New week, new episode! This time, Rick and Kaleem sit down with Francis Saele, a thought leader in workplace real estate and technology and Managing Principal at Mortevita, for an in-depth conversation about the evolving role of office spaces, especially in the context of remote and hybrid work, and the broader shifts occurring in the commercial real estate sector.
Francis takes us through his professional journey, including building a startup in the commercial real estate industry that was later acquired by CBRE. His expertise in real estate has shaped his views on workplace transformation, particularly with the rise of remote and hybrid work. According to Francis, the role of the office has fundamentally shifted in recent years—and it certainly has!
The shift toward distributed work is undeniable. Many organizations have adopted hybrid models, enabling employees to work remotely part-time. As a result, businesses no longer need as much office space, and many workers can perform tasks remotely, eliminating the need for daily office commutes.
Landlords, however, are facing significant challenges as the demand for traditional office space declines. At the same time, companies are struggling to optimize their office use. The future of office spaces may not lie in legacy downtown buildings but in decentralized hubs located closer to where employees live. This concept, known as "central living districts," integrates office spaces into communities, making them more accessible and convenient for workers.
With reduced demand for traditional office spaces, repurposing older buildings for alternative uses is becoming an intriguing possibility. Potential options range from residential spaces to niche industries like vertical farming, though conversion processes can be complex. Cities are increasingly focusing on transforming downtown areas with walkability, green spaces, and mixed-use developments—ideas that could reshape the future of office real estate.
As the landscape of office spaces continues to evolve with the rise of remote work and a growing emphasis on employee-centric environments, we dive into the potential for repurposing office buildings and the role of technology in reshaping the future of work. Grab your coffee and notebook, and join us as Francis Saele takes us through these exciting changes and shares the mission behind Mortevita—an integrator specializing in consulting for the new knowledge workplace, corporate real estate, and emerging workplace technologies. Thank you for joining us, Francis!
Learn more about Francis:
- Francis’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fran-saele/
More about us:
- Remotely One’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/remotelyone
- Remotely One’s Webpage: https://www.remotelyone.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Francis (00:00):
Hi guys,
Kaleem (00:00):
How are you doing, man?
Francis (00:01):
I'm doing great.
By the way, I have a headsetthat I can switch to, but I
frequently do these podcastswith just the Yeti mic and,
Rick (00:09):
As long as there's no echo on our end, you should be good.
Francis (00:12):
Do you hear anything?
Kaleem (00:13):
No, I don't hear anything.
I think you sound great.
Francis (00:15):
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, don't, don't get over, youknow, overwhelmed.
It's early in this project.
Rick (00:20):
We are known for not getting
Kaleem (00:22):
don't get overwhelmed by my beauty.
I get you.
I get
Francis (00:25):
Well, no, no, you are.
I'll tell you, you've got thebest smile on LinkedIn.
Kaleem (00:30):
Oh, here we go.
Here we go,
Francis (00:32):
how does he do that?
You know, cause I mean, we sortof have the same thing that it,
mine doesn't come through.
I don't know why it must beolder teeth.
Kaleem (00:40):
You're going to make me put that slow music on.
We're going to
Francis (00:43):
good.
That's
Kaleem (00:44):
baby.
We're going to slow dance.
Rick (00:54):
Welcome back everybody to remotely one I am your co host,
Rick Haney, joined by myesteemed colleague, Kaleem
Clarkson.
What's shakin brother?
Look at you all dancing over
Kaleem (01:05):
Oh, pointing to myself.
I'm feeling good, baby.
How you doing, baby?
You looking
Rick (01:09):
I'm pumped up.
I'm pumped up.
We've been laughing so muchalready on this show.
Today's gonna be, it's what welike to call, folks, a real
doozy.
Kaleem (01:17):
doozy.
A
Rick (01:19):
A wicked doozy, as they say up north.
Yeah,
Kaleem (01:22):
percent dude.
Rick (01:23):
yeah, yeah.
So hey everybody, since you knowus, you know how to find us now,
do us a huge favor and go toratethispodcast.
com forward slash remotely oneand just leave us a review.
That's all we ask.
Not a big deal.
Not a huge time commitment.
If you could do that for us, wewould be ever so grateful.
Since Since 2015, Remotely OneIs one of the largest
(01:45):
communities of remote workprofessionals, with over 3, 500
Slack members and 5, 000 emailsubscribers.
Really?
Man, we are going places.
We are going places.
It is free to join.
Go check it out at remotelyone.
com.
And with that out of the way,Kaleem, my brother from another
mother.
(02:05):
Give us a tease or two abouttoday's guest.
Kaleem (02:09):
sweet Mickey Mickey.
Let me tell you about our guesttoday, man.
Let me tell you about our guesttoday.
Our guests, they are originallyfrom Buffalo, New York.
So they know about that snow,son.
Rick (02:22):
Oh, don't we all, don't we
Kaleem (02:24):
yes we do, but they currently reside in Cincinnati,
Ohio.
Let's see what else, what elsewe got here for our guests.
Our guests today, they hold anMBA in finance and a BS in
psychology.
So they're up in their mind.
They could tell you how you'refeeling, but they
Rick (02:40):
lot of thinking going on.
Kaleem (02:41):
numbers.
They can also crunch numbers.
Um, let's see.
Oh, our guests, they are acorporate real estate,
commercial real estateprofessional.
They built a startup earlier intheir career that was acquired
by CBRE.
Just a little real estatecompany, CBRE, just a tiny
Rick (03:01):
I May have heard of
Kaleem (03:02):
company.
Let's see.
They've held various leadershiproles at different real estate
companies, such as Newmarkgroup, another company, it's
tiny, a consultant companycalled.
No big deal.
No big deal.
No big deal.
Rick, what are we doing?
Is the question.
What are we
Rick (03:22):
Uh, n not enough.
Kaleem (03:24):
not enough.
Let's see.
What else about I guess?
There's just so much good shitabout I guess.
Oh, something, some things mostpeople don't know about I guess.
They once sunk, almost sunk, a450 foot long lake freighter.
Are you kidding me?
And that shit moved cement,Rick.
It was a cement lake freighterthat, they've almost sunk!
Rick (03:46):
that ain't coming back up if you let it go.
Kaleem (03:50):
It's down.
It's down.
Rick (03:52):
not coming back up for breakfast.
Kaleem (03:54):
Yup.
And, and Rick, Rick, this isjust, we definitely gotta learn
more about this.
Something A lot of people don'tknow about, I guess something
else is that our guests, youknow, they had to save money for
college, Rick, they had to payfor college and they spent a
summer as a hooker, Rick, ahooker.
Rick (04:13):
Okay little unorthodox, but we'll get to
Kaleem (04:16):
we'll get to that.
We'll get to that.
Let's see our guests today.
They are a thought leader.
In the emerging world ofdistributing work.
That's what we connected.
Transformation of work in theworkplace.
And he's just always publishedin all of these different places
and how corporate, real estateand the office kind of build
(04:36):
that environment.
Right.
Our guest today now serves asthe managing principal of Morta
Vita, an integrator ofworkplace, real estate, and
technology that servicescommercial clients,
Rick (04:51):
Okay.
Kaleem (04:52):
listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to
Francis.
Let
Francis (05:04):
Kaleem, Kaleem, did you go to the old school of
introductions or what?
I like that.
I
Kaleem (05:19):
me calm down, calm down studio on it.
Shut up.
Rick (05:21):
hey studio audience we got a job to do here people
Kaleem (05:25):
Thank you, Francis, Fran.
Francis (05:27):
Kaleem, I havee to tell you, I checked and I have my
mouse in my pocket.
So when you referred to me aswe, and they, and all my
pronouns are right.
So
Kaleem (05:34):
Yes.
Yes.
Well, we can't give away.
We can't give away who our guestis.
You know what I
Rick (05:40):
Oh, the edification is like the whole point The whole
thing here, right?
We want to make sure you arepumped up and
Kaleem (05:46):
but really appreciate you, man.
I, you know, I connecting withyou on LinkedIn.
I feel like I've known you for20 years.
You post a lot of great.
Content, man.
And I.
just appreciate you joining uson the show, man.
Oh,
Rick (05:59):
as do I.
Francis (06:00):
Yeah.
Well, thank you both.
Great to be here.
And I, and I've always enjoyedthis show.
I think it's kind of a fun placeto go when you need to improve
your attitude, you want to getup, you tune in here.
Rick (06:11):
Oh,
Kaleem (06:12):
you baby.
Rick (06:12):
much.
Kaleem (06:14):
what we're trying to do.
Rick (06:15):
That was the bolster of
Kaleem (06:16):
remote work.
And if you need to lighten upyour day, you start this show.
If you're sitting there workingremotely or hybrid or wherever,
you can start your day off witha couple of dudes from Maine.
Rick (06:28):
yeah.
Eat that Kathy Lee and Hoda.
We're coming for y'all.
And most importantly, I gottaknow.
I gotta know.
What was it like being a hooker?
Francis (06:38):
Oh, you want to start with the hooker?
Well, uh, you know, I know thatsounds bad, but, but there is
hope for hookers and actuallyhookers, hookers are doing
pretty well, even, even in theold days when, when I had to do
this.
But, actually this was not thehooker that everybody's thinking
about, unfortunately.
And I have the job and somewhereI can bring it out.
But, uh, this was a summer jobthat I was able to get at
(07:00):
Republic steel, just South ofBuffalo, New York.
And he used to take a bus everyday down there to go to the end
was a midnight shift.
We worked 6 days a week,midnight to 8.
And it was a, it was actually abar mill.
They created bars of steel andthen they take the bars and they
wrap them up.
And they would put them in astorage area until they were
shipped.
Okay, and how did the steel getfrom the storage bins, which
(07:24):
were huge, loaded with differentkinds of steel and different
customers.
They're all sold waiting to beshipped.
Kaleem (07:30):
Okay.
Francis (07:31):
send out a technician who had one assistant.
So there were, you know, aboutfive or six teams like this.
And we went out and these, youknow, steel barns, we found the
steel usually wasn't where itwas supposed to be.
You had to find it.
And then you had to lift thesteel up.
Those were overhead cranes,right?
And the primary guy would putthe first side on and they would
(07:54):
lift it up.
So this is, you know, Tons ofsteel hanging up like this with
other things right around it.
And then my job was to reachunderneath this, the, this
bundle of bars with a long hookand hook the chain and then hook
the chain on the time this side,and then
Kaleem (08:12):
hook!
Francis (08:13):
it's, it is the hook.
That's right.
Kaleem (08:14):
So you were called the hooker because you had to hook
the steel!
Francis (08:18):
That that's exactly right.
Kaleem (08:20):
Oh, there it is, baby.
Rick (08:22):
Well, don't I feel like a horse's patoot?
Francis (08:25):
I've been to union.
I had all the union protections,you know, with all that stuff.
But I'll tell you a couple oftimes, more than once, I'd say
four or five times, the guy putthe bar up, bars up, and I would
go in there with my hook.
And all of a sudden somethingslipped off and, you know, boom.
So if you were too far under thebars, you could lose a lot.
Kaleem (08:43):
Mm.
Mm.
Francis (08:44):
was a great job.
And yeah.
Kaleem (08:46):
job!
Francis (08:47):
No, I mean, you
Kaleem (08:48):
Not
Rick (08:48):
cost me an arm and a leg, but it was a great job.
Francis (08:51):
that there's a lot of relaxation on the midnight
shift.
We started at maybe 1230 thatdid one or two loads.
And we came back, it was timefor lunch, you know, so you
went, what do you eat at four inthe morning?
and then you would go back andmaybe do one other load then
wait for the sun to come up.
So it wasn't really thatintense, but when you got out
there, you had to really beawake,
Kaleem (09:09):
Yes, you did.
You sure did.
So take that, Richard Gere,okay?
Take that, Julia Roberts.
Rick (09:16):
you're not the heroes you think
Kaleem (09:18):
you're not saving our guest today, Richard Gere, okay?
He was lifting steel, son.
Rick (09:29):
all that aside.
Thank you for sporting ourjuvenile sense of humor.
Kaleem (09:33):
mean, everyone was thinking it.
Everyone was thinking it.
So we had to get it out of theway.
Rick (09:37):
Of course, of course, of course, you know, we know that
was a long time ago and you'vehad a host of professional
experiences since then, and, uh,obviously these times we're in,
everybody knows the pandemicchanged the entire work
landscape, but more specificallythe emergence of distributed
(09:59):
work has had a dramatic effecton physical office space.
Can you talk to us about some ofthose challenges and how they're
being addressed?
Francis (10:08):
Well, that's a great question actually.
And you know, when people talkabout workplace, maybe just get
into it with this comment.
The workplace, when you thoughtabout workplace before 2020, And
this was a fun corporateservices function that everybody
in real estate knew about.
Basically, what workplacemanagement was decide how big a
space you needed for whateverthe team was.
(10:29):
And as that lease came up forrenewal, they would figure out
maybe how many more people theyexpect to add over the next
three, five years, add that allup and then say, okay, instead
of 80 people, we need a spacefor 120 people go out and find a
space.
And you go out and find a spaceand you'd lay it out and that's
it.
That's it.
That was all workplace was.
Okay.
Workplaces become much, muchmore complicated and that's not,
(10:52):
although that function stillexists.
It's a very late decision as towhere you go exactly in terms of
an office environment.
But to your question, I thinkclearly the office has changed
quite a bit in terms of what itdoes.
And frankly, I think there is nosingle answer yet.
I don't think there's nodefinitive answer and there may
(11:13):
never be, you know, the officeis designed to do this.
My sense is that for differentorganizations, the office does
different things.
But other things are goneelsewhere.
They've gone into thedistributed environment.
They've gone to homes, they'vegone to third places.
They've gone to other, you know,coworking places.
It's a really, an evolution thatis extraordinary and I'm looking
forward to somebody writing areally good book about this.
(11:35):
I'm sure there'll be several.
Okay.
But to your question, whathappens to the real estate that
exists?
This is a kind of a problem forcertainly it's a problem for
most landlords, but it's also aproblem for the occupiers whose
people are now not there allthat much.
You know, most organizations areoperating on some type of hybrid
schedule, or they may be in theoffice two, two and a half,
(11:57):
three days a week, maybe, maybenot.
Some of that's enforced, some ofit isn't.
So you don't really need as muchspace as you.
As you had before, that's onething.
The second thing is that whenyou are asked to come into an
office, what do you do there?
You know, I mean, you see a lotof complaints about people who
spend an hour and a half takinga train into an office to sit
there on a zoom call that theycould have done, you know, from
(12:19):
their next, next room in theirhome.
So, there are all kinds ofthings like that going on which
suggests that the role of theoffice and where the office is.
Okay.
Or should be, are changing and Ithink that's a couple of the big
things that are happening in mymind, but about legacy office
real estate is that historicallymost of it was centered in a
downtown area.
(12:39):
Yes, there was suburban nodes,but still, you know, the biggest
node was downtown and thedowntown area while central in
the community is likely to bethe farthest away from most
people who.
Tend to live remotely.
So over time, my sense is thatas the office requirement,
whatever that is grows.
It's probably not going to growwhere the existing legacy stock
(13:00):
of office exists.
Now, I think we'll see officeemerging in places that are more
certainly closer to whereemployees are.
It's the Adam Newman concept offlow where, you know, you would
have.
Where you go to, to collaboratewith people in person, fairly
close to where you live andwhere you shop and where you go
(13:21):
to the show or whatever.
So these nodes are going toemerge.
I'd like to call them centralliving districts.
The central business districtis, is really up in the air in
terms of what's going to happenthere.
I mean, there's a sense of whatpeople moving into conversions
of office to residential, other,um, uses, but those are very
difficult to pull off.
And they're expensive and.
(13:41):
And we've seen some of that, butit's not going to be an
opportunity for everybody.
Kaleem (13:46):
Fran, let me ask you.
So you start your career.
I'm just kind of curious.
Francis (13:53):
Okay.
I
Kaleem (13:54):
you know,
Francis (13:55):
do
Kaleem (13:56):
transition your career.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So, you know, you kind of startoff your career and You build a
great startup and it getsacquired by CBRE and you start
working for them.
And you're finding spaces kindof like what you explain for
companies, right?
And you're doing that, but thenall of a sudden pandemic
(14:17):
happens.
And probably even a little bitbefore the pandemic, you were
probably starting to see alittle bit of a shift towards
some flexibility from even a,you know, some of the tech
sector and some other sectors,but how did you as a Commercial
real estate professional, howdid you embrace this idea of
remote work and workplaceflexibility when it's obviously
(14:39):
impacting your career and yourpocket specifically, like, like
how, and why do you feel thisneed or this desire to talk
about workplace flexibility as aperson who manages these spaces?
Francis (14:56):
that's an interesting question.
I will tell you at the time thishappened.
I was working in Dallas andlived in Dallas for 2, 3 years.
We had a team in Dallas, a USteam in Dallas and a team in
Pittsburgh.
But then about half of thepeople we work with were
overseas.
We outsourced a great deal ofprocessing work to the
Philippines and, India.
(15:17):
And what happened, it was aninteresting evolution of
thinking because.
Uh, when I started the job,everybody came to the office all
the time, but if you live inDallas, I don't know how
familiar you are with Dallastraffic.
But we had a lot of people thatwere driving an hour, hour and a
half, some even more than thateach way every morning, on the
(15:38):
highways in and around where wewere, which was on the Dallas
North freeway.
If you know the city.
And the first event thathappened actually, I think the
one or two people who came to,they came in and said, we have a
problem.
We like working here andeverything, but you're our
competitor had offered to letthem do the same job from home
because they could do all thework from home on a computer.
Kaleem (16:00):
What year is This Fran roughly?
Just
Francis (16:02):
This is, let's see, 2017.
Kaleem (16:05):
wow.
So like before this is not
Francis (16:08):
Oh, this is yeah.
They're way before the pandemic.
Kaleem (16:10):
wow.
Okay.
Francis (16:11):
And we said, well, you know, we would be okay with
maybe you, you staying workingfrom home one day a week.
It's the same evolution.
It just happened earlier one daya week or two days a week.
So you're, there's a negotiationgoing on with individual
employees and then the employeesstart talking amongst each other
and say, Hey, who's this guy?
And that, so then so we lostthat person really good.
And about a month later, anotherperson came in and said the same
(16:33):
thing.
And I think it was a differentcompetitor because there were a
lot of competitors in Dallas.
It's a big MSA.
Kaleem (16:38):
so competition is offering.
So just to clarify competitionis offering remote and
flexibility and people areleaving your company.
Francis (16:48):
right.
Because, you know, it's nottraditional.
I mean, you know, Newmark is agreat company, by the way.
This is a,
Kaleem (16:54):
yeah,
Francis (16:54):
uh, I don't want to talk too much about the company,
but they're very traditional NewYork and, and they're, you know,
really polished, professionalsthere.
And so the mindset of thecompany is, well, you know,
every place you go, it's suitand tie and everything, and you
have to be together.
And the idea of working remotelywas foreign at the time,
frankly.
And actually for computers, theywould buy desktops so you
(17:15):
couldn't take them out.
You had to come to the officeand do your work, right?
Okay.
It's a corporate strategy at thetime.
And again, that's not a put downof the company, but we did have
people on some notebooks andthose are the people who became
vulnerable because they could,you know, if you didn't need a,
I mean, if you had a notebook,you could do it, but Why
couldn't I do it?
Because someone in New York saidno.
So, after the second personleft, we decided, well, we know
(17:38):
if we should experiment withthis ourselves.
And so we had a team thatfigured out a strategy because a
lot of the work actually wasbeing done.
In the air, you know, in Asia,so it didn't really make any
difference where you were whenyou had that communication with
them.
But anyway, so we decidedbasically that we would take,
you know, most of the staff,including the management staff
(18:02):
and allow them to work fromhome.
So I remember when I left in2020, cause I was in Dallas in
March of 2020.
If you remember the messageswere coming out, get out.
Cause there won't be any flightsavailable after Friday.
You know, it's one of thosemessages, by that time in the
pandemic, We only had two orthree people that would came in
on a regular basis, one to openthe mail, basically, and another
(18:24):
one who lived fairly close.
Everybody else was working fromhome.
So we got through that and, butthen we figured, tried to figure
out new ways to operate with ourpeople who weren't there all the
time.
We would have a monthly, gettogether, would be a lunch and
learn, or it would be a, sometype of meeting, or we would
create teams to get togetherperiodically.
So we were able to stay in touchand we sort of had primordial,
(18:45):
you know, distributed workideas, which since have matured
quite a bit.
But, so when the pandemic hit,it was pretty easy.
Everybody, by that time,everybody was in notebooks.
Hey guys, everybody go home.
And everybody said, fine.
So, That's how I got it.
I don't know if they answeredyour question.
Probably spent too much time onthat.
But at that point, I figured outthat what I have been doing for
(19:08):
the last 20 years wasinteresting and important and
everything.
But the interesting part of realestate and workplace was just
beginning and I wanted to beinvolved in that full time.
Speaker (19:18):
We'll be right back after these words.
2020 was no joke.
It changed the game foreveryone.
Workplace flexibility is nolonger a perk, but an
expectation.
In fact, a recent study showedthat a flexible schedule is more
important than salary.
(19:38):
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Since 2013, BlendMe Inc.
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Let's stay local, but competeglobal.
Visit us at blendmeinc.
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That's blendmeinc.
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(21:01):
Alright, well that's a bit much,but for you, I'll do it.
I'm Rick Haney, and if you're abusiness owner looking for a
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I'll tell your story the way youwant it told.
Follow along at Remotely We AreOne, or visit my website at
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me for more information.
(21:24):
And now, back to the show.
Rick (21:26):
So obviously lately, the sizzle term has been returned to
office, right?
A lot of these, corporations areliterally forcing people back to
work to, to the physical officespace.
Yeah, and we also hear a lotabout hospitality and offices
needing to improve on their youknow, operational hospitality.
(21:48):
What are your thoughts aboutthat conversation and the
concept overall?
Francis (21:54):
Well, I think what's happening now is there's, you
know, you start out in a binaryfashion and you wind up with
something in the middle.
it used to be you're in theoffice or you were at home.
Kaleem (22:03):
right.
right.
right.
That was hybrid bef before thepandemic hybrid was somebody in
the office Monday through Fridayworking in the office, and then
another subset of people thatwere fully remote.
You're
Francis (22:15):
Right.
So, but that's now morphed intosomething very different.
And, you know, for a lot ofreasons, occupiers, tenants are
very hesitant now to make bigcommitments.
As a matter of fact, when leasedspace that we just had, this
data came out a couple of weeksago from CoStar, it's of the
leases that had renewed in 2024,okay.
(22:37):
So more than half a year, therewas a reduction in space Total
space leased by those tenants intheir new space or wherever they
were in a renewal.
It went down by 17%.
Now, 17 percent
Kaleem (22:49):
That's,
Francis (22:50):
legacy market is about just under a billion square
feet.
So, all of a sudden, kind ofovernight, people are leasing.
You know, a considerably smalleramount of space, uh, you know,
that kind of makes sense.
If you don't really know what'sgoing to happen next, you don't
want to make long termcommitment.
So there's a pressure on to makethe commitment shorter.
(23:11):
And when you make the commitmentshorter, it becomes much more
difficult to finance those fromthe ownership side, the landlord
side.
So how does this work?
And you now have the, you know,the coworking firms and the flex
firm stepping in.
And they started out with, youknow, one approach to how they
financed it.
Now they're becoming much moreflexible and they're forming
partnerships with landlords tohelp, you know, spread the risk
(23:32):
and spread the return.
So there's an evolution there.
Those spaces, I suspect there'sgoing to be a lot more of those
because it's better to thetenants who, what the tenants
really want.
And when you're doing that, youcan also create the additional
spaces of service.
Elements that an organizationmight want, and those can be
discreet by occupier.
So there's a lot of changesgoing on in the office world as
(23:54):
to what's being done in theoffices, how they're being
serviced, what you get when yougo to the office and, you know,
what you get if you don't go tothe office.
So there's thousands of thingswe could talk about
Kaleem (24:05):
so when you talk about hospitality, where do you, like,
to me I feel kind of torn when Ihear about this concept because
it's like, we understand thatthat employers want employees to
go back into the office.
And then obviously thelandlords, the owners of the
buildings want more people inthere.
but it seems to me just spendinga lot of money on things to try
(24:26):
to lure people in seems kind ofcounterproductive and really, I
feel like kind of short sightedbecause it's like, well, that's
going to be great for a littlewhile.
Kind of like the honeymoonperiod.
Like it's great for a littleBob, but what happens when that
wears off?
So like has there been so muchtalk about hospitality and
(24:46):
treating it more like a hotel,like why is there a ton of talk
like that, you
Francis (24:50):
Well, I think that's what occupiers really want.
They want to be able to figureout a way to reduce their
commitments, but at the sametime, improve the environment
for their people so they'll comein.
I mean, occupiers still, youknow, this is still dominated by
boomer types, like me, who, Youknow, have grown up in that
environment as opposed to Jenny.
You don't have any Gen Zpresidents yet.
(25:11):
Okay.
So the mindset is to do thingsthe way they had been done.
I think it'll get better withGen X.
And certainly when millennialstake over, you'll see a lot more
creativity in how this is done.
But, I mean, it's the commute isthe thing that, that really
throws everything under the busbecause the average cost of the
commute.
Somewhere around a thousanddollars a month, 1, 200 a month.
And in some cases, a lot more,some cases, less.
(25:33):
But if you're telling anemployee out of after tax money
to spend 12, 000 a year to cometo this office when I could be
doing the same thing at the, youknow, in my spare bedroom,
you've got to have a rationale.
So what's going to make what'sgoing to be attractive to get
them back other than beingemployed.
You know, depending on where themarket is for employment, having
amenities and, you know, foodand entertainment is helpful,
(25:57):
but it doesn't overcome thecommute and the cost.
Frankly, in most cases, plusyou'd have the flexibility that
many single moms are married.
If you have children, or if youhave adults, parents and
relatives who are, you know,need some care, you got to be
much more flexible.
So, I mean, that's where we findmost organizations that are
moving in that direction areprogressive and they're coming
(26:19):
up with ways to make that workfor their organizations.
It also obviously works for theemployees and there tends to be
a lot more loyalty, employeeretention is higher and,
recruiting is much, much easierif you have a flexible work
environment.
Rick (26:34):
Well, I mean, we all think remote is great, but often the
downside is connection, right?
Um, how do you think, yeah, Iknow you agree, Kaleem, how do
you think these office spaceswill be transformed to satisfy
that often lack of connectionwith people?
Francis (26:52):
I, I think, you know, the office still carries the
burden of the, in-personcollaboration on whatever.
Okay.
And it's there.
And that kind of, that's alogical role for the office.
we know the collaboration rangesfrom anywhere from 10% to 30%,
maybe, maybe a little more ofpeople's general work activity.
So you've got 70%, or more that,you know, you would rather be
(27:15):
doing someplace where you didn'thave a lot of interruptions and,
you know, where the, thefacilities would be different if
that's what you were doing.
So, it's a challenging question,I think, for occupiers.
A challenging question forcertainly for anybody in real
estate and the same thing with,uh, you know, if you're
developing a strategy, how doesthat fit?
How do you make it fit?
And how does it change overtime?
I mean, even since the pandemic,so in four years, things have
(27:39):
changed a lot.
Okay.
Uh, and we can only imagine wecan only imagine what's gonna
happen between now and the endof the decade.
But what we do see is that theamount of real estate that's now
being required being demanded bythe users, okay, is shrinking,
and it's getting much moreflexible.
The days of 15 year leases arekind of over.
(28:01):
Okay, and if you look at thestats, if you look at the
national stats on the rolloversof leases, and you plug in at
the beginning of 2020, thenumber of leases that had, you
know, 50, 000 square feet orbigger those on average had a
remaining term of about 11years.
And that represents nationallyabout 300 to 350Million square
(28:24):
feet of space.
Kaleem (28:25):
Okay.
Francis (28:26):
Those spaces are going to be rolling over the next.
Five, six years.
Kaleem (28:30):
Oh my gosh.
You mean Those leases are up
Francis (28:32):
and the CFO is going to say, Hallelujah!
Rick (28:35):
Yeah.
Francis (28:36):
I just saved 15 million dollars and that's big.
You know, that'll happen.
That will happen.
And, you know, that's aside fromany other shock, any other
economic situation, you know,collapse in the stock market,
major recession, war, any ofthose things that happened.
And those would also have impactas well, but
Rick (28:53):
Well, you mentioned, you know, economic, sorry to
interrupt.
You mentioned economic impactand what are your thoughts on
some of the, uh, more creative,like repurposing of some of
these corporate spaces?
I mean, are we going to be at apoint where it's, we're looking
at, you know, boutiques andAirbnbs that have been
(29:13):
repurposed from corporateenvironments or, you know, what
are your thoughts on some ofthose?
Francis (29:17):
Well, I think to a large extent in the legacy
office environment, you know, Isaid this, uh, maybe a year or
so ago, if I was 20 yearsyounger, I would become a
demolition contractor.
Cause I think you're going tomake a lot of money in the
demolition business over thenext 10 to 15 years.
I think a large share of thelegacy office stock is
basically.
It's not only functionallyobsolete, but it's use is, is
(29:40):
totally evaporated.
Keep in mind when those, thesebuildings were built, every
building that now existsbasically was designed, even the
new ones, right?
But even they're better andthey're better environmentally,
et cetera.
They were all designed under theconcept that everybody gets
together in one place, you know,it was big, it was deep cores.
It was a totally different use.
Kaleem (29:59):
offices.
Tons of cubicle space.
Francis (30:02):
Right, right.
So you have big floor plates,which.
You know, as a, as an occupier,when that was in vogue, it was
very helpful.
You could do a lot ofinteresting things there, but
today, you know, those buildingsdon't convert well to condos or
apartment, we just don't, butyou got a lot of space you can't
use.
What can you do in there?
Well, you can do verticalfarming, or you can do the blind
(30:23):
association, or you can do otherpeople who don't really care
about looking outside.
And there are people who, youknow, don't want to look
outside, but.
Most people do.
So it's a problem
Kaleem (30:33):
Right.
Francis (30:34):
you can fix them, but the cost of making those
changes.
Kaleem (30:37):
outside.
Francis (30:38):
Yeah.
that's actually, you know, theyhave these new technologies.
So helpful because they makethese exterior windows that are
actually TVs and they fit on thewall and they look like a window
and the, and you actually havethat camera on the outside.
So you see exactly what youwould see if you were, if that
was a window,
Kaleem (30:52):
Right.
it's a wall, yeah.
It's a camera.
It's a camera on the outside ofthe bill.
It's sick.
Rick (30:58):
Oh my god.
Kaleem (30:59):
Yeah.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
Francis (31:01):
Oh, I mean, you could do that on a boat.
That would be a good thing foran inside cabin, you know, when
Kaleem (31:06):
Definitely.
Francis (31:06):
a wall there with a picture of the outside,
Kaleem (31:09):
but yeah, I hear what you're saying.
I, Fran, I think I agree withwhat you're saying.
A lot of these buildings, and Ithink downtown's a part of this
association where they talkabout city planning and the
future of how to get traffic inand out of the city and how,
whether they should use, youknow, public transportation,
(31:30):
Rideshare all that stuff andgreen space.
Downtown's are, the new it, youknow, Pittsburgh has a really
new downtown project that theydid.
And it's all about walkabilityand connectivity.
So I'm right.
there with you.
I could see people knocking downskyscrapers that were built in
the fifties and sixties andhaving, you know, new green
(31:51):
space and some of these newmixed use spaces.
That people are developing anddesigning are, absolutely
amazing.
You know, with restaurants,coworking spaces.
I mean,
Francis (32:03):
And you can do that in an existing structure, but it's,
it's more complicated and itmakes it much more expensive.
But we won't see as much of thatas, as some people would like to
see.
I mean, everybody would like tosee a way out, but I think for
this, uh, it reminds me of, um,I don't know if you've ever
seen, there's a video, done byMercedes called the journey that
changed everything.
It's on YouTube.
(32:23):
If you haven't seen it, it's astory of Bertha Benz, who was
the wife of the guy who startedMercedes Benz.
And it's a story about, and thisis a true story, about how in
1883 or something like that,they had a prototype, the first
car, and, She was so hyped up onthe car, she decided she was
going to go to meet her parentswere about 180 kilometers away
(32:46):
and she took the car with two ofher Children and started
driving.
And you just have to watch thevideo.
It's the birth of Ben's journeythat changed everything because
that's, I think, where we arewith office buildings.
We think about work When we saywe're going to do work, are you
going to go to the office?
You know, because the office wasthe heart of work.
(33:06):
That's where everything emanatedfrom.
And that's been the case for,you know, a hundred years.
A hundred years ago, it was apaper environment.
Today, there's no paper in anyoffice anymore.
Really.
You have, you know, maybe atrash can for little note
papers, but people don't printout paper anywhere near that
where they did.
They don't scan it.
It's all digital.
Okay.
So you can be anywhere.
So now the heart of the, ofwork, It's not in the office.
(33:29):
It's in the cloud and you haveto start thinking that way.
Okay.
So if you're a bright CEO orCFO, you've got to be thinking
about five years from now, 10years from now, how is this work
going to be done and what shouldwe commit to?
You're not going to sign a 15 or20 year lease on anything.
Okay.
Cause the rate of change is nowexponential and we haven't even
(33:51):
talked about AI and we'reprobably
Kaleem (33:52):
Never enough time for
Rick (33:57):
AI.
Kaleem (33:57):
AI.
Okay.
Rick (34:03):
tell us about a comical or inspiring moment you had while
working remotely?
Francis (34:08):
Sure.
It won't be as good as thehooker story.
Um, but I will tell you when Ifirst started, this is now in
the last century, cause I goback a long time,
Kaleem (34:19):
Okay.
Francis (34:19):
when I first had my business, right.
Kaleem (34:21):
So what year just what year?
Yeah, give us give us thesetting where we at
Francis (34:25):
1994.
Kaleem (34:26):
Oh shit, okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm pimping.
I think I have a six pack Well,not a six pack but a two pack at
this point.
I have a two pack bro.
Francis (34:36):
So anyway, so I started this business is just me, you
know, I quit, I went, you know,I started opened up, and I'm
sitting in the same roomactually in the same house.
We've been in the same house allthe time.
It's great house.
But we have two small children.
Now, my son would be about twoor three and my daughter was one
and we had the world's.
best nanny.
We somehow found this woman whowas a, she was a grandmother
(34:59):
type person and she did awonderful job with the kids.
She did everything, did thelaundry.
But so we, and we were reallysorry to lose her after about
five years.
But so the kids would be in thedownstairs with the nanny who
would be, you know, entertainingthem and feeding them and doing
whatever you could do with kids,which is a lot of fun stuff.
So occasionally my son wouldkind of escape and call up the
(35:20):
stairs.
And knock on the door, you know,cause the door would be closing.
Daddy, you know, daddy.
So I remember this one time,there was a new client,
prospect.
We were just about to do thedeal with that.
And of course at that, in thatperiod, sounding like you were
working, we're working andweren't working in an office,
you're working in a home whowould want to deal with that
guy.
You know, you started in anoffice, right?
(35:41):
It was a big push for me to goto the office, figure out how to
finance that.
But the door knocked and I, youknow, explained that I thought
my son was downstairs.
He
Kaleem (35:51):
you're on a car you're on a call.
because there's no vid.
There's no, video back
Francis (35:55):
no, nobody.
This is the phone call,speakerphone, I think.
And, so, you know, the clientsaid, Nope, don't worry about
it.
It's not a problem.
So he left.
And then, you know, Actually,about the next week at about the
same time, somehow he did thesame thing.
And I'm on this, on the phonewith this same client and I
thought he was going to getreally irritated, you know, and
he's like, no, no, no, bring himin.
(36:15):
I want to talk to him, you know,so I bring my son and he has
this conversation.
Damn, if he didn't sign thecontract.
So,
Rick (36:25):
you a solid!
Francis (36:27):
yeah, so I didn't, well I, you know, what do you, you
know, it was just, it was funstuff and you know, who are you,
are you working with my daddy?
You know?
It was just a, it was a greatmemory
Rick (36:38):
that's precious.
Francis (36:39):
but that's a long time ago today.
Now you have, if you have achild to come to you to put him
on the video
Kaleem (36:43):
yeah.
Yeah, but I mean just thinkingabout 94 like the conference
call how intense it was, youknow, like you had it in the
middle of your thing you justput it on speakerphone and you
were still remote.
You're still
Francis (36:58):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're gonna be so much better inthe future.
You're gonna have holograms,they're gonna be great.
Rick (37:04):
oh.
Francis (37:05):
You're not going to have cars.
The car is going to pick you upwith the right class car for
wherever you're going.
It's going to be such awonderful world.
Hope
Rick (37:13):
We're really looking forward to that.
So friend, where can ourlisteners and viewers find you?
Kaleem (37:19):
Yeah.
Fran's
Francis (37:23):
come over,
Rick (37:24):
where you are.
You're going to be where you'reat.
Francis (37:26):
me up in the phone.
Kaleem (37:27):
is no, I'm just
Rick (37:28):
There.
Francis (37:28):
No, I say, um, uh, a couple of places that you can go
to LinkedIn.
A lot of people watching are onLinkedIn.
It's Fran dash Saele, uh, youknow, linkedin.
com.
I am, and then Fran Saele, uh,you just put in Fran or Francis
Sally.
I usually come up there.
That's okay.
we have a website, but we'reredoing it.
But you can come in and leave amessage there.
(37:49):
It should be up in about a monthor so, maybe two months,
mortevita.
com.
M O R T E V I T A dot com.
And of course there's email too.
If someone wants to email me,they can do that.
That's on the website or it's onLinkedIn.
You can get the email
Rick (38:02):
Cool.
Kaleem (38:03):
Great.
Rick (38:03):
Well, we cannot thank you enough.
What an episode.
Kaleem (38:06):
Great time, Fran.
Thank you so much.
Well,
Francis (38:10):
but you know,
Kaleem (38:11):
I don't think we'll get.
Good point.
Good point.
Can we, we'll find out.
We'll find out if it.
passes the YouTube thing.
Rick (38:16):
heh
Francis (38:17):
It's a good thing we didn't talk about OJ Simpson.
That's all I got to say.
Kaleem (38:19):
that's a very good point.
You are from Buffalo.
We are from Buffalo.
But thank you so much, man, somuch knowledge in here.
Really appreciate it, man.
Come back anytime.
So, uh, yeah, we'll talk to you,uh, soon, man.
Appreciate you.
Francis (38:32):
It's a fun time.
Thank you very much for theopportunity.
Great
Rick (38:34):
Yes.
Francis (38:35):
you for an hour.
Rick (38:36):
Oh, likewise.
Thank you.
Hi guys,
Kaleem (00:00):
How are you doing, man?
Francis (00:01):
I'm doing great.
By the way, I have a headsetthat I can switch to, but I
frequently do these podcastswith just the Yeti mic and,
Rick (00:09):
As long as there's no echo on our end, you should be good.
Francis (00:12):
Do you hear anything?
Kaleem (00:13):
No, I don't hear anything.
I think you sound great.
Francis (00:15):
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, don't, don't get over, youknow, overwhelmed.
It's early in this project.
Rick (00:20):
We are known for not getting
Kaleem (00:22):
don't get overwhelmed by my beauty.
I get you.
I get
Francis (00:25):
Well, no, no, you are.
I'll tell you, you've got thebest smile on LinkedIn.
Kaleem (00:30):
Oh, here we go.
Here we go,
Francis (00:32):
how does he do that?
You know, cause I mean, we sortof have the same thing that it,
mine doesn't come through.
I don't know why it must beolder teeth.
Kaleem (00:40):
You're going to make me put that slow music on.
We're going to
Francis (00:43):
good.
That's
Kaleem (00:44):
baby.
We're going to slow dance.
Rick (00:54):
Welcome back everybody to remotely one I am your co host,
Rick Haney, joined by myesteemed colleague, Kaleem
Clarkson.
What's shakin brother?
Look at you all dancing over
Kaleem (01:05):
Oh, pointing to myself.
I'm feeling good, baby.
How you doing, baby?
You looking
Rick (01:09):
I'm pumped up.
I'm pumped up.
We've been laughing so muchalready on this show.
Today's gonna be, it's what welike to call, folks, a real
doozy.
Kaleem (01:17):
doozy.
A
Rick (01:19):
A wicked doozy, as they say up north.
Yeah,
Kaleem (01:22):
percent dude.
Rick (01:23):
yeah, yeah.
So hey everybody, since you knowus, you know how to find us now,
do us a huge favor and go toratethispodcast.
com forward slash remotely oneand just leave us a review.
That's all we ask.
Not a big deal.
Not a huge time commitment.
If you could do that for us, wewould be ever so grateful.
Since Since 2015, Remotely OneIs one of the largest
(01:45):
communities of remote workprofessionals, with over 3, 500
Slack members and 5, 000 emailsubscribers.
Really?
Man, we are going places.
We are going places.
It is free to join.
Go check it out at remotelyone.
com.
And with that out of the way,Kaleem, my brother from another
mother.
(02:05):
Give us a tease or two abouttoday's guest.
Kaleem (02:09):
sweet Mickey Mickey.
Let me tell you about our guesttoday, man.
Let me tell you about our guesttoday.
Our guests, they are originallyfrom Buffalo, New York.
So they know about that snow,son.
Rick (02:22):
Oh, don't we all, don't we
Kaleem (02:24):
yes we do, but they currently reside in Cincinnati,
Ohio.
Let's see what else, what elsewe got here for our guests.
Our guests today, they hold anMBA in finance and a BS in
psychology.
So they're up in their mind.
They could tell you how you'refeeling, but they
Rick (02:40):
lot of thinking going on.
Kaleem (02:41):
numbers.
They can also crunch numbers.
Um, let's see.
Oh, our guests, they are acorporate real estate,
commercial real estateprofessional.
They built a startup earlier intheir career that was acquired
by CBRE.
Just a little real estatecompany, CBRE, just a tiny
Rick (03:01):
I May have heard of
Kaleem (03:02):
company.
Let's see.
They've held various leadershiproles at different real estate
companies, such as Newmarkgroup, another company, it's
tiny, a consultant companycalled.
No big deal.
No big deal.
No big deal.
Rick, what are we doing?
Is the question.
What are we
Rick (03:22):
Uh, n not enough.
Kaleem (03:24):
not enough.
Let's see.
What else about I guess?
There's just so much good shitabout I guess.
Oh, something, some things mostpeople don't know about I guess.
They once sunk, almost sunk, a450 foot long lake freighter.
Are you kidding me?
And that shit moved cement,Rick.
It was a cement lake freighterthat, they've almost sunk!
Rick (03:46):
that ain't coming back up if you let it go.
Kaleem (03:50):
It's down.
It's down.
Rick (03:52):
not coming back up for breakfast.
Kaleem (03:54):
Yup.
And, and Rick, Rick, this isjust, we definitely gotta learn
more about this.
Something A lot of people don'tknow about, I guess something
else is that our guests, youknow, they had to save money for
college, Rick, they had to payfor college and they spent a
summer as a hooker, Rick, ahooker.
Rick (04:13):
Okay little unorthodox, but we'll get to
Kaleem (04:16):
we'll get to that.
We'll get to that.
Let's see our guests today.
They are a thought leader.
In the emerging world ofdistributing work.
That's what we connected.
Transformation of work in theworkplace.
And he's just always publishedin all of these different places
and how corporate, real estateand the office kind of build
(04:36):
that environment.
Right.
Our guest today now serves asthe managing principal of Morta
Vita, an integrator ofworkplace, real estate, and
technology that servicescommercial clients,
Rick (04:51):
Okay.
Kaleem (04:52):
listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to
Francis.
Let
Francis (05:04):
Kaleem, Kaleem, did you go to the old school of
introductions or what?
I like that.
I
Kaleem (05:19):
me calm down, calm down studio on it.
Shut up.
Rick (05:21):
hey studio audience we got a job to do here people
Kaleem (05:25):
Thank you, Francis, Fran.
Francis (05:27):
Kaleem, I havee to tell you, I checked and I have my
mouse in my pocket.
So when you referred to me aswe, and they, and all my
pronouns are right.
So
Kaleem (05:34):
Yes.
Yes.
Well, we can't give away.
We can't give away who our guestis.
You know what I
Rick (05:40):
Oh, the edification is like the whole point The whole
thing here, right?
We want to make sure you arepumped up and
Kaleem (05:46):
but really appreciate you, man.
I, you know, I connecting withyou on LinkedIn.
I feel like I've known you for20 years.
You post a lot of great.
Content, man.
And I.
just appreciate you joining uson the show, man.
Oh,
Rick (05:59):
as do I.
Francis (06:00):
Yeah.
Well, thank you both.
Great to be here.
And I, and I've always enjoyedthis show.
I think it's kind of a fun placeto go when you need to improve
your attitude, you want to getup, you tune in here.
Rick (06:11):
Oh,
Kaleem (06:12):
you baby.
Rick (06:12):
much.
Kaleem (06:14):
what we're trying to do.
Rick (06:15):
That was the bolster of
Kaleem (06:16):
remote work.
And if you need to lighten upyour day, you start this show.
If you're sitting there workingremotely or hybrid or wherever,
you can start your day off witha couple of dudes from Maine.
Rick (06:28):
yeah.
Eat that Kathy Lee and Hoda.
We're coming for y'all.
And most importantly, I gottaknow.
I gotta know.
What was it like being a hooker?
Francis (06:38):
Oh, you want to start with the hooker?
Well, uh, you know, I know thatsounds bad, but, but there is
hope for hookers and actuallyhookers, hookers are doing
pretty well, even, even in theold days when, when I had to do
this.
But, actually this was not thehooker that everybody's thinking
about, unfortunately.
And I have the job and somewhereI can bring it out.
But, uh, this was a summer jobthat I was able to get at
(07:00):
Republic steel, just South ofBuffalo, New York.
And he used to take a bus everyday down there to go to the end
was a midnight shift.
We worked 6 days a week,midnight to 8.
And it was a, it was actually abar mill.
They created bars of steel andthen they take the bars and they
wrap them up.
And they would put them in astorage area until they were
shipped.
Okay, and how did the steel getfrom the storage bins, which
(07:24):
were huge, loaded with differentkinds of steel and different
customers.
They're all sold waiting to beshipped.
Kaleem (07:30):
Okay.
Francis (07:31):
send out a technician who had one assistant.
So there were, you know, aboutfive or six teams like this.
And we went out and these, youknow, steel barns, we found the
steel usually wasn't where itwas supposed to be.
You had to find it.
And then you had to lift thesteel up.
Those were overhead cranes,right?
And the primary guy would putthe first side on and they would
(07:54):
lift it up.
So this is, you know, Tons ofsteel hanging up like this with
other things right around it.
And then my job was to reachunderneath this, the, this
bundle of bars with a long hookand hook the chain and then hook
the chain on the time this side,and then
Kaleem (08:12):
hook!
Francis (08:13):
it's, it is the hook.
That's right.
Kaleem (08:14):
So you were called the hooker because you had to hook
the steel!
Francis (08:18):
That that's exactly right.
Kaleem (08:20):
Oh, there it is, baby.
Rick (08:22):
Well, don't I feel like a horse's patoot?
Francis (08:25):
I've been to union.
I had all the union protections,you know, with all that stuff.
But I'll tell you a couple oftimes, more than once, I'd say
four or five times, the guy putthe bar up, bars up, and I would
go in there with my hook.
And all of a sudden somethingslipped off and, you know, boom.
So if you were too far under thebars, you could lose a lot.
Kaleem (08:43):
Mm.
Mm.
Francis (08:44):
was a great job.
And yeah.
Kaleem (08:46):
job!
Francis (08:47):
No, I mean, you
Kaleem (08:48):
Not
Rick (08:48):
cost me an arm and a leg, but it was a great job.
Francis (08:51):
that there's a lot of relaxation on the midnight
shift.
We started at maybe 1230 thatdid one or two loads.
And we came back, it was timefor lunch, you know, so you
went, what do you eat at four inthe morning?
and then you would go back andmaybe do one other load then
wait for the sun to come up.
So it wasn't really thatintense, but when you got out
there, you had to really beawake,
Kaleem (09:09):
Yes, you did.
You sure did.
So take that, Richard Gere,okay?
Take that, Julia Roberts.
Rick (09:16):
you're not the heroes you think
Kaleem (09:18):
you're not saving our guest today, Richard Gere, okay?
He was lifting steel, son.
Rick (09:29):
all that aside.
Thank you for sporting ourjuvenile sense of humor.
Kaleem (09:33):
mean, everyone was thinking it.
Everyone was thinking it.
So we had to get it out of theway.
Rick (09:37):
Of course, of course, of course, you know, we know that
was a long time ago and you'vehad a host of professional
experiences since then, and, uh,obviously these times we're in,
everybody knows the pandemicchanged the entire work
landscape, but more specificallythe emergence of distributed
(09:59):
work has had a dramatic effecton physical office space.
Can you talk to us about some ofthose challenges and how they're
being addressed?
Francis (10:08):
Well, that's a great question actually.
And you know, when people talkabout workplace, maybe just get
into it with this comment.
The workplace, when you thoughtabout workplace before 2020, And
this was a fun corporateservices function that everybody
in real estate knew about.
Basically, what workplacemanagement was decide how big a
space you needed for whateverthe team was.
(10:29):
And as that lease came up forrenewal, they would figure out
maybe how many more people theyexpect to add over the next
three, five years, add that allup and then say, okay, instead
of 80 people, we need a spacefor 120 people go out and find a
space.
And you go out and find a spaceand you'd lay it out and that's
it.
That's it.
That was all workplace was.
Okay.
Workplaces become much, muchmore complicated and that's not,
(10:52):
although that function stillexists.
It's a very late decision as towhere you go exactly in terms of
an office environment.
But to your question, I thinkclearly the office has changed
quite a bit in terms of what itdoes.
And frankly, I think there is nosingle answer yet.
I don't think there's nodefinitive answer and there may
(11:13):
never be, you know, the officeis designed to do this.
My sense is that for differentorganizations, the office does
different things.
But other things are goneelsewhere.
They've gone into thedistributed environment.
They've gone to homes, they'vegone to third places.
They've gone to other, you know,coworking places.
It's a really, an evolution thatis extraordinary and I'm looking
forward to somebody writing areally good book about this.
(11:35):
I'm sure there'll be several.
Okay.
But to your question, whathappens to the real estate that
exists?
This is a kind of a problem forcertainly it's a problem for
most landlords, but it's also aproblem for the occupiers whose
people are now not there allthat much.
You know, most organizations areoperating on some type of hybrid
schedule, or they may be in theoffice two, two and a half,
(11:57):
three days a week, maybe, maybenot.
Some of that's enforced, some ofit isn't.
So you don't really need as muchspace as you.
As you had before, that's onething.
The second thing is that whenyou are asked to come into an
office, what do you do there?
You know, I mean, you see a lotof complaints about people who
spend an hour and a half takinga train into an office to sit
there on a zoom call that theycould have done, you know, from
(12:19):
their next, next room in theirhome.
So, there are all kinds ofthings like that going on which
suggests that the role of theoffice and where the office is.
Okay.
Or should be, are changing and Ithink that's a couple of the big
things that are happening in mymind, but about legacy office
real estate is that historicallymost of it was centered in a
downtown area.
(12:39):
Yes, there was suburban nodes,but still, you know, the biggest
node was downtown and thedowntown area while central in
the community is likely to bethe farthest away from most
people who.
Tend to live remotely.
So over time, my sense is thatas the office requirement,
whatever that is grows.
It's probably not going to growwhere the existing legacy stock
(13:00):
of office exists.
Now, I think we'll see officeemerging in places that are more
certainly closer to whereemployees are.
It's the Adam Newman concept offlow where, you know, you would
have.
Where you go to, to collaboratewith people in person, fairly
close to where you live andwhere you shop and where you go
(13:21):
to the show or whatever.
So these nodes are going toemerge.
I'd like to call them centralliving districts.
The central business districtis, is really up in the air in
terms of what's going to happenthere.
I mean, there's a sense of whatpeople moving into conversions
of office to residential, other,um, uses, but those are very
difficult to pull off.
And they're expensive and.
(13:41):
And we've seen some of that, butit's not going to be an
opportunity for everybody.
Kaleem (13:46):
Fran, let me ask you.
So you start your career.
I'm just kind of curious.
Francis (13:53):
Okay.
I
Kaleem (13:54):
you know,
Francis (13:55):
do
Kaleem (13:56):
transition your career.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So, you know, you kind of startoff your career and You build a
great startup and it getsacquired by CBRE and you start
working for them.
And you're finding spaces kindof like what you explain for
companies, right?
And you're doing that, but thenall of a sudden pandemic
(14:17):
happens.
And probably even a little bitbefore the pandemic, you were
probably starting to see alittle bit of a shift towards
some flexibility from even a,you know, some of the tech
sector and some other sectors,but how did you as a Commercial
real estate professional, howdid you embrace this idea of
remote work and workplaceflexibility when it's obviously
(14:39):
impacting your career and yourpocket specifically, like, like
how, and why do you feel thisneed or this desire to talk
about workplace flexibility as aperson who manages these spaces?
Francis (14:56):
that's an interesting question.
I will tell you at the time thishappened.
I was working in Dallas andlived in Dallas for 2, 3 years.
We had a team in Dallas, a USteam in Dallas and a team in
Pittsburgh.
But then about half of thepeople we work with were
overseas.
We outsourced a great deal ofprocessing work to the
Philippines and, India.
(15:17):
And what happened, it was aninteresting evolution of
thinking because.
Uh, when I started the job,everybody came to the office all
the time, but if you live inDallas, I don't know how
familiar you are with Dallastraffic.
But we had a lot of people thatwere driving an hour, hour and a
half, some even more than thateach way every morning, on the
(15:38):
highways in and around where wewere, which was on the Dallas
North freeway.
If you know the city.
And the first event thathappened actually, I think the
one or two people who came to,they came in and said, we have a
problem.
We like working here andeverything, but you're our
competitor had offered to letthem do the same job from home
because they could do all thework from home on a computer.
Kaleem (16:00):
What year is This Fran roughly?
Just
Francis (16:02):
This is, let's see, 2017.
Kaleem (16:05):
wow.
So like before this is not
Francis (16:08):
Oh, this is yeah.
They're way before the pandemic.
Kaleem (16:10):
wow.
Okay.
Francis (16:11):
And we said, well, you know, we would be okay with
maybe you, you staying workingfrom home one day a week.
It's the same evolution.
It just happened earlier one daya week or two days a week.
So you're, there's a negotiationgoing on with individual
employees and then the employeesstart talking amongst each other
and say, Hey, who's this guy?
And that, so then so we lostthat person really good.
And about a month later, anotherperson came in and said the same
(16:33):
thing.
And I think it was a differentcompetitor because there were a
lot of competitors in Dallas.
It's a big MSA.
Kaleem (16:38):
so competition is offering.
So just to clarify competitionis offering remote and
flexibility and people areleaving your company.
Francis (16:48):
right.
Because, you know, it's nottraditional.
I mean, you know, Newmark is agreat company, by the way.
This is a,
Kaleem (16:54):
yeah,
Francis (16:54):
uh, I don't want to talk too much about the company,
but they're very traditional NewYork and, and they're, you know,
really polished, professionalsthere.
And so the mindset of thecompany is, well, you know,
every place you go, it's suitand tie and everything, and you
have to be together.
And the idea of working remotelywas foreign at the time,
frankly.
And actually for computers, theywould buy desktops so you
(17:15):
couldn't take them out.
You had to come to the officeand do your work, right?
Okay.
It's a corporate strategy at thetime.
And again, that's not a put downof the company, but we did have
people on some notebooks andthose are the people who became
vulnerable because they could,you know, if you didn't need a,
I mean, if you had a notebook,you could do it, but Why
couldn't I do it?
Because someone in New York saidno.
So, after the second personleft, we decided, well, we know
(17:38):
if we should experiment withthis ourselves.
And so we had a team thatfigured out a strategy because a
lot of the work actually wasbeing done.
In the air, you know, in Asia,so it didn't really make any
difference where you were whenyou had that communication with
them.
But anyway, so we decidedbasically that we would take,
you know, most of the staff,including the management staff
(18:02):
and allow them to work fromhome.
So I remember when I left in2020, cause I was in Dallas in
March of 2020.
If you remember the messageswere coming out, get out.
Cause there won't be any flightsavailable after Friday.
You know, it's one of thosemessages, by that time in the
pandemic, We only had two orthree people that would came in
on a regular basis, one to openthe mail, basically, and another
(18:24):
one who lived fairly close.
Everybody else was working fromhome.
So we got through that and, butthen we figured, tried to figure
out new ways to operate with ourpeople who weren't there all the
time.
We would have a monthly, gettogether, would be a lunch and
learn, or it would be a, sometype of meeting, or we would
create teams to get togetherperiodically.
So we were able to stay in touchand we sort of had primordial,
(18:45):
you know, distributed workideas, which since have matured
quite a bit.
But, so when the pandemic hit,it was pretty easy.
Everybody, by that time,everybody was in notebooks.
Hey guys, everybody go home.
And everybody said, fine.
So, That's how I got it.
I don't know if they answeredyour question.
Probably spent too much time onthat.
But at that point, I figured outthat what I have been doing for
(19:08):
the last 20 years wasinteresting and important and
everything.
But the interesting part of realestate and workplace was just
beginning and I wanted to beinvolved in that full time.
Speaker (19:18):
We'll be right back after these words.
2020 was no joke.
It changed the game foreveryone.
Workplace flexibility is nolonger a perk, but an
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In fact, a recent study showedthat a flexible schedule is more
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(21:01):
Alright, well that's a bit much,but for you, I'll do it.
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I'll tell your story the way youwant it told.
Follow along at Remotely We AreOne, or visit my website at
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(21:24):
And now, back to the show.
Rick (21:26):
So obviously lately, the sizzle term has been returned to
office, right?
A lot of these, corporations areliterally forcing people back to
work to, to the physical officespace.
Yeah, and we also hear a lotabout hospitality and offices
needing to improve on their youknow, operational hospitality.
(21:48):
What are your thoughts aboutthat conversation and the
concept overall?
Francis (21:54):
Well, I think what's happening now is there's, you
know, you start out in a binaryfashion and you wind up with
something in the middle.
it used to be you're in theoffice or you were at home.
Kaleem (22:03):
right.
right.
right.
That was hybrid bef before thepandemic hybrid was somebody in
the office Monday through Fridayworking in the office, and then
another subset of people thatwere fully remote.
You're
Francis (22:15):
Right.
So, but that's now morphed intosomething very different.
And, you know, for a lot ofreasons, occupiers, tenants are
very hesitant now to make bigcommitments.
As a matter of fact, when leasedspace that we just had, this
data came out a couple of weeksago from CoStar, it's of the
leases that had renewed in 2024,okay.
(22:37):
So more than half a year, therewas a reduction in space Total
space leased by those tenants intheir new space or wherever they
were in a renewal.
It went down by 17%.
Now, 17 percent
Kaleem (22:49):
That's,
Francis (22:50):
legacy market is about just under a billion square
feet.
So, all of a sudden, kind ofovernight, people are leasing.
You know, a considerably smalleramount of space, uh, you know,
that kind of makes sense.
If you don't really know what'sgoing to happen next, you don't
want to make long termcommitment.
So there's a pressure on to makethe commitment shorter.
(23:11):
And when you make the commitmentshorter, it becomes much more
difficult to finance those fromthe ownership side, the landlord
side.
So how does this work?
And you now have the, you know,the coworking firms and the flex
firm stepping in.
And they started out with, youknow, one approach to how they
financed it.
Now they're becoming much moreflexible and they're forming
partnerships with landlords tohelp, you know, spread the risk
(23:32):
and spread the return.
So there's an evolution there.
Those spaces, I suspect there'sgoing to be a lot more of those
because it's better to thetenants who, what the tenants
really want.
And when you're doing that, youcan also create the additional
spaces of service.
Elements that an organizationmight want, and those can be
discreet by occupier.
So there's a lot of changesgoing on in the office world as
(23:54):
to what's being done in theoffices, how they're being
serviced, what you get when yougo to the office and, you know,
what you get if you don't go tothe office.
So there's thousands of thingswe could talk about
Kaleem (24:05):
so when you talk about hospitality, where do you, like,
to me I feel kind of torn when Ihear about this concept because
it's like, we understand thatthat employers want employees to
go back into the office.
And then obviously thelandlords, the owners of the
buildings want more people inthere.
but it seems to me just spendinga lot of money on things to try
(24:26):
to lure people in seems kind ofcounterproductive and really, I
feel like kind of short sightedbecause it's like, well, that's
going to be great for a littlewhile.
Kind of like the honeymoonperiod.
Like it's great for a littleBob, but what happens when that
wears off?
So like has there been so muchtalk about hospitality and
(24:46):
treating it more like a hotel,like why is there a ton of talk
like that, you
Francis (24:50):
Well, I think that's what occupiers really want.
They want to be able to figureout a way to reduce their
commitments, but at the sametime, improve the environment
for their people so they'll comein.
I mean, occupiers still, youknow, this is still dominated by
boomer types, like me, who, Youknow, have grown up in that
environment as opposed to Jenny.
You don't have any Gen Zpresidents yet.
(25:11):
Okay.
So the mindset is to do thingsthe way they had been done.
I think it'll get better withGen X.
And certainly when millennialstake over, you'll see a lot more
creativity in how this is done.
But, I mean, it's the commute isthe thing that, that really
throws everything under the busbecause the average cost of the
commute.
Somewhere around a thousanddollars a month, 1, 200 a month.
And in some cases, a lot more,some cases, less.
(25:33):
But if you're telling anemployee out of after tax money
to spend 12, 000 a year to cometo this office when I could be
doing the same thing at the, youknow, in my spare bedroom,
you've got to have a rationale.
So what's going to make what'sgoing to be attractive to get
them back other than beingemployed.
You know, depending on where themarket is for employment, having
amenities and, you know, foodand entertainment is helpful,
(25:57):
but it doesn't overcome thecommute and the cost.
Frankly, in most cases, plusyou'd have the flexibility that
many single moms are married.
If you have children, or if youhave adults, parents and
relatives who are, you know,need some care, you got to be
much more flexible.
So, I mean, that's where we findmost organizations that are
moving in that direction areprogressive and they're coming
(26:19):
up with ways to make that workfor their organizations.
It also obviously works for theemployees and there tends to be
a lot more loyalty, employeeretention is higher and,
recruiting is much, much easierif you have a flexible work
environment.
Rick (26:34):
Well, I mean, we all think remote is great, but often the
downside is connection, right?
Um, how do you think, yeah, Iknow you agree, Kaleem, how do
you think these office spaceswill be transformed to satisfy
that often lack of connectionwith people?
Francis (26:52):
I, I think, you know, the office still carries the
burden of the, in-personcollaboration on whatever.
Okay.
And it's there.
And that kind of, that's alogical role for the office.
we know the collaboration rangesfrom anywhere from 10% to 30%,
maybe, maybe a little more ofpeople's general work activity.
So you've got 70%, or more that,you know, you would rather be
(27:15):
doing someplace where you didn'thave a lot of interruptions and,
you know, where the, thefacilities would be different if
that's what you were doing.
So, it's a challenging question,I think, for occupiers.
A challenging question forcertainly for anybody in real
estate and the same thing with,uh, you know, if you're
developing a strategy, how doesthat fit?
How do you make it fit?
And how does it change overtime?
I mean, even since the pandemic,so in four years, things have
(27:39):
changed a lot.
Okay.
Uh, and we can only imagine wecan only imagine what's gonna
happen between now and the endof the decade.
But what we do see is that theamount of real estate that's now
being required being demanded bythe users, okay, is shrinking,
and it's getting much moreflexible.
The days of 15 year leases arekind of over.
(28:01):
Okay, and if you look at thestats, if you look at the
national stats on the rolloversof leases, and you plug in at
the beginning of 2020, thenumber of leases that had, you
know, 50, 000 square feet orbigger those on average had a
remaining term of about 11years.
And that represents nationallyabout 300 to 350Million square
(28:24):
feet of space.
Kaleem (28:25):
Okay.
Francis (28:26):
Those spaces are going to be rolling over the next.
Five, six years.
Kaleem (28:30):
Oh my gosh.
You mean Those leases are up
Francis (28:32):
and the CFO is going to say, Hallelujah!
Rick (28:35):
Yeah.
Francis (28:36):
I just saved 15 million dollars and that's big.
You know, that'll happen.
That will happen.
And, you know, that's aside fromany other shock, any other
economic situation, you know,collapse in the stock market,
major recession, war, any ofthose things that happened.
And those would also have impactas well, but
Rick (28:53):
Well, you mentioned, you know, economic, sorry to
interrupt.
You mentioned economic impactand what are your thoughts on
some of the, uh, more creative,like repurposing of some of
these corporate spaces?
I mean, are we going to be at apoint where it's, we're looking
at, you know, boutiques andAirbnbs that have been
(29:13):
repurposed from corporateenvironments or, you know, what
are your thoughts on some ofthose?
Francis (29:17):
Well, I think to a large extent in the legacy
office environment, you know, Isaid this, uh, maybe a year or
so ago, if I was 20 yearsyounger, I would become a
demolition contractor.
Cause I think you're going tomake a lot of money in the
demolition business over thenext 10 to 15 years.
I think a large share of thelegacy office stock is
basically.
It's not only functionallyobsolete, but it's use is, is
(29:40):
totally evaporated.
Keep in mind when those, thesebuildings were built, every
building that now existsbasically was designed, even the
new ones, right?
But even they're better andthey're better environmentally,
et cetera.
They were all designed under theconcept that everybody gets
together in one place, you know,it was big, it was deep cores.
It was a totally different use.
Kaleem (29:59):
offices.
Tons of cubicle space.
Francis (30:02):
Right, right.
So you have big floor plates,which.
You know, as a, as an occupier,when that was in vogue, it was
very helpful.
You could do a lot ofinteresting things there, but
today, you know, those buildingsdon't convert well to condos or
apartment, we just don't, butyou got a lot of space you can't
use.
What can you do in there?
Well, you can do verticalfarming, or you can do the blind
(30:23):
association, or you can do otherpeople who don't really care
about looking outside.
And there are people who, youknow, don't want to look
outside, but.
Most people do.
So it's a problem
Kaleem (30:33):
Right.
Francis (30:34):
you can fix them, but the cost of making those
changes.
Kaleem (30:37):
outside.
Francis (30:38):
Yeah.
that's actually, you know, theyhave these new technologies.
So helpful because they makethese exterior windows that are
actually TVs and they fit on thewall and they look like a window
and the, and you actually havethat camera on the outside.
So you see exactly what youwould see if you were, if that
was a window,
Kaleem (30:52):
Right.
it's a wall, yeah.
It's a camera.
It's a camera on the outside ofthe bill.
It's sick.
Rick (30:58):
Oh my god.
Kaleem (30:59):
Yeah.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
Francis (31:01):
Oh, I mean, you could do that on a boat.
That would be a good thing foran inside cabin, you know, when
Kaleem (31:06):
Definitely.
Francis (31:06):
a wall there with a picture of the outside,
Kaleem (31:09):
but yeah, I hear what you're saying.
I, Fran, I think I agree withwhat you're saying.
A lot of these buildings, and Ithink downtown's a part of this
association where they talkabout city planning and the
future of how to get traffic inand out of the city and how,
whether they should use, youknow, public transportation,
(31:30):
Rideshare all that stuff andgreen space.
Downtown's are, the new it, youknow, Pittsburgh has a really
new downtown project that theydid.
And it's all about walkabilityand connectivity.
So I'm right.
there with you.
I could see people knocking downskyscrapers that were built in
the fifties and sixties andhaving, you know, new green
(31:51):
space and some of these newmixed use spaces.
That people are developing anddesigning are, absolutely
amazing.
You know, with restaurants,coworking spaces.
I mean,
Francis (32:03):
And you can do that in an existing structure, but it's,
it's more complicated and itmakes it much more expensive.
But we won't see as much of thatas, as some people would like to
see.
I mean, everybody would like tosee a way out, but I think for
this, uh, it reminds me of, um,I don't know if you've ever
seen, there's a video, done byMercedes called the journey that
changed everything.
It's on YouTube.
(32:23):
If you haven't seen it, it's astory of Bertha Benz, who was
the wife of the guy who startedMercedes Benz.
And it's a story about, and thisis a true story, about how in
1883 or something like that,they had a prototype, the first
car, and, She was so hyped up onthe car, she decided she was
going to go to meet her parentswere about 180 kilometers away
(32:46):
and she took the car with two ofher Children and started
driving.
And you just have to watch thevideo.
It's the birth of Ben's journeythat changed everything because
that's, I think, where we arewith office buildings.
We think about work When we saywe're going to do work, are you
going to go to the office?
You know, because the office wasthe heart of work.
(33:06):
That's where everything emanatedfrom.
And that's been the case for,you know, a hundred years.
A hundred years ago, it was apaper environment.
Today, there's no paper in anyoffice anymore.
Really.
You have, you know, maybe atrash can for little note
papers, but people don't printout paper anywhere near that
where they did.
They don't scan it.
It's all digital.
Okay.
So you can be anywhere.
So now the heart of the, ofwork, It's not in the office.
(33:29):
It's in the cloud and you haveto start thinking that way.
Okay.
So if you're a bright CEO orCFO, you've got to be thinking
about five years from now, 10years from now, how is this work
going to be done and what shouldwe commit to?
You're not going to sign a 15 or20 year lease on anything.
Okay.
Cause the rate of change is nowexponential and we haven't even
(33:51):
talked about AI and we'reprobably
Kaleem (33:52):
Never enough time for
Rick (33:57):
AI.
Kaleem (33:57):
AI.
Okay.
Rick (34:03):
tell us about a comical or inspiring moment you had while
working remotely?
Francis (34:08):
Sure.
It won't be as good as thehooker story.
Um, but I will tell you when Ifirst started, this is now in
the last century, cause I goback a long time,
Kaleem (34:19):
Okay.
Francis (34:19):
when I first had my business, right.
Kaleem (34:21):
So what year just what year?
Yeah, give us give us thesetting where we at
Francis (34:25):
1994.
Kaleem (34:26):
Oh shit, okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm pimping.
I think I have a six pack Well,not a six pack but a two pack at
this point.
I have a two pack bro.
Francis (34:36):
So anyway, so I started this business is just me, you
know, I quit, I went, you know,I started opened up, and I'm
sitting in the same roomactually in the same house.
We've been in the same house allthe time.
It's great house.
But we have two small children.
Now, my son would be about twoor three and my daughter was one
and we had the world's.
best nanny.
We somehow found this woman whowas a, she was a grandmother
(34:59):
type person and she did awonderful job with the kids.
She did everything, did thelaundry.
But so we, and we were reallysorry to lose her after about
five years.
But so the kids would be in thedownstairs with the nanny who
would be, you know, entertainingthem and feeding them and doing
whatever you could do with kids,which is a lot of fun stuff.
So occasionally my son wouldkind of escape and call up the
(35:20):
stairs.
And knock on the door, you know,cause the door would be closing.
Daddy, you know, daddy.
So I remember this one time,there was a new client,
prospect.
We were just about to do thedeal with that.
And of course at that, in thatperiod, sounding like you were
working, we're working andweren't working in an office,
you're working in a home whowould want to deal with that
guy.
You know, you started in anoffice, right?
(35:41):
It was a big push for me to goto the office, figure out how to
finance that.
But the door knocked and I, youknow, explained that I thought
my son was downstairs.
He
Kaleem (35:51):
you're on a car you're on a call.
because there's no vid.
There's no, video back
Francis (35:55):
no, nobody.
This is the phone call,speakerphone, I think.
And, so, you know, the clientsaid, Nope, don't worry about
it.
It's not a problem.
So he left.
And then, you know, Actually,about the next week at about the
same time, somehow he did thesame thing.
And I'm on this, on the phonewith this same client and I
thought he was going to getreally irritated, you know, and
he's like, no, no, no, bring himin.
(36:15):
I want to talk to him, you know,so I bring my son and he has
this conversation.
Damn, if he didn't sign thecontract.
So,
Rick (36:25):
you a solid!
Francis (36:27):
yeah, so I didn't, well I, you know, what do you, you
know, it was just, it was funstuff and you know, who are you,
are you working with my daddy?
You know?
It was just a, it was a greatmemory
Rick (36:38):
that's precious.
Francis (36:39):
but that's a long time ago today.
Now you have, if you have achild to come to you to put him
on the video
Kaleem (36:43):
yeah.
Yeah, but I mean just thinkingabout 94 like the conference
call how intense it was, youknow, like you had it in the
middle of your thing you justput it on speakerphone and you
were still remote.
You're still
Francis (36:58):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're gonna be so much better inthe future.
You're gonna have holograms,they're gonna be great.
Rick (37:04):
oh.
Francis (37:05):
You're not going to have cars.
The car is going to pick you upwith the right class car for
wherever you're going.
It's going to be such awonderful world.
Hope
Rick (37:13):
We're really looking forward to that.
So friend, where can ourlisteners and viewers find you?
Kaleem (37:19):
Yeah.
Fran's
Francis (37:23):
come over,
Rick (37:24):
where you are.
You're going to be where you'reat.
Francis (37:26):
me up in the phone.
Kaleem (37:27):
is no, I'm just
Rick (37:28):
There.
Francis (37:28):
No, I say, um, uh, a couple of places that you can go
to LinkedIn.
A lot of people watching are onLinkedIn.
It's Fran dash Saele, uh, youknow, linkedin.
com.
I am, and then Fran Saele, uh,you just put in Fran or Francis
Sally.
I usually come up there.
That's okay.
we have a website, but we'reredoing it.
But you can come in and leave amessage there.
(37:49):
It should be up in about a monthor so, maybe two months,
mortevita.
com.
M O R T E V I T A dot com.
And of course there's email too.
If someone wants to email me,they can do that.
That's on the website or it's onLinkedIn.
You can get the email
Rick (38:02):
Cool.
Kaleem (38:03):
Great.
Rick (38:03):
Well, we cannot thank you enough.
What an episode.
Kaleem (38:06):
Great time, Fran.
Thank you so much.
Well,
Francis (38:10):
but you know,
Kaleem (38:11):
I don't think we'll get.
Good point.
Good point.
Can we, we'll find out.
We'll find out if it.
passes the YouTube thing.
Rick (38:16):
heh
Francis (38:17):
It's a good thing we didn't talk about OJ Simpson.
That's all I got to say.
Kaleem (38:19):
that's a very good point.
You are from Buffalo.
We are from Buffalo.
But thank you so much, man, somuch knowledge in here.
Really appreciate it, man.
Come back anytime.
So, uh, yeah, we'll talk to you,uh, soon, man.
Appreciate you.
Francis (38:32):
It's a fun time.
Thank you very much for theopportunity.
Great
Rick (38:34):
Yes.
Francis (38:35):
you for an hour.
Rick (38:36):
Oh, likewise.
Thank you.
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