April 24, 2024 • 31 mins
In this exciting episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley speaks with Justin Cazana, one of Knoxville's leading commercial real estate brokers and developers. With over 20 years of experience, Justin shares stories about his experiences in real estate, his family’s history in the business, and some projects he's proud of, like improving old buildings and developing new ones. Justin also discusses how Knoxville's commercial spaces have evolved and what he sees for the city’s future. The episode highlights how important local knowledge and connections are in the real estate industry.
Show Highlights:
(00:00) - Introduction to the episode and guest, Justin Cazana
(00:43) - Justin describes his role and history in Knoxville's commercial real estate
(04:30) - Justin’s reflection on his early experiences and the evolution of his career
(07:00) - Discussing favorite projects and their impact on Knoxville
(09:59) - Key transformations in downtown Knoxville and future projections
(14:09) - Insights into Justin’s family legacy in Knoxville’s real estate
(17:13) - The process and vision behind turning The Tennessean into a luxury hotel
(23:09) - Upcoming projects and the current state of office spaces in Knoxville
(28:21) - Personal recommendations for first-time Knoxville visitors
(30:24) - How to find Justin and closing remarks
Links Referenced:
Justins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincazana/
Justin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcazana?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Avison Young: https://www.avisonyoung.com/professionals/-/ayp/view/justin-cazana/in/knoxville
Connect with ConnectTheKnox
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Or wherever you listen to Podcasts
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Just Homes Realty Group: www.justhomesgroup.com
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome, everybody, to another
episode of Connect the Not
So Hostess with the Mostess.
Julia Hurley connecting
Knoxville to the nation.
Today's guest is one of my
all time favorite Knoxville
commercial brokers, owners,
developers, all around awesome guy.
You're going to learn so much
today about Knoxville, but you're
going to learn so much you didn't
(00:25):
even know you needed to know.
Justin Cazana.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Hey, Julia.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for the invitation.
Of course.
So, we are going to start the conversation
off basically with how you are here.
Like, what is it that you
do in Knoxville exactly?
I know, I know what you do, but let's
just pretend like nobody's ever heard of
you or your company or your businesses.
(00:47):
Let's start there.
How'd you get here?
What do you do?
Sure.
So my company is Avison
Young Commercial Real Estate.
We've been open in Knoxville for 13 years.
We are a full service commercial
real estate company handling mainly
brokerage, property management,
project management, and uh, a little
development and things like that.
So we, we can provide, uh, You
know, a, a, a litany of different
(01:08):
business sides, uh, depending on
what a particular client needs.
So, uh, personally, I
am, uh, an office broker.
That is, I probably do 85, 90 percent
of my work is focused on, uh, on
the office buildings in Knoxville.
And that's finding tenants,
uh, for buildings or finding
buildings for tenants.
So, but we have a staff, uh,
staff and brokers of more than 25.
(01:29):
Uh, we do some of the biggest
deals in Knoxville, including three
Amazon deals the other year and
all kinds of projects like that.
So we do a, we do a variety of
different things from, from land,
selling apartment buildings, selling
and leasing office buildings,
selling and leasing, uh, retail,
warehouse, a little bit of everything.
And we cover basically everything
from Crossville to East, including
(01:50):
Chattanooga and Tri Cities.
And we'll do every, everything in between.
So I always tell people in residential,
we cover Crossville to Cocke County,
that's two time zones and two scenes.
So we got you covered.
Yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
So we're, we're about
the same way, exactly.
So before we even get started,
let me tell you all a story
because I always love to tell our
listeners a little bit of a story.
When I interview people in
(02:11):
Knoxville that I may not know
well, but most of the people I
interview, I do know decently well.
And in my phone for the longest
time, I tell you, this was my
very first commercial lease deal.
I've been in the business two years.
So eight years ago, I get this random
company that calls me from the middle
of nowhere, Texas, and they wanted
to come here and do an oil company.
(02:31):
They needed all this office space.
They didn't need any of this office space,
but they really wanted this office space.
I had never done a
commercial lease before.
Obviously, I'm like, I can do this.
I'm gonna figure this out.
So for three weeks in a row before
they got here, I did nothing but
read commercial leasing contracts.
I looked over other people's
commercial leasing contracts.
I was like, this is really extensive
information, but it's good to know.
(02:53):
And I'm glad I know it.
The other person on that deal was you.
And I remember, I mean, just, it took
three or four weeks, which is very
quick in commercial real estate people.
I mean, just mind you,
very quick deal, right?
So when you're on the same side with
somebody like Justin, and they know
what you're doing, things get done.
But for the longest time, I could
never say your last name properly.
So in my phone for three years,
(03:15):
you were Justin Cas Costanza.
Like the guy from Seinfeld.
Until one day, no one ever
corrects me, which is hilarious.
I guess it's my energy level
and just the fact that I'm so
confident when I say things.
I'm not even going to say the name
because I know you know exactly.
Let's just say we all run together.
I'll say that.
Anyway, I was like, I was like, Hey,
remember that Justin Costanza guy?
(03:37):
He was like, Julia, you've been
saying that wrong for three years.
No, no, you corrected me.
You never corrected me.
Anyway, totally corrected.
Have it on lockdown.
I had the unfortunate, uh, the
unfortunate life of going to
college during the Seinfeld era.
So that is not the first
time that I've heard that.
I've heard it, I've heard
it many, many times.
(03:58):
I appreciate the leeway on that, but it
made me laugh that nobody in Knoxville
ever corrected me, ever once, until one
of our mutual friends pulls me aside
and is like, that is not his name.
It's like, so, you know.
You are one of the most,
if not the outside of Roger
Moore, the most knowledgeable
commercial person in Knoxville.
Guarantee it, I'd put my,
(04:18):
I'd put my everything on it.
You know more about what's happening
in Knoxville and what's gonna happen
in Knoxville than anybody I've met.
You've really got your finger
on the pulse, and you own
businesses and contribute.
Tell us a little bit about your first
Experience, I guess you could say,
from commercial when you started,
and your experience is today,
because I know that's a story.
(04:39):
Let's see, well I've been in this
role from in Knoxville doing this
for almost 20 years, so if you make
me think back to my first deals
It's hard, really hard to fathom.
Um, I will go back, you know,
a little history when it comes
to nepotism, commercial real
estate is at the top of the list.
There's a, you know, I've got a dad
that was in the business and the
grandfather that was in the business,
(05:00):
a dad that is still in the business.
I mean, he's 55 years in
commercial real estate.
So, you know, you do,
you do grow up in it.
You grow up with it at the dining
room table and at Thanksgiving
and on Saturday mornings.
So, you know, I know that.
You know, growing up, if we were driving
from downtown back to home, we were
going to stop at the gallery just on
a Friday night to see how the gallery
(05:21):
looks, because that was a property
we owned, developed, and managed.
That's just kind of the way we
do things and it carried over.
So it's certainly been in
my blood for a long time.
I mean, I've been doing this, like
I said, for nearly two decades now.
So, you know, we have seen it,
you know, seen it from doing.
Growing up doing the little small deals,
the 1, 200 square foot office deals, and
then how you just develop that repertoire
(05:41):
and you learn every deal, no matter
how small it is, learn something new or
how to handle, how to handle clients,
just the little bitty thing that really
magnifies itself to where you can do
deals that You know that I've got, you
know, I did a 42, 000 square foot office
lease earlier this year and um, we've
got, you know, a quarter million square
foot office building under contract and,
(06:01):
you know, all these different things
that are, that just kind of build on
each other to get to a point uh, where
we are now and, and certainly lucky for
Knoxville or lucky for me and lucky to
be in Knoxville because Knoxville, while,
you know, I lived through, you know, Uh,
work through the Great Recession, uh,
work through COVID, obviously, and now the
time we're in now is, you know, Knoxville
has been a place of very steady work.
(06:24):
We don't get the high highs like you
get in Florida, but we don't get the
low lows like you get in, in California.
So we're very steady.
We've always had that, That good base of
University of Tennessee, which is great.
The tourism that goes to the Smoky
Mountains, Oak Ridge National Labs,
which is a 40 billion annual federal
program, and great things like TVA
and Pilot and Clayton, Bush Beans
(06:46):
and all those names, you know, that,
you know, that have really, you know,
solidified Knoxville over the years.
So it's been fun to watch Knoxville grow.
It's been fun to watch this industry go
and how different Knoxville is from the
rest of the, the rest of the United States
when it comes to commercial real estate.
What would you say has been
your favorite project to date?
You know, the one that I,
(07:06):
that I take a lot of pride in
was Standard Knitting Mill.
400, 000 square foot mill that's
right on, that was an eyesore
right on, you know, 75 for decades.
And we did that deal, sold
it to a Charleston developer.
Back in December of 2019.
And now they're getting ready to
start the whole renovation of it
and turn it into a great mixed use
project that hopefully it'll be
(07:27):
up and running in about two years.
That one was unlike anything
I'd done before and just had
an absolute ball doing it.
You know, uh, I love working on deals
and we occasionally end up doing deals
outside of the market and did a deal in.
Ironically, in Chicago, biggest at the
time, biggest deal I've ever done, where,
you know, it was my relationship and my
contact, uh, that I've developed over the
(07:47):
years in Knoxville, ended up up selling
a 20 acre piece of property in, uh, in
suburban Chicago and moving an office.
Uh, into nearly 60, 000 square
feet of office space in Chicago.
And there was a, it was
a great deal at the time.
And it was a combination of
relationships here and relationships
functional and putting people together.
And, and that's kind of the way I've,
(08:08):
I've always positioned myself when
it comes to commercial real estate,
I'm a, I'm a connector there all,
there's always someone who's going
to be better at numbers or someone
who's better at being the sales guy.
But my, you know, my role is
to put people together and to
make sure that, you know, when.
When we're trying to get a deal done,
that I'm able to take, grab something
from over here and put it into the
deal to kind of, to kind of meld it all
(08:29):
together and get us over the finish line.
That's, that's always been my goal.
What has been your, your
favorite Knoxville transition?
Not just something that you've
been involved in maybe per
se, but just in general.
I will say that one of my favorite
transitions was seeing downtown
Knoxville go from Because I lived, I
mean, I lived there for years, right?
I lived there during two,
two massive attempts.
(08:50):
And I say two whole families attempting
to move downtown Knoxville forward
and failing miserably, not because
they failed, because Knoxville itself
just wasn't ready for that success.
And now we see the success.
It took two whole generations of people
moving that out, moving that forward.
And I remember living in downtown
Knoxville and thinking, I don't know if
anybody's ever going to see what we see.
(09:11):
I hope they do.
I don't know if anybody's going to
see what we see and still being there.
And I remember when John Clark came
in and, and, and it was almost like a
massive battle royale to get underground
utilities into that downtown area.
He had to fight tooth and nail to put
underground utilities in, which you
(09:32):
would think now looking At back at
that should have just been so common
sense and I remember thinking when he
got it done when I started to see The
project happen and the power pulse came
down and you could really appreciate
The architecture that downtown and
Old City had to offer, I thought to
myself, this is it, it's happening.
It's really happening.
People want to see Knoxville.
(09:53):
And ever since my personal
experience that moment, it has
transformed Knoxville forward.
What project do you feel like
made that transformation?
You know, it's, it's not one project.
It's been 25 years of, of, you know,
trying, trying, trying to build that up.
I mean, it's, you know, 25 years ago, you
(10:14):
know, I joke, everyone jokes, say they
rolled up the sidewalks at five o'clock.
It was a little more than 20 years ago.
They put Mass General Store down and
the fear, uh, and the, you know, in
my first thought at that time was
before I got back to Knoxville General
Store, what is that going to do?
And you look, go in there now,
you go in there on a Saturday
and they're going to be.
70 people in there at any time shopping.
(10:34):
And it's a huge draw.
Love it.
And the theater has helped grow
the Tennessee theater and the BG
theater and everything else that's
gone, that's gone along with it.
It's funny.
You compare, you talk about the
city catching up and the city will
tell you some members of the city.
You compare it to our big, our
arch enemy, Grille, South Carolina,
when it comes to what a downtown
has done in downtown Greenville.
(10:56):
They led with the infrastructure.
The city said, we're going to do this
and then let the developers catch up.
In Knoxville, it was the exact opposite.
It was the developers, you know, like,
uh, like, uh, John Clark and David
Dewhurst, Don Box, who was an investor
and everybody who kind of ran down
the line of, of we're going to build
this building or we're going to, we're
going to redevelop this building.
(11:17):
We're going to redevelop this.
And, you know, city, how can you help us?
How can you help us?
And it just took a longer time.
Thankfully, I think we're.
There are still some gaps in our downtown
that I would love to see addressed.
That, unfortunately or
not, the city can't do it.
It's got to be, it's got to
be a private developer, or at
least in conjunction with it.
Yeah, I think it's a lot of little things.
And just like, just like the standard
(11:38):
knitting mill will be a little thing, but
the only reason that happened was because
the baseball stadium was going to hot.
And I'm glad the baseball
stadium's closed.
Finally happening.
I mean, I joke that I was
in Rome two years ago.
We did a tour of the Coliseum because
you have to, and it's stunning.
And our tour guide says it took
eight years to build the Coliseum.
Eight?
They did this in eight years?
(11:59):
It's taking longer for us
to build a baseball stadium.
And they didn't have cranes, and they
didn't have engineers like we have today.
Of course, they also didn't have unions.
And OSHA, which probably plays a part
in why they can tell this so fast.
So, you know, it's, it's kind of comical.
I think the baseball stadium is going to
be the catalyst for that side of downtown.
And there's one missing piece
(12:20):
in downtown Knoxville that
could make Knoxville explode.
But it's not something
the government can do.
It's a private developer
that's going to have to do it.
Until we, until we see that, I just
don't know what it's going to be.
It's the one vacant plot in downtown.
And you'll see it when you go down there.
And it's like, come on, guys.
Do something with this and it's not,
and it's an actual word, terrible.
(12:41):
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The book tipping point
comes to mind for me.
And I remember reading that book.
I read it several different times.
Like these brands did this and it, they
worked and they worked and they worked
and they worked and then all of a sudden
one thing happened in that tipped it.
And I feel like for me, that
was the underground utilities.
(13:24):
That's just me.
I prefer underground utilities.
No billboards.
I really like the way Asheville looks.
It's very clean.
I like a clean looking downtown.
I can see where I'm going.
I have a visual.
Nothing's in my way.
And I feel like when that happened.
That everything else that has happened
after brought in different people.
And you mentioned David Dewhurst.
Let me tell you, I've never met a
(13:45):
visionary like David Dewhurst in my life.
I mean, I would, I would pit Randy
Boyd against that even for top,
for maybe even try to top that.
I mean, David Dewhurst saw Knoxville.
When it was at, in my, in my lifetime,
it's absolutely worst and still came
here and thought my god, what a gem.
I can't wait for this to be amazing
and poured his whole life into it.
Um, what a visionary, really
(14:06):
truly what a visionary and your
family is part of that vision.
Tell us about your family's
developments and things.
So, I mean, it goes
back three generations.
My grandfather came here in the, uh,
in the twenties and, you know, started
doing some of the smaller things when
it came, I mean, what was commercial
real estate a hundred years ago.
It's, it's very, very different.
(14:27):
Um, and then started, you
know, really in full force.
My grandfather was very
much an entrepreneur.
My dad's an entrepreneur.
Um, and then, you Um, and does it
on the commercial real estate side.
Uh, he's been doing it for 55 years.
He's developed, gosh, nearly every office
building on Weisgarber, nearly every
office building on, uh, Lowness Road,
probably totaling a little more than a
million, million, two square feet of total
(14:48):
space up and down the, you know, West
Knoxville, whether it's office buildings
at Century Park, out of the Pellissippi
Parkway, the gallery shopping center right
there on Kingston Pike, we, uh, dabbled
in hotels for a decade, redoing what's
now the Tennessee and then the Marriott.
Downtown, heart of downtown, which
was, you know, the culmination of
his, of his career as far as the, you
(15:09):
know, everything tying together to
develop, you know, to, to come to the
forefront in that particular, uh, that
particular space, which has been great.
I have a brother that works in the
business in Nashville, and then
I've got, you know, we're running it
here and my dad's 82 years old and
still works every day and loves it.
So it's a, uh, uh, we love
being part of Knoxville.
We love growing Knoxville and looking
(15:30):
at the points in Knoxville that are,
you know, that are important to, you
know, seeing, seeing the growth of the
town and, and where it's going to grow.
One of the biggest things that we talk
about, you know, my television show is.
focused on Knoxville.
The, the podcast is focused on Knoxville
and it's not just Knoxville based.
We have 17, 000 listeners a month
on the podcast, about 3 million
(15:50):
views a month on the TV show.
And I like to pride on locality, right?
It's, it's really and truly, I don't
think people understand the level of
effort that it takes from generations
of people understanding and knowing
how to maneuver conceptualism.
When the Tennessean came
into Knoxville, I will say.
That, that concept itself is everywhere.
(16:13):
The concept of what you all did here in
Knoxville is something that you go to
a larger city like Chicago or Miami and
it's like, wow, I've got a five star
hotel with five star experiences, got some
condos up here we can take advantage of,
we have really like special ballrooms,
like your, your space is so special
and it's not Special in other places.
(16:34):
It's completely, it's the norm.
It's the absolute norm.
You have set the standard.
When the Tennessean, when y'all
finish that, you set the standard
for what the new conversation to be.
A resident slash visitor in the,
in the Knoxville market would be.
You're overlooking one of the most
rare sites that we've seen, a World's
Fair site, which not a lot of places
have, you know, Seattle's got one,
(16:55):
but very rare opportunities there.
You have the opportunity to own
and live in a luxury location.
And also stay in a luxury location.
It's a five star experience.
And now we're starting to see
more of those pop up in Knoxville,
but they're all over the country.
Your family set that standard.
What brought that to mind as of, Hey,
(17:15):
listen, we want to bring something
absolutely new, test the boundaries
of what Knoxville can handle, right?
Cause at that point it was, and I
don't remember the name of the hotel.
It's next to the Oliver Royale.
That was pretty much the only boutique.
The Oliver.
It was The Oliver.
The Oliver, thank you.
And that was it.
As far as boutique and, and
different experience goes, and your
family was like, you know what?
(17:36):
We're gonna do this.
And you did.
And now you've set the new
standard for luxury boutique.
Like, tell us about that
idea, that conceptualization.
And the process of that, because it could
not have been easy, but you did it anyway.
Yeah.
You know, and it was, uh, literally
decades in the making, uh, my dad
gets all the credit for that, but
he wanted, you know, and, and this
kind of goes back to Knoxville being
(17:58):
important to him and the growth of the,
and the growth of the market, because,
you know, originally it started with
the Holiday Inn and the Holiday Inn.
Was an absolute eyesore.
It was built in 1982 for the World's Fair.
Uh, the gentleman who owned
it didn't put a dime into it.
And it was, you know, we, I remember
after we acquired the property, we
met with a marketing team, with a
(18:18):
marketing team to help improve it.
And, and the question was.
What do people think
about the Holiday Inn?
I said, well, they don't
think about the Holiday Inn.
It's a building on the wrong side of
Henley Street that no one wants to go to.
And so it was developed from there
and renovating the entire Holiday Inn
from top to bottom while continuing
to try and operate as a hotel.
Uh, you know, we did it two floors
at a time to give it as great a
(18:40):
feel as it, as it possibly could.
Knowing that it's still a Holiday
Inn, which has a connotation.
It just does.
And, uh, the building next door,
where the Tennessean is, uh, was
the administrative office building
for the World's Fair, built in 1982.
It had been a state office building
for the better part of 30 years.
Nothing there.
No one really knew what it was.
(19:02):
No one ever went into it,
because there was no reason to.
But, you know, the idea was, You
have the Holiday Inn, you've got a
lot of infrastructure that's there
that could be shared from a laundry,
bar, restaurant, kitchen, kitchen
facilities, banquet hall facilities.
Let's get this office building, which
we had to acquire from the state and
renovate that and turn it into a hotel,
(19:22):
which no one had ever done in Knoxville.
And it was a multi year process, not only
to acquire it, but then to, we are going
to turn this into something special.
With valets, With the service that,
you know, when, when Julia Hurley
reserves a room and then she shows up
and she gets out of the, gets out of
her car, that the valet says, hi, Ms.
Hurley, welcome back or welcome
(19:44):
to the Tennessee Inn and knowing
what kind of pillow you like and
everything that goes into it.
And it was hard because, you know, we had
a, uh, we are traditionally office people.
Which means we build a building, we
build the core, the lobby, the hallways,
the bathrooms, and then you can do
whatever you want with your office
space, and we'll help you with it.
Uh, you build a hotel, you're
building every single room, picking
(20:05):
the carpet, picking the bedspread,
picking the silverware, picking
the towels and the soap, and it's
like, oh my gosh, it's never ending.
It's shocking how much it is.
It was a lot of fun, glad it's over.
Uh, we're, we're out
of the hotel industry.
We got out there, got out the right time.
It's a great industry.
It's a hard industry and it's,
you know, I, I joke with office
buildings, every month you get your
(20:26):
financials, you know, we see our PNL.
We see, you know, where the rent was
and where operating expenses are.
And we review that every month you
do that hotel every day at 4 a.
m.
That's when you get your report.
Every single day.
Because it's like a Waffle House.
They open it up and then they throw
away the keys to the front door
because it never, it never closes.
It's different but it's great and it's
(20:46):
something that was important to Knoxville.
Because you're right, at the time,
Knoxville did not have anything
that would be considered, you know,
elite, elite status for a hotel.
We had, we actually sat down with
a lot of CFOs of Knoxville's bigger
companies and talked about price points.
You know, at what point when your
salesman, when your staff goes on
the road and, you know, you get their
(21:07):
cost, what they, what they spent,
their expenses for that trip, at what
point do you look at the hotel and
go, Ooh, that, that's a lot of money.
And they said 200.
And at the time, 200 was like,
Oh yeah, that's a big number.
And now 200 is the super eight
next to the Nashville airport.
Uh, so, you know, things
have really gone up.
Things have really changed.
(21:27):
You cannot get a hotel room
at the Tennessee Inn for 200.
But that's kind of where we started.
Knoxville needed more than that.
And that's what we were able to,
that's what we were able to do.
That was one of the best projects.
I, I can't express to people enough.
I mean, I relocate people all day long.
That's my passion.
I do tours.
We do relocation tours.
A lot of physicians will call
me specifically for a relocation
tour, and I'll put them in the car.
(21:49):
I'll take them for two hours.
A lot of the time, they may
choose a different hospital.
They may choose not to come here, and
that's just a risk that I take on that
tour, but I always make the relationship,
put them in the car, two hours.
You get the entire tour.
I'm going to take you all
the way from Hardin Valley.
We're going to talk about
the school districts.
We're going to go down to Maryville.
We're going to talk about the colleges.
We're going to talk about all the
opportunities we're going to go through
(22:10):
in Knoxville, all the neighborhoods
in Knoxville, and the history of it.
Where do you want to be?
And all of these conversations.
Um, it's a, it's a full on experience
per, per serious relocation because
knowing that history is so relevant and
knowing it from somebody who's from here.
So, Knowing that I can introduce them
(22:30):
to people like you, again, you said
you're a Connector, I love Connections,
why I called it Connect the Knocks.
It is so relevant to me to know
that I have people I can rely on
who say, I really need to know this
person, I've always got that person.
And knowing the history of things
and the dedication that it takes.
You didn't just come in here
and pop up a shop, you've
been here for a hundred years.
(22:51):
It's, it's a lot of local.
It takes local to get it done.
It takes local to get it done.
So I, we've talked about
one building for 25 minutes.
This is my, I could talk to you for
days about commercial real estate.
Now, we know that you can't give us,
give away the, give away the farm.
Can you give us any hints on what
you're working on that we would
(23:12):
know about, or could possibly
know about that's coming up?
You know, a couple things.
One, you know, we're building
the only office building that's
happening in Knoxville right now.
Uh, it's a 60, 000 square foot office
building out at Pellissippi Parkway
at a development called Century Park.
80 acre development that's got
about a quarter million square
feet of office space on it.
The only office building in the
(23:33):
market that's being built right now.
And that kind of ties into, okay.
Where is, you know, I thought
office was dead and that's the
farthest thing from the truth.
Um, especially in Knoxville while it
is struggling in certain areas of the
country, Knoxville has not been the case.
According to CoStar, we're at 95 percent
occupancy, which is, it's too high.
It's, it's not 95.
It's probably 91 or 92%, but that is,
(23:56):
that is record high for the market.
We did more office deals in the
last two years than we did in the
four years combined before that.
You know, part of it is because Knoxville
has become the place people relocate to.
Part of it is because a lot of office
building, a lot of office users are
moving out of, uh, what I call class C
and B space and upgrading their space.
(24:17):
Uh, 'cause they want people
to be in the office of all
the properties that we manage.
The only tenants that aren't back
in the office at least 80% of
the time, are your Fortune 500
companies that can work remote.
They can send their, their, their
workers home, they can manage 'em
remotely and think it works for them.
But the example I use is, if you have an.
Insurance firm and it has 50 employees
(24:39):
and you spend 100, 000 a year on rent.
You've got three years left on your lease.
Do you have the bandwidth to go out
in the and the financial bandwidth to
hire someone to manage people remotely
to bring in the equipment to manage to
manage people remotely and let people
work remotely and Know that you're,
you're eating 100, 000 a year in rent.
(25:01):
And the answer is no.
The answer is they're
coming back to the office.
You know, it's been, uh, you know,
really across the board in Knoxville.
People are in the office
nearly every day of the week.
Fridays are a little questionable.
But I think that, you know, that's
what we're seeing around the country.
So we have, we've seen people expanding.
We've seen people.
Obviously upgrading their space.
It'll continue to twist over
(25:22):
the next couple of years as
some, as some leases come up.
But you know, I'll give you an
example, uh, a building we manage,
uh, or we do, that we lease in
Bearden, Landmark Center, the two
towers right there on the interstate.
We have nine letters of intent.
For that, for vacant
space in that building.
So people would say offices,
you know, is teetering.
It's not happening in Knoxville.
And I think it happens
(25:43):
for a variety of reasons.
And I think one is people are social.
They're, it doesn't matter how big
of a, of an introvert you are, which
obviously Julia and I are not introverts.
Uh, but we, uh, you know, you.
You do have to have some social
input, and while you can work from
home and be successful doing it,
absolutely, it's much more tactical.
It's not strategic thinking.
(26:04):
If you could, if you just have
to check boxes, you can do that.
But if you've got to be, you
know, if you need to work with
a team, if you want to innovate,
innovation doesn't happen, Over Zoom.
Innovation happens at the coffee pot.
Innovation happens when you overhear
a colleague talking about a project
and you can add something to it.
Uh, and that's what we're seeing
on the office side and I think
that's what we're going to see.
(26:24):
That's why I'm, you know, I'm bullish
on office, uh, especially at Knoxville.
So question for people.
So I know a few of my friends that
you, they're, you probably know them.
We'll talk about that later.
They have their own investment
deals inside of their own companies.
Where they allow like a
REIT, but it's not a REIT.
Do you all offer something like
(26:45):
that for people in Knoxville to
try to get involved in commercial?
We Work with developers or investors
that sometimes well that often need
partners I won't call it a REIT because
we structure it in different ways
But it's it's more of a it's more
of a partnership than anything else.
We we can put people together We have
you know, they're you know You know,
any number of projects where we have
people that want to invest in, in office,
(27:07):
industrial, retail, anywhere in between,
we try and connect those individuals.
Now you have to, it takes, when you have a
REIT, it's much more, I don't want to call
it sophisticated, I'll call it specific.
And complicated, but it also
gives very, very good guidelines.
But sometimes the returns
are, aren't what's there.
So, uh, we try and put together
(27:28):
like Mike, like minded individuals.
Some people don't want the risk, which
reads are great for, and we can put
them in positions where, you know,
someone else is really taking the risk.
And the only thing that they're
risking, um, is the cash
that they're putting into it.
They're not necessarily on the
note and the bank's not going
to come after their house.
That's Something goes south.
So yeah, we, we, we will put
(27:49):
people together depending on the
situation and depending on the need.
I think that a lot of people,
especially in this market today,
are looking for different ways to
earn, earn an income, especially in
industries they don't understand.
And I think that we're starting
to see seven levels and people
are really excited about it.
I get asked about it constantly.
So I'm always throwing it out there.
Hey, if you want to invest in commercial
real estate, Here's who you call.
(28:09):
I don't know any specifics after
that, but I'll send them your way.
Because I do get asked that a lot.
Like, where can I invest this money?
Out of rental properties.
I'm a commercial estate.
It's not going anywhere
in Knoxville, but up.
So get it while you can get it.
All right.
If somebody were to visit
you, we're going personal now.
If somebody were to visit you that's
never been to Knoxville before,
where's the first place you take them?
I don't know.
What time of year is it?
(28:30):
So many people have
different answers to this.
So let me give you some examples.
Glenn Jacobs said, uh,
take him to Alibaba.
I believe Tim Burchett said he would
have taken the right cafeteria.
All right, so here's, here's
what I would do, and partially
this is me being selfish.
First we'd go to the mountains, the towns
inside of the mountain, show them, show
them what, how beautiful that place is.
We'd come back into town,
(28:51):
we'd stop at Aroma Cafe.
in Maryville and pick up some Cuban
food, uh, and then we'd, we'd eat there.
And then I'd, we'd go down to the river.
Maybe we'll do some paddle boarding
right there at Volunteer Landing,
and then finish off on Gay Street
with a cruise ice cream and maybe
a show at the Tennessee theater or
Market Square, depending on the day.
Is there anything that you want to share
with anybody listening that's never been
(29:12):
in Knoxville that tunes into this podcast?
I share it out with a lot
of our relocation companies
that we do a lot with.
What information can you
share with them that maybe.
We, we take for granted or
people assume they know about
Knoxville, they really don't know.
I think if you came to Knoxville,
people would say, Oh my gosh,
the traffic is terrible.
But if you're from Los Angeles,
Atlanta, Chicago, New York,
(29:33):
Dallas, the traffic is nothing.
That being said You know, there's,
there's a limit to how many,
how much our roads can handle.
I mean, I know TDOT and the
city are working on that.
Fixing, uh, infrastructure when it
comes to interstates is not a quick fix.
So it's going to be, it'll be interesting,
but it's, you know, Knoxville, it
continues to be America's largest small
town, which I, which I really like.
(29:54):
And, uh, and, and certainly the
friendliest place you'll find in America.
So it's a, it's a special place.
Justin, how can people find you?
You can find me on LinkedIn,
Facebook, avisinyoung.
com slash Knoxville, you
know, any number of places.
I'm pretty easy to find.
If you Google Justin Kazan on
Knoxville, there's only one
Justin Kazan in the world.
(30:15):
It's not like, you know, Jill Smith.
There's only one.
I'm pretty easy to find
with the Google machine.
I love it.
Listen, I've taken And I'd
love to talk to you for hours
about commercial real estate.
I'll come by your entire
office lunch one day.
We'll do, we'll do a whole lunch
and learn so you can teach our
brokerage about your brokerage.
And I know that my new agents
would love to learn all about
the commercial real estate.
So we'll set that up.
(30:37):
Thank you so much for being with us today.
Everybody in the nation.
Thank you so much for tuning into
another episode of Connect the Knox.
I'm Julia Hurley, connecting
Knoxville to the nation.
Until next time, Thanks for visiting.
Thank you for tuning into the show.
Make sure to like and subscribe,
leave a five star review on your
(30:57):
podcast player of choice, and if you
would like information on moving to
Knoxville, send me a private message.
As always, this is Julia Hurley
connecting Knoxville to the nation.
Welcome, everybody, to another
episode of Connect the Not
So Hostess with the Mostess.
Julia Hurley connecting
Knoxville to the nation.
Today's guest is one of my
all time favorite Knoxville
commercial brokers, owners,
developers, all around awesome guy.
You're going to learn so much
today about Knoxville, but you're
going to learn so much you didn't
(00:25):
even know you needed to know.
Justin Cazana.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Hey, Julia.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for the invitation.
Of course.
So, we are going to start the conversation
off basically with how you are here.
Like, what is it that you
do in Knoxville exactly?
I know, I know what you do, but let's
just pretend like nobody's ever heard of
you or your company or your businesses.
(00:47):
Let's start there.
How'd you get here?
What do you do?
Sure.
So my company is Avison
Young Commercial Real Estate.
We've been open in Knoxville for 13 years.
We are a full service commercial
real estate company handling mainly
brokerage, property management,
project management, and uh, a little
development and things like that.
So we, we can provide, uh, You
know, a, a, a litany of different
(01:08):
business sides, uh, depending on
what a particular client needs.
So, uh, personally, I
am, uh, an office broker.
That is, I probably do 85, 90 percent
of my work is focused on, uh, on
the office buildings in Knoxville.
And that's finding tenants,
uh, for buildings or finding
buildings for tenants.
So, but we have a staff, uh,
staff and brokers of more than 25.
(01:29):
Uh, we do some of the biggest
deals in Knoxville, including three
Amazon deals the other year and
all kinds of projects like that.
So we do a, we do a variety of
different things from, from land,
selling apartment buildings, selling
and leasing office buildings,
selling and leasing, uh, retail,
warehouse, a little bit of everything.
And we cover basically everything
from Crossville to East, including
(01:50):
Chattanooga and Tri Cities.
And we'll do every, everything in between.
So I always tell people in residential,
we cover Crossville to Cocke County,
that's two time zones and two scenes.
So we got you covered.
Yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
So we're, we're about
the same way, exactly.
So before we even get started,
let me tell you all a story
because I always love to tell our
listeners a little bit of a story.
When I interview people in
(02:11):
Knoxville that I may not know
well, but most of the people I
interview, I do know decently well.
And in my phone for the longest
time, I tell you, this was my
very first commercial lease deal.
I've been in the business two years.
So eight years ago, I get this random
company that calls me from the middle
of nowhere, Texas, and they wanted
to come here and do an oil company.
(02:31):
They needed all this office space.
They didn't need any of this office space,
but they really wanted this office space.
I had never done a
commercial lease before.
Obviously, I'm like, I can do this.
I'm gonna figure this out.
So for three weeks in a row before
they got here, I did nothing but
read commercial leasing contracts.
I looked over other people's
commercial leasing contracts.
I was like, this is really extensive
information, but it's good to know.
(02:53):
And I'm glad I know it.
The other person on that deal was you.
And I remember, I mean, just, it took
three or four weeks, which is very
quick in commercial real estate people.
I mean, just mind you,
very quick deal, right?
So when you're on the same side with
somebody like Justin, and they know
what you're doing, things get done.
But for the longest time, I could
never say your last name properly.
So in my phone for three years,
(03:15):
you were Justin Cas Costanza.
Like the guy from Seinfeld.
Until one day, no one ever
corrects me, which is hilarious.
I guess it's my energy level
and just the fact that I'm so
confident when I say things.
I'm not even going to say the name
because I know you know exactly.
Let's just say we all run together.
I'll say that.
Anyway, I was like, I was like, Hey,
remember that Justin Costanza guy?
(03:37):
He was like, Julia, you've been
saying that wrong for three years.
No, no, you corrected me.
You never corrected me.
Anyway, totally corrected.
Have it on lockdown.
I had the unfortunate, uh, the
unfortunate life of going to
college during the Seinfeld era.
So that is not the first
time that I've heard that.
I've heard it, I've heard
it many, many times.
(03:58):
I appreciate the leeway on that, but it
made me laugh that nobody in Knoxville
ever corrected me, ever once, until one
of our mutual friends pulls me aside
and is like, that is not his name.
It's like, so, you know.
You are one of the most,
if not the outside of Roger
Moore, the most knowledgeable
commercial person in Knoxville.
Guarantee it, I'd put my,
(04:18):
I'd put my everything on it.
You know more about what's happening
in Knoxville and what's gonna happen
in Knoxville than anybody I've met.
You've really got your finger
on the pulse, and you own
businesses and contribute.
Tell us a little bit about your first
Experience, I guess you could say,
from commercial when you started,
and your experience is today,
because I know that's a story.
(04:39):
Let's see, well I've been in this
role from in Knoxville doing this
for almost 20 years, so if you make
me think back to my first deals
It's hard, really hard to fathom.
Um, I will go back, you know,
a little history when it comes
to nepotism, commercial real
estate is at the top of the list.
There's a, you know, I've got a dad
that was in the business and the
grandfather that was in the business,
(05:00):
a dad that is still in the business.
I mean, he's 55 years in
commercial real estate.
So, you know, you do,
you do grow up in it.
You grow up with it at the dining
room table and at Thanksgiving
and on Saturday mornings.
So, you know, I know that.
You know, growing up, if we were driving
from downtown back to home, we were
going to stop at the gallery just on
a Friday night to see how the gallery
(05:21):
looks, because that was a property
we owned, developed, and managed.
That's just kind of the way we
do things and it carried over.
So it's certainly been in
my blood for a long time.
I mean, I've been doing this, like
I said, for nearly two decades now.
So, you know, we have seen it,
you know, seen it from doing.
Growing up doing the little small deals,
the 1, 200 square foot office deals, and
then how you just develop that repertoire
(05:41):
and you learn every deal, no matter
how small it is, learn something new or
how to handle, how to handle clients,
just the little bitty thing that really
magnifies itself to where you can do
deals that You know that I've got, you
know, I did a 42, 000 square foot office
lease earlier this year and um, we've
got, you know, a quarter million square
foot office building under contract and,
(06:01):
you know, all these different things
that are, that just kind of build on
each other to get to a point uh, where
we are now and, and certainly lucky for
Knoxville or lucky for me and lucky to
be in Knoxville because Knoxville, while,
you know, I lived through, you know, Uh,
work through the Great Recession, uh,
work through COVID, obviously, and now the
time we're in now is, you know, Knoxville
has been a place of very steady work.
(06:24):
We don't get the high highs like you
get in Florida, but we don't get the
low lows like you get in, in California.
So we're very steady.
We've always had that, That good base of
University of Tennessee, which is great.
The tourism that goes to the Smoky
Mountains, Oak Ridge National Labs,
which is a 40 billion annual federal
program, and great things like TVA
and Pilot and Clayton, Bush Beans
(06:46):
and all those names, you know, that,
you know, that have really, you know,
solidified Knoxville over the years.
So it's been fun to watch Knoxville grow.
It's been fun to watch this industry go
and how different Knoxville is from the
rest of the, the rest of the United States
when it comes to commercial real estate.
What would you say has been
your favorite project to date?
You know, the one that I,
(07:06):
that I take a lot of pride in
was Standard Knitting Mill.
400, 000 square foot mill that's
right on, that was an eyesore
right on, you know, 75 for decades.
And we did that deal, sold
it to a Charleston developer.
Back in December of 2019.
And now they're getting ready to
start the whole renovation of it
and turn it into a great mixed use
project that hopefully it'll be
(07:27):
up and running in about two years.
That one was unlike anything
I'd done before and just had
an absolute ball doing it.
You know, uh, I love working on deals
and we occasionally end up doing deals
outside of the market and did a deal in.
Ironically, in Chicago, biggest at the
time, biggest deal I've ever done, where,
you know, it was my relationship and my
contact, uh, that I've developed over the
(07:47):
years in Knoxville, ended up up selling
a 20 acre piece of property in, uh, in
suburban Chicago and moving an office.
Uh, into nearly 60, 000 square
feet of office space in Chicago.
And there was a, it was
a great deal at the time.
And it was a combination of
relationships here and relationships
functional and putting people together.
And, and that's kind of the way I've,
(08:08):
I've always positioned myself when
it comes to commercial real estate,
I'm a, I'm a connector there all,
there's always someone who's going
to be better at numbers or someone
who's better at being the sales guy.
But my, you know, my role is
to put people together and to
make sure that, you know, when.
When we're trying to get a deal done,
that I'm able to take, grab something
from over here and put it into the
deal to kind of, to kind of meld it all
(08:29):
together and get us over the finish line.
That's, that's always been my goal.
What has been your, your
favorite Knoxville transition?
Not just something that you've
been involved in maybe per
se, but just in general.
I will say that one of my favorite
transitions was seeing downtown
Knoxville go from Because I lived, I
mean, I lived there for years, right?
I lived there during two,
two massive attempts.
(08:50):
And I say two whole families attempting
to move downtown Knoxville forward
and failing miserably, not because
they failed, because Knoxville itself
just wasn't ready for that success.
And now we see the success.
It took two whole generations of people
moving that out, moving that forward.
And I remember living in downtown
Knoxville and thinking, I don't know if
anybody's ever going to see what we see.
(09:11):
I hope they do.
I don't know if anybody's going to
see what we see and still being there.
And I remember when John Clark came
in and, and, and it was almost like a
massive battle royale to get underground
utilities into that downtown area.
He had to fight tooth and nail to put
underground utilities in, which you
(09:32):
would think now looking At back at
that should have just been so common
sense and I remember thinking when he
got it done when I started to see The
project happen and the power pulse came
down and you could really appreciate
The architecture that downtown and
Old City had to offer, I thought to
myself, this is it, it's happening.
It's really happening.
People want to see Knoxville.
(09:53):
And ever since my personal
experience that moment, it has
transformed Knoxville forward.
What project do you feel like
made that transformation?
You know, it's, it's not one project.
It's been 25 years of, of, you know,
trying, trying, trying to build that up.
I mean, it's, you know, 25 years ago, you
(10:14):
know, I joke, everyone jokes, say they
rolled up the sidewalks at five o'clock.
It was a little more than 20 years ago.
They put Mass General Store down and
the fear, uh, and the, you know, in
my first thought at that time was
before I got back to Knoxville General
Store, what is that going to do?
And you look, go in there now,
you go in there on a Saturday
and they're going to be.
70 people in there at any time shopping.
(10:34):
And it's a huge draw.
Love it.
And the theater has helped grow
the Tennessee theater and the BG
theater and everything else that's
gone, that's gone along with it.
It's funny.
You compare, you talk about the
city catching up and the city will
tell you some members of the city.
You compare it to our big, our
arch enemy, Grille, South Carolina,
when it comes to what a downtown
has done in downtown Greenville.
(10:56):
They led with the infrastructure.
The city said, we're going to do this
and then let the developers catch up.
In Knoxville, it was the exact opposite.
It was the developers, you know, like,
uh, like, uh, John Clark and David
Dewhurst, Don Box, who was an investor
and everybody who kind of ran down
the line of, of we're going to build
this building or we're going to, we're
going to redevelop this building.
(11:17):
We're going to redevelop this.
And, you know, city, how can you help us?
How can you help us?
And it just took a longer time.
Thankfully, I think we're.
There are still some gaps in our downtown
that I would love to see addressed.
That, unfortunately or
not, the city can't do it.
It's got to be, it's got to
be a private developer, or at
least in conjunction with it.
Yeah, I think it's a lot of little things.
And just like, just like the standard
(11:38):
knitting mill will be a little thing, but
the only reason that happened was because
the baseball stadium was going to hot.
And I'm glad the baseball
stadium's closed.
Finally happening.
I mean, I joke that I was
in Rome two years ago.
We did a tour of the Coliseum because
you have to, and it's stunning.
And our tour guide says it took
eight years to build the Coliseum.
Eight?
They did this in eight years?
(11:59):
It's taking longer for us
to build a baseball stadium.
And they didn't have cranes, and they
didn't have engineers like we have today.
Of course, they also didn't have unions.
And OSHA, which probably plays a part
in why they can tell this so fast.
So, you know, it's, it's kind of comical.
I think the baseball stadium is going to
be the catalyst for that side of downtown.
And there's one missing piece
(12:20):
in downtown Knoxville that
could make Knoxville explode.
But it's not something
the government can do.
It's a private developer
that's going to have to do it.
Until we, until we see that, I just
don't know what it's going to be.
It's the one vacant plot in downtown.
And you'll see it when you go down there.
And it's like, come on, guys.
Do something with this and it's not,
and it's an actual word, terrible.
(12:41):
We all know that real estate is
location, location, location.
Our team at Just Homes Group
Realty Executives has the true
expertise pairing buyers and sellers
with the right opportunities.
Whether you're looking to buy or
sell a home, right here in Knoxville.
Lenoir City.
Clinton or Farragut.
(13:03):
We have the expertise throughout
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Realty Executives today.
The book tipping point
comes to mind for me.
And I remember reading that book.
I read it several different times.
Like these brands did this and it, they
worked and they worked and they worked
and they worked and then all of a sudden
one thing happened in that tipped it.
And I feel like for me, that
was the underground utilities.
(13:24):
That's just me.
I prefer underground utilities.
No billboards.
I really like the way Asheville looks.
It's very clean.
I like a clean looking downtown.
I can see where I'm going.
I have a visual.
Nothing's in my way.
And I feel like when that happened.
That everything else that has happened
after brought in different people.
And you mentioned David Dewhurst.
Let me tell you, I've never met a
(13:45):
visionary like David Dewhurst in my life.
I mean, I would, I would pit Randy
Boyd against that even for top,
for maybe even try to top that.
I mean, David Dewhurst saw Knoxville.
When it was at, in my, in my lifetime,
it's absolutely worst and still came
here and thought my god, what a gem.
I can't wait for this to be amazing
and poured his whole life into it.
Um, what a visionary, really
(14:06):
truly what a visionary and your
family is part of that vision.
Tell us about your family's
developments and things.
So, I mean, it goes
back three generations.
My grandfather came here in the, uh,
in the twenties and, you know, started
doing some of the smaller things when
it came, I mean, what was commercial
real estate a hundred years ago.
It's, it's very, very different.
(14:27):
Um, and then started, you
know, really in full force.
My grandfather was very
much an entrepreneur.
My dad's an entrepreneur.
Um, and then, you Um, and does it
on the commercial real estate side.
Uh, he's been doing it for 55 years.
He's developed, gosh, nearly every office
building on Weisgarber, nearly every
office building on, uh, Lowness Road,
probably totaling a little more than a
million, million, two square feet of total
(14:48):
space up and down the, you know, West
Knoxville, whether it's office buildings
at Century Park, out of the Pellissippi
Parkway, the gallery shopping center right
there on Kingston Pike, we, uh, dabbled
in hotels for a decade, redoing what's
now the Tennessee and then the Marriott.
Downtown, heart of downtown, which
was, you know, the culmination of
his, of his career as far as the, you
(15:09):
know, everything tying together to
develop, you know, to, to come to the
forefront in that particular, uh, that
particular space, which has been great.
I have a brother that works in the
business in Nashville, and then
I've got, you know, we're running it
here and my dad's 82 years old and
still works every day and loves it.
So it's a, uh, uh, we love
being part of Knoxville.
We love growing Knoxville and looking
(15:30):
at the points in Knoxville that are,
you know, that are important to, you
know, seeing, seeing the growth of the
town and, and where it's going to grow.
One of the biggest things that we talk
about, you know, my television show is.
focused on Knoxville.
The, the podcast is focused on Knoxville
and it's not just Knoxville based.
We have 17, 000 listeners a month
on the podcast, about 3 million
(15:50):
views a month on the TV show.
And I like to pride on locality, right?
It's, it's really and truly, I don't
think people understand the level of
effort that it takes from generations
of people understanding and knowing
how to maneuver conceptualism.
When the Tennessean came
into Knoxville, I will say.
That, that concept itself is everywhere.
(16:13):
The concept of what you all did here in
Knoxville is something that you go to
a larger city like Chicago or Miami and
it's like, wow, I've got a five star
hotel with five star experiences, got some
condos up here we can take advantage of,
we have really like special ballrooms,
like your, your space is so special
and it's not Special in other places.
(16:34):
It's completely, it's the norm.
It's the absolute norm.
You have set the standard.
When the Tennessean, when y'all
finish that, you set the standard
for what the new conversation to be.
A resident slash visitor in the,
in the Knoxville market would be.
You're overlooking one of the most
rare sites that we've seen, a World's
Fair site, which not a lot of places
have, you know, Seattle's got one,
(16:55):
but very rare opportunities there.
You have the opportunity to own
and live in a luxury location.
And also stay in a luxury location.
It's a five star experience.
And now we're starting to see
more of those pop up in Knoxville,
but they're all over the country.
Your family set that standard.
What brought that to mind as of, Hey,
(17:15):
listen, we want to bring something
absolutely new, test the boundaries
of what Knoxville can handle, right?
Cause at that point it was, and I
don't remember the name of the hotel.
It's next to the Oliver Royale.
That was pretty much the only boutique.
The Oliver.
It was The Oliver.
The Oliver, thank you.
And that was it.
As far as boutique and, and
different experience goes, and your
family was like, you know what?
(17:36):
We're gonna do this.
And you did.
And now you've set the new
standard for luxury boutique.
Like, tell us about that
idea, that conceptualization.
And the process of that, because it could
not have been easy, but you did it anyway.
Yeah.
You know, and it was, uh, literally
decades in the making, uh, my dad
gets all the credit for that, but
he wanted, you know, and, and this
kind of goes back to Knoxville being
(17:58):
important to him and the growth of the,
and the growth of the market, because,
you know, originally it started with
the Holiday Inn and the Holiday Inn.
Was an absolute eyesore.
It was built in 1982 for the World's Fair.
Uh, the gentleman who owned
it didn't put a dime into it.
And it was, you know, we, I remember
after we acquired the property, we
met with a marketing team, with a
(18:18):
marketing team to help improve it.
And, and the question was.
What do people think
about the Holiday Inn?
I said, well, they don't
think about the Holiday Inn.
It's a building on the wrong side of
Henley Street that no one wants to go to.
And so it was developed from there
and renovating the entire Holiday Inn
from top to bottom while continuing
to try and operate as a hotel.
Uh, you know, we did it two floors
at a time to give it as great a
(18:40):
feel as it, as it possibly could.
Knowing that it's still a Holiday
Inn, which has a connotation.
It just does.
And, uh, the building next door,
where the Tennessean is, uh, was
the administrative office building
for the World's Fair, built in 1982.
It had been a state office building
for the better part of 30 years.
Nothing there.
No one really knew what it was.
(19:02):
No one ever went into it,
because there was no reason to.
But, you know, the idea was, You
have the Holiday Inn, you've got a
lot of infrastructure that's there
that could be shared from a laundry,
bar, restaurant, kitchen, kitchen
facilities, banquet hall facilities.
Let's get this office building, which
we had to acquire from the state and
renovate that and turn it into a hotel,
(19:22):
which no one had ever done in Knoxville.
And it was a multi year process, not only
to acquire it, but then to, we are going
to turn this into something special.
With valets, With the service that,
you know, when, when Julia Hurley
reserves a room and then she shows up
and she gets out of the, gets out of
her car, that the valet says, hi, Ms.
Hurley, welcome back or welcome
(19:44):
to the Tennessee Inn and knowing
what kind of pillow you like and
everything that goes into it.
And it was hard because, you know, we had
a, uh, we are traditionally office people.
Which means we build a building, we
build the core, the lobby, the hallways,
the bathrooms, and then you can do
whatever you want with your office
space, and we'll help you with it.
Uh, you build a hotel, you're
building every single room, picking
(20:05):
the carpet, picking the bedspread,
picking the silverware, picking
the towels and the soap, and it's
like, oh my gosh, it's never ending.
It's shocking how much it is.
It was a lot of fun, glad it's over.
Uh, we're, we're out
of the hotel industry.
We got out there, got out the right time.
It's a great industry.
It's a hard industry and it's,
you know, I, I joke with office
buildings, every month you get your
(20:26):
financials, you know, we see our PNL.
We see, you know, where the rent was
and where operating expenses are.
And we review that every month you
do that hotel every day at 4 a.
m.
That's when you get your report.
Every single day.
Because it's like a Waffle House.
They open it up and then they throw
away the keys to the front door
because it never, it never closes.
It's different but it's great and it's
(20:46):
something that was important to Knoxville.
Because you're right, at the time,
Knoxville did not have anything
that would be considered, you know,
elite, elite status for a hotel.
We had, we actually sat down with
a lot of CFOs of Knoxville's bigger
companies and talked about price points.
You know, at what point when your
salesman, when your staff goes on
the road and, you know, you get their
(21:07):
cost, what they, what they spent,
their expenses for that trip, at what
point do you look at the hotel and
go, Ooh, that, that's a lot of money.
And they said 200.
And at the time, 200 was like,
Oh yeah, that's a big number.
And now 200 is the super eight
next to the Nashville airport.
Uh, so, you know, things
have really gone up.
Things have really changed.
(21:27):
You cannot get a hotel room
at the Tennessee Inn for 200.
But that's kind of where we started.
Knoxville needed more than that.
And that's what we were able to,
that's what we were able to do.
That was one of the best projects.
I, I can't express to people enough.
I mean, I relocate people all day long.
That's my passion.
I do tours.
We do relocation tours.
A lot of physicians will call
me specifically for a relocation
tour, and I'll put them in the car.
(21:49):
I'll take them for two hours.
A lot of the time, they may
choose a different hospital.
They may choose not to come here, and
that's just a risk that I take on that
tour, but I always make the relationship,
put them in the car, two hours.
You get the entire tour.
I'm going to take you all
the way from Hardin Valley.
We're going to talk about
the school districts.
We're going to go down to Maryville.
We're going to talk about the colleges.
We're going to talk about all the
opportunities we're going to go through
(22:10):
in Knoxville, all the neighborhoods
in Knoxville, and the history of it.
Where do you want to be?
And all of these conversations.
Um, it's a, it's a full on experience
per, per serious relocation because
knowing that history is so relevant and
knowing it from somebody who's from here.
So, Knowing that I can introduce them
(22:30):
to people like you, again, you said
you're a Connector, I love Connections,
why I called it Connect the Knocks.
It is so relevant to me to know
that I have people I can rely on
who say, I really need to know this
person, I've always got that person.
And knowing the history of things
and the dedication that it takes.
You didn't just come in here
and pop up a shop, you've
been here for a hundred years.
(22:51):
It's, it's a lot of local.
It takes local to get it done.
It takes local to get it done.
So I, we've talked about
one building for 25 minutes.
This is my, I could talk to you for
days about commercial real estate.
Now, we know that you can't give us,
give away the, give away the farm.
Can you give us any hints on what
you're working on that we would
(23:12):
know about, or could possibly
know about that's coming up?
You know, a couple things.
One, you know, we're building
the only office building that's
happening in Knoxville right now.
Uh, it's a 60, 000 square foot office
building out at Pellissippi Parkway
at a development called Century Park.
80 acre development that's got
about a quarter million square
feet of office space on it.
The only office building in the
(23:33):
market that's being built right now.
And that kind of ties into, okay.
Where is, you know, I thought
office was dead and that's the
farthest thing from the truth.
Um, especially in Knoxville while it
is struggling in certain areas of the
country, Knoxville has not been the case.
According to CoStar, we're at 95 percent
occupancy, which is, it's too high.
It's, it's not 95.
It's probably 91 or 92%, but that is,
(23:56):
that is record high for the market.
We did more office deals in the
last two years than we did in the
four years combined before that.
You know, part of it is because Knoxville
has become the place people relocate to.
Part of it is because a lot of office
building, a lot of office users are
moving out of, uh, what I call class C
and B space and upgrading their space.
(24:17):
Uh, 'cause they want people
to be in the office of all
the properties that we manage.
The only tenants that aren't back
in the office at least 80% of
the time, are your Fortune 500
companies that can work remote.
They can send their, their, their
workers home, they can manage 'em
remotely and think it works for them.
But the example I use is, if you have an.
Insurance firm and it has 50 employees
(24:39):
and you spend 100, 000 a year on rent.
You've got three years left on your lease.
Do you have the bandwidth to go out
in the and the financial bandwidth to
hire someone to manage people remotely
to bring in the equipment to manage to
manage people remotely and let people
work remotely and Know that you're,
you're eating 100, 000 a year in rent.
(25:01):
And the answer is no.
The answer is they're
coming back to the office.
You know, it's been, uh, you know,
really across the board in Knoxville.
People are in the office
nearly every day of the week.
Fridays are a little questionable.
But I think that, you know, that's
what we're seeing around the country.
So we have, we've seen people expanding.
We've seen people.
Obviously upgrading their space.
It'll continue to twist over
(25:22):
the next couple of years as
some, as some leases come up.
But you know, I'll give you an
example, uh, a building we manage,
uh, or we do, that we lease in
Bearden, Landmark Center, the two
towers right there on the interstate.
We have nine letters of intent.
For that, for vacant
space in that building.
So people would say offices,
you know, is teetering.
It's not happening in Knoxville.
And I think it happens
(25:43):
for a variety of reasons.
And I think one is people are social.
They're, it doesn't matter how big
of a, of an introvert you are, which
obviously Julia and I are not introverts.
Uh, but we, uh, you know, you.
You do have to have some social
input, and while you can work from
home and be successful doing it,
absolutely, it's much more tactical.
It's not strategic thinking.
(26:04):
If you could, if you just have
to check boxes, you can do that.
But if you've got to be, you
know, if you need to work with
a team, if you want to innovate,
innovation doesn't happen, Over Zoom.
Innovation happens at the coffee pot.
Innovation happens when you overhear
a colleague talking about a project
and you can add something to it.
Uh, and that's what we're seeing
on the office side and I think
that's what we're going to see.
(26:24):
That's why I'm, you know, I'm bullish
on office, uh, especially at Knoxville.
So question for people.
So I know a few of my friends that
you, they're, you probably know them.
We'll talk about that later.
They have their own investment
deals inside of their own companies.
Where they allow like a
REIT, but it's not a REIT.
Do you all offer something like
(26:45):
that for people in Knoxville to
try to get involved in commercial?
We Work with developers or investors
that sometimes well that often need
partners I won't call it a REIT because
we structure it in different ways
But it's it's more of a it's more
of a partnership than anything else.
We we can put people together We have
you know, they're you know You know,
any number of projects where we have
people that want to invest in, in office,
(27:07):
industrial, retail, anywhere in between,
we try and connect those individuals.
Now you have to, it takes, when you have a
REIT, it's much more, I don't want to call
it sophisticated, I'll call it specific.
And complicated, but it also
gives very, very good guidelines.
But sometimes the returns
are, aren't what's there.
So, uh, we try and put together
(27:28):
like Mike, like minded individuals.
Some people don't want the risk, which
reads are great for, and we can put
them in positions where, you know,
someone else is really taking the risk.
And the only thing that they're
risking, um, is the cash
that they're putting into it.
They're not necessarily on the
note and the bank's not going
to come after their house.
That's Something goes south.
So yeah, we, we, we will put
(27:49):
people together depending on the
situation and depending on the need.
I think that a lot of people,
especially in this market today,
are looking for different ways to
earn, earn an income, especially in
industries they don't understand.
And I think that we're starting
to see seven levels and people
are really excited about it.
I get asked about it constantly.
So I'm always throwing it out there.
Hey, if you want to invest in commercial
real estate, Here's who you call.
(28:09):
I don't know any specifics after
that, but I'll send them your way.
Because I do get asked that a lot.
Like, where can I invest this money?
Out of rental properties.
I'm a commercial estate.
It's not going anywhere
in Knoxville, but up.
So get it while you can get it.
All right.
If somebody were to visit
you, we're going personal now.
If somebody were to visit you that's
never been to Knoxville before,
where's the first place you take them?
I don't know.
What time of year is it?
(28:30):
So many people have
different answers to this.
So let me give you some examples.
Glenn Jacobs said, uh,
take him to Alibaba.
I believe Tim Burchett said he would
have taken the right cafeteria.
All right, so here's, here's
what I would do, and partially
this is me being selfish.
First we'd go to the mountains, the towns
inside of the mountain, show them, show
them what, how beautiful that place is.
We'd come back into town,
(28:51):
we'd stop at Aroma Cafe.
in Maryville and pick up some Cuban
food, uh, and then we'd, we'd eat there.
And then I'd, we'd go down to the river.
Maybe we'll do some paddle boarding
right there at Volunteer Landing,
and then finish off on Gay Street
with a cruise ice cream and maybe
a show at the Tennessee theater or
Market Square, depending on the day.
Is there anything that you want to share
with anybody listening that's never been
(29:12):
in Knoxville that tunes into this podcast?
I share it out with a lot
of our relocation companies
that we do a lot with.
What information can you
share with them that maybe.
We, we take for granted or
people assume they know about
Knoxville, they really don't know.
I think if you came to Knoxville,
people would say, Oh my gosh,
the traffic is terrible.
But if you're from Los Angeles,
Atlanta, Chicago, New York,
(29:33):
Dallas, the traffic is nothing.
That being said You know, there's,
there's a limit to how many,
how much our roads can handle.
I mean, I know TDOT and the
city are working on that.
Fixing, uh, infrastructure when it
comes to interstates is not a quick fix.
So it's going to be, it'll be interesting,
but it's, you know, Knoxville, it
continues to be America's largest small
town, which I, which I really like.
(29:54):
And, uh, and, and certainly the
friendliest place you'll find in America.
So it's a, it's a special place.
Justin, how can people find you?
You can find me on LinkedIn,
Facebook, avisinyoung.
com slash Knoxville, you
know, any number of places.
I'm pretty easy to find.
If you Google Justin Kazan on
Knoxville, there's only one
Justin Kazan in the world.
(30:15):
It's not like, you know, Jill Smith.
There's only one.
I'm pretty easy to find
with the Google machine.
I love it.
Listen, I've taken And I'd
love to talk to you for hours
about commercial real estate.
I'll come by your entire
office lunch one day.
We'll do, we'll do a whole lunch
and learn so you can teach our
brokerage about your brokerage.
And I know that my new agents
would love to learn all about
the commercial real estate.
So we'll set that up.
(30:37):
Thank you so much for being with us today.
Everybody in the nation.
Thank you so much for tuning into
another episode of Connect the Knox.
I'm Julia Hurley, connecting
Knoxville to the nation.
Until next time, Thanks for visiting.
Thank you for tuning into the show.
Make sure to like and subscribe,
leave a five star review on your
(30:57):
podcast player of choice, and if you
would like information on moving to
Knoxville, send me a private message.
As always, this is Julia Hurley
connecting Knoxville to the nation.
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