, Yeah, I made I'm going to get this done, Everything's great. And then the carpet gets pulled right out from under your feet and you're back to square one. And if you can't handle that, then that's just.

00;35;32;00 - 00;35;34;29
Chris Prins
This is an industry. That's why it's not for the fringe, it's not.

00;35;34;29 - 00;35;41;14
Max Grover
For the faint of heart, but it's it the highs are high and the lows are low. And that's it's addictive.

00;35;41;16 - 00;35;43;06
Chris Prins
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's why it's.

00;35;43;06 - 00;35;44;02
Max Grover
Addicted.

00;35;44;04 - 00;36;07;10
Chris Prins
Take care of our clients, both buyers, sellers and tenants and landlords. It makes no difference. At the end of the day, we're trying to satisfy both sides. We're the conduit us as agents or the conduit to get the deals done. The buyer may think, is properties worth this? The seller may think the property is worth this, and you are the conduit to make everybody right the whole deal.

00;36;07;12 - 00;36;09;15
Chris Prins
Yeah. So that's why it's exciting over here.

00;36;09;18 - 00;36;30;14
Max Grover
And then I think on episode one A this is one be we talked about, you know, maybe almost advice for young brokers or what what are you looking for for agents or brokers as you're adding them on the advantage team and personality types. They're all over the board. But one of the things I look.

00;36;30;14 - 00;36;47;25
Chris Prins
For in my role, the advantage in my previous role that the other place we were at, I got to talk to a lot of people that wanted to come into the industry. I was the kind of one of the first line of defense to just, okay, I'm interested in this. They found me. Tell me about your story. This is what I would like to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00;36;47;27 - 00;37;08;20
Chris Prins
So, you know, last couple of months, last two years, I've chatted with a lot of folks, younger agents, male and female, that think I want to do commercial real estate. You know, they're going to school for it. I go to school for business management where they just their parents own some real estate and they think it's kind of cool and they see their parents, you know, being successful in it and they want to kind of get into it.

00;37;08;22 - 00;37;33;25
Chris Prins
So I've talked to a lot of them and my advice to them after I hear their story is go somewhere where you can learn the industry on the company's dime, whether You're an intern, your administrative assistant for a person or two people or a group of people. Go learn the industry, be okay making 1520 bucks an hour, be a sponge, suck in as much information about every category as possible.

00;37;33;27 - 00;37;53;20
Chris Prins
Then after a year or two, figure out what excites you. Retail excite you. This offer excite you. Industrial doesn't excite me. I really don't care about how thick the concrete is. If there is air traffic or whatever it is. How many doctors? Yes. So is the asphalt four inches or six inches because of the truck load. If that doesn't.

00;37;53;22 - 00;37;54;01
Max Grover
Go right.

00;37;54;02 - 00;38;13;10
Chris Prins
Opening up a new restaurant or retail excites me. So figure out threw that internship what you like to do, What is your passion and then build on that from there. Chris Here, you know, our our one of our hosts here, you know what started with us many, many years ago? The industry as a as an intern still going to school.

00;38;13;13 - 00;38;31;25
Chris Prins
He wanted to do that. He learned his way, partnered with a retail team over there. At some point, he got done with school, he became our admin and he did a lot of our documents and paperwork and went on tours, closed deals and opened deals and learned industry. And then one day I was like a kid going to college.

00;38;31;26 - 00;39;03;03
Chris Prins
He's like, I'm ready to go on my own. Yeah, I think I was ready to go. Yeah. So we let our little parachute go and he did his own thing within our company and did a fantastic job of built a really solid book of business and got Lane Wells at our advantage right now. Went through the same program intern worked with a bunch of guys, was the admin for four industrial guys, everything for them as far as marketing and research and site selections tours.

00;39;03;05 - 00;39;19;05
Chris Prins
This last year he went on his own. He's doing a fantastic job. But you got to team with someone. You can't just come in this industry and think you're going to be the the, the next best thing. It's just not going to happen. I think you have two other great examples, too. You have Trent, obviously, who started out as an intern.

00;39;19;05 - 00;39;37;26
Chris Prins
Yep. Over a caleres worked his way up partner with Matt. Yeah. And just absolutely went to Tower Industrial market, really hammered home on that Huntsville market. Right. As well as Tim Binder too, who started out maybe in California, but then transitioned to come over into West Michigan and has done phenomenal. I didn't know anything about the West Virginia industrial market his family grew up in.

00;39;37;27 - 00;39;47;01
Chris Prins
The his family was from Holland. You know, he's literally not going to want a gorgeous first year industry. And right now, Ted is one of our top producers. Yeah, very proud of.

00;39;47;01 - 00;40;08;13
Max Grover
And that seems to be a recurring theme between, I mean, all of those guys, very different personality types, but they're all I mean, they're all very folk laser focused, including Chris. They're laser focused on the end goal of like, I'm going to get this done and I'm going to figure it out. And I yeah, I could say that about all of them.

00;40;08;15 - 00;40;09;07
Max Grover
So it seems to.

00;40;09;07 - 00;40;38;06
Chris Prins
Me, you know, are some of our partners that own the company with Kuyper Research. Steve Marcus Research. Mike Visser, Little research partner with Colin Gray. The theme is Learn the business. People in business make a decent wage, and then find a way to go on your own and partner with someone. That's really the key. You know, Mike, Mark and John Kuyper, Duke soon was a farmer, You know, his family was a farmer.

00;40;38;06 - 00;40;55;29
Chris Prins
They didn't go I don't know if you went to college, didn't go to college. He's not a top producer. Do this. Well respected in the industry. You know, when you talk about the industrial world, the investment world, he's the guy. He knows everybody, you know, and you have this business is about relationships. It's not about one off deals.

00;40;56;01 - 00;40;59;13
Chris Prins
Some of these guys have had the same clients for 20, 25 years.

00;40;59;16 - 00;41;00;07
Max Grover
Yeah.

00;41;00;09 - 00;41;03;21
Chris Prins
And that's where they got a vacancy. They're going to call them up, they're going to fill it.

00;41;03;24 - 00;41;26;02
Max Grover
And that's been I mean, and that's been the cool part for me. You know, being in ten years now of doing this is getting that repeat clientele of you get outside of the deal, the big deal maybe that you worked on is done. And it's like, now what? And you get because you treated people well and had the long, long playing the long game.

00;41;26;02 - 00;41;39;20
Max Grover
Right. And treating people the right way. Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, you get a call from somebody that's like, Hey, I'm working on this or I want to buy this. And it wasn't even on your radar. And that's the stuff that that feeds your family. You're going to call yesterday.

00;41;39;22 - 00;41;58;23
Chris Prins
Yeah. So the a strip center five or six years ago helped them build up 100%, leased somebody. So even I haven't helped him in two years, but he called me. You're my guy. That's awesome. It's a small space, but will you fill it for me? Of course. Yeah. That's why I'm not about one offs. I'm about continuing the relationship.

00;41;58;26 - 00;41;59;21
Chris Prins
That's what it's all about.

00;41;59;26 - 00;42;21;23
Max Grover
Yeah. And now, after how many years is a Ben for you now? 15. Some 15 years? Not now. You have multiple clients that look at you that way and that goes back into the where you're looking for the young intern to add to the retail team that can serve. You can hand maybe the 2000 square foot lease off to right.

00;42;21;26 - 00;42;35;20
Max Grover
But then it takes that trust that they're going to handle it the same way or similar to you. And that's that's always the hard part, too, because clients want to work. They don't they don't want to work with advantage. They want to work with Mark and Sarah.

00;42;35;22 - 00;42;56;01
Chris Prins
What it's like is proven time and time again. Everybody has their guy. If you have a pipe at your house, you've got a guy you have, all right, your back goes out, you got a guy they can see in your strip center. You got a guy? Yeah, it's it's really a relationship business. And the younger people getting in the industry, they just see that it's bright lights and shining stars.

00;42;56;06 - 00;43;01;03
Chris Prins
And it's not that you actually have to work 15 years.

00;43;01;03 - 00;43;04;10
Max Grover
It's a 15 year grind and you still haven't even made it.

00;43;04;13 - 00;43;08;28
Chris Prins
And I remember I didn't get in this when I was in my DBA for years. I got into.

00;43;08;28 - 00;43;46;04
Max Grover
It. That's that's cool to me that you're willing to take the risk and can I said, I know I was going to say forties. I this is I think i1a it was 42 and episode one B it's early forties, maybe late thirties. I don't know but it's cool that you took that risk in being willing to put yourself out there and go to zero back to zero and learning the language because it is it if how many people on the street know what triple net means or Kam or heck, I hardly.

00;43;46;04 - 00;43;46;15
Chris Prins
Know.

00;43;46;17 - 00;43;47;20
Max Grover
Triple. That means half.

00;43;47;20 - 00;43;48;29
Chris Prins
The time the quadrants.

00;43;49;06 - 00;43;50;21
Max Grover
Thank you. Yeah right. Right.

00;43;50;21 - 00;43;50;28
Chris Prins
Let's.

00;43;50;28 - 00;43;51;26
Max Grover
Okay, so the.

00;43;51;26 - 00;44;08;05
Chris Prins
Terminology we talked about before called me before I left. This guy was a smidgen later. Do I know what's going on in the marketplace? You know, she's asking all these questions. How do you know this? All this right off the cuff. My well, supposed to be a subject. You know what I mean? We're supposed to be. We supposed to know what's going on.

00;44;08;07 - 00;44;27;20
Chris Prins
You get nerdy brow, you got all the research and knowledge tools at your fingertips. You just got to know it. That's why in the vintage, we like people to focus in a certain category. I'm all retail guys are all industrial accounting here. What's going on in the industrial worlds? In our sales meetings, of course you're going for vacancies or how much land is going for.

00;44;27;26 - 00;44;40;29
Chris Prins
That's not my forte. My forte is retail. Ask me question. I'll do my best to get to answer. I still remember that too. Just the whole language barrier. I remember the first day Earl Simons came in and said I was an admin. He was like, Can you put together an alibi for me? And then walked into his office?

00;44;41;00 - 00;44;47;00
Chris Prins
Yeah, I remember. Have a line. And I remember sitting there thinking for the first 10 minutes, what the heck is now? A long.

00;44;47;02 - 00;44;49;10
Max Grover
Answer? Goodbye is your friend.

00;44;49;12 - 00;45;08;04
Chris Prins
I had gone to his office. He sat me down. Walk me through it all together. And yeah, it was so much experience. Yes, it's. It's all just. Yeah. This business is not for the faint of heart. If you put your time, efforts and talents, you have fantastic interpersonal skills that can mold your personality to the person that's next to you and the person on the other side of you.

00;45;08;04 - 00;45;13;15
Chris Prins
Because you're trying to do a deal for both parties, you will be successful. But it's going to take time.

00;45;13;15 - 00;45;14;25
Max Grover
It's going to take time.

00;45;14;25 - 00;45;21;26
Chris Prins
Person, person in industry, 3 to 5 years, your life is going to be set aside a great business, growing your brand and grow in your name.

00;45;21;28 - 00;45;37;04
Max Grover
There's been a few, and I'm sure we could think of some examples where they light it on fire right away, but even then it's usually not as much as everyone thinks and it's still a grind to get there. It takes time and then I'll do this Segway for us.

00;45;37;10 - 00;45;38;10
Chris Prins
Yes, please.

00;45;38;17 - 00;45;48;00
Max Grover
2023. The rest of 2023 outlook and maybe going into 2024, what do you see? What's the market like versus on the beard?

00;45;48;05 - 00;46;05;17
Chris Prins
We have a major inventory shortage. People want to be in West Michigan. They want to be in the mid quadrants that we talked about, 20th Street, southeast between the malls, Alpine and Grand, though people want to be there. We just don't have the space to put them. They got their specifics on what they need. They got their take sheet of ten items.

00;46;05;17 - 00;46;38;18
Chris Prins
The checklist of where they want to go. If you don't fit all ten, they're not going there. They're going to be waiting. They're going to be patient. But we see solid activity, but low inventory rates are staying the same. Nothing's really going down. Land law, landlord concessions are about even with what they've been. So we're very optimistic about 2023, late 2023 may be a bit of a pickle, but 2024 may be, you know, a little bit more challenging only because of the inventory.

00;46;38;19 - 00;46;50;23
Chris Prins
The activity is there. People want to be places we feel calls all day long, every day on people wanting to come to West Michigan. We've got some great assignments within our retail team in our office, but we really have nowhere to put it.

00;46;50;24 - 00;47;19;12
Max Grover
And that becomes it's like it's it's getting to this weird flexion point where it's like interest rates are high, construction costs are at an all time high, inventory is at an all time low. And so it continues to push lease rates higher and higher. And how many cups of coffee do you have to sell in retail to pay for what was the rate we were talking about earlier, 45 bucks a square foot for somebody.

00;47;19;14 - 00;47;22;02
Max Grover
How many cell phones, how many cups of coffee do you have to.

00;47;22;02 - 00;47;46;02
Chris Prins
Celebrate those you got? So that's a lot. A lot. Yeah. And that's why it's the nationals that are driving it. But West Michigan, Grand Rapids, specifically, we have an amazing small business group here. We call them Mom and Pops, essentially one of those retail soft goods, boutiques, restaurants. It's huge and they want to grow, but there's nowhere to go that's hard to compete in.

00;47;46;10 - 00;47;49;05
Max Grover
And they can't pay 45 bucks a square foot. You got to.

00;47;49;05 - 00;48;08;26
Chris Prins
Be a little bit more cautious with that. So, you know, I know West Michigan, if we get hurt and there's a downturn, we believe we don't get hurt as bad as some of the bigger cities, Detroit, Chicago, all the others, because West Michigan is a manufacturing community. You got manufacturing. What follows, Manufacturing is retail in office. It follows that.

00;48;09;02 - 00;48;25;05
Chris Prins
So we've had a boom the last two years of manufacturing and warehousing space, all these buildings going up. They all have employees. They've got to eat somewhere, they've got to shop somewhere, they've got to drop their dry cleaning off. They're getting their haircut, they got to get their nails done. So the retail has got to be around that.

00;48;25;05 - 00;48;40;24
Chris Prins
So it's a one stop shop for everybody. And I would say to that you have to battle the zoning as well to stop certain disabilities who say, okay, well, maybe we want a ground floor retail not right against the road and we want apartments about there on the main drag and it's okay. You have a retailer who says I can only do it with a drive thru guy.

00;48;40;26 - 00;48;57;12
Chris Prins
So that's a difficulty. Other retailers if you drive up and down some of the parts in Grand Rapids, they'll just take 20 Main Street for instance. If you see an old building there that's close to dark, there's a reason why it's closed in dark, because the next guy can't do what they want to do because the zoning and the ordinances.

00;48;57;17 - 00;49;16;28
Chris Prins
So it's going to sit there and be dark until someone comes in and says, You know what? I can rehab this building because if you tear it down, all the grandfather rules are out the window. Right? I'll start with today's zoning. Today's zoning wants it on the street, parking in the back two floors of it, or whatever it is, or go drive through it off the day.

00;49;17;01 - 00;49;35;03
Max Grover
And even back to the inventory part where you're talking high land costs, high interest rate, I construction high everything all time high, inventory all time low. And if you're a developer and you're looking at a property and you've got a tenant that says, hey, you know, I'm willing to