January 10, 2025 • 54 mins
We're thrilled to have Zach Rapaport, Principal at Meerkat Companies, join us. His intriguing career path is a testament to the power of finding one's true calling. Zach shares how he carved out a niche for himself as an owner's representative, bridging the gap between clients and contractors and ensuring projects run smoothly from start to finish. His insights into the dynamic world of construction, and the trends shaping it, offer a unique perspective for anyone interested in development.
The episode also explores the entrepreneurial spirit, as Zach narrates his journey from managing projects remotely to founding his own company. Discover why Meerkat Companies became the perfect mascot for project management, emphasizing teamwork and adaptability. We wrap up with a look at future trends in the construction industry, including the shift to digital tools and the strategic focus on renovations in response to rising costs. Join us for an engaging conversation that blends development and innovation in the ever-evolving landscape of Brooklyn and beyond.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
So from Brooklyn today, what'sthe deal with the pizza?
All I keep hearing is thatBrooklyn is like the Mecca of
New York for pizza.
Is that the deal?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's in the water, man?
Yeah, it's in the water.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's in the water.
They say that.
Right, it is in the water.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We have the best tap water probably in the country,
and I stand by that, not as aNew York elitist, but as a
pseudoscientist.
It all comes from upstate,through an aquifer, and we use
it for the best pizzas, the bestbagels, you name it, it's, it
is the best nice and thenBrooklyn is.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
You know was always kind of this place.
I don't know back in I don'tknow the 80s and 90s of sort of
this downtrodden kind of thisplace.
I don't know back in the 80sand 90s of sort of this
downtrodden kind of place, andnow it's like the hip, the place
in Manhattan.
It's kind of this old placethat's kind of not cool anymore,
it seems.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, and a big reason for that.
Actually I'm kind of like Iwouldn't call myself an actual
historian, but I have been kindof studying a little bit about
New York history and eventuallyI do want to get my tour guide
license and actually do sometours on the side because I
think that would be cool.
I love living here and I'mdefinitely a bona fide New
Yorker.
(01:16):
But the basis of that isactually that manufacturing
moved away from the waterfrontin Brooklyn and it was
historically not very valuablereal estate.
And then when manufacturingmoved out to cheaper real estate
and easier, I guess, forlogistics, all of those
waterfront parcels becameavailable and then developers
(01:39):
saw that as a great opportunityand they started building it up
and then it started building outfrom the East River throughout
Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So that's a bit of etymology about that and now
it's all high, nice looking highrises.
Right, that's it.
Yeah, the same thing happenedhere.
Nothing gritty about it anymore.
Yeah, I mean the whole, uh,false creek used to be a, a
logging area where the trainswere in vancouver, and now it's
all high rises.
That's just the way it goes, youknow lots of copper in Falls
(02:08):
Creek, though I think Lots ofbad metals in there.
But we're going to talk aboutMeerkat today and you being your
company, that you started beingan owner's rep for hospitality,
construction and developmentpretty cool.
I love food personally and Ilove great restaurant
(02:32):
experiences.
It all shocks me how there's abig dichotomy from people who
love making food as a craft andthen people who want to own a
restaurant big differencedifference.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You probably see this One of my first questions Do
you want to own a restaurantbecause you like to cook?
Because if you don't, maybe youshouldn't.
It's not exactly it's abusiness.
It's a lovely business whenit's done right, but it could be
a major challenge, so that's abig qualifier for me, for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, I've always said how can you possibly get
this wrong?
Something super basic.
When I'm in a restaurant, I'mlike this is all you do.
You don't do anything else butthis, and this is not right.
So yeah, I hear you.
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast Leadership andperspective from construction
(03:33):
With your host, james Falkner.
Business as usual, as it hasbeen for so long now that it
goes back to what we weretalking about before hitting the
reset button.
You read all the books, youread the email, you read Scaling
Up, you read Good to Great.
You know I could go on.
We've got to a place where wefound the secret serum.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
We found the secret potion.
We can get the workers in.
We know where to get them.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Once I was on the job site for a while actually we
had a semester phone group and Iordered like a Korean-F me up
on LinkedIn out of the blue andsaid he was driving from
Oklahoma to Dallas to meet withme because he heard the Faber
Connect platform on your guys'podcast Own it, crush it and
(04:16):
love it, and we celebrate thesevalues every single day.
Let's get down to it.
So it's Zach Rapoport.
Is that how I pronounce it?
Rapoport?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Rapoport Rap Hard T.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Oh, with the hard T, Hard T, Rapoport.
Oh, is that?
Who's the other?
Who's that famous actor, theother guy, Rapoport?
What's his name?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Michael Rapoport.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is it the same pronunciation then?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It is.
Yeah, I actually, strangelyenough, I saw him walking around
a neighborhood in Manhattan andhe was too far away from me to
say hi, but I was going to tellhim I was a long lost cousin.
He probably would have calledthe cops or something.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So is he from Brooklyn.
Are you from Brooklyn, born andraised then?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I'm from just outside the city on Long Island.
Oh, long Island, okay, is canlearn like born and raised then
uh, I'm from just outside thecity on long island oh, long
island.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Okay, is that where he's from too?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
yeah, I think he's from the city.
Um, I should know that before Iapproach him the next time I
see him so what's the lineage ofthat last name?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
is that uh like what's what's uh, is it there?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
yeah, it's uh, it's actually a polish-Ukrainian,
okay cool.
So my grandparents on my dad'sside are from Grodno, which was
actually Poland when they wereborn, and now it's actually part
of Belarus, oh nice.
And then my mom's side is fromIreland and the UK.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So got a little bit of everything going on Nice,
nice, that's cool, All right.
Got a little bit of everythinggoing on Nice, nice, that's cool
, All right.
So we're going to talk todayabout your company and how you
(06:02):
sort of carve yourself a nichethere and being an owner's rep
for developers, restaurantowners, people doing development
of hospitality, et cetera.
But before we get into that, Iwant to know like how'd you end
up here and how you seem like apretty young guy kind of young,
I am.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, so you've stuffed 34.
Okay, well 34,.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You've stuffed a lot of experience into a short
period of time, so you must bereally into this.
So let's just tell us the DNAuntil today Well, maybe not the
diapers to today, but maybe theyou know post high school, like
what was the?
Hey, I got to get intoconstruction, I want to learn
about legal I?
You know, I've got a couple ofnotes here.
You sort of you've covered thegamut in terms of useful
(06:40):
education or self-education orexperience.
So, yes, take us through ituseful education or
self-education or experience.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So, yes, take us through it.
Yeah, for sure I'd love to.
So, growing up, my parentsalways thought that I would be a
great attorney, not because Iwas good at arguing, but because
anytime that I didn't want togo to bed or I wanted dessert, I
would always put together asyllogistic response that
included points.
And you know, even as young asyou know, six or seven and I was
(07:09):
never, you know, fighting themon it.
But I would say, hey, you saida week ago that you know, these
three days I would be able toget, have ice cream or whatever
the case was.
So I was always thinkinglogically about how to respond
to people on things.
I was always thinking logicallyabout how to respond to people
on things Still do, but, youknow, not as a lawyer.
So when I graduated high school, I was thinking to myself you
(07:32):
know, I've been told basicallymy whole life that, you know,
being a lawyer would make sensefor me.
And so I went to college forpolitical science and legal
studies, suny Geneseo, up inWestern New York, near Rochester
.
And it turns out that all Ineeded was four years of
(07:54):
political science and legalstudies to realize that I didn't
want to be a lawyer or apolitician.
So shortly after I graduated Iwas, you know.
I felt like I still needed tocontinue on that path, even
though I knew that it's notreally what I wanted.
But I moved home to live with myparents my mom and dad while I
figured out my next move aftercollege and I was studying for
the LSAT and my dad was adeveloper on Long Island.
(08:19):
He did mostly smaller retailbuild-outs like out-of-grounds
think like strip malls,buildouts like out of grounds
think like, you know, stripmalls and things like that on
long island.
Um, and he came home one dayfrom work and he was just like
dude, like you know thick newyork accent.
Um, give it to me, he passed in20, he passed in 2020, so it's,
uh, it's, but it's.
(08:40):
It's a great memory that I him.
He comes home and he's just likedude, what are you doing?
You look miserable, miserable,like, grab your boots, come out
on the job site with me tomorrowand let's see if you like it.
And I was like I don't know ifI want to Like.
You know, growing up, I alwaysspent summers working with him
and, you know, moving dirtaround and you know all that.
(09:01):
So I was like I don't know if Iwant to do this, but I went out
with him and I showed up and Iwas all excited.
I had my college degree now andI was like, all right, I'm
going to be a project manager.
Like overnight I just had thislike idea that that's what I
wanted to do.
And I show up on site and, uh,I was like all right, cool.
Like you know what's, what'sthe plan for today, thinking
(09:23):
that he's going to like run methrough, like what the
electricians are doing and theplumbers and everybody.
And he just hands me a shoveland he says you dig.
And I was like what, what areyou talking about?
Like, you know, I'm, I'm acollege grad now I should be,
you know, I should be inmanagement and I was just
immediately humbled and I thinkthat that was really critical
for me, because I still feelthat humility, you know, I still
(09:47):
feel like I wouldn't sayimposter syndrome, because I am
very well qualified and you know, I have, you know, the
experiential backing, but stillstay humble and I think that
that helps me stay focused onthe main goal instead of
focusing on things that are kindof tertiary and, you know,
outside of my scope, I shouldsay so I worked with him for for
(10:10):
a couple, for a couple of yearsout on Long Island and then I
decided that I wanted to.
You know, I had bigger.
I had bigger plans.
I really fell in love withconstruction.
I fell in love with the wholeprocess of it.
The team works, you know, theteam works in one fluid movement
to go from A to B.
I loved seeing a space that waswhite boxed or freshly
(10:32):
demolished turn into somethingreally beautiful.
We did some interior work aswell.
So it was just a naturalprogression for me.
I fell in love with it and thenI realized that I wanted to do
bigger things.
So I ended up moving into thecity, into New York city, and
working with, working with acontractor on that that focused
(10:54):
mainly on hotels, restaurantsand retail work interiors,
worked with them for a couple ofyears as an assistant project
manager and then got elevatedquite quickly actually within my
first, I think, year and a halfinto being a project manager,
because I was an APM on a bunchof projects.
But the CEO of the company kindof took notice of how much more
(11:17):
I was doing and it wasn't that Iwas stepping out of my lane or
stepping on toes, it was justbeing very proactive, and he
knew that I was hungry.
I mean, I've always been hungry,I still am, but, um, he saw
that and he wanted to rewardthat and so, you know, he gave
me the bump up to PM and there Iwas, you know, at 25 years old,
sitting with the PMs, and youknow it was, it was.
(11:39):
That was a big leap for me,going from size five shoes to
size 10 shoes, yeah, but I'mreally happy that I did because
it kind of set the tone for therest of my career.
And so I worked with thatcontractor for a bit.
And then I worked with anothercontractor for a bit, ended up
being about eight, almost nineyears in construction.
(12:00):
And then I built a project inTribe, tribeca.
That was a coffee shop for acompany called joe and the juice
, yep, um, yeah, so you'refamiliar I saw on your websites
but I'm not familiar, but uh Idid see the design.
Yes, that's very cool, gotchayeah, it's a great company to
work with.
Uh.
So I wrapped that up and um, Iguess you know the, the top
(12:24):
brass, that joe and the juice,kind of took notice and I
started having conversationswith their us team about coming
on board with them in house tomanage GCs and manage, you know
like work with work with theirteam doing the expansion across
the U?
S.
And so I came in and I was likeyou know, I wasn't really
looking for a new role, but youknow I've always felt like
(12:46):
eventually I did want to moveinto doing the top line project
management, the you know, thefull scale development from end
to end, including, you know,site selection, all the way up
to turnover, not just theconstruction aspect of it.
So I felt like it was just theright.
It was the right move for meand I still do.
And so I worked with them for,uh, just over two years and when
(13:13):
I came on we had, I think wehad like five or six stores and
by the time I was done, I thinkwe had like 45.
So that's a lot.
It was, it was, it was big, itwas, it was, it was a big push.
Um, I think at one point wewere opening like two or three
stores a month, which wasintense, of course, but it was
great.
I learned how to work inmultiple states, learned how to
(13:33):
work remotely, managing projects, because I was based in New
York.
I had some personnel thatdoubled up as kind of regional
managers in the markets, but, uh, you know, for the most part it
was, you know, it was mecoordinating with the GCs and
the different markets and makingsure that I got proper weekly
reports and a lot of techniquesthat I developed, uh, during
(13:54):
that time I still use todaybecause Meerkat works nationally
.
Um, yeah, so then I worked withthem for about you know a
little over two years and thenCOVID hit and um from there.
Uh, you know they, they made anoffer to me and it's very
generous offer to stay on andkind of do facilities management
because they were slowing downon expansion.
(14:15):
But that's not really where myheart was.
I wanted to keep, I wanted todo new development and growth,
um, so I teamed up with acompany called Selena, which is
a hotel and hostel companythat's based out of Panama, and
I was brought on as the VP ofdevelopment for them and
unfortunately, I was only withthem for about a year.
(14:35):
When I came on, we had a prettystrong pipeline for the US, but
as they started to see that itwas very capital intensive to
grow in the US and deals that Iwas bringing to them just seemed
astronomically higher than youknow.
Building a 20 key hotel inPanama, yeah, um.
And, and you know, nicaraguaand Costa Rica, um, and.
So you know, I'd stayed withthem for about a year and we, we
(14:59):
, you know we we tried to figureout a way to make it work and
you know they, they made verygenerous offers to move me to
other markets and such, and Ireally appreciate that, but I
wanted to stay in New York.
We have the best pizza.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I was going to say the same thing.
Why would you want to leave?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Nothing against all the other markets that they're
in.
I think I just wasn't ready togo.
Nice, well, that sounds cool.
Ready to go so?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
nice, well, that's yeah, and so so what did you?
So?
From that did you?
The leap to entrepreneurialismis is sometimes a uh, a leap of
faith.
So how did you uh?
When did that?
What year were you like, okay,I gotta do this yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So my uh, I would say the last W2 role that I had was
the one right after Selena andit was called Lifehouse Hotels.
I came on as their VP ofdevelopment and I worked with
them for three years.
You know, I managed thedevelopment team, the
procurement team, and then Ialso worked in tandem with the
VP of design.
We were vertically integrated,which was great.
(16:00):
And in doing so, you know, thatlast role that I had, I've
always kind of feltentrepreneurial.
But that last role that I hadwas very entrepreneurial in the
sense that we kind of ran ourown books.
We did a lot of our own clientoutreach, we did a lot of our
own.
It was very much like a like aninsular kind of subcompany
within that, within that firm.
(16:21):
And you know, in just in, inbuilding six hotels in three
years, six branded hotels, um, Ijust realized that I had a real
knack for kind of running thewhole show.
Um, and uh, yeah, at the end oflast year, at the end of 2023,
I decided to, uh, to leavelifehouse, um, without really
(16:43):
knowing, excuse, excuse me, jeez, sneeze.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Damn it.
Sorry about that.
Live live, live sneeze.
Okay, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
That attacked you.
It did, yeah.
So at the end of last year Idecided to leave and I just
wasn't sure what was coming next, which was fine.
I needed to.
You know, the metaphor that Iuse is it's kind of hard to
figure out which boat to get onif the boat that you're on is
still moving.
So I hopped onto what I callthe island, the Zack Island, and
(17:10):
figured out what came next, andI interviewed with a few
companies and then I justdecided.
You know what I feel like I havethe experience and this is
ultimately what I want to do,and something that my dad always
said was the time's going topass either way.
So what do you want to do?
And something that my dadalways said was the time's going
to pass either way.
So what do you want to havehappen?
(17:31):
And you know he was.
He was saying that in relationto you know, uh, you know, in
five years, like, like, when Iwas thinking about if something
was going to take a long timeand it's a reason not to do it,
um, he would be like listen,five years are going to pass
either way.
So in five years, do you wantto be the owner of a company or
do you want to just be startingyour company?
At that point, and so I, youknow, with with his voice, you
know, in the back of my head, Iwas like it's time, let's do
(17:51):
this.
So in February of this year, Iincorporated um.
March, I publicly announced,after doing some branding with
the studio that I hired.
And uh, since then it's it'sbeen a wild ride.
We're working on three activeprojects, two of them in New
(18:13):
Jersey, one of them inCincinnati, ohio.
I have a bunch more in thepipeline coming up for 2025.
And I'm also consulting with afew groups that are in that
early exploratory phase of doesit make sense to acquire this
property, does it make sense tobuild it, what does it look like
when it's done?
What do the financial returnslook like?
So it's been exciting.
It's been a lot of fun actuallythat's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
When you first decided to actually start the
company, was there a projectwith a prospective client that
you're like, okay, this could bemy first one?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, actually I was, um, when I, when I first left,
I was in talks with my, uh, withmy former employer life house,
to kind of come on and do myrole on a contract basis.
Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
So you just wrapped the whole company around that
and then nice.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, it turns out that you know the the projects
that they were working on kindof fell to the wayside for you
know, regardless of reason.
But, um, I would say that youknow, there wasn't like a locked
and loaded project, I justdecided that it was time to do
it and um, a lot of couragesince I started.
Yeah, thank you, I appreciatethat.
Um, since I started, I I made abunch of goals for myself, of
(19:23):
you know, setting up callmeetings and sending out 50
LinkedIn connection requests andsending out 25 cold emails or
whatever, and just going to morenetworking events and doing all
of that.
It's been great.
I've met a lot of really coolpeople, not just cause.
That's not really what I'mfocused on.
(19:43):
I'm more focused on building mypersonal brand, building the
company brand and kind ofbecoming a known, known figure
in the space.
Um, cause, I wasn't unknown,but I think that I'm now.
I'm now getting to a pointwhere you know uh, people are
starting to to know who I ambefore I introduced myself,
which is, which is the intendedeffect.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Nice, that's pretty cool.
You know, I had a similar kindof experience with before I had
SightMax.
Um, when I was in my my uh, midtwenties, um, I worked for a
company called Lush Cosmeticslike the soap brand and, um, we
(20:26):
were doing the same thing.
We're opening stores in otherlocations and, uh, we would have
, you know, the fit out of thestore.
We had the design, we had anin-house wood shop and we used
to backfill an entire containerlike a moving truck, basically
(20:49):
like a big one, and it wouldpull up to the warehouse and we
would basically put all theproduct in first, then we would
put the furniture in next, Thenwe would do lights, so we
basically had this all filled tolike paint at the front.
(21:09):
So, basically, this thing wouldpull up and it would be a
essentially an assembly line ofstart to finish of what the
store was going to have in it.
And we just did that over andover and over again Signage,
everything was in there.
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, the store in the box system.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and it really was all the way to the product
and it was pretty crazy and we'dhave like a two week timeline
and get it nailed.
Yeah, it'd be fast, super fast.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Because there wasn't a lot to them right.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
There was, just like you know, it was mostly paint,
furniture and lighting.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, I would love to dive into that with you and
just talk about, like you know,all the logistics.
You know we could do thatoffline if it's.
You know, not for now.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But it was a cool thing to be part of at the time
and something to watch.
So you go to this marketingcompany and so did you have the
name Meerkat at the time whenyou decided you wanted to go and
do this.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
No, and I'm smiling because I'm sure they're going
to listen to this but day onewhen I hired them, I was filling
out a questionnaire and I waslike, all right, I have one rule
no animal names.
And uh, it's like, and I likebeing one over.
It's just a character trait forme, like even I'm not very like
(22:27):
like hard and fast about mostthings, like I'm always able to
hear people out, and I thinkthat's a strength.
Um, but uh, out, and I thinkthat's a strength.
Um, but uh, I said no animalnames because I'm thinking to
myself like I don't want, likeyou know, like I think of like
construction brands, likecaterpillar and like you know,
like it just feels very likedone already I guess.
Yeah, um, and I didn't wantsomething that was like kind of
(22:49):
corny or like like wolfdevelopment or something like
that.
Yeah, um, lone wolf, no offenseto wolf, wolf development, if
that exists.
No, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Um love wolf.
No offense to wolf, wolfdevelopment, if that exists no
offense to that, there's lots ofthose.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, I'm sure, and that's another thing.
Is that, like I feel like it'sbeen done?
Um, and so they came to me andthey were like so we know, you
said no animal names, but whatdo you think of meerkat?
What do you think of meerkat?
And I was like at first I waslike no, but then they, they
(23:20):
started to explain it andmeerkats, like you know, like a
core trait, a core charactertrait is that they work as a
team, they with typically onescout or you know one one that
kind of leads the way.
They're very good at resourcemanagement, they always know
where their food is, they alwaysknow where their water is and
they're typically fairly docile,unless you provoke them or, and
(23:44):
then they tend to get assertiveand, and you know, aggressive
on behalf of the tribe and onbehalf of the pack.
And when they explained that tome I was like that sounds like
a pretty good project manager.
So it all just kind ofdovetailed into me realizing
that there are a lot of natural,instinctual characteristics
(24:04):
about Amircat, that kind ofdouble up into a really
circumspect and careful projectmanager.
Owner's rep.
There you go, and that it wasunique.
The SEO was there, I felt likethere was a lot that would get
that could be done by withmarketing.
So, um, we landed on it and Isat on it for a few days and I
was like this is it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Let's do it Cool.
One thing I noticed aboutmeerkats they were a lot smaller
than I thought they really were.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
They're tiny, they're tiny.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
They're not that big.
They're like the size ofgophers.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, they are.
They are tiny and you knowwhat's funny is that since I've
started it, you know people sendme videos of, like you know,
meerkats in costumes and youknow like meerkats as pets or
whatever, and I'm just like, I'mthinking to myself, I'm like
maybe one day I probably shouldadopt a meerkat.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
I probably should adopt a meerkat.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, let's see if you can get one through the
ports of Brooklyn.
There, I'm not to be clear, I'mnot going to adopt a meerkat.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Actually that'd be a pretty cool mascot to have that
real live meerkat hauling aroundit would.
It would be cool.
You'd get a Cybertruck stick alittle like a pair of razor
glasses on it and stick it inthere?
you go, yeah, that'd be awesome,okay.
Sticking there, you go, yeah,that'd be awesome, okay.
So let's, let's get into someconstruction stuff.
So, um, the entire stack ofyour services.
So let's say you've got a, um,you know, quick service
(25:26):
restaurant, um, that wants they,do they approach you with?
I mean, a lot of these.
It all depends, obviously, youknow how developed these
companies are in terms of theirtrack record.
So, obviously, having a designand all of that, typically they
(25:47):
they already have an idea ofwhat they want.
They just are looking for adevelopment location that's
going to fit budget wise andobviously format wise, like size
, et cetera, for them to be ableto.
I don't know if you know,obviously, some stuff quick
service you're dealing withseats to some degree, but it's
more like get in and get out,but other things there is how
(26:09):
many seats are there if it's arestaurant, et cetera.
So, um, at what stage do theycall you?
Let me ask you another questionso have you had, have you had,
companies that are a totally newconcept and then you have
others that have, you know,previous stores and this is just
(26:29):
like a rinse and repeat on anew location great question.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So I like to work with both, uh, both types, um
and this goes for restaurantsand hotels as well Um, it's just
generally like a client typefor me.
Um, for the, for the ones thatalready have what I call proof
of concept and you know, theyhave maybe like brand standards.
They might not be like a hardand fast, like PDF, like that
(26:54):
they can give me, but they kindof have an idea of what they
want to do.
Like that typically reallyhelps with initial budgeting,
especially because they can say,oh yeah, our store in XYZ town
costs this much and it was thissquare footage.
And then I just kind of Iadjust for, you know, cost of
construction and cost of rentand such, and then I can
actually run a pretty tightbudget for them.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Right, so you can put a model together for them of
what that particular place wouldbe like.
Correct, okay, and then interms of, in terms of you know
drawings, you know architecturebasically not architecture, but
like you know the yeah, thearchitect's drawings like so are
you involved?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
before those are made , yeah, so typically I mean, I
get brought in Well if you bringa project, obviously.
Um, yeah, for sure, I would saythat ideally, um, ideally, I'm
working with a client that has,you know, a proof of concept,
whether it's one, two or three,you know locations already, yeah
, um, and then, uh, theytypically will come to the table
with you know kind of likeschematics already, whether they
(27:59):
have an architect already orthey are reusing existing
schematics from a past project.
And then what I do on my end isI just ask them hey, do you
have a contractor lined up?
Do you have an architect linedup?
Do you have an engineer?
Do you have an interiordesigner?
Do you have a furnitureprocurement agent?
Because a core aspect of myservices is team assemblage.
(28:19):
So, whatever they don't have,I'll be able to.
And because of my experiencewith Joe and the Juice and past
roles, I have a ton of contactsall over the country and many
markets, and so if I have aclient that's New York based and
they want to expand it toPhilly, I got somebody for that.
(28:39):
So I can usually contact and,you know, because I have good
relationships with, you knoweveryone, I typically I try to
leave everything with with areally good relationship Um, and
then I'm able to, you know,call somebody in Philly and just
say like hey, can you swing bythis spot, size it up?
You know, tell me where theexisting gas line is and
waterline.
It's typically a GC that I'veworked with Um, and they'll be
(29:01):
able to give me a pretty goodit's not, you know, you know
licensed and stamped propertycondition report, but it gives
me enough of an assessment toget back to the client and say,
hey, this is pretty accuratewithin 15%.
So and that's super helpful forthem when they're devising
their their expansion strategy,because they have to understand
how much capital they're goingto have to allocate per store on
(29:22):
a, on a national rollout.
So it's it's worth its weightin gold to get going on that
early.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Okay.
So, um, you know, before the,before the, before we started
recording, we were talking about, you know you're, um, you're
that communication conduitbetween the owner and then the
gc, in terms of you know, um,like, if the problems with a
particular submittal um, andthen you know all the rfis
(29:49):
coming down the pipe, um, youknow which could obviously turn
into a change order, obviously.
So what is the GCs that youwork with?
Typically they do that and so,having most general contractors
I know of anyway, they'regetting the certain draws from
(30:11):
the client and they're dealingwith all the project management.
They're doing the submittalprocess, first putting stuff out
to tender and then et, etc.
All the way through.
And, um, you know they'remanaging the money and if the
money becomes a problem, thenthey're talking to the, to the
owner.
But in your case, if you'rehave you had any gcs are like,
(30:34):
do they like the fact that youcontractors and just generally I
would say, stakeholders?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
like working with someone like Meerkat and just
generally an owner's rep, ifthey're good.
They like working with owner'sreps because the owner's rep can
speak everyone's language, theyunderstand what the contractor
needs and they're a bit moreanticipatory.
I guess they understand whatthe contractor needs and they're
a bit more anticipatory, Iguess.
And then also the client likesit because they're focused on
(31:19):
client stuff, on owner stuff.
They're raising money, they'relooking at new deals, they're
doing investor relations,they're operating their other
properties.
You know they don't necessarilyhave the time to, you know,
respond to an RFI and to feelthe submittal and do a final
sign off.
So I get put into that seat asa third party that's contracted
by the owner.
So you know I would say that itgoes owner to me, to all the
(31:46):
other stakeholders below, andthen all the other stakeholders
communicate with me and then ifI need to roll anything up to
ownership that requires a signoff, then I will.
But otherwise I'm I'm keepingthe ship sailing smooth with a
high velocity of response andjust making sure that
coordination and collaborationis happening as quickly as
possible to keep the projects onbudget and on schedule.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Okay.
So in terms of the cost, yourservices are going to obviously
create another budget item thatthe GC typically would be
charging for for their projectmanagement side of things.
Do they still charge that andyou're gravy on top?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It really it's project dependent.
In my experience actually, Ifeel like when I speak with
clients you know clients that Ihave right now, current clients
um, they, they will typicallyhave the gc exclude this kind of
over and above projectmanagement, like outside of the
(32:49):
construction project management,and then they'll typically have
somebody internal to their teamhistorically run it.
But but that person eitherisn't as adept or as experienced
in doing this kind of work orthey're just too busy.
They might have experience butthey're also doing other things
and they're wearing multiplehats.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Okay, that makes sense.
You're basically replacing, onthe client side, that person
that would have been responsiblefor the project.
They can focus on theirbusiness, and that revolving
door person that's moving fromone company to the next.
You're this solid thing thatcan just be there for them.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Bingo, and I think that when I speak with clients
and sometimes I get the questionof we've opened four of these
already, why would we needsomeone like you?
And my response is always didit go over budget?
Was it past schedule?
Were you handling it?
Company owner whose time isworth 500 plus an hour.
(33:50):
It doesn't really necessarilymake sense for them to be
focusing so much time onsomething that's a temporary
concentration and for a lot ofmy clients they don't have the
velocity or the requirement tohave someone like me full-time.
So the benefit is that whateverfee I propose to the client can
actually get billed towards theproject instead of hitting their
(34:12):
bottom line.
So if they're going for anotherfundraising round, it doesn't
look like they have more costson the books because it's all
project related.
And then the last part of ittoo is that I'm still working
out some case studies and somemetrics, but it's more or less
guaranteed that having someonelike me on the team actually
(34:33):
ends up being a net savings tothe owner, even with my fee
included, because I'm able toget them open sooner, in revenue
faster, and then I'm also ableto vet, change orders and just
make sure that design is runningin the right way and doing
value engineering on things thatmaybe aren't necessary to the
overall product and brandstandard.
So there's a lot of benefits tohaving that kind of expert
oversight.
(34:53):
That, um, that it is aninvestment, you know, bringing
me on the team that they may notwant to pay, but they end up
saving a lot of money over theterm of the project.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Do you think that um has there been a change from
from your vantage point of uhproject consciousness that
result in more change ordersthese days that are just so
ridiculous?
How do people not see this?
Is that becoming an epidemic?
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I think that I saw this when I was with Joe and the
Juice and even when I was ageneral contractor.
It's not that we wanted providechange orders or receive change
orders, but I think the issueis that everyone is just trying
to move at hyper speed.
Yeah, and a lot of times it'snot necessarily mistakes, but
(35:44):
it's just lack of communication.
So, um, you know, if, if thebranding team for a client wants
to make sure that all of thewood base or that all of the
base in the store or the hotelis a cherry, and they come in
and they see it at the end andthey say this is walnut and
that's a change order becauseit's something that's a brand
standard, when that could havejust been included in the plans.
(36:06):
But everyone's just moving sofast that it's kind of difficult
to do that, and so that's why Ialways institute checkpoints at
every single deliverable orevery single part of the design
phase to make sure that everyonehas a chance to review it.
Next week, for example, we'rewrapping up our design
documentation for a project outin Cincinnati and I have a
(36:27):
90-minute block on the calendarfor me and my client and my
client's full team to do apage-by-page page turn to make
sure we all sign off, to makesure that all of the finishers
are correct, to make sure thatall of the MEP is what they want
as the end user and in doing sowe're able to fully sign off on
(36:48):
construction documents.
It's exactly what we want.
The GC that we brought in forpre-con can do a full,
comprehensive, rough ordermagnitude budget with
specificity at that point andthen when we move into signing
up to GMP, we know that we haveeverything covered.
You know the operator hassigned off, design has signed
off, it's within budget.
The GC is happy.
(37:08):
We feasibly should not reallybe seeing many change orders,
barring any major fieldconditions.
But that's how I try to fightback on.
That is just with proceduralcheckpoints and taking time that
I think a lot of people don'tfeel is necessary to take time
to review things and then theyjust say we'll fix it later.
But to me, fixing it latermeans more money.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, no, for sure.
I mean, how much are you seeingthe percentage split of RFIs
that are?
Hey, I just need to see thisand verify, because we're unsure
versus we've identified aproblem identified a problem.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I see what you mean, so so the the difference between
you know we're missing, we'reentirely missing a detail on
this thing versus hey, there's adetail here.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
We're just verifying that you want a radial corner
instead of a 90 or or they'regetting to a certain area and
they're going um, what we havehere won't work right here, like
I'm looking at this going,there's just, you know, there's
like six inches missing and youwant x amount of you and there
could be, especially in the.
You're dealing with equipment.
(38:22):
It could be a fridge, it couldbe a, whatever you know.
You're dealing with a fridgethat can't be shaved down.
It.
You can't do that because ithas its own footprint.
Um, right, so yeah, I mean, howoften are you dealing with that
?
Like, what's the percentagesplit?
And obviously you want to makethat split on the just checking
(38:42):
rather than the oh shit kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And I would say and this is not a self-promote here,
but I would say that onprojects that I come in a little
bit later on, there's typicallya lot more like hey, where is
this drawing?
We're missing this entiresection and where is this thing.
So I would say that the splitis much higher in that direction
.
If I have my hands on a projectfrom the start, because I've
(39:20):
touched it on construction orbecause I have experience on
construction and I haveexperience in development, I've
seen I'm not going to say I'veseen it all, seen most of it and
uh, you know, I look for thethings that are probably going
to trip us up.
The fridge being too high is abig one for me, and so that's
why I typically kick the um.
You know, if I'm building akitchen from doing, doing
multifamily or a project inCincinnati is a great kind of
like short-term rental, hotelsynthesis concept I'll typically
(39:44):
kick out anything that requiresany kind of like field
coordination or any kind of harddimensions.
I want to keep that in one camp.
So GC on that project is goingto be doing the millwork.
They're also going to be doingthe appliances, so GC on that
project is going to be doing themillwork, they're also going to
be doing the appliances, soit's on the GC's PM and their
(40:06):
APM to verify that the shopdrawings fit within the
appliances that have beenspecified by the designer.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Nice, that's cool, Things like that.
So in terms of what kind ofthings do you see changing in
this industry?
What is evolving in yourprocess?
Do you see things?
You're like holy smokes?
I see some changes here, Thingsfrom the old days.
You'd see lots of plans rolledout and everyone's got them on
(40:34):
their phone or on an iPad, ortechnology is changing.
Do you think that's makingpeople less conscious?
More conscious?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Good question.
I think that technology is agreat thing if it's used
correctly.
I think that there's a ton of,I would say, new age or
changeover from people that havebeen doing this for a long time
.
I'll tell you a quick story,but when I was a GC, I was a PM
(41:06):
late 20s and I was working witha superintendent who was late
60s and a lot of times we didn'talways communicate because I
would say, hey, have you lookedat the plans that are uploaded
to whatever PM tool that we wereusing?
And he was just like, no man, Ibarely even have a phone, it's
a flip phone.
If you want me to see the plans, you've got to bring it to the
site world.
(41:38):
Because he was super, supercareful and super, super detail
oriented, because he hadeverything right in front and he
had a system and he had, youknow, his pen and his and his
rule.
He had a, you know, the threeside ruler.
He was scaling things out.
Um, it's a bit of a lost artnow and you know I love seeing
it.
Um, I still, I still take paperplans on on site visits, um,
but I would say that we're inthis kind of interesting period
where, you know people like thatare retiring and so you know
(42:02):
those kinds of processes arekind of going to the wayside and
I think that as a newgeneration of construction and
development and designprofessionals kind of enter into
the scene, I think we're goingto see a big paradigm shift into
pretty much everything being onthe cloud and everything being
done electronically, but peopleactually sticking with it and
(42:33):
tools evolving with the newneeds of high velocity.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Very interesting thing, especially on the drawing
side, when you know manypodcasts you know we'll talk to
on operators of you knowengineering companies that are
building airports, hospitals,all that kind of stuff and
they're all like you know it'sall been modeling and uh, you
know 3d drawings, um, and youknow I look at for that to
(43:05):
become standard across the boardin terms of the industries you
get involved in, uh, when itcomes to tenant improvements, uh
, retrofits comes to tenantimprovements, retrofits, resto
mods, blah, blah, blah, all thatkind of stuff.
Because of the originaldrawings that the cities have
(43:26):
that you need to get and thenyou need to get your building
permit.
You need to provide backchanges based on those original
drawings.
Well, in order for everythingfor the whole world to go BIM
you're going to, the cities haveto change.
(43:46):
And there's no just, in myopinion, there is no planet
where the cities are going topay, or software-wise, for the
intersection between vectordrawing files.
You'll get pds from the citythat are flat raster files,
aren't even vectors, right.
So, and I'm sure you know, wecan talk, talk about some kind
(44:07):
of um.
You know ai service.
That's like okay, upload yourdrawings and it'll give you its
best render of a 3D model forthat, great.
But I don't see that happeninganytime soon with accuracy to
the point where it could besign-off.
So we're going to be, I think,stuck in this 2D world for a
while until there is some kindof watershed moment.
(44:30):
That you know, it's kind ofweird and that's what I find is
like that's going to hold backconstruction, in my opinion,
from the plan side, for a while.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, I think you're right about that.
I think that more on a, I guess, a rollout or a gradual change
basis, I think we'll startseeing that in larger
metropolitan areas.
I could see New York doing that.
I know that they're updatingall of their building
information systems online andI'm sure we'll be able to
eventually see as-builts andthey'll be password protected by
(45:05):
an admin or something like that.
I can almost promise you thatthat's probably happening
already and that's being thoughtof by building commissioners.
New York, miami, la, chicago,those larger cities I think that
it's going to be the smallertowns that you know have, have,
you know, plans on microfilmfrom the thirties that are just
(45:26):
never going to get there.
And that's okay, you know, it'snot.
It's not necessary at at, atthe velocity that they work at
Um.
But I mean, you know I did ahotel on Nantucket at.
But I mean, you know I did ahotel on Nantucket.
It was it was an interiorrenovation of an existing B&B
into a hotel called the BlueIris, and we got as belts from
the city or from the town,really, of Nantucket, and they
(45:49):
were just for reference onlybecause every single dimension
was off.
You know, we, we scaled it andit was.
You know, it was done a longtime ago and so we actually just
used them for reference and webrought in our own building
information modeling team tosize everything up as existing
and then we had our own 3D model, but it didn't come from the
city, from the town, to yourpoint.
But I think that there's goingto be a lot more.
(46:14):
I could see a world wherelarger cities are contracting
these building informationmodeling surveyors to update
their plans over time.
It's not a major priority, butI think as people renovate and
as people develop, I think thatthey'll want to have them on
record as BIM, as Revit.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
So I can see that happening for sure.
Yeah, I don't see that loweringthe square footage of homes.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
No, I don't In terms of pricing.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
I mean, where do you see this whole thing going in
terms of you see constructioncosts is increasing and labor
costs increasing, and then youhear rents are so expensive on
the commercial side you knowresidential construction costs
are so much, you know homeprices are so much.
(47:03):
I mean it doesn't seem likeit's ever going to go down.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
It seems like it's ever squeezing.
But I think that that's a bigreason why I'm glad you brought
that up.
That's actually a big reasonwhy I'm focusing Meerkat's
targets on not out-of-grounddevelopment, but I want to go
after the existing buildings andI especially want to focus on
and kind of niche down on,something called adaptive reuse,
which is taking an olderbuilding and changing the whole
(47:31):
purpose of it.
I've done a lot of adaptivereuse in my career and I love it
.
I've done a lot of adaptivereuse in my career and I love it
.
The building out, or theproject down in Cincinnati it
was a building that was built in1916 as a carpet factory and
we're turning it into a higherend 44 key boutique hotel with
two restaurants.
Sweet.
That's cool, you know going tobe cool.
And what I'm seeing is that,you know, the concrete and steel
(47:54):
line item is significantlylower, by a major margin, than
if we were to knock it down andrebuild it.
We can't rebuild it anywaybecause it's on the National
Historic Registry.
But if it were not, I think wewould still proceed with this
path, because concrete and steelare such a huge cost center and
I think, just generally from aresponsibility standpoint, I
think developers and contractorsshould be looking at reusing
(48:18):
existing spaces versus buildingnew, from an ecological
standpoint as well.
It just releases so much carbonto create new cold form steel
to pour new concrete.
It's a huge emitter.
So I think if we can shift awayfrom that and reuse existing
spaces and add on to existingspaces, be smarter about our use
and more efficient, I thinkthat everyone will be saving
(48:39):
money.
We'll be able to create morehousing, you know, more services
, more amenities, and not savethe planet.
I think that that's.
I think that that's a big term,but I think we'll be able to
save on save on carbon emissionsthat we wouldn't otherwise have
to do.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah, no, it's pretty cool.
I've seen a lot of reallyreally well-designed Save on
carbon emissions that wewouldn't otherwise have to do.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Love that, look you know, with black, black hardware
.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
It looks so good.
You know great lighting and youknow I think there's the.
And then, if you can, you knowuse a lot of the materials from
ripping out and you know reclaimwood and using all that stuff
and you know, take that to amill workshop.
Get that done in cool ways.
Yeah, yeah, that's a.
(49:35):
It creates a lot of.
It's almost as though aren't,joe Rogan says.
He says there's memory inspaces.
No, I could kind of see that.
Yeah, there's, this is afeeling, there's this kind of
like you walk into a place likeokay, like a lot of shit's
happened here.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, I actually did a video on on on my Instagram
with my buddy, brent, where wewalked around the city, and
there's these two hotels that Ireally love.
One of them is called theBeekman Hotel and one of them is
called the Refinery Hotel, andthey're both great examples of
adaptive reuse.
The Beekman used to be what'scalled the Temple Court building
(50:12):
, and it was built for a totallydifferent purpose.
It was high society back thenand developers converted that
into a high-end hotel and theyleft this really incredible
atrium that they used as kind oflike a light well to bring
light into the center of thebuilding.
Oh cool, so well worth checkingout.
They don't serve pizza,unfortunately, but worth
(50:34):
checking out the next timeyou're in town.
And then the refinery is also agreat example of a rooftop bar
and you can see the Empireestate building, but that used
to be a hat factory.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
So I definitely got to, uh, when I come back to New
York, I've definitely got to,you know, um, meet up with you
and you can show me, like thethe local thing is so important,
like I can't stand the touristthing.
Like you, you go there and youknow, like someone like yourself
who's got this, this breadth ofknowledge of where to go, what
is your?
You know, if I were to, whatwould the pizza place be?
(51:04):
That you'd be like james, wehave to go here.
That you know that I'm gonnawalk away going.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Oh my god, that was epic oh man, I should have seen
this coming right, you shouldhave we've said pizza a number
of times in the past hour.
I'm going to give you three,because I think that that's only
fair, sure.
So there is Joe's Pizza.
Joe's Pizza has a couplelocations.
I like the one in the WestVillage, right off West 4th
(51:30):
Street.
It's always good, always swingby whenever I'm, even if I'm not
hungry.
If I'm in the neighborhood I'llgo by for a slice.
And then Scar's Pizza is a bitmore of a newcomer, but it's
fantastic, always a line aroundthe block and I actually I would
love to work with them onhelping them expand.
So they're on my list to reachout to Nice.
(51:53):
And then, last would be a placecalled DeFaras, um.
And then, uh, last would be aplace called DeFaras and that is
in South Brooklyn, um, wellknown for being, you know, one
of the best places in thecountry.
It's not the world, um, superold school, no frills.
You walk in there and you knowyou order a whole pie, sit down
with your friends.
It's, uh, it's, it's an oldschool neighborhood, it hasn't,
(52:14):
you know, it's still, I wouldn'tsay, gritty, but it's still
very like old world Brooklyn.
So well worth checking out nexttime you're in town.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Nice, that's perfect.
Three I get three options.
Well, you're going to have tosit down with me and have some
down there.
When I come over there, you go,all right.
So, that seems like a goodplace for us to wrap up here.
So your website, meerkat?
What dot com is it?
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, it's meerkatdevelopmentcom Perfect.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Okay, that's what.
I got here.
Yeah, meerkatdevelopmentcom.
And then Zach Wrapaport.
You can be found on LinkedIn,yep and yeah, so for anybody to
reach out, um, I definitelythink we're going to tag those
pizza companies.
Oh yeah, please do.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah, I would love to chat with them.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, that's cool.
Okay, well, this has beenawesome, zach, um, I wish you
the best of luck and, uh, Idon't think you're going to need
it, but, uh, anyway, hats offto you for, uh, the courage of
going into entrepreneurialism.
It's a rough world out there,but you're doing it.
You're doing a great job.
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
I've been having a good time so far and I think
it's all about just having agood attitude about it and, you
know, getting through it, havinga good time.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
All right.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
All the best to you, bud.
Thanks, james, ciao.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Well, that does it for another episode of the Site
Visit.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to stay connected withus by following our social
accounts on Instagram andYouTube.
You can also sign up for ourmonthly newsletter at
sitemaxsystemscom slash the sitevisit, where you'll get
industry insights, pro tips andeverything you need to know
about the site visit podcast andsitemax, the job site and
(54:06):
construction management tool ofchoice for thousands of
contractors in North America andbeyond.
Sitemax is also the engine thatpowers this podcast.
All right, let's get back tobuilding.
All right.
So from Brooklyn today, what'sthe deal with the pizza?
All I keep hearing is thatBrooklyn is like the Mecca of
New York for pizza.
Is that the deal?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's in the water, man?
Yeah, it's in the water.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's in the water.
They say that.
Right, it is in the water.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We have the best tap water probably in the country,
and I stand by that, not as aNew York elitist, but as a
pseudoscientist.
It all comes from upstate,through an aquifer, and we use
it for the best pizzas, the bestbagels, you name it, it's, it
is the best nice and thenBrooklyn is.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
You know was always kind of this place.
I don't know back in I don'tknow the 80s and 90s of sort of
this downtrodden kind of thisplace.
I don't know back in the 80sand 90s of sort of this
downtrodden kind of place, andnow it's like the hip, the place
in Manhattan.
It's kind of this old placethat's kind of not cool anymore,
it seems.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, and a big reason for that.
Actually I'm kind of like Iwouldn't call myself an actual
historian, but I have been kindof studying a little bit about
New York history and eventuallyI do want to get my tour guide
license and actually do sometours on the side because I
think that would be cool.
I love living here and I'mdefinitely a bona fide New
Yorker.
(01:16):
But the basis of that isactually that manufacturing
moved away from the waterfrontin Brooklyn and it was
historically not very valuablereal estate.
And then when manufacturingmoved out to cheaper real estate
and easier, I guess, forlogistics, all of those
waterfront parcels becameavailable and then developers
(01:39):
saw that as a great opportunityand they started building it up
and then it started building outfrom the East River throughout
Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So that's a bit of etymology about that and now
it's all high, nice looking highrises.
Right, that's it.
Yeah, the same thing happenedhere.
Nothing gritty about it anymore.
Yeah, I mean the whole, uh,false creek used to be a, a
logging area where the trainswere in vancouver, and now it's
all high rises.
That's just the way it goes, youknow lots of copper in Falls
(02:08):
Creek, though I think Lots ofbad metals in there.
But we're going to talk aboutMeerkat today and you being your
company, that you started beingan owner's rep for hospitality,
construction and developmentpretty cool.
I love food personally and Ilove great restaurant
(02:32):
experiences.
It all shocks me how there's abig dichotomy from people who
love making food as a craft andthen people who want to own a
restaurant big differencedifference.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You probably see this One of my first questions Do
you want to own a restaurantbecause you like to cook?
Because if you don't, maybe youshouldn't.
It's not exactly it's abusiness.
It's a lovely business whenit's done right, but it could be
a major challenge, so that's abig qualifier for me, for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, I've always said how can you possibly get
this wrong?
Something super basic.
When I'm in a restaurant, I'mlike this is all you do.
You don't do anything else butthis, and this is not right.
So yeah, I hear you.
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast Leadership andperspective from construction
(03:33):
With your host, james Falkner.
Business as usual, as it hasbeen for so long now that it
goes back to what we weretalking about before hitting the
reset button.
You read all the books, youread the email, you read Scaling
Up, you read Good to Great.
You know I could go on.
We've got to a place where wefound the secret serum.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
We found the secret potion.
We can get the workers in.
We know where to get them.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Once I was on the job site for a while actually we
had a semester phone group and Iordered like a Korean-F me up
on LinkedIn out of the blue andsaid he was driving from
Oklahoma to Dallas to meet withme because he heard the Faber
Connect platform on your guys'podcast Own it, crush it and
(04:16):
love it, and we celebrate thesevalues every single day.
Let's get down to it.
So it's Zach Rapoport.
Is that how I pronounce it?
Rapoport?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Rapoport Rap Hard T.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Oh, with the hard T, Hard T, Rapoport.
Oh, is that?
Who's the other?
Who's that famous actor, theother guy, Rapoport?
What's his name?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Michael Rapoport.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is it the same pronunciation then?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It is.
Yeah, I actually, strangelyenough, I saw him walking around
a neighborhood in Manhattan andhe was too far away from me to
say hi, but I was going to tellhim I was a long lost cousin.
He probably would have calledthe cops or something.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So is he from Brooklyn.
Are you from Brooklyn, born andraised then?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I'm from just outside the city on Long Island.
Oh, long Island, okay, is canlearn like born and raised then
uh, I'm from just outside thecity on long island oh, long
island.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Okay, is that where he's from too?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
yeah, I think he's from the city.
Um, I should know that before Iapproach him the next time I
see him so what's the lineage ofthat last name?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
is that uh like what's what's uh, is it there?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
yeah, it's uh, it's actually a polish-Ukrainian,
okay cool.
So my grandparents on my dad'sside are from Grodno, which was
actually Poland when they wereborn, and now it's actually part
of Belarus, oh nice.
And then my mom's side is fromIreland and the UK.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So got a little bit of everything going on Nice,
nice, that's cool, All right.
Got a little bit of everythinggoing on Nice, nice, that's cool
, All right.
So we're going to talk todayabout your company and how you
(06:02):
sort of carve yourself a nichethere and being an owner's rep
for developers, restaurantowners, people doing development
of hospitality, et cetera.
But before we get into that, Iwant to know like how'd you end
up here and how you seem like apretty young guy kind of young,
I am.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, so you've stuffed 34.
Okay, well 34,.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You've stuffed a lot of experience into a short
period of time, so you must bereally into this.
So let's just tell us the DNAuntil today Well, maybe not the
diapers to today, but maybe theyou know post high school, like
what was the?
Hey, I got to get intoconstruction, I want to learn
about legal I?
You know, I've got a couple ofnotes here.
You sort of you've covered thegamut in terms of useful
(06:40):
education or self-education orexperience.
So, yes, take us through ituseful education or
self-education or experience.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So, yes, take us through it.
Yeah, for sure I'd love to.
So, growing up, my parentsalways thought that I would be a
great attorney, not because Iwas good at arguing, but because
anytime that I didn't want togo to bed or I wanted dessert, I
would always put together asyllogistic response that
included points.
And you know, even as young asyou know, six or seven and I was
(07:09):
never, you know, fighting themon it.
But I would say, hey, you saida week ago that you know, these
three days I would be able toget, have ice cream or whatever
the case was.
So I was always thinkinglogically about how to respond
to people on things.
I was always thinking logicallyabout how to respond to people
on things Still do, but, youknow, not as a lawyer.
So when I graduated high school, I was thinking to myself you
(07:32):
know, I've been told basicallymy whole life that, you know,
being a lawyer would make sensefor me.
And so I went to college forpolitical science and legal
studies, suny Geneseo, up inWestern New York, near Rochester
.
And it turns out that all Ineeded was four years of
(07:54):
political science and legalstudies to realize that I didn't
want to be a lawyer or apolitician.
So shortly after I graduated Iwas, you know.
I felt like I still needed tocontinue on that path, even
though I knew that it's notreally what I wanted.
But I moved home to live with myparents my mom and dad while I
figured out my next move aftercollege and I was studying for
the LSAT and my dad was adeveloper on Long Island.
(08:19):
He did mostly smaller retailbuild-outs like out-of-grounds
think like strip malls,buildouts like out of grounds
think like, you know, stripmalls and things like that on
long island.
Um, and he came home one dayfrom work and he was just like
dude, like you know thick newyork accent.
Um, give it to me, he passed in20, he passed in 2020, so it's,
uh, it's, but it's.
(08:40):
It's a great memory that I him.
He comes home and he's just likedude, what are you doing?
You look miserable, miserable,like, grab your boots, come out
on the job site with me tomorrowand let's see if you like it.
And I was like I don't know ifI want to Like.
You know, growing up, I alwaysspent summers working with him
and, you know, moving dirtaround and you know all that.
(09:01):
So I was like I don't know if Iwant to do this, but I went out
with him and I showed up and Iwas all excited.
I had my college degree now andI was like, all right, I'm
going to be a project manager.
Like overnight I just had thislike idea that that's what I
wanted to do.
And I show up on site and, uh,I was like all right, cool.
Like you know what's, what'sthe plan for today, thinking
(09:23):
that he's going to like run methrough, like what the
electricians are doing and theplumbers and everybody.
And he just hands me a shoveland he says you dig.
And I was like what, what areyou talking about?
Like, you know, I'm, I'm acollege grad now I should be,
you know, I should be inmanagement and I was just
immediately humbled and I thinkthat that was really critical
for me, because I still feelthat humility, you know, I still
(09:47):
feel like I wouldn't sayimposter syndrome, because I am
very well qualified and you know, I have, you know, the
experiential backing, but stillstay humble and I think that
that helps me stay focused onthe main goal instead of
focusing on things that are kindof tertiary and, you know,
outside of my scope, I shouldsay so I worked with him for for
(10:10):
a couple, for a couple of yearsout on Long Island and then I
decided that I wanted to.
You know, I had bigger.
I had bigger plans.
I really fell in love withconstruction.
I fell in love with the wholeprocess of it.
The team works, you know, theteam works in one fluid movement
to go from A to B.
I loved seeing a space that waswhite boxed or freshly
(10:32):
demolished turn into somethingreally beautiful.
We did some interior work aswell.
So it was just a naturalprogression for me.
I fell in love with it and thenI realized that I wanted to do
bigger things.
So I ended up moving into thecity, into New York city, and
working with, working with acontractor on that that focused
(10:54):
mainly on hotels, restaurantsand retail work interiors,
worked with them for a couple ofyears as an assistant project
manager and then got elevatedquite quickly actually within my
first, I think, year and a halfinto being a project manager,
because I was an APM on a bunchof projects.
But the CEO of the company kindof took notice of how much more
(11:17):
I was doing and it wasn't that Iwas stepping out of my lane or
stepping on toes, it was justbeing very proactive, and he
knew that I was hungry.
I mean, I've always been hungry,I still am, but, um, he saw
that and he wanted to rewardthat and so, you know, he gave
me the bump up to PM and there Iwas, you know, at 25 years old,
sitting with the PMs, and youknow it was, it was.
(11:39):
That was a big leap for me,going from size five shoes to
size 10 shoes, yeah, but I'mreally happy that I did because
it kind of set the tone for therest of my career.
And so I worked with thatcontractor for a bit.
And then I worked with anothercontractor for a bit, ended up
being about eight, almost nineyears in construction.
(12:00):
And then I built a project inTribe, tribeca.
That was a coffee shop for acompany called joe and the juice
, yep, um, yeah, so you'refamiliar I saw on your websites
but I'm not familiar, but uh Idid see the design.
Yes, that's very cool, gotchayeah, it's a great company to
work with.
Uh.
So I wrapped that up and um, Iguess you know the, the top
(12:24):
brass, that joe and the juice,kind of took notice and I
started having conversationswith their us team about coming
on board with them in house tomanage GCs and manage, you know
like work with work with theirteam doing the expansion across
the U?
S.
And so I came in and I was likeyou know, I wasn't really
looking for a new role, but youknow I've always felt like
(12:46):
eventually I did want to moveinto doing the top line project
management, the you know, thefull scale development from end
to end, including, you know,site selection, all the way up
to turnover, not just theconstruction aspect of it.
So I felt like it was just theright.
It was the right move for meand I still do.
And so I worked with them for,uh, just over two years and when
(13:13):
I came on we had, I think wehad like five or six stores and
by the time I was done, I thinkwe had like 45.
So that's a lot.
It was, it was, it was big, itwas, it was, it was a big push.
Um, I think at one point wewere opening like two or three
stores a month, which wasintense, of course, but it was
great.
I learned how to work inmultiple states, learned how to
(13:33):
work remotely, managing projects, because I was based in New
York.
I had some personnel thatdoubled up as kind of regional
managers in the markets, but, uh, you know, for the most part it
was, you know, it was mecoordinating with the GCs and
the different markets and makingsure that I got proper weekly
reports and a lot of techniquesthat I developed, uh, during
(13:54):
that time I still use todaybecause Meerkat works nationally
.
Um, yeah, so then I worked withthem for about you know a
little over two years and thenCOVID hit and um from there.
Uh, you know they, they made anoffer to me and it's very
generous offer to stay on andkind of do facilities management
because they were slowing downon expansion.
(14:15):
But that's not really where myheart was.
I wanted to keep, I wanted todo new development and growth,
um, so I teamed up with acompany called Selena, which is
a hotel and hostel companythat's based out of Panama, and
I was brought on as the VP ofdevelopment for them and
unfortunately, I was only withthem for about a year.
(14:35):
When I came on, we had a prettystrong pipeline for the US, but
as they started to see that itwas very capital intensive to
grow in the US and deals that Iwas bringing to them just seemed
astronomically higher than youknow.
Building a 20 key hotel inPanama, yeah, um.
And, and you know, nicaraguaand Costa Rica, um, and.
So you know, I'd stayed withthem for about a year and we, we
(14:59):
, you know we we tried to figureout a way to make it work and
you know they, they made verygenerous offers to move me to
other markets and such, and Ireally appreciate that, but I
wanted to stay in New York.
We have the best pizza.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I was going to say the same thing.
Why would you want to leave?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Nothing against all the other markets that they're
in.
I think I just wasn't ready togo.
Nice, well, that sounds cool.
Ready to go so?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
nice, well, that's yeah, and so so what did you?
So?
From that did you?
The leap to entrepreneurialismis is sometimes a uh, a leap of
faith.
So how did you uh?
When did that?
What year were you like, okay,I gotta do this yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So my uh, I would say the last W2 role that I had was
the one right after Selena andit was called Lifehouse Hotels.
I came on as their VP ofdevelopment and I worked with
them for three years.
You know, I managed thedevelopment team, the
procurement team, and then Ialso worked in tandem with the
VP of design.
We were vertically integrated,which was great.
(16:00):
And in doing so, you know, thatlast role that I had, I've
always kind of feltentrepreneurial.
But that last role that I hadwas very entrepreneurial in the
sense that we kind of ran ourown books.
We did a lot of our own clientoutreach, we did a lot of our
own.
It was very much like a like aninsular kind of subcompany
within that, within that firm.
(16:21):
And you know, in just in, inbuilding six hotels in three
years, six branded hotels, um, Ijust realized that I had a real
knack for kind of running thewhole show.
Um, and uh, yeah, at the end oflast year, at the end of 2023,
I decided to, uh, to leavelifehouse, um, without really
(16:43):
knowing, excuse, excuse me, jeez, sneeze.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Damn it.
Sorry about that.
Live live, live sneeze.
Okay, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
That attacked you.
It did, yeah.
So at the end of last year Idecided to leave and I just
wasn't sure what was coming next, which was fine.
I needed to.
You know, the metaphor that Iuse is it's kind of hard to
figure out which boat to get onif the boat that you're on is
still moving.
So I hopped onto what I callthe island, the Zack Island, and
(17:10):
figured out what came next, andI interviewed with a few
companies and then I justdecided.
You know what I feel like I havethe experience and this is
ultimately what I want to do,and something that my dad always
said was the time's going topass either way.
So what do you want to do?
And something that my dadalways said was the time's going
to pass either way.
So what do you want to havehappen?
(17:31):
And you know he was.
He was saying that in relationto you know, uh, you know, in
five years, like, like, when Iwas thinking about if something
was going to take a long timeand it's a reason not to do it,
um, he would be like listen,five years are going to pass
either way.
So in five years, do you wantto be the owner of a company or
do you want to just be startingyour company?
At that point, and so I, youknow, with with his voice, you
know, in the back of my head, Iwas like it's time, let's do
(17:51):
this.
So in February of this year, Iincorporated um.
March, I publicly announced,after doing some branding with
the studio that I hired.
And uh, since then it's it'sbeen a wild ride.
We're working on three activeprojects, two of them in New
(18:13):
Jersey, one of them inCincinnati, ohio.
I have a bunch more in thepipeline coming up for 2025.
And I'm also consulting with afew groups that are in that
early exploratory phase of doesit make sense to acquire this
property, does it make sense tobuild it, what does it look like
when it's done?
What do the financial returnslook like?
So it's been exciting.
It's been a lot of fun actuallythat's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
When you first decided to actually start the
company, was there a projectwith a prospective client that
you're like, okay, this could bemy first one?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, actually I was, um, when I, when I first left,
I was in talks with my, uh, withmy former employer life house,
to kind of come on and do myrole on a contract basis.
Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
So you just wrapped the whole company around that
and then nice.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, it turns out that you know the the projects
that they were working on kindof fell to the wayside for you
know, regardless of reason.
But, um, I would say that youknow, there wasn't like a locked
and loaded project, I justdecided that it was time to do
it and um, a lot of couragesince I started.
Yeah, thank you, I appreciatethat.
Um, since I started, I I made abunch of goals for myself, of
(19:23):
you know, setting up callmeetings and sending out 50
LinkedIn connection requests andsending out 25 cold emails or
whatever, and just going to morenetworking events and doing all
of that.
It's been great.
I've met a lot of really coolpeople, not just cause.
That's not really what I'mfocused on.
(19:43):
I'm more focused on building mypersonal brand, building the
company brand and kind ofbecoming a known, known figure
in the space.
Um, cause, I wasn't unknown,but I think that I'm now.
I'm now getting to a pointwhere you know uh, people are
starting to to know who I ambefore I introduced myself,
which is, which is the intendedeffect.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Nice, that's pretty cool.
You know, I had a similar kindof experience with before I had
SightMax.
Um, when I was in my my uh, midtwenties, um, I worked for a
company called Lush Cosmeticslike the soap brand and, um, we
(20:26):
were doing the same thing.
We're opening stores in otherlocations and, uh, we would have
, you know, the fit out of thestore.
We had the design, we had anin-house wood shop and we used
to backfill an entire containerlike a moving truck, basically
(20:49):
like a big one, and it wouldpull up to the warehouse and we
would basically put all theproduct in first, then we would
put the furniture in next, Thenwe would do lights, so we
basically had this all filled tolike paint at the front.
(21:09):
So, basically, this thing wouldpull up and it would be a
essentially an assembly line ofstart to finish of what the
store was going to have in it.
And we just did that over andover and over again Signage,
everything was in there.
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, the store in the box system.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and it really was all the way to the product
and it was pretty crazy and we'dhave like a two week timeline
and get it nailed.
Yeah, it'd be fast, super fast.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Because there wasn't a lot to them right.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
There was, just like you know, it was mostly paint,
furniture and lighting.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, I would love to dive into that with you and
just talk about, like you know,all the logistics.
You know we could do thatoffline if it's.
You know, not for now.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But it was a cool thing to be part of at the time
and something to watch.
So you go to this marketingcompany and so did you have the
name Meerkat at the time whenyou decided you wanted to go and
do this.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
No, and I'm smiling because I'm sure they're going
to listen to this but day onewhen I hired them, I was filling
out a questionnaire and I waslike, all right, I have one rule
no animal names.
And uh, it's like, and I likebeing one over.
It's just a character trait forme, like even I'm not very like
(22:27):
like hard and fast about mostthings, like I'm always able to
hear people out, and I thinkthat's a strength.
Um, but uh, out, and I thinkthat's a strength.
Um, but uh, I said no animalnames because I'm thinking to
myself like I don't want, likeyou know, like I think of like
construction brands, likecaterpillar and like you know,
like it just feels very likedone already I guess.
Yeah, um, and I didn't wantsomething that was like kind of
(22:49):
corny or like like wolfdevelopment or something like
that.
Yeah, um, lone wolf, no offenseto wolf, wolf development, if
that exists.
No, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Um love wolf.
No offense to wolf, wolfdevelopment, if that exists no
offense to that, there's lots ofthose.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, I'm sure, and that's another thing.
Is that, like I feel like it'sbeen done?
Um, and so they came to me andthey were like so we know, you
said no animal names, but whatdo you think of meerkat?
What do you think of meerkat?
And I was like at first I waslike no, but then they, they
(23:20):
started to explain it andmeerkats, like you know, like a
core trait, a core charactertrait is that they work as a
team, they with typically onescout or you know one one that
kind of leads the way.
They're very good at resourcemanagement, they always know
where their food is, they alwaysknow where their water is and
they're typically fairly docile,unless you provoke them or, and
(23:44):
then they tend to get assertiveand, and you know, aggressive
on behalf of the tribe and onbehalf of the pack.
And when they explained that tome I was like that sounds like
a pretty good project manager.
So it all just kind ofdovetailed into me realizing
that there are a lot of natural,instinctual characteristics
(24:04):
about Amircat, that kind ofdouble up into a really
circumspect and careful projectmanager.
Owner's rep.
There you go, and that it wasunique.
The SEO was there, I felt likethere was a lot that would get
that could be done by withmarketing.
So, um, we landed on it and Isat on it for a few days and I
was like this is it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Let's do it Cool.
One thing I noticed aboutmeerkats they were a lot smaller
than I thought they really were.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
They're tiny, they're tiny.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
They're not that big.
They're like the size ofgophers.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, they are.
They are tiny and you knowwhat's funny is that since I've
started it, you know people sendme videos of, like you know,
meerkats in costumes and youknow like meerkats as pets or
whatever, and I'm just like, I'mthinking to myself, I'm like
maybe one day I probably shouldadopt a meerkat.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
I probably should adopt a meerkat.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, let's see if you can get one through the
ports of Brooklyn.
There, I'm not to be clear, I'mnot going to adopt a meerkat.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Actually that'd be a pretty cool mascot to have that
real live meerkat hauling aroundit would.
It would be cool.
You'd get a Cybertruck stick alittle like a pair of razor
glasses on it and stick it inthere?
you go, yeah, that'd be awesome,okay.
Sticking there, you go, yeah,that'd be awesome, okay.
So let's, let's get into someconstruction stuff.
So, um, the entire stack ofyour services.
So let's say you've got a, um,you know, quick service
(25:26):
restaurant, um, that wants they,do they approach you with?
I mean, a lot of these.
It all depends, obviously, youknow how developed these
companies are in terms of theirtrack record.
So, obviously, having a designand all of that, typically they
(25:47):
they already have an idea ofwhat they want.
They just are looking for adevelopment location that's
going to fit budget wise andobviously format wise, like size
, et cetera, for them to be ableto.
I don't know if you know,obviously, some stuff quick
service you're dealing withseats to some degree, but it's
more like get in and get out,but other things there is how
(26:09):
many seats are there if it's arestaurant, et cetera.
So, um, at what stage do theycall you?
Let me ask you another questionso have you had, have you had,
companies that are a totally newconcept and then you have
others that have, you know,previous stores and this is just
(26:29):
like a rinse and repeat on anew location great question.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So I like to work with both, uh, both types, um
and this goes for restaurantsand hotels as well Um, it's just
generally like a client typefor me.
Um, for the, for the ones thatalready have what I call proof
of concept and you know, theyhave maybe like brand standards.
They might not be like a hardand fast, like PDF, like that
(26:54):
they can give me, but they kindof have an idea of what they
want to do.
Like that typically reallyhelps with initial budgeting,
especially because they can say,oh yeah, our store in XYZ town
costs this much and it was thissquare footage.
And then I just kind of Iadjust for, you know, cost of
construction and cost of rentand such, and then I can
actually run a pretty tightbudget for them.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Right, so you can put a model together for them of
what that particular place wouldbe like.
Correct, okay, and then interms of, in terms of you know
drawings, you know architecturebasically not architecture, but
like you know the yeah, thearchitect's drawings like so are
you involved?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
before those are made , yeah, so typically I mean, I
get brought in Well if you bringa project, obviously.
Um, yeah, for sure, I would saythat ideally, um, ideally, I'm
working with a client that has,you know, a proof of concept,
whether it's one, two or three,you know locations already, yeah
, um, and then, uh, theytypically will come to the table
with you know kind of likeschematics already, whether they
(27:59):
have an architect already orthey are reusing existing
schematics from a past project.
And then what I do on my end isI just ask them hey, do you
have a contractor lined up?
Do you have an architect linedup?
Do you have an engineer?
Do you have an interiordesigner?
Do you have a furnitureprocurement agent?
Because a core aspect of myservices is team assemblage.
(28:19):
So, whatever they don't have,I'll be able to.
And because of my experiencewith Joe and the Juice and past
roles, I have a ton of contactsall over the country and many
markets, and so if I have aclient that's New York based and
they want to expand it toPhilly, I got somebody for that.
(28:39):
So I can usually contact and,you know, because I have good
relationships with, you knoweveryone, I typically I try to
leave everything with with areally good relationship Um, and
then I'm able to, you know,call somebody in Philly and just
say like hey, can you swing bythis spot, size it up?
You know, tell me where theexisting gas line is and
waterline.
It's typically a GC that I'veworked with Um, and they'll be
(29:01):
able to give me a pretty goodit's not, you know, you know
licensed and stamped propertycondition report, but it gives
me enough of an assessment toget back to the client and say,
hey, this is pretty accuratewithin 15%.
So and that's super helpful forthem when they're devising
their their expansion strategy,because they have to understand
how much capital they're goingto have to allocate per store on
(29:22):
a, on a national rollout.
So it's it's worth its weightin gold to get going on that
early.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Okay.
So, um, you know, before the,before the, before we started
recording, we were talking about, you know you're, um, you're
that communication conduitbetween the owner and then the
gc, in terms of you know, um,like, if the problems with a
particular submittal um, andthen you know all the rfis
(29:49):
coming down the pipe, um, youknow which could obviously turn
into a change order, obviously.
So what is the GCs that youwork with?
Typically they do that and so,having most general contractors
I know of anyway, they'regetting the certain draws from
(30:11):
the client and they're dealingwith all the project management.
They're doing the submittalprocess, first putting stuff out
to tender and then et, etc.
All the way through.
And, um, you know they'remanaging the money and if the
money becomes a problem, thenthey're talking to the, to the
owner.
But in your case, if you'rehave you had any gcs are like,
(30:34):
do they like the fact that youcontractors and just generally I
would say, stakeholders?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
like working with someone like Meerkat and just
generally an owner's rep, ifthey're good.
They like working with owner'sreps because the owner's rep can
speak everyone's language, theyunderstand what the contractor
needs and they're a bit moreanticipatory.
I guess they understand whatthe contractor needs and they're
a bit more anticipatory, Iguess.
And then also the client likesit because they're focused on
(31:19):
client stuff, on owner stuff.
They're raising money, they'relooking at new deals, they're
doing investor relations,they're operating their other
properties.
You know they don't necessarilyhave the time to, you know,
respond to an RFI and to feelthe submittal and do a final
sign off.
So I get put into that seat asa third party that's contracted
by the owner.
So you know I would say that itgoes owner to me, to all the
(31:46):
other stakeholders below, andthen all the other stakeholders
communicate with me and then ifI need to roll anything up to
ownership that requires a signoff, then I will.
But otherwise I'm I'm keepingthe ship sailing smooth with a
high velocity of response andjust making sure that
coordination and collaborationis happening as quickly as
possible to keep the projects onbudget and on schedule.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Okay.
So in terms of the cost, yourservices are going to obviously
create another budget item thatthe GC typically would be
charging for for their projectmanagement side of things.
Do they still charge that andyou're gravy on top?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It really it's project dependent.
In my experience actually, Ifeel like when I speak with
clients you know clients that Ihave right now, current clients
um, they, they will typicallyhave the gc exclude this kind of
over and above projectmanagement, like outside of the
(32:49):
construction project management,and then they'll typically have
somebody internal to their teamhistorically run it.
But but that person eitherisn't as adept or as experienced
in doing this kind of work orthey're just too busy.
They might have experience butthey're also doing other things
and they're wearing multiplehats.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Okay, that makes sense.
You're basically replacing, onthe client side, that person
that would have been responsiblefor the project.
They can focus on theirbusiness, and that revolving
door person that's moving fromone company to the next.
You're this solid thing thatcan just be there for them.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Bingo, and I think that when I speak with clients
and sometimes I get the questionof we've opened four of these
already, why would we needsomeone like you?
And my response is always didit go over budget?
Was it past schedule?
Were you handling it?
Company owner whose time isworth 500 plus an hour.
(33:50):
It doesn't really necessarilymake sense for them to be
focusing so much time onsomething that's a temporary
concentration and for a lot ofmy clients they don't have the
velocity or the requirement tohave someone like me full-time.
So the benefit is that whateverfee I propose to the client can
actually get billed towards theproject instead of hitting their
(34:12):
bottom line.
So if they're going for anotherfundraising round, it doesn't
look like they have more costson the books because it's all
project related.
And then the last part of ittoo is that I'm still working
out some case studies and somemetrics, but it's more or less
guaranteed that having someonelike me on the team actually
(34:33):
ends up being a net savings tothe owner, even with my fee
included, because I'm able toget them open sooner, in revenue
faster, and then I'm also ableto vet, change orders and just
make sure that design is runningin the right way and doing
value engineering on things thatmaybe aren't necessary to the
overall product and brandstandard.
So there's a lot of benefits tohaving that kind of expert
oversight.
(34:53):
That, um, that it is aninvestment, you know, bringing
me on the team that they may notwant to pay, but they end up
saving a lot of money over theterm of the project.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Do you think that um has there been a change from
from your vantage point of uhproject consciousness that
result in more change ordersthese days that are just so
ridiculous?
How do people not see this?
Is that becoming an epidemic?
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I think that I saw this when I was with Joe and the
Juice and even when I was ageneral contractor.
It's not that we wanted providechange orders or receive change
orders, but I think the issueis that everyone is just trying
to move at hyper speed.
Yeah, and a lot of times it'snot necessarily mistakes, but
(35:44):
it's just lack of communication.
So, um, you know, if, if thebranding team for a client wants
to make sure that all of thewood base or that all of the
base in the store or the hotelis a cherry, and they come in
and they see it at the end andthey say this is walnut and
that's a change order becauseit's something that's a brand
standard, when that could havejust been included in the plans.
(36:06):
But everyone's just moving sofast that it's kind of difficult
to do that, and so that's why Ialways institute checkpoints at
every single deliverable orevery single part of the design
phase to make sure that everyonehas a chance to review it.
Next week, for example, we'rewrapping up our design
documentation for a project outin Cincinnati and I have a
(36:27):
90-minute block on the calendarfor me and my client and my
client's full team to do apage-by-page page turn to make
sure we all sign off, to makesure that all of the finishers
are correct, to make sure thatall of the MEP is what they want
as the end user and in doing sowe're able to fully sign off on
(36:48):
construction documents.
It's exactly what we want.
The GC that we brought in forpre-con can do a full,
comprehensive, rough ordermagnitude budget with
specificity at that point andthen when we move into signing
up to GMP, we know that we haveeverything covered.
You know the operator hassigned off, design has signed
off, it's within budget.
The GC is happy.
(37:08):
We feasibly should not reallybe seeing many change orders,
barring any major fieldconditions.
But that's how I try to fightback on.
That is just with proceduralcheckpoints and taking time that
I think a lot of people don'tfeel is necessary to take time
to review things and then theyjust say we'll fix it later.
But to me, fixing it latermeans more money.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, no, for sure.
I mean, how much are you seeingthe percentage split of RFIs
that are?
Hey, I just need to see thisand verify, because we're unsure
versus we've identified aproblem identified a problem.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I see what you mean, so so the the difference between
you know we're missing, we'reentirely missing a detail on
this thing versus hey, there's adetail here.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
We're just verifying that you want a radial corner
instead of a 90 or or they'regetting to a certain area and
they're going um, what we havehere won't work right here, like
I'm looking at this going,there's just, you know, there's
like six inches missing and youwant x amount of you and there
could be, especially in the.
You're dealing with equipment.
(38:22):
It could be a fridge, it couldbe a, whatever you know.
You're dealing with a fridgethat can't be shaved down.
It.
You can't do that because ithas its own footprint.
Um, right, so yeah, I mean, howoften are you dealing with that
?
Like, what's the percentagesplit?
And obviously you want to makethat split on the just checking
(38:42):
rather than the oh shit kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And I would say and this is not a self-promote here,
but I would say that onprojects that I come in a little
bit later on, there's typicallya lot more like hey, where is
this drawing?
We're missing this entiresection and where is this thing.
So I would say that the splitis much higher in that direction
.
If I have my hands on a projectfrom the start, because I've
(39:20):
touched it on construction orbecause I have experience on
construction and I haveexperience in development, I've
seen I'm not going to say I'veseen it all, seen most of it and
uh, you know, I look for thethings that are probably going
to trip us up.
The fridge being too high is abig one for me, and so that's
why I typically kick the um.
You know, if I'm building akitchen from doing, doing
multifamily or a project inCincinnati is a great kind of
like short-term rental, hotelsynthesis concept I'll typically
(39:44):
kick out anything that requiresany kind of like field
coordination or any kind of harddimensions.
I want to keep that in one camp.
So GC on that project is goingto be doing the millwork.
They're also going to be doingthe appliances, so GC on that
project is going to be doing themillwork, they're also going to
be doing the appliances, soit's on the GC's PM and their
(40:06):
APM to verify that the shopdrawings fit within the
appliances that have beenspecified by the designer.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Nice, that's cool, Things like that.
So in terms of what kind ofthings do you see changing in
this industry?
What is evolving in yourprocess?
Do you see things?
You're like holy smokes?
I see some changes here, Thingsfrom the old days.
You'd see lots of plans rolledout and everyone's got them on
(40:34):
their phone or on an iPad, ortechnology is changing.
Do you think that's makingpeople less conscious?
More conscious?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Good question.
I think that technology is agreat thing if it's used
correctly.
I think that there's a ton of,I would say, new age or
changeover from people that havebeen doing this for a long time
.
I'll tell you a quick story,but when I was a GC, I was a PM
(41:06):
late 20s and I was working witha superintendent who was late
60s and a lot of times we didn'talways communicate because I
would say, hey, have you lookedat the plans that are uploaded
to whatever PM tool that we wereusing?
And he was just like, no man, Ibarely even have a phone, it's
a flip phone.
If you want me to see the plans, you've got to bring it to the
site world.
(41:38):
Because he was super, supercareful and super, super detail
oriented, because he hadeverything right in front and he
had a system and he had, youknow, his pen and his and his
rule.
He had a, you know, the threeside ruler.
He was scaling things out.
Um, it's a bit of a lost artnow and you know I love seeing
it.
Um, I still, I still take paperplans on on site visits, um,
but I would say that we're inthis kind of interesting period
where, you know people like thatare retiring and so you know
(42:02):
those kinds of processes arekind of going to the wayside and
I think that as a newgeneration of construction and
development and designprofessionals kind of enter into
the scene, I think we're goingto see a big paradigm shift into
pretty much everything being onthe cloud and everything being
done electronically, but peopleactually sticking with it and
(42:33):
tools evolving with the newneeds of high velocity.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Very interesting thing, especially on the drawing
side, when you know manypodcasts you know we'll talk to
on operators of you knowengineering companies that are
building airports, hospitals,all that kind of stuff and
they're all like you know it'sall been modeling and uh, you
know 3d drawings, um, and youknow I look at for that to
(43:05):
become standard across the boardin terms of the industries you
get involved in, uh, when itcomes to tenant improvements, uh
, retrofits comes to tenantimprovements, retrofits, resto
mods, blah, blah, blah, all thatkind of stuff.
Because of the originaldrawings that the cities have
(43:26):
that you need to get and thenyou need to get your building
permit.
You need to provide backchanges based on those original
drawings.
Well, in order for everythingfor the whole world to go BIM
you're going to, the cities haveto change.
(43:46):
And there's no just, in myopinion, there is no planet
where the cities are going topay, or software-wise, for the
intersection between vectordrawing files.
You'll get pds from the citythat are flat raster files,
aren't even vectors, right.
So, and I'm sure you know, wecan talk, talk about some kind
(44:07):
of um.
You know ai service.
That's like okay, upload yourdrawings and it'll give you its
best render of a 3D model forthat, great.
But I don't see that happeninganytime soon with accuracy to
the point where it could besign-off.
So we're going to be, I think,stuck in this 2D world for a
while until there is some kindof watershed moment.
(44:30):
That you know, it's kind ofweird and that's what I find is
like that's going to hold backconstruction, in my opinion,
from the plan side, for a while.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, I think you're right about that.
I think that more on a, I guess, a rollout or a gradual change
basis, I think we'll startseeing that in larger
metropolitan areas.
I could see New York doing that.
I know that they're updatingall of their building
information systems online andI'm sure we'll be able to
eventually see as-builts andthey'll be password protected by
(45:05):
an admin or something like that.
I can almost promise you thatthat's probably happening
already and that's being thoughtof by building commissioners.
New York, miami, la, chicago,those larger cities I think that
it's going to be the smallertowns that you know have, have,
you know, plans on microfilmfrom the thirties that are just
(45:26):
never going to get there.
And that's okay, you know, it'snot.
It's not necessary at at, atthe velocity that they work at
Um.
But I mean, you know I did ahotel on Nantucket at.
But I mean, you know I did ahotel on Nantucket.
It was it was an interiorrenovation of an existing B&B
into a hotel called the BlueIris, and we got as belts from
the city or from the town,really, of Nantucket, and they
(45:49):
were just for reference onlybecause every single dimension
was off.
You know, we, we scaled it andit was.
You know, it was done a longtime ago and so we actually just
used them for reference and webrought in our own building
information modeling team tosize everything up as existing
and then we had our own 3D model, but it didn't come from the
city, from the town, to yourpoint.
But I think that there's goingto be a lot more.
(46:14):
I could see a world wherelarger cities are contracting
these building informationmodeling surveyors to update
their plans over time.
It's not a major priority, butI think as people renovate and
as people develop, I think thatthey'll want to have them on
record as BIM, as Revit.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
So I can see that happening for sure.
Yeah, I don't see that loweringthe square footage of homes.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
No, I don't In terms of pricing.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
I mean, where do you see this whole thing going in
terms of you see constructioncosts is increasing and labor
costs increasing, and then youhear rents are so expensive on
the commercial side you knowresidential construction costs
are so much, you know homeprices are so much.
(47:03):
I mean it doesn't seem likeit's ever going to go down.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
It seems like it's ever squeezing.
But I think that that's a bigreason why I'm glad you brought
that up.
That's actually a big reasonwhy I'm focusing Meerkat's
targets on not out-of-grounddevelopment, but I want to go
after the existing buildings andI especially want to focus on
and kind of niche down on,something called adaptive reuse,
which is taking an olderbuilding and changing the whole
(47:31):
purpose of it.
I've done a lot of adaptivereuse in my career and I love it
.
I've done a lot of adaptivereuse in my career and I love it
.
The building out, or theproject down in Cincinnati it
was a building that was built in1916 as a carpet factory and
we're turning it into a higherend 44 key boutique hotel with
two restaurants.
Sweet.
That's cool, you know going tobe cool.
And what I'm seeing is that,you know, the concrete and steel
(47:54):
line item is significantlylower, by a major margin, than
if we were to knock it down andrebuild it.
We can't rebuild it anywaybecause it's on the National
Historic Registry.
But if it were not, I think wewould still proceed with this
path, because concrete and steelare such a huge cost center and
I think, just generally from aresponsibility standpoint, I
think developers and contractorsshould be looking at reusing
(48:18):
existing spaces versus buildingnew, from an ecological
standpoint as well.
It just releases so much carbonto create new cold form steel
to pour new concrete.
It's a huge emitter.
So I think if we can shift awayfrom that and reuse existing
spaces and add on to existingspaces, be smarter about our use
and more efficient, I thinkthat everyone will be saving
(48:39):
money.
We'll be able to create morehousing, you know, more services
, more amenities, and not savethe planet.
I think that that's.
I think that that's a big term,but I think we'll be able to
save on save on carbon emissionsthat we wouldn't otherwise have
to do.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah, no, it's pretty cool.
I've seen a lot of reallyreally well-designed Save on
carbon emissions that wewouldn't otherwise have to do.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Love that, look you know, with black, black hardware
.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
It looks so good.
You know great lighting and youknow I think there's the.
And then, if you can, you knowuse a lot of the materials from
ripping out and you know reclaimwood and using all that stuff
and you know, take that to amill workshop.
Get that done in cool ways.
Yeah, yeah, that's a.
(49:35):
It creates a lot of.
It's almost as though aren't,joe Rogan says.
He says there's memory inspaces.
No, I could kind of see that.
Yeah, there's, this is afeeling, there's this kind of
like you walk into a place likeokay, like a lot of shit's
happened here.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, I actually did a video on on on my Instagram
with my buddy, brent, where wewalked around the city, and
there's these two hotels that Ireally love.
One of them is called theBeekman Hotel and one of them is
called the Refinery Hotel, andthey're both great examples of
adaptive reuse.
The Beekman used to be what'scalled the Temple Court building
(50:12):
, and it was built for a totallydifferent purpose.
It was high society back thenand developers converted that
into a high-end hotel and theyleft this really incredible
atrium that they used as kind oflike a light well to bring
light into the center of thebuilding.
Oh cool, so well worth checkingout.
They don't serve pizza,unfortunately, but worth
(50:34):
checking out the next timeyou're in town.
And then the refinery is also agreat example of a rooftop bar
and you can see the Empireestate building, but that used
to be a hat factory.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
So I definitely got to, uh, when I come back to New
York, I've definitely got to,you know, um, meet up with you
and you can show me, like thethe local thing is so important,
like I can't stand the touristthing.
Like you, you go there and youknow, like someone like yourself
who's got this, this breadth ofknowledge of where to go, what
is your?
You know, if I were to, whatwould the pizza place be?
(51:04):
That you'd be like james, wehave to go here.
That you know that I'm gonnawalk away going.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Oh my god, that was epic oh man, I should have seen
this coming right, you shouldhave we've said pizza a number
of times in the past hour.
I'm going to give you three,because I think that that's only
fair, sure.
So there is Joe's Pizza.
Joe's Pizza has a couplelocations.
I like the one in the WestVillage, right off West 4th
(51:30):
Street.
It's always good, always swingby whenever I'm, even if I'm not
hungry.
If I'm in the neighborhood I'llgo by for a slice.
And then Scar's Pizza is a bitmore of a newcomer, but it's
fantastic, always a line aroundthe block and I actually I would
love to work with them onhelping them expand.
So they're on my list to reachout to Nice.
(51:53):
And then, last would be a placecalled DeFaras, um.
And then, uh, last would be aplace called DeFaras and that is
in South Brooklyn, um, wellknown for being, you know, one
of the best places in thecountry.
It's not the world, um, superold school, no frills.
You walk in there and you knowyou order a whole pie, sit down
with your friends.
It's, uh, it's, it's an oldschool neighborhood, it hasn't,
(52:14):
you know, it's still, I wouldn'tsay, gritty, but it's still
very like old world Brooklyn.
So well worth checking out nexttime you're in town.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Nice, that's perfect.
Three I get three options.
Well, you're going to have tosit down with me and have some
down there.
When I come over there, you go,all right.
So, that seems like a goodplace for us to wrap up here.
So your website, meerkat?
What dot com is it?
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, it's meerkatdevelopmentcom Perfect.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Okay, that's what.
I got here.
Yeah, meerkatdevelopmentcom.
And then Zach Wrapaport.
You can be found on LinkedIn,yep and yeah, so for anybody to
reach out, um, I definitelythink we're going to tag those
pizza companies.
Oh yeah, please do.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah, I would love to chat with them.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, that's cool.
Okay, well, this has beenawesome, zach, um, I wish you
the best of luck and, uh, Idon't think you're going to need
it, but, uh, anyway, hats offto you for, uh, the courage of
going into entrepreneurialism.
It's a rough world out there,but you're doing it.
You're doing a great job.
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
I've been having a good time so far and I think
it's all about just having agood attitude about it and, you
know, getting through it, havinga good time.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
All right.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
All the best to you, bud.
Thanks, james, ciao.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Well, that does it for another episode of the Site
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