From Concrete to Development: One Contractor's Path to Success | Dennis Roberts E27 - The Paradyme Shift

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:28):
no-transcript, the fun stuff.
But, dennis, thanks for joiningme today.
Buddy, my pleasure.
So let's start off.
I think it's going to beimportant to kind of give
everybody an understanding ofyour past so people can kind of
see the yellow brick road forour future.
So let's talk a little bitabout your very beginning in the

(00:49):
construction world, but alsowhen you got into it and your
age, please.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, I was very young.
I grew up in a concrete family,so it was plenty of labor.
I was the kid out there, youknow, cleaning forms and digging
ditches and doing all thethings that every kid does.
That's part of the family andso that gave me my first sense
of work ethic.
You know how hard you have towork to get where you need to go

(01:14):
, and I remember a time when Iwas doing that going geez, this
is pretty hard on the bod.
I don't know how many years Ican actually put into this.
I'm finishing concrete withguys that are 60 years old and
I'm looking at them going ah,they're torn up.
Where was this?
This was back in Grand Junction, colorado, and then in Phoenix,
arizona, back in the early 80s.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
So you went from cooler weather to really hot
weather.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, really hot weather and horrible winters
where you have to covereverything every night, to hot
hot weather where you're prayingthat the concrete survives the
heat.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, Now let's talk about kind of the process for
construction here, becausethat's something I always kind
of talk about, especially whenpeople are pouring here.
You guys are popping up lightsat 1.30 in the morning and
you're starting to pour justsimply because it's so hot here.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
ACI, which is the American Concrete Institute, has
very strict guidelines onconcrete placement and one of
those is temperature, ambienttemperatures and the heat of
concrete, the heat of hydration,how fast that happens when the
ambient temperature reallystarts rising.
It is so hot here we actuallyexceed all the deltas for that.
There is no time of the yearhere, in the summer at least,

(02:21):
when you can actually placeconcrete and stay in that
standard.
So we have to exerciseeverything we can do to keep the
temps down places, uh, placesas quickly as we can and get
finished out as quickly as wecan.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Before we're we're losing the whole yeah, because
once that sun comes up and itstarts getting even hotter it it
.
It is not only almost impossibleto keep up with, but the
concrete itself really doessuffer yeah, and not only that,
your finisher, your labor, Imean, depends on what you're
pouring, how much ground you gotto cover, you know how much uh
labor you have at that time tobe able to, you know, finish
whatever slab you just poured,or whatever exactly, and so, uh,

(02:56):
your labor demand goes up andyou're also beating your guys up
pretty hard.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
uh, it's one thing to just have hard work, it's
another to be exhausted.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
We're watching that all the time, and let's talk
about what happened last year.
You know, when it was so hotlast year, what happened here at
Paradise?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
The first year we had to actually shut the job down
about one o'clock everyafternoon.
We had guys getting heat stroke, you know, basically thrown up
on the job, not getting dizzy,you know, not feeling.
Well, we can't handle that.
That's not an environment we'regonna let people work in, yep.
So we had to just kind of shutthe job down early.
You can start as early as youwanted in the morning.
We're out here in the middle ofthe world so we can do that um,

(03:31):
uh, two, three o'clock in themorning.
It's not unusual to have theelectricians out there with
lights.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
It's interesting and that's what's nice about us
being in the commercial space,right, because if we were in the
, if we're in residentialcommunities, we we wouldn't be
able to, you know, pour in themiddle because you have noise
violations and so forth.
So we're we're blessed to beable to be in the commercial
world, which, which is a bigcomponent for a lot of investors
and developers to consider,especially the location, given

(03:56):
the environment, along with thelabor force, and when timelines,
all of that has a direct effectand cost, and so on and so
forth.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, every area has its challenges.
I mean, if you go down to Texas, you've got rain, rain, rain,
rain.
You go to Colorado, you havethe harsh winters.
Here it's just heat, and thatis one of the most difficult
things with concrete.
The heat of hydration actuallypromotes that initial set much
earlier than you want.
You need time to work it, youjust don't get the time.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
All right, so let's move from concrete to what was
the next step in your career?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, I went into quality control.
I was very blessed to work withsome of the best engineering
minds out there at a companycalled Western Technologies.
They gave me an education inthe concrete, asphalt, soils,
structural steel, masonry allthe sciences that I never would
have gotten any other way.
I cannot tell you how importantthat has been in my life, not

(04:48):
only to understand the scienceof what we do, why we do what we
do, but to have that backgroundwhere I can then teach others
why they do.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
You know one of the most important things and I
think we're.
You know more of thesophisticated, let's say,
outfits, firms, developers andcontractors.
They know the majority of therisk is in the horizontal work,
yeah, which starts with yourengineering moving dirt.
You know how much it's going tocost to move dirt, what's under
that.
You know underground pullingutilities, asphalt, all those

(05:18):
horizontals really kind of waswhat makes your deal.
It's easy to kind of do yourcalculations going vertical.
It's the horizontals where themajority of risk is, yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
We talk about that all the time.
Getting out of the hole is themost difficult process of a
project.
Design is time.
It's just time, time, time.
But actually doing theconstruction, getting out of the
hole that's where you are pastyour horizontals and now you're
going vertical it's the mostdifficult time on the project.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Now to have a background like yours.
Of course you're going to be alittle biased in answering this
question, but how important isit that?
How much?
How important do you believe itis to have a contractor that
has that type of experienceworking with a developer like us
that's looking at it from aspace of you know?
We are looking at scaling andmass sizes we're doing we're
probably the larger of thecommercial developers here in

(06:08):
town and how important do youbelieve it is to have that type
of skillset as a contractor fromthe beginning stages?
Simply because we're not doingvalue add deals, we're doing
ground up construction.
You know entitlements, planning, buying land and then taking it
from there.
How much do you think that hasplayed a part in assisting our
design team?

Speaker 2 (06:28):
it cannot be overstated enough that the
quality of your subs, themindset that they have, their
ability to kind of scale with us, keep on schedule.
It's the most important aspectof choosing the right people.
You can always get a cheaperbid.
You can almost always getsomebody that'll say I'm going

(06:51):
to do quicker, faster, cheaper,that those people are everywhere
Actually.
Um, partnering withsubcontractors that can actually
pull it off and do it safely,with quality standards that are
high enough for us and keep onschedule, that's worth what we
paid them.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
That's totally worth it.
But I'm saying the upfrontplanning and stages.
To have your background andlike the engineering side, how
much of a part do you think thatplays in the design?

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, I think it gets the confidence of the designers
that we can have a greatconversation right off the bat
about hard topics which way togo with foundation design, which
way to go with bearing capacity, which way to go with if
structural steel or masonry orstructural concrete is a better
fit for a wall.
Um, it's not just understandingthe materials but understanding
the environment that you'reworking in.
So here we're sands and gravels, right.

(07:43):
We don't hold vertical wallsvery well at all.
Osha doesn't even allow it.
So there are some types ofconstruction that just isn't
suited for our region.
I'm blessed to have been inthis region for about 30 years,
35 years now, and I know it inand out, so it helps a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
All right, I'm going to drag it out of you because
you're too damn humble, okay?
So let's talk about your realexperience.
Okay, how many airports andrunways and um taxiways have you
been involved in?
Uh?

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I a lot.
Okay, I've worked on everymajor airport in arizona um las
vegas.
Uh, a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Okay.
So, with that said, would youagree that that type of
engineering work foundation prepis probably the most difficult
in the world, separate to?

Speaker 2 (08:32):
a high rise kind of thing it is.
It's it's a real challenge,because I mean, that's where
everything starts.
You get out of the holeproperly.
Everything else just follows.
It's easy after that.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
So when we were talking to the airport out here
about expanding the taxiway froma private space, what were you
saying in regards to, uh, thegrade of the fall, the way that
asphalt has to be prepared giventhe heat yeah, now let's talk
about if we were going to pour,let's say, big man cave, you
know airplane hangers, yeah, andthere's obviously asphalt that

(09:03):
goes up to that slab.
What were you talking about?
The way that asphalt had to bebasically prepped, poured
designed.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
So FAA has a really high standard for asphalt and
concrete, subgrade soils, allthat kind of thing.
And it's not just a highstandard, it's a very tight,
tight standard.
So we don't have a lot ofasphalt suppliers or concrete
suppliers that can actually meetthe spec.
They have a structural and anon-structural standard.
So your non-structural standardis for everything that's

(09:30):
outside of that fa controlledarea and it is treated very,
very differently.
When I, when we found out thatthis was a possibility that we
could get into that project, mymind started spinning.
Firstly, who can we get asmaterial suppliers that can eat
that demand?
So I reached out to them andand, uh, the answer was pretty
much look, uh, we can do it, buteverybody's got to be involved.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
It's a it's a very difficult thing now the they
were talking about it was a twopercent grade.
We can't fall from the yeah theactual runway, runway down to
get all the way down to whateverlocate.
Otherwise the fa, the FAAprobably won't in essence
inherit that as a cost tomaintain that side right.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Not only that, it's a safety standard.
You don't want planes goingdown really steep grades.
They're not like automobiles.
They don't have the samecapacity to turn quickly and
brake hard that kind of thing.
They have their ability tocontrol themselves.
But the grade is superimportant to keep it as level as
possible.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
All right, so we'll keep going so from Western Tech.
What was your role at WesternTech?

Speaker 2 (10:33):
So I started out in Western Tech as a technician,
learning the ropes of thescience of materials testing and
inspections engineering, andthen moved my way all the way up
to a principal director.
It took 25 years to do that.
The education was invaluable.
I worked with just some of thegreatest minds Dr Rosner, who

(10:54):
was head of the geotechnicaldepartment at ASU.
Randy Marwig, one of the finestscientists in geotechnical
engineering.
Raphael Tix, our world-renownedcement expert.
Brian Castles that's on the ACIcommittee.
Some of these guys.
Phil Felice, who just recentlypassed, a great man and one of

(11:17):
the best minds in asphalt inArizona.
Arizona is a very unique placefor asphalt.
Our UV day those hours of UV,is so critical to understand how
it works with asphalt and howquickly basically all the
volatiles burn off.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
And so you're left with sand and gravel All over
the world.
They look at Arizona as a placethat they can kind of use the
same technology that we use here.
Wow, I did not know, that yeah,China, Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Really.
Yeah, it's's me.
They look at arizona as a datasource to yeah, holy jeez.
Yeah, I didn't, I never knowthat I didn't know that at all.
Very interesting, I could seethat this is so damn hot here
yeah, it's really hot and wehave what three three was it?
Was it like uh, three inches ofrain total in a year here in
havasu?
Something of that nature?
western tech was doing mixeddesigns for china at one point I
can see that you know and a lotof the guys.
I actually had some friends Igraduated high school with that
ended up going to dubai and wasworking on the burj khalifa and

(12:13):
a couple other big projects outthere.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's ironic well, it's not, but I it's ironic that
they were reaching out to usfor engineering and design and
labor at one point yeah, I meanI think it's like any
progressive state or country, Imean they're going to look to
other countries who've alreadykind of invented the wheel and
see how that's done best.
Yeah, arizona just happens tobe one of those places in the
world where it kind of works.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
And so we're going to go into labor here in a second.
All right, so from Westerntechnology, where'd you end up
going there after that?

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Well, my wife at the time got me into real estate and
what a great experience thatwas and I never really got out
of development.
I never really got out ofconsulting.
I continued to do that throughthe 10 years I was really
working in real estate with herVery successful, very good

(13:08):
opportunity to actually kind ofshift gears into the development
and construction phase of mylife.
I got my general contractor'slicense somewhere in that
10-year period and then startedactually trying to get some
projects.
I didn't have to work hard todo it.
So many people are just lookingfor somebody that really is
knowledgeable and answers thephone and gives them a good
understanding of how to buildsomething and that just kind of

(13:29):
eat into development.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yep and that, and then you and I met on a golf
course.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
We met on a golf course as the best of all
stories start.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
And I don't even think we talked business.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
No, we talked.
We talked personal lives yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
And then we were, and then, I think, eric told me hey
, if you need a contractor, youknow, consider dennis yeah and I
remember I was taught, I thinkyou and I had one conversation.
I think we did like a three-waycall with him about it and then
, I think you know, six monthslater I reached out to you yeah,
no, it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Um, you know, sometimes you connect with
somebody on a level that youjust didn't expect and I think
we I mean it was uh, I like tosay love at first sight.
I mean we literally justconnected yeah and, uh, you
called me up.
It was like we were still onthe golf course.
We just picked up theconversation, said hey, you want
to do this yeah let's do itright now.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
We are where we are today we're doing all right.
So let's talk a little bit aboutum, let's talk about the four
projects that we have going onhere now.
Paradigm storage you kind ofstepped in and I, I would.
I would kind of lead to saythat you know, cleaning up after
another contractor is usuallykind of the hardest part.
It's difficult, you know.
Obviously I cut my teeth in it.
Having to be in the lendingspace taking back properties
that are mid construction, thatyou know someone may have

(14:38):
stopped making payments on.
That's when you kind of startlooking behind the curtains, if
you will, and see the kind ofshortcuts were in place and just
how bad sometimes thesecontractors just try to make
their money and get out.
So really the idea is somethingthis size as far as paradigm
storage, for you to slide in andtry to make up or find out what

(14:59):
was missing on such a bigproject as it was and then take
it from there was impressive,but it did take a little bit of
time to kind of get our wheelsmoving and then now we're off
and running for sure.
But Paradigm Stories talk alittle bit about just simply the
method to our madness right,how many phases we have.
What's our next building thatwe're delivering, talk about
building G in that wall, talkabout the man cage, and then

(15:20):
we'll talk about thedesirability of that.
We'll shift over to uhboathouse, because we're
obviously dropping uh, uhbuildings today.
Yeah, that's really cool, andwe're gonna be pouring another
slab here pretty soon, and thenwe'll talk about uh dover, our
family office, uh societybuilding and our new
headquarters, which is reallyexciting.
We're I mean, dude, we'llhopefully we'll be done by the
end of the year.
Yeah, um, I want to be in therefor christmas, so hopefully you
can get us in there forchristmas.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
We're definitely going to be in there for
Christmas, so hopefully you canget us in there for our
Christmas party.
I think we are definitely goingto be in there.
I don't have no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And then we have barn caves and the gym, which is
like a whole other conversation.
So let's just talk aboutparadigm storage right now.
Let's talk about how manyphases we have, the sear size of
it, just so our audience canhear about how involved
obviously you are.
But they they hear from me allthe time talk about it.
So I want you to kind of sharea little bit about your thoughts
on overall paradigm storage,the desirability, why we're
selling them as fast as we arecompared to other projects, uh,

(16:08):
but obviously the, the projectoverall, yeah, uh, you're right,
I'm stepping into a mess likewe had is difficult.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Fortunately you already had some really good
people in place.
They just weren't veryorganized.
So we got those people to kindof explain to us exactly where
we were at.
Um started looking at theproject, re-phased it because
the phasing was really off anduh just started picking up the
pieces.
Or building c was the firstbuilding that we completed

(16:36):
together and it was tough, very,very difficult, I mean.
I like to say we don't.
We jumped into a dumpster fireand we had it pretty much
extinguished by Building C andby D.
We were trucking along again,but very difficult.
But the quality of these buildsis really where it stands out.
Storage in the United Stateshas always just been kind of a

(16:57):
tin.
Can you get a door of some sorton it?
and it just kind of secures yourstuff.
This is a completely differentlevel.
I would say it's a luxurystorage unit, so it not only has
great appeal, just curb appeal.
I mean it's a beautiful,complex, but each one of those
units is super nice.
I mean it's as good as anygarage attached to your house.
It's insulated, has airconditioning, has plenty of

(17:19):
electricity.
Most of them have plumbing ofsome sort.
It's as good as anything that'sattached to your house.
So I'm proud of the product wehave.
We continue to learn to make itbetter and better and better.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
And our subs, who have been instrumental in
helping us get the qualitystandard up, just continue to
perform at a better level.
Would you consider us beingprobably the top performer in
the storage space here?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Well, I think so.
You know, I never want todiscount the chance that
somebody else can come in and doit bigger, faster.
Sure, that's always apossibility.
But I mean, I think we've shownourselves, not only to the city
but we've shown ourselves toother contracting groups and to
the city of Lake Havasu, that weare people that do what we say.

(18:07):
We're going to do it well andwe get the job done.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do you think we started the new standard of the
way to?

Speaker 2 (18:12):
build these, it's obvious.
I mean, in the retail space ofreal estate I sold a lot of
storage, a lot of storage Nowand before that in my consulting
career.
I did a lot of storage with lotof storage now, and before that
in my consulting career, I dida lot of storage with other
contractors.
So I know what they're builtout, I know how they're built
and, um, ours is just a wholenother level.

(18:33):
So, yes, I think if you'regoing to compete in this space
at this point, you're going tohave to follow yeah, follow suit
, and I'm seeing othercompetitors are actually
literally looks exactly like theinside of our units.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Yeah, it's, which is, which is nice, because what
that means is that we're on theright track.
I'm seeing other competitorsare actually literally looks
exactly like the inside of ourunits.
Yeah, yeah, it's which is,which is nice, cause what that
means is that we're on the righttrack.
That's my takeaway.
It's what people want, yeah,and I, and I always tell my, I
tell everybody.
You know my competitors, ifwe're doing something, they're
doing it right.
We're all seeing it.
So many people that want theseunits.
You really couldn't buildenough.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
No, and we all grew up in homes and our youth that
were basically just studded,they weren't drywall, they
weren't insulated.
None of those garages lookedthat way.
And then suddenly you saw aninsulated and drywall garage.
You're like what is this?
You know this is how these haveprogressed.
They have just gone to thehighest level you can actually
take it with with a steelbuilding.
I suppose we could go a couplemore levels up, but I mean, at

(19:25):
some point you're just like it'sstill building.
This is a best that can reallydone with that.
You know, it's really reallyquality standard.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
I was interviewed by invest Nashville so I'll have a
second publication with them andthe reason why they called me
back for the second round wasbecause they were so intrigued
by the a way that we're movingthese units and then how this
was, in essence, a footprint ofthe barn caves and how a big
part of the desirability forthis and a lot of our questions

(19:54):
that people want to stay inthese things and live in these
things is what made us slideinto the design of the barn
caves.
And then when you look at thedata like I just talked about
this on the last podcast aboutGoldman just opened up a $500
million fund for takeoutlong-term financing for
operators for self-storage butmore boat and RV storage.
So that just kind of tells youlook, if that's the trend and

(20:16):
the data supports it, and youhave a big institution that's
now supporting the asset classand giving you finance options I
mean that's impressive.
And the interest rates are.
First of all, interest ratesare coming down.
You probably saw that they'regoing to end up coming down and
starting September and I wouldlike to think they will.
Um, but uh, the commercial uh,uh, mortgage backed security
costs has come downsignificantly in the last three

(20:36):
weeks.
So you know, we're seeing.
You know, besides 8.8, uh,leverage.
You're going to 6.6 now,leverage on commercial assets,
when then, obviously, goldmanlaunches that fund.
So you're like, okay, they'regetting, they're getting ready
for that huge shift of boomersand multi-generational now, as
far as boats and RV ownershipand how.
That's a trend you can watch.

(20:57):
You can watch spending habits,you can watch what the baby
boomers are doing, you can seewhere they're moving, you can
see what they're focused on,healthcare, what have you right?
So it's not rocket science, no,and that's why it's so easy to
collect the data.
Yep, you know.
And.
And then you look at this typeof stuff where the guys are
building like the car caves.
So, going back to the interview, they were talking about these
guys that they're interviewingas well.
That did car caves in, liketampa, florida and all the and.

(21:18):
So they're the, the concretewalls, and but they're selling
these things for 800,000, amillion dollars.
And that's a great demographic.
That's its own niche.
You know that's higher networth clients that you're
shooting for that are reallygoing to spend a million dollars
on a, on a, on a box.
Basically, that's fine, I'm not, there's nothing wrong with
that.
But our model is to go in thereand pump these out into a lot
more locations.
And I would like to think, ifyou're wearing a uh, an

(21:41):
institutional hat, affordabilityis always important to hover
around.
You can never go wrong withaffordability, you know.
And so I think for us to beable to, you know, build these
and then sell them for 300 grandor under 300 grand.
Some of them are $120,000, youknow that's a big deal.
I mean, the entry point's lowenough to consider.
Everybody wants to store theirstuff in storage, but then you

(22:03):
can create your own, you, yourown private space.
But if you're bolting this ontoa house, you're really paying
cost per square foot for livingspace.
What people, I think, arestarting to get smart on going
like I can make my own space inthe garage and in essence, it's
free living space and that'shuge right, if you think about
this, right now, everybody comeshere, I mean for our company,

(22:27):
for the team.
We're all here every day.
We're sitting inside as wespeak.
My podcast studio sitting insidea man cave at Paradigm Storage
in phase one right, andeverybody that comes in here
doesn't ever want to leave, soyou can feel that culture, but
everyone's coming here.
So, at the end of the day,think about the cost for me to

(22:50):
have an office If I wanted tobuy real estate.
I mean my entire team, that'srunning an entire firm.
What we're doing, everythingwe're doing, is being ran from a
small little garage for under300 grand.
You know what I mean.
So I kind of feel like SteveJobs right now, just a little
wealthier at the moment.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, Well, I agree completely.
One of the things I've alwaysthought in the residential space
where we're tacking on thesemassive garages, these homes, is
that encumberment fixes theprice of that home.
If you can kind of think aboutit from the standpoint that if I
go out there and buy a reallynice home, it meets my needs and
then I can grow and I canretract by having an offsite

(23:24):
garage that is going toaccommodate my toys.
You're not always going to havethe same amount of toys,
sometimes you're going to havemore, right?
So I think it's a great assetand, honestly, if all of us 25,
35 years ago had started lookingat storage the way we're
looking at it now, oh my Lord,it would have been a game
changer.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
You know what?
One of the secret data.
I've never told anybody thisand no one, I think, has ever
really thought about it.
As soon as I say it, you'relike oh yeah, absolutely Nobody
talks about the consolidation ofwhat people have to go into one
of these units.
Oh yeah, the amount of peoplethat have sold other assets to
consolidate to go into one spacein something like this has been
a lot.

(24:04):
Yes, it's hard to collect thatdata, I think, from like a like
a internet perspective, unlesssomeone's starting to track that
data.
But we have been paying, or atleast I've been paying attention
.
I know Bree is too, cause she'slooking at all the contracts
and but I'm a lot of thesepeople I'm talking to investors
that are investing, areconsolidating and go to these
things.
So I'm really watching that andI would say honestly, about 10%

(24:27):
of our buyers are consolidatingas far as the larger units, are
buying the larger units andconsolidating.
How many people do you knowthat are selling other storage
units to buy one of our unitsand it's contingent Right?
So what they're saying is Ilove your unit, I can sell my
unit for a little bit less thanwhat I'm going to buy yours and

(24:48):
I get a lot more bang for mybuck, more space.
I can go tinker in there.
Where other places it's too hotto want to work on your boat or
your RV.
If you don't have airconditioning You're not going to
go work on it.
So if you're someone who, likemy father, he loves to save
money and he'll go tinker and doeverything on his own, if a
battery goes out, he's nottaking it to the guy, he's doing
it himself.
That's 90% of everybody inHavasu.
So when it's really hot nobodywants to go sit in their, their,

(25:11):
their storage and work on theirstuff.
They want to go into a placewhere you can't even, you won't
even know it's 110 degreesoutside you know, that's so.
That's then.
That's what happens when I walkaround and I'm on site every
day and I'm seeing our ownersand they're telling me what
they're doing and I'm takingthat away.
Right, I'm really on site,boots on the ground, listening.
So that's, that's one.
And so, to go back, before wego too far into a tangent, you

(25:32):
know we're 225,000 square feet.
Uh, where are we at withbuilding f and building g, which
is our last two?
Ultimate, we're making it.
One phase is what it soundslike.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
We're almost pushing for it Almost almost.
Building F.
And again, this is how thingsprogress.
Building F the foundation isformed up.
We've got the underground andall the horizontals ready to go
to concrete.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
And what's the biggest unit in that one?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
It's like 3,000.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, isn't it?
I think it's like was it 30feet wide by 135 deep
drive-through?
Yeah, 135 foot double wide.
Yeah, man cave, that is stupid.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And it's got a demising wall between that and
the one next door.
So if you want, you can buythem both.
Take out that wall and justhave ginormous space.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
That would be massive .
I say we just leave the wallout.
Eric said not to do any moredrive-thrus and I think that was
bad.
I think we should have let moredrive-thrus in.
Oh my God, the amount of peoplethat want drive-thrus, let's
bash on.
Eric.
Oh, we're going to bash on Eric, you know.
Look for the number one brokerright, I told him hey, leave
those drive-thrus up.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
And he's like no, you're in my house.
Well, and not only that, but Imean we're learning as we go.
I mean this is also one ofthose industries where the
consumer tells us what they want.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
And they don't know what they want until they see it
Right.
So we changed F from nine unitsto five and you gave me the
permission to do it and saidlet's go.
And I just approached you andsaid, hey, let's just knock it
out of the park.
It's a smaller building.
Let's just see what happens.
People are going nuts.
They walk up to that thing andthey're going nuts.

(27:15):
They can already see the formson the ground.
They're like what?
That's one unit.
I'm like that's one unit.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, it's crazy because I don't know how many
you know tilt, trailer, mtis andskaters and guys that have you
know $500,000 million coachesare going.
Hey, do you have anything?
The basic, they'll spend themoney.
They really don't care.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Well and we're even seeing this with DLA, the family
office people walk in there andthey're like look, I can spend
the same amount of money buyinga nice house with a huge RV
garage.
Um, or I can build somethinglike this and have exactly what
I'm wanting.
I don't need all that space, Ijust need a big garage right

(27:55):
that's oversized at a level thatis super super-sized.
But when you see people'sattitudes on that, you're like
is there a market for that?

Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean do people?

Speaker 2 (28:05):
want 10,000 square feet of garage.
And people are like, yeah, yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
If you look at all the spec homes or the customs
that are being built up in thefoothills, look how big those
garages are.
You cannot go wrong going witha bigger garage.
You cannot People are startingto build underground shooting
ranges out here.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
It's wild, it's crazy what people really want.
So, yes, if we had a paradigmto do over again, we would have
conceived it a little bitdifferently and we would have
had a different mix of of sizesof units.
But here we are and, like yousaid, f's just to the point
where we got concrete.
Now, um, the only thing thatthat is kind of holding me up is

(28:42):
G have massive retaining walland uh, it's kind of just a
staging situations, sequencingproblem, and and we're right
there, we're right there, andand again.
These are the.
We were talking about thisyesterday about schedules and
the demands and making sure thatwe're sequenced right.
And then you get halfwaythrough and you're like, oh, I
think we can do it differentlyand suddenly gain some time.

(29:03):
This morning I'm out therelooking at it and I called Takai
, our superintendent, and said Ithink we're in better shape
than I thought we'd be and we'llbe able to COF earlier than I
thought we could.
So these are things that youdon't always see right away, but
it's happening.
And so that G wall is going in.
Once that wall's in, we geteverything going horizontal on

(29:24):
that, and then we'll go verticalon that building too, and
that's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
You know it's.
You know it's.
I'm glad that you brought thatup.
But, you know, one of the oneof the things too, is I don't
think people quite understandhow this, because, again, this
isn't a standard self-storage.
You know 10 can people?
I don't think people understandhow difficult this really is to
build.
It's a completely differentlevel.
And then, you know, one thing Iwant to talk on too is the,

(29:52):
again, the entry point.
You know the.
We have a 3000 square foot unitto give you an idea.
People are going well, my gosh,these guys have millions of
dollars that are buying them.
Yeah, that's true.
However, a lot of people arebuying these from a tax strategy
side to, so they don't have topay Uncle Sam Right?
So, whether they sold a houseor sold a, you know, or sold
their business or whatever, sothey may not have a lot of money
, but they're going to use whatthey would pay Uncle Sam to, in

(30:14):
essence, establish another realestate property under their belt
.
So you get a lot of that.
And that's because this is a bigretirement location and when
people decide to move from stateto state, for example,
California to Arizona, they'regoing to move all their assets,
including banking and realestate and they're going to try
to keep everything tight becausethey just that's what they're

(30:35):
going to believe and that'swhere the world's going to add.
You like to say, for example,that that big unit in F, that to
buy that somewhere else you'reat two and a half $3 million
minimum just to do a car cavethat size?
There's no way.
And then to add to that, forexample, Dover is ultimately a

(30:57):
20,000 square foot house.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
But look how fast.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
We're slapping that together.
It's a whole different levelcompared to this, honestly, and
it's also because of trades.
We have more trades, and that'snormal to build that type of
stuff, than this.
It's such a niche across everymetric of the development that
it's hard to find the laborers,so let's transition into that.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, labor in Havasu has always been an Achilles
heel.
We're a market that's basicallyretirement and recreation right
, so it draws tons of peoplehere.
I mean our population explodesduring the winter and during the
big holiday weekends.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Which I think a lot of people don't know.
They think it's summertime whena place blows up.
No, it's just the weekends whenthey do.
And that's where the smallbusinesses here are most
effective.
During the hot season, it'sactually during the winter when
this place swells up.
It's all the.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, the snowbirds.
Yeah it is, and the problem isthat it's so sporadic.
We have a hard time keeping ourkids here to continue to work
in Lake Havasu.
It's actually kind of anopportunity zone from the state
of California.
I mean, most people can bringfactories, small family
factories, here there's a lot ofthat in Havasu but they're only
needing six, seven employees torun their entire business.

(32:12):
So there's just a problem ofthe right kind of jobs being
available and then the rightkind of people staying for those
jobs.
I oftentimes say we don't havean area outside of Havasu that
is close enough in proximitythat you can drive to Havasu and
pour coffee.
It just doesn't work.

(32:33):
So the people that are livinghere have a fairly high living
expense and so you have to havegood jobs.
The construction industry hasalways provided a big source of
income for a lot of those peoplelooking for employment that the
quality of those salarieswouldn't buy them.
It's only been in the last fiveyears that we really started to

(32:56):
see compensation, started toreally rise up and be more
competitive with Vegas or placesthat people could go otherwise.
So we're getting there, but it'sstill a deficit and we're
really struggling with a lot ofthe trades having the manpower
to keep up.
If we do some of the projectsand you and I talk about this
nonstop if we do some of theprojects that we're wanting to
do, our first concern is labor.

(33:16):
We can get all kinds ofprojects.
How fast can we get thesepeople to scale with us so that
they can keep up?

Speaker 1 (33:22):
And that's something that I wanted to.
It was funny.
Somebody was asking me aboutthat the other day and it was
kind of one of those somebodywho's just kind of playing
devil's advocate, right, so Ikind of teed off a little bit.
It was talking about howthey're like, how do you with
your guys' projects, as big asthey are?
How the hell are you guysgetting them done Really?
Cause he was impressed on howfast we're we're moving.
And then your trades.
And I said, well, if wereactually residential subs and

(33:49):
then went and got licensed forcommercial because we had big
enough.
Uh, they had big enoughcontracts with us to then go do
it.
I think what you're seeing isit's.
You know they say it's alwaysthe top 10, it's a, it's the 10
that gets 90 of the business.
Always.
That's how it always has beenand everything.
So what what's happened is isthose trades I'm going to say
let's just call london bridgeelectric and let's just say Hot

(34:10):
Solutions as two best exampleswe have.
Now they have been establishedin the business.
I think Aaron has only he'sbeen running.
He's been in the HVAC foreverbut he just launched his own
business and he has a two-mancrew at the time.
Now, how big is he?
He's got four or five trucks.
He's got seven, eight guys.
He's got a big building office.
Now he's got a big buildingoffice now and he basically is

(34:30):
dominating the space, and it wasbecause we gave him the
opportunity.
Then he has buying powerbecause he's buying a lot more
units.
So he's building relationshipswith the supply houses Same
thing with London BridgeElectric, right, and it's with
pretty much anybody who we wereable to tie with.
But what we've had to find isthe guys that are willing and
able to be able to scale with us, and the reality is a lot of

(34:52):
times it takes money to do that,to spend money into your
business.
What has happened is is they'vebeen able to get to a point
where they can grow at acontrolled level with us, but
now they have the liquidity toreally help us grow.
So what's happened is is I'mseeing the heartbeat overall of
the company on the developmentside kind of come together

(35:15):
because all of our subs arethere.
That's why some people are going.
Hey, you know, as you know, I'mgoing to Nashville to go look
at three sites, maybe even four,for the next paradigm storage,
and the very first thing we didwas hey, well, you guys go
multi-state and every one of ourtrades are like you bet, you
know, for the most part you meansome, some can't, but yeah, but
the two that, like, we reallywant, you know, as far as London

(35:37):
bridge and HVAC, they'reabsolutely we're in.
You know, that's actuallyreally cool because when you sit
around and you're talking aboutthis too from a business growth
side business development,scalability, uh, capital
infusions, investor, you knowinterest, what have you to be
able to show?
Literally, this is therelationships we have in place,
because you really for you toscale, you absolutely have to do

(36:00):
it.
It's funny when people go, um,well, how's your relationship
with the city?
We're like that's a wholenother conversation, that you
have to have a good relationshipwith this, that you have to,
and not a lot of peopleunderstand that's part of the
development world, um, and, andthat's a song and dance in
itself and that is, uh, we haveto work with our, our design
team to play the politics.

(36:20):
It's a lot, you know, and Idon't know.
I don't think people quiteunderstand how much you have to
spend on focusing on yourreputation, saying you're going
to whatever you do, you do.
That's how you're going to getto a business that people are
going to trust, because you aregoing to call upon these guys
when things are hard and we'reall going to have to come
together and we've already donethat.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
We've done it several times.
It's been tested, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
And that's where trying to build a well-oiled
machine.
That's the real inner workingsof a company.
That's a company that's kind ofthat.
You know, selfless.
Come and talk to people, beinghumble, not being too arrogant
and cocky, like hey guys, likethis is what I'm trying to do.
This is for my family.
I'm trying to scale thisbusiness.
I have people that are relyingon me.
I have people that are reallyhoping they can make some good

(37:03):
money.
I want to make good money, Iwant to leave, have my sons run
the company the list goes on.
But that that pours down intothe energy, that goes down to
the labor force.
So from a retention side, oursubs are now getting bigger and
longer contracts that thelaborers are going cool.
Longer contracts meansconsistent income and all these
trades and laborers I hearbounce all over the place

(37:25):
because they just don't have bigcontracts.
So but and of course, havasuhas grown so much over the last
five years in development.
So ultimately, the whole, all,the whole entire construction
basis just exploded and thereare a lot more new people and
it's been actually doing reallywell.
But that is something that whenyou choose your trades, how are
they also treating theirlaborers?
Are they paying them well?

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
You know and you hate to say, to judge a book by its
cover but what?
kind of cars are they?
How old are they?
When they're there they'rewearing their nail bags, kind of
thing.
Like it's a lot you know andnot a lot of people understand
how many moving and politics,and then intuition comes into
play and experiences everythingand that, all you know, is
important.
So, okay, I keep going ontangents, cause I do that from

(38:05):
time to time.
But let's move over to buildingG again.
And what to building g again?
And what do you think?
Uh, so we're going to do f.
Well, cof, how far along do youthink we'll be in building g,
just round about, fromcompletion of f to where do you
think we'll be with g?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
the wall is going to dictate that, but the wall is
moving along quickly now.
We already started the wall.
Yeah, we started the wall and Ireally think that we are going
to be very close, in the firstquarter of next year, of
delivering the building yeah,delivering it.
I think that's reasonable.
We may be able to beat that.
Right now.
We've got a lot of extraduberance, I guess with the

(38:44):
trades Right.
So they're really rolling.
We've got our rectors fullforce.
I mean, boathouse has taken upa lot of that capacity and then
keep asking them.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
I said you're going to need more, and just for us he
doesn't flinch.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
So as long as all that can work, I think, I think
that's a reasonable expectation.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
So building G, which is everyone's favorite and it's
funny because I wanted to bringthis up earlier Our larger units
are selling faster than oursmaller units.
Yeah, so people are looking forthose larger units.
Yeah, building G and F arenothing but large units.
Yeah, so I do believe, with howthe size and even the cost for
each unit of being higher thanthe smallest one we have, I
believe that those are going tosell fastest overall.

(39:25):
In fact, I think when we start,once we go mark we, once we
start marketing the deliverydate for G, I, once we start
marketing the delivery date forG, I think we're going to start
filling those.
I would almost put money on itthat by the time we see OG,
it'll almost be fully sold.
I would love to see that.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
I could see it, especially as the market shifts.
Yeah, the large units in E wentvery, very well.
So I think that's the formula Ireally do.
You can't underestimate thecapacity.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
People want it and there could be, you know, there
could be a shift where we asmany small ones as we have.
We went the opposite.
Right, we have more big onesand we do small ones.
To shift that percentage around, we can even.
We can even get down into thenitty gritty and kind of look at
speed to delivery, to marketing, and see how fast those were
selling compared to building theawareness of the escrow.
Yeah, you know, that type ofstuff We'll get down into the
weeds, as you know.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
on the data side, Okay, so with that said, the
next units in Nashville, thatwould be another learning curve.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
I haven't even showed you the sites.
I've already been to the lasttwo.
I've got to show you one site,but it would be a huge learning
curve too, to see.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Are they also wanting those large units over the all
our units will learn that very,very quickly yeah, well, the one
.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
The first site I'm looking at is uh, it's 7.96, so
just under eight acres.
Um, it was an original bowlingalley.
It's all torn down, it's flat,but utilities are pulled to it.
It's up against the highway,love it.
It's four minutes to the launchramp and old hickory and
national, oh I love ithendersonville.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
So the nice thing about doing larger projects like
that even this project is, um,we can kind of judge, based on
the buyer's desires on onebuilding, how we should probably
proceed with the rest.
Uh, the neat.
I don't.
I don't know of any other typeof building where you can make
the shifts this quickly, but inmetal building, uh, if we wanted

(41:08):
to uh change our mix, our ratioof small to larger, we can do
that almost on the fly.
All we have to do is get thefoundation right and then we can
, as built the steel building tothe foundation.
So, um, all we have to do is dothat minor change.
It's not that big to be able toshift a project perfect, okay,

(41:29):
so let's go over to um.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
So building g and f will deliver the bill.
This whole project will becompleted, to say you know,
latest first quarter next year,maybe even earlier um, and so
that's all going smooth.
We're going to be pouring thefoundation next week.
F, yeah, f on the next one yeahand then, okay, so let's talk um
, let's talk about um, familyoffice society.
I think that's kind of the newhot topic right now.
Everyone's kind of seeing thatthing moving fast and knows that

(41:54):
we're building our headquartersthere and everyone's starting
to really see what Paradigmoverall is trying to accomplish
here and they're like wait holdon what's this building.
So let's talk a little bitabout the building.
So why don't you just kind ofgive the story about my phone
call to you?
Go?

Speaker 2 (42:06):
hey, I found a spot.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
We got to buy this thing and build one gigantic man
cave oh man, yeah, yeah, no,you you did.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
You said, hey, I'm looking at this property, it,
the plans are already in thecity, we're gonna have a permit
right away.
And, um, let's go.
So I go over to the architect'soffice, we sit down, we look at
it.
I'm like this is beautiful,it's gorgeous.
And, um, we close escrow on it.
And then you call me, like on asaturday, probably two weeks
later, and go hey, um, can youcome by the office?
I got a couple things I want tochange.

(42:33):
I'm like, oh, my lord, and wedid.
We ended up doing some changingto it and, uh, that cost us a
little bit of time because wehad to go through back to the
city and all that kind of thing.
But we added a gabba, squarefootage to it and, uh, that was
the right thing to do yeah, Ithink the bigger the better, and
plus, the space was alreadythere.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
It was already there, we just had to repurpose
certain flooring.
We never changed the footprint.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, we never changed the footprint.
The interior changed a littlebit and fortunately we got
through that process.
It was a little longer than wethought.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
I would consider that a value engineering play.
It is a value engineering playBecause ultimately if I don't
have to change the footprint butI'm able to find square footage
.
Yeah, that's a valueengineering play.
It is a value engineering play.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
More importantly, it not only was a value engineering
from just the use of space, itlifted the whole ethos of that,
building up another level.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
I mean, it's just a better building for it.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
It was the right way of dealing with it.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
I think even the way that it's designed feels amazing
.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
And then all the way, the way we're creating the
stairs for the space that wefound and just what it would
look like overall.
It's going to be stunning.
Yeah, it was a greatutilitarian building under the
design as we bought it.
We've changed it to somethingon a whole, nother level.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, I don't think anyone's ever seen anything like
it.
Yeah, which is nice becausewe're actually going to get a
pretty good jump in value, andthat's nice to see that we're
building a building.
How many times have I told youthat other people are calling us
to build these buildings now?
So that may be something webolt on just to go have fun,
because we're building thesethis fast Pop these up
everywhere.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, we could go do some minor changes to it and
duplicate this just anywhere,and especially if we don't have
the height restrictions that wehave here in Lake Havasu and
other places and some of thezoning requirements.
It'll be a piece of cake.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Don't make me go down like a rabbit horse dreams,
because that's like a wholeother.
Hey, let's put a biggerchandelier.
Oh my gosh, I know.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
That'd be really cool .

Speaker 1 (44:20):
But yeah, just what's the size of it?
Where's the location?
Just let's talk about theoverall kind of area.
Because what's funny is at Atfirst I was a little shy of the
area, yeah.
But then now that I'm there allthe time, I'm like I think this
is a great area, it totallyworked, yeah, it totally worked
and it was industrial and theland was literally a Port-A-John
storage facility.

(44:41):
That's what we bought.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
So it didn't have the curb appeal that we really
would like to see when you'reselling a piece of land, right.
But we saw the vision of it andonce we got the building up and
we were able to stand on thosedecks and see this crazy view
and look at that massive garage,and then the buildings around
us suddenly kind of changed.
I mean, they're not dumpy atall.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
No, you start looking at them differently.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
There's nice storage, and on the other side of the
street we have a beautifulbuilding.
Up above us, we have a yarddown below that was begging to
be bought and someday in a whileabove us, we have a yard down
below that was begging to bebought and someday we'll, you
know, we'll probably be grabbingthat land at some point.
So oh yeah, yeah it's, it's adifferent street to be building
such a beautiful building, butuh it, honestly and without
being biased, it'll be one ofthe most beautiful buildings in

(45:23):
havas.
Yeah, it's a really goodlooking I would agree it was.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
You know, what I love probably the most, besides the
location and the view, whichI'll talk talk on in a second,
is the fact that I lovewakeboard boats and there's like
a master craft mechanic dealerright there on the corner.
And I come around the cornerevery when during business hours
, you know like that is so coolto see because master cars are
like one of the best boats youknow, so it's really kind of
cool to see that, so I feel.
And then when you're out to goup onto the even when you're out

(45:47):
on the deck or outside oryou're in the back of the unit,
you can hear people start theirboats at Windsor Beach.
We were literally I don't knowwhat do you want to call it 200
yards as a crow flies to Windsor, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Something like that, about 200 yards, yeah, something
like that, and it's anexpansive view.
It's not like a little piece oflake view it's expansive.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Well, I think, well, shoot.
Lake view it's expansive.
Well I think, well, shoot.
I mean we have, at least Iwould say, close to 180 degree
view from the second floor.
It's big.
And then I would say you knowthat that third, that first
floor, in the break room, isthat actually I believe it or
not when you walk into thebuilding and you look out there
and you're like, wow, that'sactually a pretty impressive
view.
So, like the way that the eventhe columns are designed in the

(46:29):
back, you could still seethrough them and you only see
lake through the columns.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
It's a good looking building.
It's a good looking and it'sgoing to be beautiful the way
we're out of it.
It's going to be gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah, no, I agree, we've got a total of 19,000
square now with the mezzanineYep.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
So we're still on the 15,000 square foot footprint
but found 4,000 extra squarefeet.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
That's a lot, it's a huge amount.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Imagine going yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
It was again a relationship with the city that
we had built previous allowed usto do that as a plan change and
thankfully they allowed thatand it worked out perfectly.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Hence made a little bit more money because all that
upfront work we did building arelationship with the city Yep,
agreed, yeah, so we're lookingat trying to complete that by
the end of the year as well.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yes, right now we're fully framed up.
We're on target.
Mep is in place, we've gotanother week of that and then
we're going straight toinstallation drywall.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
It's moving, we are moving.
Okay, so let's go over toBoathouse.
So today, this morning, we getdown there.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
They're delivering one or two buildings.
Yeah, yeah, we're droppingbuildings a total of, uh, three
trucks today, one truck tomorrow.
Thought we might get two truckstomorrow.
We'll still see.
Um, the building drop is whatit is is.
Each building is called a kitand it takes several trucks to
deliver that kit.
We don't always get the trucksin sequence for each building,

(47:50):
so four buildings are coming allat once, in different parts, on
all these trucks.
So it's quite the process forTakai to figure out what goes
where it's a lot it's a lot, butwe got two of those slabs down.
We've got two getting ready tobe placed.
We'll be placing building Dshortly, a will follow and all

(48:11):
the slabs will be down.
We're finishing up the last ofthe final grade and we'll start
doing the pavement.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
We're going to try to have that done by the end of
the year too.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh, yeah, yeah, I don't think we'll have a problem
at all.
No, we're there.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Now we're really moving.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
So again, out of the hole.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Now we're out of the hole.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
So this is a huge challenge.
We really had some kind ofridiculous engineering issues
for something that simple.
No, we won't bring those upquite because it's a little
political.
We're going to leave it there.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
So okay, so from Boathouse, obviously that's a
good one, that's really more ofunder our brand anyway.
So that's a kind of in and outdeal.
And then let's talk about kindof the word on the streets,
about the gym and the barn cage.
You know, I mean that'sprobably.
I mean I feel like that's ournew, you know, identity as a
company.
They really a lot of peopleknow me from the lending side,

(49:02):
but you know, I think that's thenew identity.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Well, I think so too the marketing that you guys do
in general, have you knowelevated the gym to another
level of not just an idea, butpeople are waiting for it now
and that's important.
When people are waiting at thedoor, going open, open that's
really where you want to be andthat's where we're at.
People love this concept.
They love the idea.

(49:25):
There are skeptical people,there are cynics out there, but
I think the majority of peoplego, go, yep, this is the right
place at the right time to do itit's funny.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Well, I would agree with you.
I'm actually getting morepeople writing comments, you
know, because you always havepeople stay out of our city,
school people, and that's I getit right.
No matter where you go, you getthat, by the way.
Um, but then you have a lot ofpeople that are going like,
finally, or you know, shoot, ifif Havasu had a gym like that,
I'll be there way more often.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Well, it does.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Um, in fact, I mean, you see, you see our projects
being marketed and using, youknow, for PR, uh, for what other
developers are doing in thearea as well?
So, when you're using paradigmsbarn caves, the gym, and then
you know paradigm storage as a,as a conversation piece for the
data and and for PR.

(50:18):
That's when I became very proudof what we've created and I
think people, I think we wereperfect timing, leading North on
a development.
I would I would like to saythat this was really the one
thing that started to kick offthe North side, finally get it
moving.
There is a lot of activitySeparate too.

(50:39):
Obviously, the refuge has donegreat with their kind of golf
stuff.
They got going on in their pool.
They added a lot of value there.
And then North Point Viewpointwas beautiful, perfect, great
location Yep.
And then you have the guys downthere towards the 40.
They got a lot cooking overthere, right, and have us to
Heights, I believe, and so forth.
So now that we came in and tookso much land down, I mean let's

(51:02):
just kind of talk about it.
So, between Paradigm Storage,the barn caves, the gym, we're
about 750,000 square feet.
When you look at the mall,dillard's, walmart, this whole
area, the retail side 730,000square feet.
So in essence, we came in andare developing the same amount
of square footage under roof asthat entire mall.
Here.
That's an institutional play,you know.

(51:25):
That's saying, hey, we areseeing a massive growth
potential and we want to get infront of it and we're going to
go in, we're going all in.
Basically is what that was, andI do believe that was the right
play I do too.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
The north side is the growth corridor of not only
lake havasu, but of everythingthat is going to be like havasu
that hasn't even been annexedyet, all the way down to the 40
someday, right, um, those thatare are starting to see the
writing on the wall that iseverybody looking for land now.
Everybody is conceiving someproject out here, the mall site,

(51:59):
which you know, unfortunatelywas um, you know it the timing
was rough it was.
It was not anything that themall really did, it just
happened to be it was co'd in2008, didn't it?
five, oh god six right in there.
It just was horrible time and,um, nothing that they did very
wrong.
It just kind of like thepandemic.

(52:20):
It changed.
No, they just never got out ofit.
You know there's businessesthat completely changed by the
pandemic.
Well, the mall was completelychanged by that recession and,
uh, it's just now starting.
It's just now starting and it'sgot some great management, but
it's just now starting to see arevitalization.
People are looking at itdifferently.
People are looking at the landaround it differently.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
They did the right things by getting themselves out
of that.
What it was is that all of thelocals and local businesses were
looking at that place, going,hey, that thing's got.
You know it's under a blackcloud.
It's the way the mall has beenpitched to everybody out here.
Cloud is the way the mall hasbeen pitched to everybody out
here.
I think what's happened is youhave such a growth kind of
component.
Now you have all these peoplecoming in from California, a lot

(53:02):
of developers.
You've got a lot of smartpeople and they're looking at
this going wait, hold on.
This is going to eventuallypick back up, because it always
does.
It just needs density andyou're seeing its growth already
.
So when you sit down and talkto the owner, he's like, yeah,
here's our, our private trafficstudy.
Here's what we really havegoing on here.
All of these buildings areactually taken, yeah, and like

(53:24):
wait, what you know?
They don't know it.
Yeah, people don't know they're.
Actually, I don't think there'smany available stores over
there or storefronts well, andand when?

Speaker 2 (53:31):
the pd changed all that, you know, when they got
out from under some of thosemandates, they thought they
needed to kind of protect themall.
As the mall, it allowed peopleto kind of look at it in a
completely different way.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
I can't say enough about the management of that
facility.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
They did great.
They're doing a great job.
Yeah, they've done what they'redoing.
I mean bringing in a 30,000 or40,000 square foot brand new
high-level technology surgerycenter.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
It's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
You're like wait, hold on In this mall.
You have what in that buildingand you walk.
Remember you and I did thattour.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
It was gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
I mean, we ended up walking into this thing.
This was a big eye-opener forme about how healthcare is
becoming more important, ofcourse, here, and that people
are actually doing somethingabout it.
It's not our space, I mean, wecan build buildings for them,
but it's not our space.
So I want to stay out of it fora while, but that was something
I knew was always going to bean issue.
So when you see somebody going,hey, I'm going to dump $30

(54:26):
million into a surgery centerright here on the north side,
that really opened up my eyestoo.
He's seen something we want toknow too, and that is such a big
deal.
When it comes to the retirementcommunity and it's funny because
I was telling people the otherday I'm 40.
I feel like I'm old man.
I feel like I'm just so old andeven I'm more focused and

(54:47):
spending more money in my ownhealth.
And as you get older, that'swhat typically happens.
And I was telling someone theother day too, I think, what
you're seeing, due to thevaccines and what happened with
the pandemic, people don'tbelieve in big pharma anymore,
and neither do regularphysicians in many ways, and so
they're just kind of guidingtheir clients hey, going back to
eating clean and working out.
You know that's really the onlyway to do this.

(55:07):
It's a great shift.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
It is.
It really is it needed tohappen, for it happened for a
long time it did.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yeah, we could go down rabbit hole on that one for
sure, but yeah, that wassomething.
So where I'm going with this isthat that's the potential that
the mall has that a lot ofpeople don't know, yeah, and
then really, the only way forthat mall to grow is development
.
Now, yeah, that's it.
There is available land there,but that's the only way for that
mall to grow is create thedensity.
And so now you got it for youto bring in a restaurant, you

(55:39):
got to build the building tobring in a restaurant.
There's no, you know there'savailable space to lease up and
bring in restaurants, right.
So the infusion of capitalneeds to be a significant amount
more, yeah, and what'shappening is is when you have
guys this isn't a qualifiedopportunity zone, when you have
guys that understands that moneyis going to look at stuff like
that and uh, and are looking atmore long-term plays rather than
short-term, because qualifiedopportunity zones are 10 year
investments.
So people are, you know,investing their, their uh,

(56:01):
deferred tax hit, if you willinto those funds and guys like
me are going hey, you know, thisplace is going to grow, but
it's not going to grow as fast.
But let's get on the front linesof it now, because it's coming
and then we can build three,four, five, six buildings, and
it's a 10-year play.
It gives plenty of time forthat.
And then when you go, oh yeah,there's 630 acres that was just
purchased by the largestresidential builder here and now

(56:23):
they're chalking it up to theother large residential builder
here and there's going to beprobably close to 3 000 homes.
When you see a takedown likethat of 10.3 million dollars,
630 acres right next, I meanliterally two left-handed rock
throws away from us and you'regoing.
Okay, there's no, no questionsthat this is where the
development's going.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
Yeah, yeah, it's the only available land out here and
the desirability everybodywants to be out here it is, and
it's taking some time for thatto take off, and I moved to
havasu in 2006.
One of the first projects I didwas right next to the airport,
right below there, the businesspark never really taken off.
We've got a beverage company inthere that does bottling and uh,
but there's so much capacity somuch opportunity to go in there

(57:04):
and do something special, and Ithink people are just now
starting to see that they'restarting to talk about yeah, for
sure, all right.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
So let's talk about the gym and even further.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Let's talk about the design of the gym.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
So we engage with Steven Beagle.
We obviously have Rob Sampsonover at Selberg which has really
kind of helped us start thefootprint and took my late night
calls and the brain damage tocome up with what we did come up
with and then we fired it overto.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Steven and said, hey, let's engineer this thing.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Let's talk about the square footage, the size, what
we're building, what's in there.
Let's talk about that realquick.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Yeah, 30,000 square feet, two floors, uh, parking
structure.
Uh, it's actually a beautifulbuilding.
It really, uh, steven knockedhimself out designing something
that just really unique, veryspecial for havasu.
Um, it will complement the barncave project behind it and
it's's going to really transformthe way Retail Center Boulevard

(57:58):
looks as you drive down it andas you head towards the mall.
It's gorgeous, it's a supertechie, high-end gym that'll
have all of the bells andwhistles.
We'll have all of the not onlygreat equipment, but all of the
recovery equipment.
Now that everybody's reallywanting.
We're trying to engage withsome, uh, um, I guess you'd call

(58:19):
them functional medicine peopleto come in and maybe provide
some chiropractic carefunctional medicine- I haven't
even really shared that muchabout that opportunity I know
the opportunity is there.
I cannot wait for it becausethat, coupled with the medical
activities that's going with themall, this makes, oh yeah, it
just makes sense For sure.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
And then I think they're supposed to be like a
little sports center indoor.
Is it batting yeah?

Speaker 2 (58:42):
I just heard about that Like a kind of a D one
batting facility right there inthe cinema.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Yeah, so I think they took over what three or four
different movie theater yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
I just heard about that.
I think it's fabulous.
That's a lot.
That's actually a lot of squarefootage.
That's yeah well, you know, thewhole movie industry is
changing periodically, so forsure, I mean, we've got a
buffalo, wild wings going inthere.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
So that's, that's.
It's growing.
Yeah, um, okay.
So what about the pool?
Let's talk about cool that poolis amazing.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Um, again, this is where partnering with really
great subs has just beenfantastic, and Sandcastle's over
there has just knocked it outof the park.
We have a beautiful renderingand design of a Dubai-inspired
pool.
You've been really instrumentalon what exactly you want on
that, and so we've got thisgreat architectural piece in the
middle of it, just like DubaiClub Drift.
Right, yeah, drift Just looksand it's going to be special.

(59:32):
It's going to look beautiful.
Great architectural piece inthe middle of it, just like the
by uh of drift right.
Yeah, drift just looks and um,it's going to be special, it's
going to look beautiful I thinka lot of people are
underestimating how much of aspa feel that?
Yeah, because we're going toput a wall up right because in
essence, the building facesnorth and south right.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
So when you come off retail center drive you're
really parking and going intothe north side.
So as the sun, sun sets to thewest, you're kind of overseeing
the lake, which we have lakeviews from the second floor the
building is, you know, let me goback, the pool has, because
it's facing south, which, forthose of you that don't know,
the Barn Cave site, this gymsite, is right next to Paradigm

(01:00:09):
Storage.
So in essence, there's a FEMAstorm drain spillway that goes
right between the parcels.
But that's it.
In essence we share a propertyline.
So the south of the buildingwhere you come out with the pool
is facing the north side ofParadigm Storage, which, look,
it's a metal building.
It's not that pretty.

(01:00:29):
Now, we did do pretty coolstuff, putting Paradigm on the
air conditioner covers but youcan't see it.
It's just kind of a good lookingbuilding, it is but I'm not
when, with what type of cultureI'm trying to deliver.
Right, we're going to have awall up with like in its own
little you know kind of like inessence, uh, what would you call
like our own palm trees justvery peaceful area yeah, and

(01:00:49):
just kind of kind of close thatoff, you know.
so you don't see that uglinessof that building, but I think
it's those kind of close thatoff, you know.
So you don't see that uglinessof that building, but I think
it's those kind of thosedecision-making that's really
going to allow people to feelmore comfortable.
It's not as wide open, but itwill feel a lot more comfortable
, a little more secluded,private, you know.
And then, yeah, we have fullrecovery center, and then let's
talk about the kind of theconstruction of the parking

(01:01:12):
structure and that this isactually the first parking
structure.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
uh, parking yeah, so, uh, this is a cast in place
concrete combination structure.
It'll be a pt slab, that'spost-tension slab, so, um, it's,
it's pretty techie.
Uh, we had to do that overprecast because we had headache
issues with drivability andgetting cars under the lower
level, so it's a fairlydemanding concrete project.

(01:01:39):
We're partnering with one ofthe best concrete companies in
Havasu and with one in Phoenixto hopefully get us in the place
where we can build this quickly.
We're still looking for moreproposals for that.
So the rest of it's astructural steel building, along
with vertical concrete andmasonry retaining walls.
So it's a combination ofeverything, but the basis of the

(01:02:03):
building is structural steel.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Perfect, and then obviously it's built into, like
the first floor is actually intothe hill.
So, in essence, we're on afoundation that has a huge
retaining wall, which isultimately the first floor, the
bottom floor's east side of thewall of the building, so
therefore clearly it'sunderground in essence and then
the second floor.
I think we have very smallwindows, which will be nice,

(01:02:26):
because the way we're going todesign the gym itself, those
side of the building, not onlywon't have a bunch of sun coming
in in the morning, but it'llstay a little cooler, you know,
for longer in the morning.
Yeah, um, especially during thesummer.
And then, uh, and thenobviously the parking structure.
What, how far is it from thebuilding?

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
one foot yeah, it's very, very close, yeah, very
tight.
Yeah, we have, you know,restrictions on how close we can
be.
So we were right there on thatline and, um the building you
were going back to saying, youknow we have exposure issues.
We're using a king span styleduh panelized system that is
highly insulated.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
It should help with the heat load on yeah, and those
are kind of cool because youdrop them in with the crane yeah
, yeah they're, they're big, um,they're big and and very, very
well yeah, and designed for thatbuilding custom built for the
building.
Yep, I love it, love it.
So, and then you know it's hardto explain maybe here, but I
want you to picture, if anybodyknows, paradigm Storage, the
Paradigm Storage, from thecenter line of the street.

(01:03:22):
The elevation is what?
14 feet below grade, I believe.
14 feet, yeah.
So when you come into thedriveway you got to go down into
the development.
It's the same concept for forthe barn caves.
You're going to come in on theNorth, on the North side of the
gym, to go into the main gate,into the barn caves, but it does

(01:03:42):
have a grade that drops down.
I think it'd be close, about 14feet or so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
And, and so what happens is, as for the way we're
setting it up, is our, our,let's say our members can, for
the gym can actually go down andpark underneath into the
parking structure and thenseparate to that that going
underneath and parking there.
So can our residents, if theyhave a car or they have a golf
cart and they just want to go tothe gym in the morning, go to
the pool what have you?

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Come out the gate, go right underneath.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Go right underneath and then if they don't want to
go through the gym, they don'thave to go through the gym, they
can just walk up into the poolprivately.
They don't have.
So the.
The residents have access toall of the amenities, but they
have kind of either first classkind of coming underneath the
parking structure and their golfcart, yeah, or they get to go
up around the side of the backof the building which no other
members will actually haveaccess to, the to the barn caves

(01:04:28):
.
Overall, uh, community, um, butman, I can't.
I can't wait to see that once,once the gym is done and we get
all the grading done for thebarn caves, I can't wait to see
what that would look like.
As a resident, you know,driving up to the gym yeah, you
know, because it's just going tobe, you know, so tall.
It's a big building because ofhow you know, so I'm really

(01:04:49):
looking forward to seeing that.
And then the then the barn cavesI thought was nice, just kind
of give even like a the latestand greatest.
I mean, we met with what?
Unisource the other day and ourcivil engineers and I think
what was it?
The?
I can't think of the name.
What's the energy guys?
Unisource, no, no, the otherguys, the renewable energy
Renewable so really the ideabehind that was for solar, yeah,

(01:05:12):
and it looks like we figuredout what we need to do and how
to do it and when to submitapplications and phasing it in.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
We learned a lot from that meeting.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Yeah, that was really fruitful.
But it's nice because eventhose guys are excited to see
what we're building and they'relike, so that's not normal,
getting in front of it, having abig meeting with everybody.
I and it was about the samesituation.
But now that we're fartheralong in the design and really
the phasing of it, they werelike, okay, let's get into the
trenches now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Yeah, and you can't get into the trenches more
quickly.
I mean, it's time we have to bein there right now to be on
time with all the otherconstruction activities.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
It's pretty cool because we got a pat on our back
the other day from a couple ofpeople that I was on that
podcast, of people that I was onthat podcast and they were
saying that, uh, they are canonly imagine how much design
energy kind of went into thebarn caves in the gym and not
only from two differentarchitectural firms but a lot of
professionals that have donestuff like this and all kinds of

(01:06:08):
other different walks of life.
But you know, even us on theparadigm side, the amount of
energy that we went into thisand the amount of going back,
especially with rob in thebeginning, because I started
really with rob yeah and, like Isaid, the poor guy took all the
brain damage.
But uh, you know, going back andforth with the design, and then
I really leaned on him onsetbacks and how many units can
we get, and therefore I need toget this many units to make it

(01:06:31):
profitable and you know, I gottamake it look nice and it look
nice and I want to use thistrendy thing, you know, and
obviously let's go with steelbuildings.
I'm seeing an insurance issue.
So even before the big fires inin um in California, we were
already seeing the differencebetween uh insurance costs for
the homeowners at the use of thein-buyer right, the homeowners
uh to uh to ensure their homefor regular homeowners insurance

(01:06:52):
.
And the reason we were able tocatch that is when I moved
headquarters to Nashville as alender I started doing a lot of
hard money loans.
Obviously out there, you know,back East and barn dominiums is
a big deal.
So I'm looking at barndominiums as regular single
family homes and they werecoming over as loan requests.
So as I'm reviewing theconstruction budget, I'm looking
at the insurance costs.
The insurance goes down for thecontractor and then the

(01:07:13):
insurance was lower for thehomeowner at the end of, you
know, once it's got CO and I waslike, okay, we need to probably
stay in that space Because,again, we started the design of
this not knowing which way theelections were going to go and
which way the market was goingto go and I looked at it from a
sustainability side, forParadigm, but also for my
current investors, because Ihave such a, I know what their
need is too, so I'm like allright, so let's go into it.

(01:07:34):
So what's happened, though, isit's morphed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yeah, you know yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Remember I tell everybody oh yeah, I came up
with the original design forJamie which is one of my best
friends out here.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Single mom yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
I've been friends with her for I don't know 20
something years, yeah, and Isaid single, and then obviously
we couldn't get the density thatwe really, really want because
we were shooting for like 140,150 units.
We were way high, yeah, but wecouldn't even get close.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
We moved down to 93 units.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
I go to Jamie I'm like I'm sorry, I don't think
you can afford this anymore.
And she's like you're so mean.
I'm like hey, listen, take itup with the utility company.
They want all the, they wanthalf.
It's not as affordable becauseI have to cut it.
So what was happening was it was.
It was that song and dance oflike okay, well, I can't get as
many units in here.
So then how do I design thebuilding in a way that's
desirable to get the value thatwe need to still make it work?

(01:08:21):
So it was.
The song is usually it'susually the other way around
yeah, it's just like I know whatI can build.
I know how many were like okay,so now I gotta go more grand
and I gotta, I gotta, widen thebuilding, I guess.
So it's like and it was not alittle, but it was massive
amounts of adjustments to get towhat we want what's comfortable

(01:08:42):
because that's that's probablythe hardest part is like what's
actually comfortable.
So, yeah, it looks great intheory, but like you need an
example and there's no otherexamples like this.
But we look at other sites andlots, and I've traveled and you
know so.
So I'm kind of like looking atall of it going, okay, we can go
28 feet wide.
I think that's like the minimum, you know.
And then I think we go.
You know we go with the thirdfloor.

(01:09:03):
And if we're going to go withthe third floor, that you have
to go up to a third floor, we'vegot to have an elevator, given
the area.
Plus, you know, our lid here islike 16 feet in the first floor
.
That's like that's like twostories right there, I know.
So people are going to want to.
And then you're in a retirementcommunity, right, like nobody
wants to hike up four sets offour.
You know stories of stairsreally, right, um, to get to the
third floor.
So, and then, okay, if we'redoing that, then we need to make

(01:09:24):
the third floor the mastersuite.
Yeah, where it separates youfrom the house.
You got this huge vaultedceiling, so there was just so
much energy going back and forthto be able to make it work, and
then we were able to get thesquare footage and the density
that we wanted.
So then, looking at it from adata side, going, okay, we could
sell these for easy over $400 afoot, but we'll stay just under
$400 a foot to be conservativeand then testing the waters.

(01:09:46):
Once we had a pretty goodrendering and we started pushing
it, people were like we love it.
We got to go.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
And it like we love it.
Yeah, we gotta go.
Yeah, I, I don't know.
And it morphed, it just tookoff.
I don't really know.
I, I, I credit uh, chip andjonah gains with the whole barn
cave word oh then, barn,dominion, barn dominion barn
minium word that's correct and,um, I I don't really know.
I don't think anybody reallyknows who actually came up with
it, but they claim to and I kindof agree with it.
But they claim to and I kind ofagree with it.
But I think that it somehowresonates with something inside

(01:10:19):
of you.
Whether you've ever lived inthe country or not, whether
you've ever been on a ranch ornot, a farm or not.
It's something inside of yousays I want a piece of that
lifestyle and people can't getenough of it.
And I love it because I thinkit's unique.
It's a way to build and the waywe're doing it.
It's a way to build in the waywe're doing it.
It's a way to build and stillstay modern but keep a lot of
that.
I call it kind of a countryculture still involved.

(01:10:42):
I love it and people seem toreally resonate with it.
I can't believe the demand thatwe're getting just from people
say look, if I can get to thepoint in my life where I can
afford one, I want one.
And then we also have thepeople that say give me one
right now.
It's amazing.
I'm very proud of that productand Stephen has knocked himself

(01:11:03):
out, not only with what we callthe 40 by 90, which is a big,
oversized unit that we designed,but a lot of what we learned in
designing that.
Now we're taking to the actualunit built, and it's beautiful,
it's going to be something tosee, it's yeah, it's not your
normal spec I try to tell peopleI'm like I want you to.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
I think you need to understand how tall these are.
That's something else it's like, and I think the best part is
that the driveways are 60 feetyeah right, and so the big ones
for where the rvs are and you'relike you have to have driveways
are 60 feet right, and so thebig ones for where the RVs are
and you're like you have to havedriveways that wide because
these units are 43 feet orwhatever they are tall.
I mean that's four stories iswhat that is.
And so you're looking at itgoing wait, hold on.

(01:11:45):
This is a four-story building,but it's really three stories
with a pitched roof.
So you need to understand how,even from the second to third
floor, the ceiling height ishigh.
I mean, everything that's goingto it's going to feel so much
bigger than 3000 square feet.
It's going to feel unbelievablybig.
And then even from, likelooking out, I think what I

(01:12:06):
loved when I was in my apartmentin Nashville, cause I was on
the 26th floor and just thatview out the glass you know, is
this amazing.
I can feel what that would feellike when you're on the second
floor on your balcony right,where you open up the slider and
you go out onto the balcony andyou're like overlooking your
big garage onto a 60-footdriveway and you're sitting
there going like this is prettyhigh.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Oh yeah, because you're already three stories up.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
It's huge, and then imagine being in the master
suite onto your own privatebalcony of the master yeah, the
master suite onto the the, yourown private balcony of the
master, near on the third storynow, which will feel like you're
on a four story roof building.
You know, I hope my goodnessgracious, this thing is really
high.
So when you actually thinkabout it, it's this, this
community is actually going tofeel a lot bigger than 93 units.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
It's.
It's amazing and what I'd liketo do when we ground break for
that, I would like to have someof those pads at elevation and
get one of those telescopicbooms.
We'll take people up to thebalcony elevation so they can
actually see what they'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
It's going to blow your mind.
Give me a favor, go get yourdrone, go put it up, please, in
the air and give me a 43.
Well, no, what would you kindof?
Where do you think your headwould?

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
be.
Well, that's the whole problem.
You're going to be 43 minus 9.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
Okay, so it's 35?
.
It's going to be more than that, it's going to be 44?
.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Yeah, it's going to be 43 minus 15.
Probably minus 15.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Because of the pitch, because of the pitch.
Yeah, okay, so go down and dothat.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Go, pop it up there and let's go.
Dude, you got nothing to do.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
I think we need.
I want to see what that wouldlook like up there.
I think we have an idea.
We kind of messed around.
Yeah, that's wonderful, but itwould be nice to see what that
would look like once the gymgoes up, because the gym's going
to be up on top of the hill man.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
I mean it's going to be huge, it's going to be
gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
So the gym, I think, is going to set the tone for
what people can reallyunderstand and believe, the type
of finish work and the and whatwe're going to try to do
ultimately with the residentialCause.
Obviously the gyms can be builtfirst.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Yeah, I think so.
Listen, the paradigm brand isquality.
It just is.
I resonate with that becausethat's my life.
I believe in quality.
I think it's a standard that weall need to keep.
It means something more thanjust's a standard that we all
need to keep.
Uh, it means something morethan just building a product
that people want, but build itwell, give them a really good
product.
Um, you and I were having thatconversation earlier about value

(01:14:24):
engineering.
Where does the liability ofcutting a corner lie?
It actually only goes to thefinal user.
They end up inheriting whateverwe skimp on.
So our quality standard is high.
We want to do a really good job, not only in our design but in
our construction work, and aparadigms brand will just
continue to move forward becauseof nothing else that we just

(01:14:46):
build really great products yeah, no, I agree, and we were.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
I like the the kind of rabbit hole we went down.
You know, using hvac as a as anexample trying to cut corners.
You're going okay, well, we cango get a different brand, but
if that brand goes out, we haveto just scrap the whole thing.
And therefore, we were the onesthat you know in in essence,
insure it, yeah, and so, and wehave to, we have to warranty it
Right.
So that's the problem thatpeople I think okay, well, all

(01:15:12):
either, most developers pushthat liability over to the end
user they all do, because cheapmeans uh profit yep yeah and and
.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
While profit is certainly one of the most
important things that we want tofocus on, we can't do it at the
expense of the end use well,you know, and and this, not
everybody's got social media, sothis is also a referral source
area.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Your reputation is everything.
So if you're cutting cornersand people start talking oh,
they're cutting corners overthere, they're doing this,
that's going to spread.
So therefore your, your buyer'spool, is going to shrink it
will and then you have moreliability at the same time.
It's really more risk to do itthat way.
I would rather build volume andtake less margin, but protect
protect the brand and protectall parties involved all that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
And if you have that attitude, you protect the
quality of the product first andthen your margin second.
That always will result in ahigh quality product that people
respect, and that just pushesyou further down the road.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Well, thank you.
So, dennis, I appreciate it,buddy, I don't want to take too
much time.
We have gone a perfect time, soI really appreciate it, buddy.
I think we'll get a lot offeedback from this, because this
obviously gets spread out toevery one of our platforms,
including all our existingclients, and if people have any
questions, feel free to justrespond back to whatever you
find, whether it's a comment, dm, email, email and we will go

(01:16:32):
into more depth.
Or if you want some of us to dothis again and talk on maybe one
one thing very specific, let usknow.
We try to cover a ton of groundand just kind of give everybody
an overview of every the thingswe we were doing, uh, and try
to see if you guys get sometakeaways from it.
So, dennis, thanks for joiningme, buddy my pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
On to the next one have a good.

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From Concrete to Development: One Contractor's Path to Success | Dennis Roberts E27

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Concrete to Development: One Contractor's Path to Success | Dennis Roberts E27