Lake Havasu City is transforming from a vacation destination known for boating to a thriving economic hub with innovative co-working spaces and forward-thinking developments. James Gray, Director of Economic Development, shares insights on how the city is evolving beyond its recreational reputation, particularly with expansion on the north side.
• Nomadic co-working space has maintained 100% office occupancy since opening, demonstrating strong demand for professional workspaces
• Post-pandemic work culture allows professionals to live in Lake Havasu while maintaining high-level careers with companies across the country
• The city's population of 63,000 residents (70,000 including unincorporated areas) is supplemented by 1.6 million tourists annually
• Today's demographic includes active 60-year-olds and 35-50 year old professionals seeking lifestyle balance, not just traditional retirees
• North Lake Havasu is experiencing rapid development with $30M in healthcare investment and innovative projects like "barn caves"
• The Paradyme storage and barn caves development will add approximately 730,000 square feet of built space
• Lake Havasu's economic backbone is entrepreneurial companies of 4-6 people rather than large employers
• Community-building initiatives like First Friday events have grown from small beginnings to attracting 42,000 people annually
We'd love to hear your questions about Lake Havasu's growth and economic development for future episodes. Let us know in the comments what topics you'd like us to explore next.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, ryan Garland here, founder and
chairman of Paradigm.
Thank you for watching ParadigmShift.
We are sponsored today by 10Day Doors and PMG and I'm
excited to have James Gray here.
He's the director of economicdevelopment here in Lake Havasu,
so it's an honor to have him,and we're just gonna kind of
create some banter today, reallyjust go back and forth about
what's going on in Lake Havasu.
I actually did not know this,but this was, I would say, what
(00:24):
do you call it?
A blind date?
Eric set us up right.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
And I did not know this until he got here.
But he is the guy behind thebrains, behind the nomadic,
which is kind of the we work ofthe town, and that really caught
my attention because thatbuilding was so well put
together and designed andcompletely occupied and with
office space changing and thepandemic and so forth and the
migration out here, it reallycaught my attention on the need
(00:49):
of that product here and anybodywho's really kind of
entrepreneurial side of thingsas you guys know, I'm a big fan
of seeing kind of forward-facing, technology-driven investments
and this guy's got a lot moreintel than I thought he would,
but he's been in the game for along time, so I'm just honored
to have you here.
So thanks again for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, it's exciting to be here and I love to talk
about Lake Havasu, especiallyfrom economic development, and
so we're really excited aboutyour project out here on the
north side and I look forward totalking to you about all types
of things on the north side andabout co-working and shared
(01:27):
spaces and collaboration.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, let's start with the co-working thing,
because I think that was justimpressive.
But you were so busy and Ithink Eric told me you guys are
thinking about going up a levelbecause right now it's a
one-story and you're thinkingabout going up because you need
more room.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, we've done really well.
We've been occupied 100% in theoffices since we've opened and
we're about 86%.
We've actually established evenmore memberships.
We have a new one called theFlex, where before we always
assumed people needed to beattached even to like a
(02:03):
dedicated desk, and now so manyof our people, by just creating
24 hour access to the spacewhere they can sit anywhere they
want but also book theamenities, that has been a
growing membership where peopleare like we have traveling.
People are like I'm only inyour town once a month, but when
I am I need to work there fivedays a week and I can't tell you
(02:25):
it's going to be nine to five,and so they start booking the
conference rooms and some of theother amenities.
They hold events there andthings like that.
So that's been a real effectivetool there.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Well, and the data supports that.
Though, with the pandemic andso many offices shutting down,
people will go.
I did.
I shut my office down inTemecula.
I went and moved myheadquarters to Nashville, fell
in love with Nashville, butdidn't reopen an office because
I not only was starting to hirepeople from all over the country
because of their talent, but Iwasn't shoveling everybody into
(02:59):
one office.
So I went and got a satelliteoffice.
So now I'm keeping my overheaddown, but I had a really nice
venue to bring clients to and ifI traveled, sometimes those
venues had other locations.
So because this is such a huge Iwould say migration area for
recreational use or you know,when it's really cold and
everybody you know they're backEast everybody comes out here
(03:20):
for the summer, cause it's 70degrees outside.
Everybody loves it out hereduring the winter.
But at the end of the day, whatI realized is that there's a
lot of there's a lot of need forthat and when I walked into
your office I felt like I was inmore of a modern city, because
the Lake Havasu kind of I wouldsay how do you want to put it?
(03:41):
People believe Lake Havasulikes to keep the development in
, like a certain box.
They're not very.
They haven't yet started comingout of their comfort zone and
allowing more of that innovationon the development side, just
quite yet.
I think you spearheaded it andwe're kind of coming in and
trailing you.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, one of the things I would say is what is
Lake Havasu known for?
It's probably more of liketequila and a blender and a boat
right, which is great.
We love that.
That's our shared product.
It's what put us on the map.
It's what brought MTV here,right.
It's an incredible place,whether you're in a side-by-side
or on a boat, like it'sfantastic.
We have events, we have allthat, but also in the modern
(04:21):
space, so many people especiallyfor employers that are chasing
talent.
If your average cost of puttingsomeone in an office in San
Francisco is almost $30,000 ayear just for electricity and
lights, and you're now in atalent game where you're chasing
few people that you think cando the task if you allow them to
(04:44):
live wherever they want andthen if you give them the right
tools where they can be in frontof screens, be on cameras.
We just not to brag, butNomadic just added for its main
conference room made it fullydigital in there, where you just
start it up, right.
Why do we do that?
Because everyone's not talkingto the people in the room.
(05:06):
They're talking to someoneoutside of the room, which is
really important.
It tells you where the marketis, and so people now have to
start working everywhere.
It's not just local, but yourlocal needs to react to the
whole marketplace and that's theworld.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, you know that we wanted, we were chasing more
talent than bodies that werelocal.
Where you know, back in the dayprior to the pandemic, you're
trying to hire people local withthe right talent.
So when I went to Nashville, Iwas finding people that with the
talent but they weren'tgeographically close to drive
other States.
So that's when I realized thatit was going to be a massive
movement, not only becauseoffice was shutting down, but my
(05:41):
company was thriving because Iwas able to bring on a better
caliber type of people.
So I think other employers areseeing that same thing.
So, regardless of where you'reat in the country, if you can
have a more professional setting, like the nomadic people are
going hey, I can be right hereand be on a boat at three
o'clock, but I can work fromseven to you know two and be on
my on the water.
So you kind of have everythingabout your, really everything
(06:08):
that you really want in life.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You know that lifestyle and then you be able
to work.
So I really appreciated thatmodel.
Yeah, one of the things that weadded is we were talking
earlier about what we learnedabout opening a co-work space.
So I work for a board ofdirectors and we wrote a plan
called Vision 2020.
That was a revitalization forthe whole town and one of the
things was to create anentrepreneurial hub, a co-work
(06:29):
space, a place whereentrepreneurs could come
together.
And so myself and we're only atwo-person organization we said,
great, let's get the building,let's do something.
And our board said hold on, Idon't think you know what you're
doing.
Why don't you go build a groundup down and dirty little space
2,500 square foot got a lease onit.
(06:52):
We probably put $20,000 in it,made a studio, 3d printers, put
desks in it, pallet walls youcan imagine it Old school, yeah,
had no tech in it.
Everything was done by keys andemail.
But what our board was reallysmart was A go determine the
market and then go see what thebenefits of what people really
(07:15):
want.
And so that five-year experimentreally led us to a lot of the
design of Nomadic, which is weneeded a platform to run the
whole thing take payments, doall communications like a Slack
tool.
We need a door system that wascontrolled by phones, because we
weren't going to get into thekey game now that we're all of a
(07:35):
sudden have.
You know, right now, I think,nomadic has 45 unique users a
month, so how do you controlthat?
And then we put a full camerasystem in there to create some
type of kind of a safety blanketfor all the people in there,
and so utilizing tech was alesson that we learned by going
(07:59):
analog and building a terriblemodel, but also understanding
the type of people that workhere and the environment, and
that's why we ended up withthings like photo studios,
recording studios, little CNCmachines and you know, we're you
know all those kinds of toolsin a workshop really came from
(08:20):
what we learned from the earlyentrepreneurs that were willing
to put up with pallet walls.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Well then, I'm going to piggyback off that.
So our family office that wastalking about you know earlier
that building which is our newheadquarters right there off
Dover I really took your modeland I actually bought.
So when I bought that projectit had plans for the most part
already approved, but it wasmore of a kind of an open model
space.
It was just going to be one bigoffice and a lot of storage.
(08:46):
It was more of like a flexspace.
And then when I I actuallywalked into the nomadic and
spent some time with Eric inthere and I like fell in love
with that space.
I'm like this is awesome, thisis great.
And then I heard you guys had abig waiting list and so forth
and I'm like, well, shoot, youknow what, joe, give me the
steel piece if you don't mind.
I was looking at it and I'mlike I'm looking at the model, I
(09:07):
go back to my plans.
I'm like I can at least put 10offices in mine.
But that was really coolbecause it allowed me to look at
a different model and buildingrelationships with the same
thing that you're doing, alittle different but for the
most part identical.
And this is what we're going tocreate, going to create.
It's called family officesociety.
It's kind of a high net worth.
I love the name yeah, Iabsolutely love the name kind of
(09:28):
the networking this is.
This was, uh actually cut with acnc machine by our uh, our
sponsor, but yeah, it was uh, itwas really pretty cool because
you really were, uh aneye-opener for what was really
going on out here, and a lot ofthe people that were in there
believe it or not, I knew themlike, oh, I didn't know you had
an office.
I didn't even know they evenhad offices like this.
Cause I wanted to open off upan office out here but I wasn't
low ceilings, older retailcenter it's only you know.
(09:51):
So it just wasn't really mybrand.
So that's why I built this outand made this an office for now,
and then, when that popped up,I'm going okay on, we're going
to go back to planning and weactually re-engineered the whole
building everything just to putthose 10 offices in there.
So I think you created amovement that can take root.
We're not going to try tocompete with you.
(10:11):
I just love what you've done.
I really do.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think it's great.
Well, we love it too because,beyond a real estate play, we
believe it's much deeper thanthat, and we were talking
earlier that Kingman is puttingsome money into it.
Their city council just backbuilding some type of
entrepreneur center with the wayof CTED and.
Mojave College now, and we thinkthat's exciting, and so I think
that you come from a differentplatform on yours, but here's
the lessons that I've learned.
That I think probably playseven heavier into your side is
(10:51):
the old adage of how do youstart a business right?
And when I grew up it was likego to the garage and figure it
out, and you would kind of beashamed to ask a friend and tell
them what you were doing.
And so we were lucky enough toteach ASU startup school and you
know, the first week peoplewould say, hey, does someone
(11:12):
want to talk about theirbusiness?
And what's the first thing thathappens in a group of 15 people
?
Well, I don't want to give awaymy great idea.
Someone might take it, and thensomeone does share, and after
45 minutes and a full whiteboardof 15 entrepreneurs working on
that one business, next week wesay who wants to talk about
(11:32):
their business?
And everyone raises their hand.
There's a value ofcollaboration and there's a
value of having mentors andpeople that are three steps
ahead.
Um, and I think about EricCodaglia that was in Nomadic and
you know we had a few people incity council said well, you
know, eric is an incrediblysuccessful person and I said he
(11:57):
is.
Well, why does he need to be inNomadic?
Because he's building abeautiful place in downtown and
he needs some temporary officespace.
But let me tell you the valueof Eric For other entrepreneurs.
You think you work hard untilyou work hard against someone
that works even harder than youand it gives you a lesson in
life.
And then there's just anothermetaphor for us, as from the
(12:21):
city where we're looking for aneconomic, you know, incubator of
sorts.
We're not all trying to get,you know, low end stocks and
startups.
We want to mix, because a mixallows people to grow right.
So we need people that are juststarting and we need people
(12:42):
that are further along in thegame that can help other people
and that can share some of thewisdom that they have to
understand their own businessmodel and even can help beyond
that.
So I think, on what you'retrying to do, that probably
works 10 X, because they're allprobably pro players compared to
(13:03):
what we're doing, but it workseven better.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, and once you have a good idea now, it takes
capital right, and that's wheresometimes I can come in.
It's how to raise capital, doit the right way, that type of
stuff.
Well, let's migrate over to.
I really want to.
I really I did not know howinvolved you were with the mall
either.
I think that's kind of theredheaded stepchild of the city.
So let's talk a little bitabout that one.
So let's go back to the back.
(13:28):
Let's go back to the beginning.
Let's go back to 2008, how itkind of came about, all the
story that you shared with meearlier.
Let's just kind of go with thatand then I'll I'll kind of dive
in with it from there.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, it's a great story.
Um, it's a sad story.
It's having a resurrection aswe speak.
It's having probably theinvestment now that it should
have originally had in 2008.
But that was.
Wolford Development out ofTennessee came in and built that
(13:59):
.
It's an incredibly beautifulfacility.
They did not spare any expenseback in the day.
Unfortunately, it opened in2008 in the middle of summer and
by the time we get six monthslater to 2009,.
We're in a global recession.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
And so a couple of things to point out about that
is sometimes it's hard becausewe've been on a oh it seems like
a 12 to 13 year bull market.
We're just running everywhererural metros, america.
It's great, but if you remember, back in 2009, stock market was
(14:42):
6,500.
Unemployment was 12%, 13%.
Things were not looking sharp.
And so for retail,unfortunately, in 2008, walmart
was the biggest company in theworld and when we came out of
(15:02):
that in 10, amazon was so thatreally set a path for rural
spaces, that large shoppingcenters and brick and mortar.
Not only had they missed on theeconomy, but they had missed on
how rural customers wouldactually buy from large brands.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know in that because I've been coming out
here for 35 years, so I watchedthe whole thing go up and I
remember going okay, it's alittle bit out here, but I also
realized the amount of dirt thatwas in between kind of the city
to here I'm going, this willbuild out one day.
And then, as I've morphed in mycareer, if you think about,
let's say, go to California,because most of the people that
live are out here fromCalifornia, you think of kind of
(15:45):
a statement yeah, you look atall the retail.
Whether it's Riverside, orangeCounty, doesn't matter.
All of the homes around.
You know those that retailfeeds that retail.
There's nothing out here.
You know North Point, you knowViewpoint.
That all started kind of comingout here.
You're starting to hear aboutApex building a bunch of homes
(16:06):
out here.
It's coming out here slowlybecause there's no other
available land anymore in thecity, like closer in Midtown.
So you're seeing it all comeout here.
That's where I felt that I, frommy mentor, it was always a
long-term play that makes moneyin real estate.
So when this project came up Icouldn't pass on the deal
because there was a demand forit.
Everyone's coming down the 40off the you know, or coming down
the 95 off the 40, coming fromCalifornia and Vegas, phoenix,
(16:29):
what have you?
So that I knew that this is amain thoroughfare and it's right
across from the airport.
One day airports will expand.
So I knew that was a really.
And then you had Walmart.
So you have groceries and ifyou look at some of the bigger
guys like BlackRock, blackstone,goldman, when they invest into
a mixed use they love to investin mixed use that is anchored by
a grocery store you have aWalmart.
(16:49):
That's a good play.
You got big box stores,jcpenney, kind of recession
resistant in some cases,dillard's, especially this one
here.
A lot of those companies reallydo lay a foundation.
The problem was is that therewasn't a need for the homes out
here because everybody wasstaying in town, because that's
where, or going into Midtownbecause that's what was the
(17:13):
culture of Lake Havasu.
Now that there's so much demandfor homes and attainable and
affordability, I'm we're seeingit all come North now.
So eventually and I loved whatyou were talking about earlier
this is going to be kind of thenew upgraded hub, because you're
going to see the newer, more,you know, I don't want to say
sophisticated, but more of theforward thinking development,
(17:37):
more the city will kind of allow, you know, maybe a different
design, more modern designthat'll start coming out here
and eventually people are goingto want new right so they're
going to start coming out thisdirection.
So I have a sticky feeling thatthis place it's just a matter
of time it's going to pop in thenext five years.
I think this whole area isgoing to be different.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I would agree with that and I I just a couple of
things to add to that.
So we're kind of stepping backin time, right.
So when we say 2008, like, theworld is drastically different.
And so a couple of things thegrowth of our town has exploded.
So currently just to throw acouple stats on top of this, so
currently the town sits at about60.
(18:16):
It's about 62.7.
So let's just call it 63,000.
And then you take theunincorporated areas.
We're probably working withabout 70,000 people.
And then we have 1.6 milliontourists a year.
So that's the playground.
So a lot of times people willsay, well, it's, you know, it's
only a 70,000 person community,but really on a daily, a weekly,
(18:41):
a monthly, look at it.
It's floating a whole lot morepeople in here.
And then I love your connectionwhen you say Southern
California.
So as an economic developer,I'm a part of a lot of
associations in the state andyou know, the long term joke is
always that you know, lakeHavasu City is kind of
(19:02):
California and if you're inArizona it's a funny little joke
.
But it really tells a broaderstory of where we sit in Mojave
County.
And you know, when people thinkabout Mojave County it's a
tri-city.
They used to call it a tri-city.
It's not much of a tri-cityanymore as one city has kind of
rose to prominence and the othertwo have kind of stayed at the
(19:23):
same.
But Bullhead really reflectstheir Laughlin Nevada roots and
Kingman is an old Route 66 town.
But Lake Havasu has always beena playground of California.
And just to drive that home,when I talk to people in Phoenix
(19:43):
that are thinking about LakeHavasu I always tell them, hey,
you go to Rocky Point, mexico.
And they go, yeah, and I said,well, we're the Rocky Point of
Southern California which wasthe fourth largest economy in
the world.
So that kind of makes sense ofhow people look at us.
They've been here, they know us, they're probably coming here
(20:04):
at least once a year, and sothat's kind of the answers.
A lot of the style, theinvestment, the type of person
that lives in Lake Havasu.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You know, what I've realized too is a lot of people
that I talked to that have,let's say, they moved out.
They lived, they grew up here,they moved out of here.
They're coming back.
That's really kind of cool tohear.
You know, I was on the phonewith a client of mine a couple
of days ago In fact, yeah, acouple of days.
I was thinking last week, no,it's only a few days ago and I
(20:36):
was talking to her.
She's like I'm from Havasu.
I was like, oh my goodness.
So, cause I actually amsurprised how many people know
about Lake Havasu.
I talked back East.
They're like, oh yeah, I usedto.
I grew up in Phoenix, or I grewup, you know, and I used to go
to Lake Havasu where I grew upin Washington and I used to go
down to Lake Havasu and you're,you know, for the size of town
(20:59):
and the amenities that it offers, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, well, it also directly benefits the residents
that are here, because they'regetting a lot higher food,
hospitality, bar scene than theywould if they lived in a 63,000
person community.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, absolutely Okay .
So let's talk a little bitabout what your projection,
because you're knee deep intothis.
I mean, if anybody knows aboutthe growth of Lake Havasu, it's
going to be you.
So let's get into the weeds,because this is what I think
most of our audience is going towant to hear.
What do you believe, where doyou think Havasu is going to be
in the next five years?
So you're probably seeing themigration, you're seeing
healthcare.
You know baby boomers areretiring more of that stuff,
(21:41):
right.
What do you think?
Where do you think Lake Havasuwill be overall?
And let's talk kind of, let'shover more towards the north
side, just because it's relevantto what we're building.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, I think there's a couple things, so one since,
let's just, we've had a realgrowth explosion since about
2015.
the north side has expanded morethan the south side and that
generally has to do with lotconsumption.
So the south side was the firstside that was developed.
(22:14):
It had more amenities and then,because we're bisected by
highway 95, and then we have anEast West McCulloch and a
Midtown and a downtown, um, alot of the original development
was on the South side.
It is the older side, um, andthat's why all the new
development, all the new housingtracks, campbell Ranch You're
(22:40):
talking about, all the new largedevelopments are out towards
the north.
So the city is actually movingon its axis for people.
And so when we were talkingabout the shops not really being
a retail center anymore butbeing a business node, a hub, an
(23:03):
anchor for lifestyle ofNorthside people, that's one of
the reasons you're starting tosee the investment right.
So Jared Ports over there hasjust poured in I believe it's
just around $30 million into thenew medical center, which one
um our town now is an inboundtrauma center, has open heart
(23:25):
cancer surgery, so that's fromlife point in town, but that is
growing to serve all the peoplethat have been coming.
So some of them are babyboomers that are retiring, for
sure, but it's a different typeof person because in the past
it's looked a lot moreretirement.
(23:46):
It's looked a lot more golf.
It's looked a lot more likejust grocery store and go out to
a restaurant once a week.
That is not who's coming hereright now.
what who's coming here is, uh,across the age spectrum, a lot
of them in the 35 to 50 who havealready done quite well have
(24:07):
won the race and metros and havedone things but now are looking
to kind of get a balance intheir life and they want to come
back and you know, maybe whenthey were 20 and going to
university and coming back, theythought this is the worst place
on earth.
And now they've lived a bunch ofplaces and they're like that
was a pretty great place to liveand now I'd really like to
(24:29):
spend a lot of quality time withmy family and still run my
business Right, and so we'reseeing a lot of that.
And then for the, for the olderdemographic, they're coming
back, but 60-year-olds don'tlook the way they used to and,
(24:49):
in fact, if you've met a60-year-old who's retired, watch
out, because they probably havetwice as much energy as you do,
because they are loving lifeand they're doing a hundred
different activities and theylook like teenagers.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
So and that's exactly it.
I feel like those 60 year oldsare more active and more they're
doing more recreational stuff.
And that's Havasu in generalYou're outside, you're boating,
you're golfing.
You're never really insideunless it's really really hot,
and most of the time you'retraveling.
So so when it is really hot outhere for a few months, people
are traveling and going East andkind of spend time with family.
(25:25):
What have you but that?
And that's why RVs and boatsand so forth.
But you know, I, I, I, I loveexactly what you said too and I
never really touched on it.
But you're right, I, I am.
Guys like me, you know, I'm in,I just turned 40, but that 35
to 50 year old guys or familiesthat are.
So this, this town let me backup, this town is also big in
(25:46):
family.
That's the one thing I reallyappreciate about it, as well as
as how much, how much the citytalks about youth and how we
want to continue to invest intomore things for the youth.
I loved that, because that's mybiggest concern was small town.
I came from Southern California.
I want my kids to kind of enjoykind of that, that just
(26:09):
diversification and going to thebeach and going to the
snowboarding, go and do this,but they're starting to get that
here and really, if you don'tmind driving, it's not that far,
you know, but at the end of theday, that's.
You nailed it.
Those are the groups that arecoming out here and again, being
able to work from anywhere isit's kind of driven that as well
.
Cost of living is really insaneright now.
People don't really want tospend $2 million on a house just
(26:29):
to be in California and outsideLA.
It's pretty expensive, but youcan come out here and get way
more bang for your buck and youcan have another toy or two, you
know, for what you'd spend fora house in California, and
that's what I've been reallyrecognized.
That's why these storage unitsare doing so well is because
people are buying more toys andpeople need more room because
they're buying more toys.
So it's really the demand thatI've seen that's driven us to
(26:51):
want to develop this.
And on top of that investment1031 exchanges people are
looking to roll over their IRAsand they're also focused on
healthcare.
So people are more aggressiveand making investments.
They're bullish on making movesNow that they can say back in
08, you saw it coming, but youdidn't make a move.
Now people are like I don'twant to go through that again,
let's just do it now, you know.
(27:12):
So people are just not afraidto start shifting earlier on,
and that's what we've seen asfar as my conversations.
So I would have to piggyback offone more thing too, which would
be the gym that we're buildingout here.
So you just nailed it.
The lifestyle.
I agree.
I think that the mall is goingto be the next movement for
lifestyle more restaurants.
I'd love to see some apartments, create some more density over
(27:33):
there, but with more some other,like you know, smaller retail,
but also more business hub aswell.
So you nailed it.
And that's what having a gymthere where everything's kind of
walking distance, and then yougot a grocery store at Walmart.
You're right, you literallyhave everything.
Now it's just about kind ofbuilding the infrastructure
around it and this thing, Ithink, will thrive.
And again, now that we own.
So our so paradigm storage is225,000 square feet.
(27:56):
With the barn caves in the gym,I think that's 505,000.
So let's just call it 730,000square feet and give or take
that whole mall.
730,000 square feet, we'rebasically doubling the amount of
square footage under roof asthe mall, and we're doing it
within, you know, five years, sothat's quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, and.
I think uh honestly, fromeconomic development standpoint,
we're kind of piggybacking onthat right.
So like development createsdevelopment, so, last month we
had a visit from anotherhealthcare provider looking to
do a $20 million CapEx medicalfacility, and so development
(28:38):
breathes on development, and sowhen we're looking at the
opportunity that's being put inthere, we're also looking at
people that are investingoutside, and then we're also
looking at the potential of whatthe city is going to be doing
in the next couple of years tocreate a larger footprint for
the airport right, and so that'sa timely thing.
(28:58):
Uh, aeronautical, uhdevelopment does not happen
overnight.
It kills uh private developersbecause they're the faa requires
so many different things tohappen, and you don't really
control every inch of your land,for very good reason.
Um but um.
If you start looking at all theum economic points that are
(29:23):
sitting out here in this littletriangle, it's going to grow
even bigger.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Well, I just went over to uh Ironwood and what
they literally built was, let'sjust say, a couple of hundred
yards from here.
Really, they just built like atop golf driver's right, have
you been?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
you've seen it.
It's impressive.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
I'm impressed, I'm impressed, I'm like well, I
hadn't, I hadn't been in there,and I couldn't believe when I
walked in there and I'm like,wow, this is nice because that
you know the, the riviera sorry,the refuge, I think the golf
course went under for a whileand then the gentleman came in
there and spent a lot of moneygetting it up to par, and now
there's a lot of homes beingbuilt in there.
I mean it, he revived thatplace and it's so nice and I,
(29:59):
and then he bought the old hotelthat was in front of it.
I think it's torn down now,right, yeah.
And then there's a new RV parkwhich looks really good.
I mean I'm in for an RV park.
I'm like this looks really goodand but it's more higher in,
like everything I drove by there.
I mean they have big date palmsin there, you know.
I mean he landscaped it really.
So it's not like this.
Is that guy is not coming inhere looking at?
(30:21):
He knows the demographics, heknows there's people coming out
here with money, they wantsafety, they want family, they
want a little bigger lot, theywant to have freedom, they want
to park their stuff, and he'screated a really good movement
there.
So that's how I felt that themall is going to be and there's
more conversations.
I'm kind of hearing that isbeing built over here and I'm
going.
Well, man, I think my timingwas was dead on so I think your
(30:42):
your timing was perfect yeah, Ithink my timing's dead on, but
this I think was a goodconversation piece.
Right next to Home Depot, butthe barn caves, and that's what.
We'll kind of go back into that.
So the barn caves, what do youthink?
So what's the what's the buzzaround town about the barn caves
?
Because if anybody's going toknow, it's going to be you so I
think people are really excited.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So, um, a couple things.
Um, if I was a betting economicdeveloper and everyone said how
many storage units is it goingto take to satisfy this
playground?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I would have lost a decade ago right, you would
never know you needed this, andso if you're not in the business
and you say, why are peoplekeep developing these properties
?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
There's a simple answer they make money and they
sell out, and they're stillwaiting lists, and so it might
be hard for a person that's notin the business to understand
that, but that's the reality.
And so the reality is there'sbeen a couple of plays that have
changed storage in Lake Havasu.
One of it is to our friends tothe north.
(31:47):
Here you know that wholedevelopment was based on hey, if
you're going to come to thesouthwest every year in their RV
, do you really need to driveyour RV back up to Seattle and
pay Seattle rates when land isso expensive to park it?
Wouldn't it be better to flyinto Las Vegas, take a shuttle
and have your RV, stay in anArizona climate controlled space
(32:10):
and then start on theplayground?
And the answer is yes, becauseit's cheaper across the board,
both from taxes and just frommaintenance.
So there's one.
The second I would say is thisis more of an innovative
approach.
This is kind of what people areasking for, like um, there's
(32:32):
ways that we've had at sailinghawks, where you've had these
massive drive-through garagesthat people love, cannot get
enough.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I sold mine out here right as soon as I talked about
them.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
They're amazing because this is where people are
putting toys right, but that isa huge price tag compared to
what you're suggesting, and thenthis also goes into our other
conversation about how peoplewant to be mobile.
So there's a couple analogiesI'd like to just throw out to
your listeners.
I'd love to hear feedback, butyou know, I'm 56 years old and
(33:10):
you know, back in the day, ifyou move before social media, if
you just said, hey, I'm tiredof Oregon, I'm going to go
retire in Arizona, you just lostall your friends in whatever
town you've lived with in 30years.
You just rolled over.
People can literally just gomove and live someplace for four
years, have all new restaurants, meet a bunch of people and go
(33:35):
move to another town, and theydon't lose a soul.
They get to watch everyone'slives, they can reconnect, they
can talk if they want.
This is that medium has allowedeveryone to be more concerned
about their shared space, theircommunity.
How competitive are we?
What does it look like?
And so, in this case, for thebarn dominiums, it's kind of
(33:59):
throwing a lot of those in thatmix, because people are way more
mobile, um, than they werebefore, and so what they're
looking to invest in isn't just,you know, it's just different.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, no, it really is.
And I think that that you knowthe idea was to try to create
kind of a lock and key model aswell, and so it can kind of
cater to, you know, first timehome buyers down to you know,
people just come in a handful oftimes a year and that's really
the idea.
And then again I was tellingyou before the design of it, as
a developer you want to look atany economic adjustments, right,
(34:33):
and how that can affectinvestors that are involved, and
then you're going to have inbuyers.
And so we were looking at itgoing look, we want to design
this in a way where, because wedo a lot of stuff in house,
we're more vertically integratedfrom a construction side,
development side, evenmanufacturing.
That's hence the partnership,and then we can kind of control
our costs a little better.
So therefore, if the marketwere to drop, we can ride that
(34:56):
wave because we created margin,so we have a well-oiled machine
moving forward.
We do a lot of them, and so theidea was is to try to build
something what everybody wants.
The way to do that is typicallydensity right, to keep my costs
down, but do more volume forthe, for the yield.
That I'm going to look for tomake for it to make sense for
investment, and because it isright here next to the mall, I
(35:19):
had a sticky feeling that thecity is going to support that
going.
Yes, we're going to try to,we're going to try to help you
guys, anybody who wants to doanything over there.
We got your back.
But anything that has more of ahigh density overlay would
probably do real well,especially when it is a mall.
And I'm kind of again lookingfive years down the road, you
know, if you have a mall, youhave retail, you have a business
(35:39):
center.
Live, work, play is a bigmovement.
You can get a lot ofinstitutional capital and
looking at that type of stuff,you have the right data.
So I'm going okay, well, and Ihave the whole story of the barn
to many miles sharing with you,and I kind of built the whole
house inside of an old barnbuilt in like the early 1900s.
And and then this, this projectwe're sitting in now paradigm
storage.
(35:59):
You know these big units.
People wanted to live in themand stay in there on the
weekends, right when they comeinto town, because it has
bathroom, showers, kitchenettes,whatever, and and I go, well,
why don't I just go to athree-story product?
Because I can keep the density,give everybody the garages that
they want, make it a little bitlonger.
So 28 by 70s, these are 28 by60s, and then go two stories up,
(36:20):
go vertical, just ask for aheight adjustment and get what
we need.
And everybody just said I loveit.
So then when I started goingthrough the interior design, I
started looking at it, going,okay, I want to make it feel
like this kind of New York vibe.
So when you come in on thesecond floor, all of your living
, so, mind you, the whole firstfloor is all garage.
(36:41):
Yeah, same thing we have inhere, you know, air conditioned,
fully, you know, or at leasttemperature controlled, fully
insulated, and then we'll havean elevator about centralized,
with inside the storage or withinside the unit.
You go straight up to yoursecond floor.
You got groceries.
You just walk out and put thegroceries right on your
countertop in your kitchen andthen you have two bedrooms back
behind that, two more bathroomsupstairs, massive living space.
(37:02):
You have a balcony that goesover the garage, part of the
garage, for kind of the forwardfacing of the unit, for the kind
of the forward facing of theunit.
And then when you come, whenyou're standing, when you're
right, when you walk out, uh,let's just say from the um, the
kitchen, and let's say you havelike typical lights that come
down over your, your, uh, whatdo you call your Island?
Yeah, soon, as you walk pastthe Island it goes into a
(37:37):
vaulted ceiling, huge walk-incloset and kind of a european
themed, uh, bathroom shower.
And every time I I was kind oftesting the waters to my
existing clients, friends,family, what have you?
And they're like this isawesome, we got, you got to
build these things.
Well, what was nice is becausewe're building them out of steel
and we already know kind of howto do this from the projects
(37:57):
that we're building.
I'm like the framing will bepretty easy and because I don't
have as many walls inside thehouse, I can cut my costs.
So you see where I'm going.
All I do is pitch the roof,create a different color, map
right, and then I'll kind ofkeep that modern barn dominium
look with a big garage, twostories of residential, and keep
it in price, in the right pricepoint, and we can pump these
out all day long, and I think itmarried up perfectly.
(38:19):
And I'll sum up with this partit married up perfectly with
what's going on with tariffs andlumber costs and steel costs
and then also insurance, becausenow the homeowner's insurance
for steel buildings is goingdown when stick built is going
up.
So we were looking at that datatoo and I've seen that because
we lend money as well.
So I'm a hard money lender andI get a lot of requests for barn
dominiums back East and Iremember looking I'm like these
(38:40):
guys want loans on a barn.
And then I said I'm like theseare really single family houses,
these are fully built out likein regular insurance policies,
we'll cover it.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Mortgage will actually lend on it.
This is a true single family.
So with all those pieces, hencethe barn dominium, barn caves
right.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
So a couple of things I'd let I mean first of all,
it's innovative.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Let's just start there.
Thank you.
One of the things that we haveto talk about is there's an old
way of doing construction and itlooks more like assembling an
art piece right, like everyone'sgoing to be different and it's
going to be custom, and that'sreally cool if we're talking
about art.
But if we're talking aboutpeople's houses, where we're
having limited supply of land,land is going up, population is
(39:24):
rising, the dirt beloweverything especially in Arizona
that's been an inbound statefor a decade everything on the
rise.
So the idea that we just can'tstart thinking about controlling
construction cross is somethingthat I don't think is.
It's not going to be wellreceived.
(39:46):
In the future, people are goingto look back and say why did
people wait so long to optimizebuilding?
So that's the first thing I'dhave to say about that.
And then the second thing ispart of optimizing building is
creating communities right, andso you're going to have all
these great amenities that theycan share, but they also cost.
(40:07):
Share those right.
So my house I have to pay formy own pool.
I have to pay for every squareinch of it.
But if I was in a communitythat, say, had 100 people and
they had two pools.
I would literally only bepaying a fraction.
And so that also marries upwith these new social dynamics
where people are like it's a lotmore fun to go to the pool with
(40:29):
your kids or with your friendsif you're with other people.
And I'll just give a quicklittle metaphor.
It's one of the reasons hotelsare hurting.
Hotels are a singular activity.
It's the old.
We're going to get in the sedanwith you two kids and we're
going to drive to the GrandCanyon.
We're going to stay byourselves.
(40:49):
Traveling, soccer teams andeverything else have destroyed
this model.
Now families travel in packs.
Four families are going to theGrand Canyon.
They're going to rent a house.
Why?
Because they all need to betogether.
People have become way moresocial.
Might be a great byproduct ofthe phone that will be for
researchers 50 years out fromnow, but we don't know.
(41:12):
But that is a trend.
So building communities,there's a lot of advantages.
So I think you've tapped intotwo.
And then the final thing that Ireally like that when I hear you
talk that, it really gets mefired up about passion is,
instead of just building a spacewhere people could be, you're
building a space where peoplecould flourish.
(41:34):
So how do people flourish?
So I'm from Portland, oregon.
When I was raised back then wehad seven-foot ceilings and we
had cotton clothes and when itrained we went outside.
We got soaking wet.
We came back in and our houseswere terrible.
Now I go up there.
They have 14 foot roofs.
They have sunlight everywhere.
It's raining, it still feelsgreat outside.
(41:56):
The clothes are better.
We're optimizing and so whenyou start talking about these
spaces, it's where people canflourish by having tons of light
, tons of stuff inside.
They're not cramped, they haveplenty of places to move and
that's where people really startliving their best lives.
So that sounds like a reallycool idea that you've put.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
And that's the idea is that even like, if you want
to hang out by the pool, youknow we're going to have Wi-Fi
at the pool People can kind oflay out and get away from the
house if they want to.
We have a lounge at the gym.
People can go into the loungeand get away and have that.
You have little snacks, you canget you work out.
Health and wellness.
Wellness is a big movementright now.
Even physicians are tellingpeople to go back to the old
school, you know, eat well andwork out, kind of thing.
(42:39):
So we're seeing that movementget bigger and bigger.
So I think you and I reallyappreciate the kind words,
because that means a lot to us,because we want to feel like
we're on the right track andanybody who's is knee deep into
the development of the city,like you do, and actually
developing, that's another thing.
I don't know if I've met a lotof people that are spearheading
(43:00):
the, the, the, the economicdevelopment coalition, if you
will.
But actually developed, youknow I'll be honest.
And so it's a different vantagepoint when your boots on the
ground and that's where Irespect the model.
I'm really glad you're here andthen hearing that you've built
something that was totallyoutside the box, it kind of
against the grain, that nobodyreally supported, let's be
(43:21):
honest.
And now it thrived, and that'sreally where you nailed it.
I think that's where Havasu isgoing and that's what people are
looking for, and this, I think,has really been another step up
to that.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Well, I appreciate that and I really have a lot of
latitude with my board.
But just a couple things onthat.
When you're in economicdevelopment, it's really not
about going to meetings andhearing about what other people
are doing.
I know I really have twoaspects of my job.
You know, if I'm at a cocktailparty, that you know, people say
(43:55):
what do you do?
And you're like, oh, I don'treally want to say you know, and
then I'll say something cheekylike I make rich people richer,
right, and in some ways that'strue when I'm working with
out-of-town investment peoplethat are coming in to make a big
play for the community.
But then I also do stuff in thecommunity to make people that
live here stronger, and so thathas to do with Novatic.
(44:17):
But here's another thing.
So we're really involved indowntown and we went to our
board years ago and we said oneof the things that's really
missing in Lake Havasu is we'resuch a young town that we don't
have a lot of culture, and so wewant to focus on a downtown and
we want to start building, youknow, art, music, food, culture,
(44:39):
and here's how we propose to doit.
And we said well, we're goingto start a first Friday and our
board was like I don't, thatdoesn't sound like economic
development.
I said, well, I think it'ssomething we need to do to start
attracting workforce, we needto start putting stuff in front
(44:59):
of families.
And so six years ago we startedwith Darth Vader, a DJ and a
generator in an alley and wewere like I hope someone comes.
You know, last year was we'rein season six.
Um, last year we had 42,000people at the nine events.
Um and uh, the city is nowbuilding an event center in
(45:21):
downtown.
So the point is, um, I don'tthink you can do economic
development by saying, hey, whatare other people's best ideas
and what are they willing to putinto the game?
Sometimes, as an entrepreneur,you have to say what am I
willing to grow, even if I haveto grow it out of an alleyway?
(45:43):
And so when you're a part of it, I think it A it makes you more
useful, um, useful forentrepreneurs that put all the
skin in the game.
Right and um, now our scalesare way different, but our
heartaches are the same, right,so, like when we were building
(46:03):
nomadic.
You know it's it's not thefirst 2 million, but it's the
last 40,000 where you're likethis thing's got to get a
certificate of occupancy we needrevenue.
Like, what are we doing?
And you're yelling at peopleand cause you're at the stress
point Right, and I think thatthat's incredibly valuable, not
only for economic developmentbut for cities, and so we're
(46:26):
lucky that we have a lot ofsupport from our city and and
Jess, our city manager, to evenwatch people.
They're willing to try it ontheir own.
It's more empowering and I alsothink it's the spirit of our
town.
Um, we were founded by anentrepreneur and we really don't
have large companies that have,you know, 300 jobs.
(46:48):
Yeah, you know we, you know the.
You know havasu Regional hasalmost 900 employees, but that's
not really our backbone.
Our backbone is entrepreneurialcompanies of four to six people
that have really good, solidbusinesses, and so that's one of
the reasons that the income isso high, because, essentially,
(47:10):
two to three of those people arevery well-paid employees and
because, essentially, two tothree of those people are very
well paid employees and theother two to three are learning
their skills to get to becomehighly compensated people.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
And I like that because it is a big community.
I mean the boating communityalone.
Right, People know each otherby the names of their boats and
that's the thing about theboating community is everyone's
so helpful and kind and itreally is a true community and
that's what it feels like hereoverall too.
You know.
So, when people come out hereand you're successful, a lot of
times those, those successfulguys are going to is going to
(47:40):
pull other guys up with them,you know, and create, show, show
, some leadership.
And I and I really appreciatethat about this town because I
get a lot of young men reachingout to me going, hey, how do I
get into the business?
What do I need to do?
And they're so humble andthey're like I just want to get
there, how do I do that?
You know they're not pumping uptheir chest and being fake.
I really appreciate that aboutthis town.
Now you got all kinds of guysin every walks of life, all over
(48:02):
the place, let's be honest.
But it is definitely adifferent atmosphere here to be.
I want to be around like-mindedpeople that kind of you know,
speak the same language and wantto be a part of a community,
want to help others and want tobe successful together and spend
time with their families, and Ithink that's just really key
for me.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
So yeah, Well, if you're growing, everyone's
growing, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Normally right, Yep.
So, well, mr Gray, thank youvery much for your time.
This was very fruitful and I'mhoping my listeners will
appreciate it.
I'm sure they will, but I'mprobably going to ask you to
come another time.
In fact, I'm going to go aheadand ask my audience, if you will
.
I'm going to do a little poll.
I want you guys to give memaybe a yes or no about having
this young man on I'm going tosay young man, if you don't mind
Having this young man on andalso any questions you want to
(48:44):
ask about Lake Havasu, becausethis is the guy we'll know.
So I'm hoping we covered someground on kind of the atmosphere
of what's going on here, thegrowth of the North side
Obviously it's a little biasedbecause we want to know about
our project but Lake Havasuoverall.
If anything you guys want toknow, go ahead and fill out the
form below and we'll get yousome answers and we'll have them
on for another round.
So thanks you guys.
(49:04):
I appreciate it.
Hey everybody, ryan Garland here, founder and
chairman of Paradigm.
Thank you for watching ParadigmShift.
We are sponsored today by 10Day Doors and PMG and I'm
excited to have James Gray here.
He's the director of economicdevelopment here in Lake Havasu,
so it's an honor to have him,and we're just gonna kind of
create some banter today, reallyjust go back and forth about
what's going on in Lake Havasu.
I actually did not know this,but this was, I would say, what
(00:24):
do you call it?
A blind date?
Eric set us up right.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
And I did not know this until he got here.
But he is the guy behind thebrains, behind the nomadic,
which is kind of the we work ofthe town, and that really caught
my attention because thatbuilding was so well put
together and designed andcompletely occupied and with
office space changing and thepandemic and so forth and the
migration out here, it reallycaught my attention on the need
(00:49):
of that product here and anybodywho's really kind of
entrepreneurial side of thingsas you guys know, I'm a big fan
of seeing kind of forward-facing, technology-driven investments
and this guy's got a lot moreintel than I thought he would,
but he's been in the game for along time, so I'm just honored
to have you here.
So thanks again for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, it's exciting to be here and I love to talk
about Lake Havasu, especiallyfrom economic development, and
so we're really excited aboutyour project out here on the
north side and I look forward totalking to you about all types
of things on the north side andabout co-working and shared
(01:27):
spaces and collaboration.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, let's start with the co-working thing,
because I think that was justimpressive.
But you were so busy and Ithink Eric told me you guys are
thinking about going up a levelbecause right now it's a
one-story and you're thinkingabout going up because you need
more room.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, we've done really well.
We've been occupied 100% in theoffices since we've opened and
we're about 86%.
We've actually established evenmore memberships.
We have a new one called theFlex, where before we always
assumed people needed to beattached even to like a
(02:03):
dedicated desk, and now so manyof our people, by just creating
24 hour access to the spacewhere they can sit anywhere they
want but also book theamenities, that has been a
growing membership where peopleare like we have traveling.
People are like I'm only inyour town once a month, but when
I am I need to work there fivedays a week and I can't tell you
(02:25):
it's going to be nine to five,and so they start booking the
conference rooms and some of theother amenities.
They hold events there andthings like that.
So that's been a real effectivetool there.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Well, and the data supports that.
Though, with the pandemic andso many offices shutting down,
people will go.
I did.
I shut my office down inTemecula.
I went and moved myheadquarters to Nashville, fell
in love with Nashville, butdidn't reopen an office because
I not only was starting to hirepeople from all over the country
because of their talent, but Iwasn't shoveling everybody into
(02:59):
one office.
So I went and got a satelliteoffice.
So now I'm keeping my overheaddown, but I had a really nice
venue to bring clients to and ifI traveled, sometimes those
venues had other locations.
So because this is such a huge Iwould say migration area for
recreational use or you know,when it's really cold and
everybody you know they're backEast everybody comes out here
(03:20):
for the summer, cause it's 70degrees outside.
Everybody loves it out hereduring the winter.
But at the end of the day, whatI realized is that there's a
lot of there's a lot of need forthat and when I walked into
your office I felt like I was inmore of a modern city, because
the Lake Havasu kind of I wouldsay how do you want to put it?
(03:41):
People believe Lake Havasulikes to keep the development in
, like a certain box.
They're not very.
They haven't yet started comingout of their comfort zone and
allowing more of that innovationon the development side, just
quite yet.
I think you spearheaded it andwe're kind of coming in and
trailing you.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, one of the things I would say is what is
Lake Havasu known for?
It's probably more of liketequila and a blender and a boat
right, which is great.
We love that.
That's our shared product.
It's what put us on the map.
It's what brought MTV here,right.
It's an incredible place,whether you're in a side-by-side
or on a boat, like it'sfantastic.
We have events, we have allthat, but also in the modern
(04:21):
space, so many people especiallyfor employers that are chasing
talent.
If your average cost of puttingsomeone in an office in San
Francisco is almost $30,000 ayear just for electricity and
lights, and you're now in atalent game where you're chasing
few people that you think cando the task if you allow them to
(04:44):
live wherever they want andthen if you give them the right
tools where they can be in frontof screens, be on cameras.
We just not to brag, butNomadic just added for its main
conference room made it fullydigital in there, where you just
start it up, right.
Why do we do that?
Because everyone's not talkingto the people in the room.
(05:06):
They're talking to someoneoutside of the room, which is
really important.
It tells you where the marketis, and so people now have to
start working everywhere.
It's not just local, but yourlocal needs to react to the
whole marketplace and that's theworld.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, you know that we wanted, we were chasing more
talent than bodies that werelocal.
Where you know, back in the dayprior to the pandemic, you're
trying to hire people local withthe right talent.
So when I went to Nashville, Iwas finding people that with the
talent but they weren'tgeographically close to drive
other States.
So that's when I realized thatit was going to be a massive
movement, not only becauseoffice was shutting down, but my
(05:41):
company was thriving because Iwas able to bring on a better
caliber type of people.
So I think other employers areseeing that same thing.
So, regardless of where you'reat in the country, if you can
have a more professional setting, like the nomadic people are
going hey, I can be right hereand be on a boat at three
o'clock, but I can work fromseven to you know two and be on
my on the water.
So you kind of have everythingabout your, really everything
(06:08):
that you really want in life.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You know that lifestyle and then you be able
to work.
So I really appreciated thatmodel.
Yeah, one of the things that weadded is we were talking
earlier about what we learnedabout opening a co-work space.
So I work for a board ofdirectors and we wrote a plan
called Vision 2020.
That was a revitalization forthe whole town and one of the
things was to create anentrepreneurial hub, a co-work
(06:29):
space, a place whereentrepreneurs could come
together.
And so myself and we're only atwo-person organization we said,
great, let's get the building,let's do something.
And our board said hold on, Idon't think you know what you're
doing.
Why don't you go build a groundup down and dirty little space
2,500 square foot got a lease onit.
(06:52):
We probably put $20,000 in it,made a studio, 3d printers, put
desks in it, pallet walls youcan imagine it Old school, yeah,
had no tech in it.
Everything was done by keys andemail.
But what our board was reallysmart was A go determine the
market and then go see what thebenefits of what people really
(07:15):
want.
And so that five-year experimentreally led us to a lot of the
design of Nomadic, which is weneeded a platform to run the
whole thing take payments, doall communications like a Slack
tool.
We need a door system that wascontrolled by phones, because we
weren't going to get into thekey game now that we're all of a
(07:35):
sudden have.
You know, right now, I think,nomadic has 45 unique users a
month, so how do you controlthat?
And then we put a full camerasystem in there to create some
type of kind of a safety blanketfor all the people in there,
and so utilizing tech was alesson that we learned by going
(07:59):
analog and building a terriblemodel, but also understanding
the type of people that workhere and the environment, and
that's why we ended up withthings like photo studios,
recording studios, little CNCmachines and you know, we're you
know all those kinds of toolsin a workshop really came from
(08:20):
what we learned from the earlyentrepreneurs that were willing
to put up with pallet walls.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Well then, I'm going to piggyback off that.
So our family office that wastalking about you know earlier
that building which is our newheadquarters right there off
Dover I really took your modeland I actually bought.
So when I bought that projectit had plans for the most part
already approved, but it wasmore of a kind of an open model
space.
It was just going to be one bigoffice and a lot of storage.
(08:46):
It was more of like a flexspace.
And then when I I actuallywalked into the nomadic and
spent some time with Eric inthere and I like fell in love
with that space.
I'm like this is awesome, thisis great.
And then I heard you guys had abig waiting list and so forth
and I'm like, well, shoot, youknow what, joe, give me the
steel piece if you don't mind.
I was looking at it and I'mlike I'm looking at the model, I
(09:07):
go back to my plans.
I'm like I can at least put 10offices in mine.
But that was really coolbecause it allowed me to look at
a different model and buildingrelationships with the same
thing that you're doing, alittle different but for the
most part identical.
And this is what we're going tocreate, going to create.
It's called family officesociety.
It's kind of a high net worth.
I love the name yeah, Iabsolutely love the name kind of
(09:28):
the networking this is.
This was, uh actually cut with acnc machine by our uh, our
sponsor, but yeah, it was uh, itwas really pretty cool because
you really were, uh aneye-opener for what was really
going on out here, and a lot ofthe people that were in there
believe it or not, I knew themlike, oh, I didn't know you had
an office.
I didn't even know they evenhad offices like this.
Cause I wanted to open off upan office out here but I wasn't
low ceilings, older retailcenter it's only you know.
(09:51):
So it just wasn't really mybrand.
So that's why I built this outand made this an office for now,
and then, when that popped up,I'm going okay on, we're going
to go back to planning and weactually re-engineered the whole
building everything just to putthose 10 offices in there.
So I think you created amovement that can take root.
We're not going to try tocompete with you.
(10:11):
I just love what you've done.
I really do.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think it's great.
Well, we love it too because,beyond a real estate play, we
believe it's much deeper thanthat, and we were talking
earlier that Kingman is puttingsome money into it.
Their city council just backbuilding some type of
entrepreneur center with the wayof CTED and.
Mojave College now, and we thinkthat's exciting, and so I think
that you come from a differentplatform on yours, but here's
the lessons that I've learned.
That I think probably playseven heavier into your side is
(10:51):
the old adage of how do youstart a business right?
And when I grew up it was likego to the garage and figure it
out, and you would kind of beashamed to ask a friend and tell
them what you were doing.
And so we were lucky enough toteach ASU startup school and you
know, the first week peoplewould say, hey, does someone
(11:12):
want to talk about theirbusiness?
And what's the first thing thathappens in a group of 15 people
?
Well, I don't want to give awaymy great idea.
Someone might take it, and thensomeone does share, and after
45 minutes and a full whiteboardof 15 entrepreneurs working on
that one business, next week wesay who wants to talk about
(11:32):
their business?
And everyone raises their hand.
There's a value ofcollaboration and there's a
value of having mentors andpeople that are three steps
ahead.
Um, and I think about EricCodaglia that was in Nomadic and
you know we had a few people incity council said well, you
know, eric is an incrediblysuccessful person and I said he
(11:57):
is.
Well, why does he need to be inNomadic?
Because he's building abeautiful place in downtown and
he needs some temporary officespace.
But let me tell you the valueof Eric For other entrepreneurs.
You think you work hard untilyou work hard against someone
that works even harder than youand it gives you a lesson in
life.
And then there's just anothermetaphor for us, as from the
(12:21):
city where we're looking for aneconomic, you know, incubator of
sorts.
We're not all trying to get,you know, low end stocks and
startups.
We want to mix, because a mixallows people to grow right.
So we need people that are juststarting and we need people
(12:42):
that are further along in thegame that can help other people
and that can share some of thewisdom that they have to
understand their own businessmodel and even can help beyond
that.
So I think, on what you'retrying to do, that probably
works 10 X, because they're allprobably pro players compared to
(13:03):
what we're doing, but it workseven better.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, and once you have a good idea now, it takes
capital right, and that's wheresometimes I can come in.
It's how to raise capital, doit the right way, that type of
stuff.
Well, let's migrate over to.
I really want to.
I really I did not know howinvolved you were with the mall
either.
I think that's kind of theredheaded stepchild of the city.
So let's talk a little bitabout that one.
So let's go back to the back.
(13:28):
Let's go back to the beginning.
Let's go back to 2008, how itkind of came about, all the
story that you shared with meearlier.
Let's just kind of go with thatand then I'll I'll kind of dive
in with it from there.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, it's a great story.
Um, it's a sad story.
It's having a resurrection aswe speak.
It's having probably theinvestment now that it should
have originally had in 2008.
But that was.
Wolford Development out ofTennessee came in and built that
(13:59):
.
It's an incredibly beautifulfacility.
They did not spare any expenseback in the day.
Unfortunately, it opened in2008 in the middle of summer and
by the time we get six monthslater to 2009,.
We're in a global recession.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
And so a couple of things to point out about that
is sometimes it's hard becausewe've been on a oh it seems like
a 12 to 13 year bull market.
We're just running everywhererural metros, america.
It's great, but if you remember, back in 2009, stock market was
(14:42):
6,500.
Unemployment was 12%, 13%.
Things were not looking sharp.
And so for retail,unfortunately, in 2008, walmart
was the biggest company in theworld and when we came out of
(15:02):
that in 10, amazon was so thatreally set a path for rural
spaces, that large shoppingcenters and brick and mortar.
Not only had they missed on theeconomy, but they had missed on
how rural customers wouldactually buy from large brands.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know in that because I've been coming out
here for 35 years, so I watchedthe whole thing go up and I
remember going okay, it's alittle bit out here, but I also
realized the amount of dirt thatwas in between kind of the city
to here I'm going, this willbuild out one day.
And then, as I've morphed in mycareer, if you think about,
let's say, go to California,because most of the people that
live are out here fromCalifornia, you think of kind of
(15:45):
a statement yeah, you look atall the retail.
Whether it's Riverside, orangeCounty, doesn't matter.
All of the homes around.
You know those that retailfeeds that retail.
There's nothing out here.
You know North Point, you knowViewpoint.
That all started kind of comingout here.
You're starting to hear aboutApex building a bunch of homes
(16:06):
out here.
It's coming out here slowlybecause there's no other
available land anymore in thecity, like closer in Midtown.
So you're seeing it all comeout here.
That's where I felt that I, frommy mentor, it was always a
long-term play that makes moneyin real estate.
So when this project came up Icouldn't pass on the deal
because there was a demand forit.
Everyone's coming down the 40off the you know, or coming down
the 95 off the 40, coming fromCalifornia and Vegas, phoenix,
(16:29):
what have you?
So that I knew that this is amain thoroughfare and it's right
across from the airport.
One day airports will expand.
So I knew that was a really.
And then you had Walmart.
So you have groceries and ifyou look at some of the bigger
guys like BlackRock, blackstone,goldman, when they invest into
a mixed use they love to investin mixed use that is anchored by
a grocery store you have aWalmart.
(16:49):
That's a good play.
You got big box stores,jcpenney, kind of recession
resistant in some cases,dillard's, especially this one
here.
A lot of those companies reallydo lay a foundation.
The problem was is that therewasn't a need for the homes out
here because everybody wasstaying in town, because that's
where, or going into Midtownbecause that's what was the
(17:13):
culture of Lake Havasu.
Now that there's so much demandfor homes and attainable and
affordability, I'm we're seeingit all come North now.
So eventually and I loved whatyou were talking about earlier
this is going to be kind of thenew upgraded hub, because you're
going to see the newer, more,you know, I don't want to say
sophisticated, but more of theforward thinking development,
(17:37):
more the city will kind of allow, you know, maybe a different
design, more modern designthat'll start coming out here
and eventually people are goingto want new right so they're
going to start coming out thisdirection.
So I have a sticky feeling thatthis place it's just a matter
of time it's going to pop in thenext five years.
I think this whole area isgoing to be different.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I would agree with that and I I just a couple of
things to add to that.
So we're kind of stepping backin time, right.
So when we say 2008, like, theworld is drastically different.
And so a couple of things thegrowth of our town has exploded.
So currently just to throw acouple stats on top of this, so
currently the town sits at about60.
(18:16):
It's about 62.7.
So let's just call it 63,000.
And then you take theunincorporated areas.
We're probably working withabout 70,000 people.
And then we have 1.6 milliontourists a year.
So that's the playground.
So a lot of times people willsay, well, it's, you know, it's
only a 70,000 person community,but really on a daily, a weekly,
(18:41):
a monthly, look at it.
It's floating a whole lot morepeople in here.
And then I love your connectionwhen you say Southern
California.
So as an economic developer,I'm a part of a lot of
associations in the state andyou know, the long term joke is
always that you know, lakeHavasu City is kind of
(19:02):
California and if you're inArizona it's a funny little joke
.
But it really tells a broaderstory of where we sit in Mojave
County.
And you know, when people thinkabout Mojave County it's a
tri-city.
They used to call it a tri-city.
It's not much of a tri-cityanymore as one city has kind of
rose to prominence and the othertwo have kind of stayed at the
(19:23):
same.
But Bullhead really reflectstheir Laughlin Nevada roots and
Kingman is an old Route 66 town.
But Lake Havasu has always beena playground of California.
And just to drive that home,when I talk to people in Phoenix
(19:43):
that are thinking about LakeHavasu I always tell them, hey,
you go to Rocky Point, mexico.
And they go, yeah, and I said,well, we're the Rocky Point of
Southern California which wasthe fourth largest economy in
the world.
So that kind of makes sense ofhow people look at us.
They've been here, they know us, they're probably coming here
(20:04):
at least once a year, and sothat's kind of the answers.
A lot of the style, theinvestment, the type of person
that lives in Lake Havasu.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You know, what I've realized too is a lot of people
that I talked to that have,let's say, they moved out.
They lived, they grew up here,they moved out of here.
They're coming back.
That's really kind of cool tohear.
You know, I was on the phonewith a client of mine a couple
of days ago In fact, yeah, acouple of days.
I was thinking last week, no,it's only a few days ago and I
(20:36):
was talking to her.
She's like I'm from Havasu.
I was like, oh my goodness.
So, cause I actually amsurprised how many people know
about Lake Havasu.
I talked back East.
They're like, oh yeah, I usedto.
I grew up in Phoenix, or I grewup, you know, and I used to go
to Lake Havasu where I grew upin Washington and I used to go
down to Lake Havasu and you're,you know, for the size of town
(20:59):
and the amenities that it offers, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, well, it also directly benefits the residents
that are here, because they'regetting a lot higher food,
hospitality, bar scene than theywould if they lived in a 63,000
person community.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, absolutely Okay .
So let's talk a little bitabout what your projection,
because you're knee deep intothis.
I mean, if anybody knows aboutthe growth of Lake Havasu, it's
going to be you.
So let's get into the weeds,because this is what I think
most of our audience is going towant to hear.
What do you believe, where doyou think Havasu is going to be
in the next five years?
So you're probably seeing themigration, you're seeing
healthcare.
You know baby boomers areretiring more of that stuff,
(21:41):
right.
What do you think?
Where do you think Lake Havasuwill be overall?
And let's talk kind of, let'shover more towards the north
side, just because it's relevantto what we're building.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, I think there's a couple things, so one since,
let's just, we've had a realgrowth explosion since about
2015.
the north side has expanded morethan the south side and that
generally has to do with lotconsumption.
So the south side was the firstside that was developed.
(22:14):
It had more amenities and then,because we're bisected by
highway 95, and then we have anEast West McCulloch and a
Midtown and a downtown, um, alot of the original development
was on the South side.
It is the older side, um, andthat's why all the new
development, all the new housingtracks, campbell Ranch You're
(22:40):
talking about, all the new largedevelopments are out towards
the north.
So the city is actually movingon its axis for people.
And so when we were talkingabout the shops not really being
a retail center anymore butbeing a business node, a hub, an
(23:03):
anchor for lifestyle ofNorthside people, that's one of
the reasons you're starting tosee the investment right.
So Jared Ports over there hasjust poured in I believe it's
just around $30 million into thenew medical center, which one
um our town now is an inboundtrauma center, has open heart
(23:25):
cancer surgery, so that's fromlife point in town, but that is
growing to serve all the peoplethat have been coming.
So some of them are babyboomers that are retiring, for
sure, but it's a different typeof person because in the past
it's looked a lot moreretirement.
(23:46):
It's looked a lot more golf.
It's looked a lot more likejust grocery store and go out to
a restaurant once a week.
That is not who's coming hereright now.
what who's coming here is, uh,across the age spectrum, a lot
of them in the 35 to 50 who havealready done quite well have
(24:07):
won the race and metros and havedone things but now are looking
to kind of get a balance intheir life and they want to come
back and you know, maybe whenthey were 20 and going to
university and coming back, theythought this is the worst place
on earth.
And now they've lived a bunch ofplaces and they're like that
was a pretty great place to liveand now I'd really like to
(24:29):
spend a lot of quality time withmy family and still run my
business Right, and so we'reseeing a lot of that.
And then for the, for the olderdemographic, they're coming
back, but 60-year-olds don'tlook the way they used to and,
(24:49):
in fact, if you've met a60-year-old who's retired, watch
out, because they probably havetwice as much energy as you do,
because they are loving lifeand they're doing a hundred
different activities and theylook like teenagers.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
So and that's exactly it.
I feel like those 60 year oldsare more active and more they're
doing more recreational stuff.
And that's Havasu in generalYou're outside, you're boating,
you're golfing.
You're never really insideunless it's really really hot,
and most of the time you'retraveling.
So so when it is really hot outhere for a few months, people
are traveling and going East andkind of spend time with family.
(25:25):
What have you but that?
And that's why RVs and boatsand so forth.
But you know, I, I, I, I loveexactly what you said too and I
never really touched on it.
But you're right, I, I am.
Guys like me, you know, I'm in,I just turned 40, but that 35
to 50 year old guys or familiesthat are.
So this, this town let me backup, this town is also big in
(25:46):
family.
That's the one thing I reallyappreciate about it, as well as
as how much, how much the citytalks about youth and how we
want to continue to invest intomore things for the youth.
I loved that, because that's mybiggest concern was small town.
I came from Southern California.
I want my kids to kind of enjoykind of that, that just
(26:09):
diversification and going to thebeach and going to the
snowboarding, go and do this,but they're starting to get that
here and really, if you don'tmind driving, it's not that far,
you know, but at the end of theday, that's.
You nailed it.
Those are the groups that arecoming out here and again, being
able to work from anywhere isit's kind of driven that as well
.
Cost of living is really insaneright now.
People don't really want tospend $2 million on a house just
(26:29):
to be in California and outsideLA.
It's pretty expensive, but youcan come out here and get way
more bang for your buck and youcan have another toy or two, you
know, for what you'd spend fora house in California, and
that's what I've been reallyrecognized.
That's why these storage unitsare doing so well is because
people are buying more toys andpeople need more room because
they're buying more toys.
So it's really the demand thatI've seen that's driven us to
(26:51):
want to develop this.
And on top of that investment1031 exchanges people are
looking to roll over their IRAsand they're also focused on
healthcare.
So people are more aggressiveand making investments.
They're bullish on making movesNow that they can say back in
08, you saw it coming, but youdidn't make a move.
Now people are like I don'twant to go through that again,
let's just do it now, you know.
(27:12):
So people are just not afraidto start shifting earlier on,
and that's what we've seen asfar as my conversations.
So I would have to piggyback offone more thing too, which would
be the gym that we're buildingout here.
So you just nailed it.
The lifestyle.
I agree.
I think that the mall is goingto be the next movement for
lifestyle more restaurants.
I'd love to see some apartments, create some more density over
(27:33):
there, but with more some other,like you know, smaller retail,
but also more business hub aswell.
So you nailed it.
And that's what having a gymthere where everything's kind of
walking distance, and then yougot a grocery store at Walmart.
You're right, you literallyhave everything.
Now it's just about kind ofbuilding the infrastructure
around it and this thing, Ithink, will thrive.
And again, now that we own.
So our so paradigm storage is225,000 square feet.
(27:56):
With the barn caves in the gym,I think that's 505,000.
So let's just call it 730,000square feet and give or take
that whole mall.
730,000 square feet, we'rebasically doubling the amount of
square footage under roof asthe mall, and we're doing it
within, you know, five years, sothat's quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, and.
I think uh honestly, fromeconomic development standpoint,
we're kind of piggybacking onthat right.
So like development createsdevelopment, so, last month we
had a visit from anotherhealthcare provider looking to
do a $20 million CapEx medicalfacility, and so development
(28:38):
breathes on development, and sowhen we're looking at the
opportunity that's being put inthere, we're also looking at
people that are investingoutside, and then we're also
looking at the potential of whatthe city is going to be doing
in the next couple of years tocreate a larger footprint for
the airport right, and so that'sa timely thing.
(28:58):
Uh, aeronautical, uhdevelopment does not happen
overnight.
It kills uh private developersbecause they're the faa requires
so many different things tohappen, and you don't really
control every inch of your land,for very good reason.
Um but um.
If you start looking at all theum economic points that are
(29:23):
sitting out here in this littletriangle, it's going to grow
even bigger.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Well, I just went over to uh Ironwood and what
they literally built was, let'sjust say, a couple of hundred
yards from here.
Really, they just built like atop golf driver's right, have
you been?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
you've seen it.
It's impressive.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
I'm impressed, I'm impressed, I'm like well, I
hadn't, I hadn't been in there,and I couldn't believe when I
walked in there and I'm like,wow, this is nice because that
you know the, the riviera sorry,the refuge, I think the golf
course went under for a whileand then the gentleman came in
there and spent a lot of moneygetting it up to par, and now
there's a lot of homes beingbuilt in there.
I mean it, he revived thatplace and it's so nice and I,
(29:59):
and then he bought the old hotelthat was in front of it.
I think it's torn down now,right, yeah.
And then there's a new RV parkwhich looks really good.
I mean I'm in for an RV park.
I'm like this looks really goodand but it's more higher in,
like everything I drove by there.
I mean they have big date palmsin there, you know.
I mean he landscaped it really.
So it's not like this.
Is that guy is not coming inhere looking at?
(30:21):
He knows the demographics, heknows there's people coming out
here with money, they wantsafety, they want family, they
want a little bigger lot, theywant to have freedom, they want
to park their stuff, and he'screated a really good movement
there.
So that's how I felt that themall is going to be and there's
more conversations.
I'm kind of hearing that isbeing built over here and I'm
going.
Well, man, I think my timingwas was dead on so I think your
(30:42):
your timing was perfect yeah, Ithink my timing's dead on, but
this I think was a goodconversation piece.
Right next to Home Depot, butthe barn caves, and that's what.
We'll kind of go back into that.
So the barn caves, what do youthink?
So what's the what's the buzzaround town about the barn caves
?
Because if anybody's going toknow, it's going to be you so I
think people are really excited.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So, um, a couple things.
Um, if I was a betting economicdeveloper and everyone said how
many storage units is it goingto take to satisfy this
playground?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I would have lost a decade ago right, you would
never know you needed this, andso if you're not in the business
and you say, why are peoplekeep developing these properties
?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
There's a simple answer they make money and they
sell out, and they're stillwaiting lists, and so it might
be hard for a person that's notin the business to understand
that, but that's the reality.
And so the reality is there'sbeen a couple of plays that have
changed storage in Lake Havasu.
One of it is to our friends tothe north.
(31:47):
Here you know that wholedevelopment was based on hey, if
you're going to come to thesouthwest every year in their RV
, do you really need to driveyour RV back up to Seattle and
pay Seattle rates when land isso expensive to park it?
Wouldn't it be better to flyinto Las Vegas, take a shuttle
and have your RV, stay in anArizona climate controlled space
(32:10):
and then start on theplayground?
And the answer is yes, becauseit's cheaper across the board,
both from taxes and just frommaintenance.
So there's one.
The second I would say is thisis more of an innovative
approach.
This is kind of what people areasking for, like um, there's
(32:32):
ways that we've had at sailinghawks, where you've had these
massive drive-through garagesthat people love, cannot get
enough.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I sold mine out here right as soon as I talked about
them.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
They're amazing because this is where people are
putting toys right, but that isa huge price tag compared to
what you're suggesting, and thenthis also goes into our other
conversation about how peoplewant to be mobile.
So there's a couple analogiesI'd like to just throw out to
your listeners.
I'd love to hear feedback, butyou know, I'm 56 years old and
(33:10):
you know, back in the day, ifyou move before social media, if
you just said, hey, I'm tiredof Oregon, I'm going to go
retire in Arizona, you just lostall your friends in whatever
town you've lived with in 30years.
You just rolled over.
People can literally just gomove and live someplace for four
years, have all new restaurants, meet a bunch of people and go
(33:35):
move to another town, and theydon't lose a soul.
They get to watch everyone'slives, they can reconnect, they
can talk if they want.
This is that medium has allowedeveryone to be more concerned
about their shared space, theircommunity.
How competitive are we?
What does it look like?
And so, in this case, for thebarn dominiums, it's kind of
(33:59):
throwing a lot of those in thatmix, because people are way more
mobile, um, than they werebefore, and so what they're
looking to invest in isn't just,you know, it's just different.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, no, it really is.
And I think that that you knowthe idea was to try to create
kind of a lock and key model aswell, and so it can kind of
cater to, you know, first timehome buyers down to you know,
people just come in a handful oftimes a year and that's really
the idea.
And then again I was tellingyou before the design of it, as
a developer you want to look atany economic adjustments, right,
(34:33):
and how that can affectinvestors that are involved, and
then you're going to have inbuyers.
And so we were looking at itgoing look, we want to design
this in a way where, because wedo a lot of stuff in house,
we're more vertically integratedfrom a construction side,
development side, evenmanufacturing.
That's hence the partnership,and then we can kind of control
our costs a little better.
So therefore, if the marketwere to drop, we can ride that
(34:56):
wave because we created margin,so we have a well-oiled machine
moving forward.
We do a lot of them, and so theidea was is to try to build
something what everybody wants.
The way to do that is typicallydensity right, to keep my costs
down, but do more volume forthe, for the yield.
That I'm going to look for tomake for it to make sense for
investment, and because it isright here next to the mall, I
(35:19):
had a sticky feeling that thecity is going to support that
going.
Yes, we're going to try to,we're going to try to help you
guys, anybody who wants to doanything over there.
We got your back.
But anything that has more of ahigh density overlay would
probably do real well,especially when it is a mall.
And I'm kind of again lookingfive years down the road, you
know, if you have a mall, youhave retail, you have a business
(35:39):
center.
Live, work, play is a bigmovement.
You can get a lot ofinstitutional capital and
looking at that type of stuff,you have the right data.
So I'm going okay, well, and Ihave the whole story of the barn
to many miles sharing with you,and I kind of built the whole
house inside of an old barnbuilt in like the early 1900s.
And and then this, this projectwe're sitting in now paradigm
storage.
(35:59):
You know these big units.
People wanted to live in themand stay in there on the
weekends, right when they comeinto town, because it has
bathroom, showers, kitchenettes,whatever, and and I go, well,
why don't I just go to athree-story product?
Because I can keep the density,give everybody the garages that
they want, make it a little bitlonger.
So 28 by 70s, these are 28 by60s, and then go two stories up,
(36:20):
go vertical, just ask for aheight adjustment and get what
we need.
And everybody just said I loveit.
So then when I started goingthrough the interior design, I
started looking at it, going,okay, I want to make it feel
like this kind of New York vibe.
So when you come in on thesecond floor, all of your living
, so, mind you, the whole firstfloor is all garage.
(36:41):
Yeah, same thing we have inhere, you know, air conditioned,
fully, you know, or at leasttemperature controlled, fully
insulated, and then we'll havean elevator about centralized,
with inside the storage or withinside the unit.
You go straight up to yoursecond floor.
You got groceries.
You just walk out and put thegroceries right on your
countertop in your kitchen andthen you have two bedrooms back
behind that, two more bathroomsupstairs, massive living space.
(37:02):
You have a balcony that goesover the garage, part of the
garage, for kind of the forwardfacing of the unit, for the kind
of the forward facing of theunit.
And then when you come, whenyou're standing, when you're
right, when you walk out, uh,let's just say from the um, the
kitchen, and let's say you havelike typical lights that come
down over your, your, uh, whatdo you call your Island?
Yeah, soon, as you walk pastthe Island it goes into a
(37:37):
vaulted ceiling, huge walk-incloset and kind of a european
themed, uh, bathroom shower.
And every time I I was kind oftesting the waters to my
existing clients, friends,family, what have you?
And they're like this isawesome, we got, you got to
build these things.
Well, what was nice is becausewe're building them out of steel
and we already know kind of howto do this from the projects
(37:57):
that we're building.
I'm like the framing will bepretty easy and because I don't
have as many walls inside thehouse, I can cut my costs.
So you see where I'm going.
All I do is pitch the roof,create a different color, map
right, and then I'll kind ofkeep that modern barn dominium
look with a big garage, twostories of residential, and keep
it in price, in the right pricepoint, and we can pump these
out all day long, and I think itmarried up perfectly.
(38:19):
And I'll sum up with this partit married up perfectly with
what's going on with tariffs andlumber costs and steel costs
and then also insurance, becausenow the homeowner's insurance
for steel buildings is goingdown when stick built is going
up.
So we were looking at that datatoo and I've seen that because
we lend money as well.
So I'm a hard money lender andI get a lot of requests for barn
dominiums back East and Iremember looking I'm like these
(38:40):
guys want loans on a barn.
And then I said I'm like theseare really single family houses,
these are fully built out likein regular insurance policies,
we'll cover it.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Mortgage will actually lend on it.
This is a true single family.
So with all those pieces, hencethe barn dominium, barn caves
right.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
So a couple of things I'd let I mean first of all,
it's innovative.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Let's just start there.
Thank you.
One of the things that we haveto talk about is there's an old
way of doing construction and itlooks more like assembling an
art piece right, like everyone'sgoing to be different and it's
going to be custom, and that'sreally cool if we're talking
about art.
But if we're talking aboutpeople's houses, where we're
having limited supply of land,land is going up, population is
(39:24):
rising, the dirt beloweverything especially in Arizona
that's been an inbound statefor a decade everything on the
rise.
So the idea that we just can'tstart thinking about controlling
construction cross is somethingthat I don't think is.
It's not going to be wellreceived.
(39:46):
In the future, people are goingto look back and say why did
people wait so long to optimizebuilding?
So that's the first thing I'dhave to say about that.
And then the second thing ispart of optimizing building is
creating communities right, andso you're going to have all
these great amenities that theycan share, but they also cost.
(40:07):
Share those right.
So my house I have to pay formy own pool.
I have to pay for every squareinch of it.
But if I was in a communitythat, say, had 100 people and
they had two pools.
I would literally only bepaying a fraction.
And so that also marries upwith these new social dynamics
where people are like it's a lotmore fun to go to the pool with
(40:29):
your kids or with your friendsif you're with other people.
And I'll just give a quicklittle metaphor.
It's one of the reasons hotelsare hurting.
Hotels are a singular activity.
It's the old.
We're going to get in the sedanwith you two kids and we're
going to drive to the GrandCanyon.
We're going to stay byourselves.
(40:49):
Traveling, soccer teams andeverything else have destroyed
this model.
Now families travel in packs.
Four families are going to theGrand Canyon.
They're going to rent a house.
Why?
Because they all need to betogether.
People have become way moresocial.
Might be a great byproduct ofthe phone that will be for
researchers 50 years out fromnow, but we don't know.
(41:12):
But that is a trend.
So building communities,there's a lot of advantages.
So I think you've tapped intotwo.
And then the final thing that Ireally like that when I hear you
talk that, it really gets mefired up about passion is,
instead of just building a spacewhere people could be, you're
building a space where peoplecould flourish.
(41:34):
So how do people flourish?
So I'm from Portland, oregon.
When I was raised back then wehad seven-foot ceilings and we
had cotton clothes and when itrained we went outside.
We got soaking wet.
We came back in and our houseswere terrible.
Now I go up there.
They have 14 foot roofs.
They have sunlight everywhere.
It's raining, it still feelsgreat outside.
(41:56):
The clothes are better.
We're optimizing and so whenyou start talking about these
spaces, it's where people canflourish by having tons of light
, tons of stuff inside.
They're not cramped, they haveplenty of places to move and
that's where people really startliving their best lives.
So that sounds like a reallycool idea that you've put.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
And that's the idea is that even like, if you want
to hang out by the pool, youknow we're going to have Wi-Fi
at the pool People can kind oflay out and get away from the
house if they want to.
We have a lounge at the gym.
People can go into the loungeand get away and have that.
You have little snacks, you canget you work out.
Health and wellness.
Wellness is a big movementright now.
Even physicians are tellingpeople to go back to the old
school, you know, eat well andwork out, kind of thing.
(42:39):
So we're seeing that movementget bigger and bigger.
So I think you and I reallyappreciate the kind words,
because that means a lot to us,because we want to feel like
we're on the right track andanybody who's is knee deep into
the development of the city,like you do, and actually
developing, that's another thing.
I don't know if I've met a lotof people that are spearheading
(43:00):
the, the, the, the economicdevelopment coalition, if you
will.
But actually developed, youknow I'll be honest.
And so it's a different vantagepoint when your boots on the
ground and that's where Irespect the model.
I'm really glad you're here andthen hearing that you've built
something that was totallyoutside the box, it kind of
against the grain, that nobodyreally supported, let's be
(43:21):
honest.
And now it thrived, and that'sreally where you nailed it.
I think that's where Havasu isgoing and that's what people are
looking for, and this, I think,has really been another step up
to that.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Well, I appreciate that and I really have a lot of
latitude with my board.
But just a couple things onthat.
When you're in economicdevelopment, it's really not
about going to meetings andhearing about what other people
are doing.
I know I really have twoaspects of my job.
You know, if I'm at a cocktailparty, that you know, people say
(43:55):
what do you do?
And you're like, oh, I don'treally want to say you know, and
then I'll say something cheekylike I make rich people richer,
right, and in some ways that'strue when I'm working with
out-of-town investment peoplethat are coming in to make a big
play for the community.
But then I also do stuff in thecommunity to make people that
live here stronger, and so thathas to do with Novatic.
(44:17):
But here's another thing.
So we're really involved indowntown and we went to our
board years ago and we said oneof the things that's really
missing in Lake Havasu is we'resuch a young town that we don't
have a lot of culture, and so wewant to focus on a downtown and
we want to start building, youknow, art, music, food, culture,
(44:39):
and here's how we propose to doit.
And we said well, we're goingto start a first Friday and our
board was like I don't, thatdoesn't sound like economic
development.
I said, well, I think it'ssomething we need to do to start
attracting workforce, we needto start putting stuff in front
(44:59):
of families.
And so six years ago we startedwith Darth Vader, a DJ and a
generator in an alley and wewere like I hope someone comes.
You know, last year was we'rein season six.
Um, last year we had 42,000people at the nine events.
Um and uh, the city is nowbuilding an event center in
(45:21):
downtown.
So the point is, um, I don'tthink you can do economic
development by saying, hey, whatare other people's best ideas
and what are they willing to putinto the game?
Sometimes, as an entrepreneur,you have to say what am I
willing to grow, even if I haveto grow it out of an alleyway?
(45:43):
And so when you're a part of it, I think it A it makes you more
useful, um, useful forentrepreneurs that put all the
skin in the game.
Right and um, now our scalesare way different, but our
heartaches are the same, right,so, like when we were building
(46:03):
nomadic.
You know it's it's not thefirst 2 million, but it's the
last 40,000 where you're likethis thing's got to get a
certificate of occupancy we needrevenue.
Like, what are we doing?
And you're yelling at peopleand cause you're at the stress
point Right, and I think thatthat's incredibly valuable, not
only for economic developmentbut for cities, and so we're
(46:26):
lucky that we have a lot ofsupport from our city and and
Jess, our city manager, to evenwatch people.
They're willing to try it ontheir own.
It's more empowering and I alsothink it's the spirit of our
town.
Um, we were founded by anentrepreneur and we really don't
have large companies that have,you know, 300 jobs.
(46:48):
Yeah, you know we, you know the.
You know havasu Regional hasalmost 900 employees, but that's
not really our backbone.
Our backbone is entrepreneurialcompanies of four to six people
that have really good, solidbusinesses, and so that's one of
the reasons that the income isso high, because, essentially,
(47:10):
two to three of those people arevery well-paid employees and
because, essentially, two tothree of those people are very
well paid employees and theother two to three are learning
their skills to get to becomehighly compensated people.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
And I like that because it is a big community.
I mean the boating communityalone.
Right, People know each otherby the names of their boats and
that's the thing about theboating community is everyone's
so helpful and kind and itreally is a true community and
that's what it feels like hereoverall too.
You know.
So, when people come out hereand you're successful, a lot of
times those, those successfulguys are going to is going to
(47:40):
pull other guys up with them,you know, and create, show, show
, some leadership.
And I and I really appreciatethat about this town because I
get a lot of young men reachingout to me going, hey, how do I
get into the business?
What do I need to do?
And they're so humble andthey're like I just want to get
there, how do I do that?
You know they're not pumping uptheir chest and being fake.
I really appreciate that aboutthis town.
Now you got all kinds of guysin every walks of life, all over
(48:02):
the place, let's be honest.
But it is definitely adifferent atmosphere here to be.
I want to be around like-mindedpeople that kind of you know,
speak the same language and wantto be a part of a community,
want to help others and want tobe successful together and spend
time with their families, and Ithink that's just really key
for me.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
So yeah, Well, if you're growing, everyone's
growing, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Normally right, Yep.
So, well, mr Gray, thank youvery much for your time.
This was very fruitful and I'mhoping my listeners will
appreciate it.
I'm sure they will, but I'mprobably going to ask you to
come another time.
In fact, I'm going to go aheadand ask my audience, if you will
.
I'm going to do a little poll.
I want you guys to give memaybe a yes or no about having
this young man on I'm going tosay young man, if you don't mind
Having this young man on andalso any questions you want to
(48:44):
ask about Lake Havasu, becausethis is the guy we'll know.
So I'm hoping we covered someground on kind of the atmosphere
of what's going on here, thegrowth of the North side
Obviously it's a little biasedbecause we want to know about
our project but Lake Havasuoverall.
If anything you guys want toknow, go ahead and fill out the
form below and we'll get yousome answers and we'll have them
on for another round.
So thanks you guys.
(49:04):
I appreciate it.
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