But it is another one please join me
in giving a warm go to take welcome to

Catherine to thank

you.

Can you hear me.

Thank you so much Aditya le for that very
kind introduction and thank you all for

having me here I'm very honored to
be part of the impact series and

although I'm admittedly a Tarheel
as you heard I'm also very

proud to say that my grandfather
was a graduate of Georgia Tech and

my uncle and as I thought about it.

I really.

Credit very much of my being in Atlanta
and to my grandfather and Georgia Tech

specifically he came here and was a
graduate of the School of Architecture in

one thousand nine hundred six moved here
from Tennessee and long story short that

brought all the family from other states
and you know here we are today so we

definitely grew up singing all the fight
songs and going to the football games and

I really appreciate my
Georgia Tech roots in many ways.

Where I have sought to make
an impact is through the arena of

real estate development and specifically
I am passionate about creating

lovable walkable sustainable communities
that will make this city and

very philosophically this
world a better place and so.

You know in conjunction with that and
also as an entrepreneur I think I've been

fascinated with how to combine and
how to combine the pursuit of

product innovation with what
is otherwise a very old line

capital intensive industry that is not
necessarily known for its speed of.

Change so that is one of the things
I wanted to talk about today

as part of my overall impact thoughts.

Just in general.

So that.

When I think about creating value for
real estate that sort of break it down

simplistically in a couple of
the the major food groups or real estate.

And again I while I appreciate that not
all of you are real estate developers nor

heaven forbid would ever want to be a real
estate developer we do share very much

share a common City and
I'm hoping that today I can share and

offer some of my own ideas for
how we can all make this a place and

make our communities wherever they
are places that we're very proud and

excited to be part of.

So in general on the real estate front
you have your financial engineering

approach your commoditization approach
in creative place making and of

course the lines get blurred and there are
elements of each and all of the above but

in general financial engineering often
involves this sort of very sharp

tool kit of financial instruments you
know cap rates bread's and timing and

tax strategies and a number of different
instruments that can be used to add value

but not necessarily a huge and heavy
focus on the underlying product itself

on the commoditization front you can see
an example here you know I kind of think

about it as sort of the Wal-Mart of real
estate development where the focus is

on a very streamlined efficient.

Repetitive product where you are able to
harvest wonderful cost efficiencies and.

You know really take advantage of that
repetition and then on the creative place

making front you're really focused
that strategy is focused on her.

Value through this notion of uniqueness or
product differentiation.

Where the emphasis might be more on
top line revenue use while also trying

to balance and make sure you're
smart about the costs but.

It all has to be balanced out and
of course the third strategy is obviously

the one where I've chosen
to focus my efforts.

On the place making front.

You know obviously with any of these
strategies there are pros and cons and

benefits and so forth but.

Place making is a very complicated
complex time consuming strategy and

process but with that comes by definition

high barriers to entry because the brain
damage is not necessarily something that

everyone wants to take on by
the same token when you're able or

when you engage in that level of
complexity and sort of customization

there are high expectations on
the part of the customer and

in a heavy level of engagement and
as you work through that though and

balance it out you're able to achieve
a wonderful loyal Mr stickiness of

the customer that goes along with
that heavy level involvement.

And finally as I touched on a minute
ago one of the big challenges is

managing costs because when you have a lot
of repeated customization by definition

you're not streamlining inefficient and
so forth so

you know really managing those costs
is critical but ideally if you've done

your job right you're able to outpace
the market on the topline and

really make the financial
equation work out.

So I thought I would go through
a little bit of a how to guide which

are some of the strategies that we've
used over time that if worked well for

us in really thinking through.

You know what are the elements
of creative place making and

it starts really almost
counter-intuitively just by listening and

we come to a place or an opportunity or a
site and start by thinking OK what is this

what is this place what does it want to be
what's its history what is it surrounded

by what is it connected to physically what
is it connected to socially you know who

is the community that surround
it what are their values.

We want our communities to be real and
authentic and

one part of that is really looking
at the history of that place and

you know whether it's reusing some old
building or even in one case with one

project you know had beautiful historic
trees that we were able to take forward

but any of that historic fabric that
we're able to incorporate just gives that

much more richness and uniqueness
that contributes to the authenticity

of it being a real place.

Another element of creative place
making is challenging the rules and.

It's really important if you're going
to continue to innovate and and

sort of create this uniqueness that you
think critically about what are otherwise

conventional rules so
just to give an example

in a prior chapter I worked
with those properties and.

Helped put together this is post
Parkside it tent than Piedmont and

post at the time was written as moving in
town from a more of a Suburban History

and you know we have these formulas you
have to do at least two hundred units and

you need a pool and
a tennis court you know sort of a formula.

And we found ourselves with a two
acre site thinking OK we can't

fit all this we can't do this.

And what we really were
able to drill down to was.

You know at the end of the day
it's about amenities and

that's what all of this pooled and score
in it this is that's what's the core and

so we were able to rethink and say OK
maybe we can do a misting station instead

of a pool or here you can see in the
foreground the entrance to Piedmont Park

which was literally right next to
the project you don't need your own tennis

court you can you know people park as a
tennis court and so forth and so on and so

a lot of it is just getting to the essence
of what the rule was intended to do and

then rethinking another way to do it.

It's really important with any of these
strategies to align with the right kind of

capital that supports the strategy and
for creative place making

one of the the best capital partners that
we found is is patient equity capital

and across multiple examples
what we found is that.

By definition a lot of times if
you're working on creating new and

different and unique places you need
someone who's willing to take risks and

also a partner who is willing to

make an investment that may not make
the quickest book the first day the first

minute but will build a project that
will stand the test of time and

ultimately outpace the market
sort of the tortoise and

the hare concept that you're
probably familiar with.

But but that critter that capital and
the sharing of values and strategies is so

important to aligning interest as you're
going into any of these projects.

And a huge believer that
great design is a major

differentiator in any of these
creative place making opportunities.

I'm sure you've all studied cases and
companies like Nike where.

Great design is just integral to their
strategy and I believe the same with

our real estate developments it is worth
every penny spending the extra money

to team up with a great design group and
I use the term design loosely and

holistically because the design is
not just about the architecture of

the building but it's also about a you
know a holistic approach that gets to

the interiors of the building to the
furniture to the branding to the signage

to the street skate that's outside the
building it all has to be thoughtful and

integrated and consistently well designed
otherwise there's not an integrity

to the message that you're
trying to send to the market.

As you can imagine with this
highly customized project or

product it's all the more important to
have the right fit with the customer and

really understanding your customer is just
a fundamental element of this strategy and

really any kind of development.

There are as you know huge forces at work
you know between the middle millennia old

and the baby boomers you have the two
largest generational demographics in U.S.

history and they're having a tremendous
impact on real estate development.

We happen to think that there's a nice
alignment with those demographic trends

because we find those two groups wanting
a lot of the same thing swear rather than

having the all the old people sent off to
a retirement farm out in the suburbs or

put in a tower away from everybody else
they want to be part of the community just

as anybody else does they want to go
to the same restaurants that they've

loved they want to be near their kids and
their rank kids.

Too.

They all want to be connected to the
beltline or you know places where they can

walk instead of having to drive
everywhere they go so we see a lot of

these demographic trends reinforcing the
kind of creative place making urban infill

strategy that is really important
to our work but again regardless.

Of whether you're building
a commodity product or

whatever you know you have to
understand the customer because

it does no good to build a project if
you don't have anybody to live there or

populate the offices.

I think another really important element
is creating a sense of community and

that's not just about the buildings but
it it's really about the people and

just as with the design topic that I
mentioned a minute ago it's important to

take a holistic approach to community and
in creating community there are so

many elements and pass to doing so
whether it's through social media or

the arrangement of the buildings or
the proportion or the design having

many mayors this is a woman
here in name BIA who

from the very beginning of this project
became the one who knew everyone and

sort of glued the people of the community
together and I'm sure you all know

whether it's in school or wherever you
are there are these many mayor types and

they're wonderful people that really
bring community to their surroundings.

Even food can be a huge source of
community and a way to gather people and

we used to joke that for our company.

Food was to us as a real estate developer
as golf is to a lot of other real estate

development firms it was our way
you know our gathering point.

And finally it's critical

with any of these projects I mentioned
earlier they're they're very complicated.

Very time consuming and
you have to obsess over the details and

in fact the details are really what I
think is the most fun part it's it's

the essence of what brings something
to life and all of those details

really add up to create that
uniqueness this is Robert Davis who was

the founder of Seaside in Florida and
it's.

Widely known that his wife was
the person who really glued

together the town center in Seaside if
you ever had a chance to visit there.

She was the one that worked meticulously
with all of those individual retailers and

helped them with their merchandising and
their signage and their storefronts and.

Really just fretted group by
group to bring together what

ultimately became the heart of the
community and and really helped transform

everything around it.

I thought I would take some of these
general concepts and just sort of

walk through a case study about a project
that we did to help illustrate maybe more

specifically some of the things we're
talking about this is a protocol Mixon

which is located in North Charleston
South Carolina and it's a great

example of creative place making not
just of building a new project but

in this case really turning around
a very difficult situation.

What we started with basically was
a failed project in a bad location

when we were when we were
brought into to the process.

Mixon was basically eighteen homes which
you'll see tiny little cluster here.

Over about a forty acre side
of undeveloped property

this was a former public
housing project and

you can see the sort of the ghosts
of the streets that were there

from the old public housing project and
all the buildings have been demolished.

And and then on the right you can get
a sense of how it was basically this sort

of surreal place with eighteen
homes out in a field and

it was just sort of a ghost town Here's
another view is sort of an eerie and

eerie place at the time and.

I think it had the additional challenge of
being North Charleston not Charleston so

you know not the historic district
that we all think of when we think of

Charleston but what I would graciously
call an outer borough of Charleston

up near the airport and there was just
it was just in the middle of nowhere and

people didn't have a reason to go there
per se what that did was to really

put an emphasis on our strategy in
bringing people there and finding

reasons to go there because they wouldn't
otherwise be going to this location.

So what did we do in you know starting
out and just as I said earlier.

Listening and thinking about the place
we started just thinking about

what is this community and
connecting with Charleston itself and

you know Charleston from our perspective
was a city that was all about art and.

Preservation and creativity and
great food and so

we set about with this notion of
building Mixon around the themes

of food and great design and community.

And since there was nothing there
no there there the first thing we

did was to build community before
we built the community and

what I mean by that if you can see here
was literally out in the middle of that

green field that you saw we built
a pole barn a very simple structure up

in the corner here that became a place
to host of events we had food truck.

Radios and dog festivals and
makers markets and craft fairs and.

Just started creating reasons for people
in that surrounding community to come

there and just started learning helping
them learn where this place was.

And the about the way the verse
I mentioned she was the in this

specific project the one who has all these
people came from North Charleston and

parks or on all these other areas around
us would start remembering their names and

remember that they came to
the dog Festival last week and

now they're back to you know come by.

Cutting board from
the crafts person there.

One of the other things we did very early
on was to build a seven thousand square

foot private bath and Racquet Club
with a wonderful pool and dining and

racket sports and this was intended
along the same lines to be a way for

people from all over the Charleston area
to be members and to have a reason to come

here but also of course serving
the people on site in the mix and

project itself so again another way to
sort of retrain traffic patterns and

foot patterns to bring people here and
start to create a They're there.

The club became a great place
to host events and weddings and

bar mitzvahs and different activities and.

As part of the club we built a restaurant
called Basak That was open to the public

can join you know using the same kitchen
basically which you can see here

in this photo.

And we were very excited we worked very
hard on our P.R. and Southern Living

road up boss ACOA is one of their
favorite bars that they cover and.

You know was helping really
get the word out about

you know bringing people to
the site to come to the restaurant.

In addition to the club there was just
this general theme of creating a physical

heart to the project and I showed you all
those eight thousand homes that were.

Built in the field well most of them
weren't sold and so we we rented

out whatever wasn't sold we put in as
you can see in the upper left hand there

retail spaces in the ground floors of some
of the units where there otherwise would

have been a garage and here for example
mix and market was a wonderful gourmet

coffee shop with great sandwiches that
would cater to the military base nearby.

I mentioned about Basak on the restaurant.

We you know here's a flower shop in
the base of another one of the units we

had a hair salon.

Nest was a little furniture store and

you know we would host farmer's markets in
temporary structures around this area and

again the goal was to create this
physical heart where you had momentum and

energy from this common set of amenities.

So you know it doesn't do any good
to have all these amenities if there

is no one there to use them and it was
very important as the market started to

pick back up again that we
launched an initial development

phase of two hundred sixty eight
multifamily units called the flats Nixon

and this was not only something
that made sense from a market

perspective as an investment but
it was also a great way to bring people

to the site going to the restaurant going
to the coffee shop using the parks and

so forth and you know really starting
to generate some momentum and

energy because we had a lot of
land to sell and a lot of you know

single family homes and so
forth that needed to feel an energy moving

in a momentum in on the site to really
inspire a builder to want to buy land.

I mention design earlier and
Nixon everything

about Nixon was had this consistent theme
of great design the original homes had

their own very Charlestonians design that
you probably saw the club was very modern

sleek design and then with the units
the multifamily units we we really work

through every aspect of the interior
of the leasing office the branding.

You can see the unit interiors and
the courtyard we even have these

wonderful common screen porches Here's
the outside view of the screen porches

that we're community gathering places
in the apartments with our own

you know branded thing pong table I mean
we were going nuts on this design but

really every detail as I
said earlier it was so

important to have that holistic approach
down to the smallest of details to really

communicate consistently
this notion of quality and

brand integrity.

The other dimension of that that's really
important was taking that great design out

to the street so it wasn't just
a community that sort of fed on itself but

we worked hard on the surrounding
streets and in the internal streets to

to completely redo the streetscapes
to be much more walkable and

have what we call natural forms of traffic
calming with bulb outs and medians and

street trees and engaging the buildings
to connect to the streets with stairs and

stoops and steps that were places
that people could sit in see their

neighbor read the paper or what have you.

And then the next chapter has become and
it has work thankfully

interest from the builder community as the
single family market picked up you know

catalyzing those land sales not every
new home will be modern but it was.

To us to show a range of styles and
designs so

it wasn't all just sort of Disney
world all one look sort of all.

Master coordinated.

So what started two years ago is
this sort of forty acre undeveloped

site basically now looks like this.

And ultimately is leading
to a master plan as we

continue to build out the project that has
five hundred home that's a hundred fifty

million dollar development
with a mix of multifamily

single family townhouse retail
the amenities that we looked at.

It's it has really been a wonderful
opportunity to generate that momentum and

I'm happy to share that the apartments for
example.

Exceeded the original underwriting
by fifty percent in their rents and

of outpace the whole sub market same
thing with the single family homes so

we're finding with these early indicators
that the strategies working in the in

the energy in the momentum are in
fact coming coming through.

I think just in general and in the last.

Area I want to well I'm sorry I think.

Just to kind of research it for mix and
we have the sort of building a community

the focus on great design throughout
the project building the physical heart

with amenities and common places for
people to gather and

then bringing people to the site
through these vertical components like

the multifamily development to
create the energy and activity and

that was in this particular case sort
of the series of steps that we took

to to really sort of jump
start this project and.

Hopefully give you some big.

Examples of literally how we did that.

So going forward you know where
do we go with all this and

what's going on with Atlanta.

It's interesting it.

We're finding in the market that the
customer is demanding more and more and

the customer wants all of that wonderful
uniqueness and customization but

they want all the low costs they
want it all more for less and

that in turn is you know really putting
continued pressure on the development

community to to find a way to bring all
that together and I won't claim that we

have all the answers but it literally just
sort of takes a project by project very

meticulous approach you know using
every tool in the toolkit to get there.

And by the same token.

Companies really want their
real estate to be an extension

of their brand because that helps them
attract the kinds of employees and

creative workers that they want
to have in their companies and

people individuals want the places that
they live to be an extension of their own

personal brand and who they are and what
they care about and what they love and

so in general it's really important for

the real estate development world too to
reflect what's going on in the market and

as you all know we're very much in
the middle of this innovation economy and

the innovation economy is all about
you know the blurring of lines and so

when it gets back to real estate you know
is this office space or is this light

manufacturing you know we we find office
building lobbies that are starting to look

like coffee shops or hotel lobbies and
there's this just sort of general

blurring of lines among in between the
uses that I think I find fascinating and

you see popping up all over the market.

But by the same token we have to.

In the developer we have to be flexible
and nimble and adaptable to change just as

the innovation economy is with all of its
rapid prototyping and that's not always

the easiest fit for as what I said before
is the sort of old and capital intensive

slow moving industry that's all that's
infrastructure set up to move in years and

decades as opposed to the nanoseconds
of the innovation economy so

it's a very interesting time for
the development community to respond

to what's going on with
the realities of the market.

And.

And you know for Atlanta in general.

It's I've never seen such an exciting
time to be in the city the urban

ism is alive it gives all of us energy.

It's it's an incredibly dynamic
city that's just getting better and

better and richer and richer and that in
turn as I'm sure you're seeing is a magnet

bringing so many people to this city so
many of you came here from other places

excited by the energy that's Atlanta and
again this is happening in so

many other communities as well but
I do worry a little bit

in some ways about a certain sameness
that I'm starting to see with sort of

the development theme going on right now
with all of this capital coming and and.

What I you know my perspective
is that we have an opportunity

in Atlanta to create a city of places and
great places and

not just projects and that's going to take
a lot of collaboration between public and

private institutional an entrepreneurial.

You know pulling from our history and
focusing on the customer and

all you know so many of the themes
that I've talked about today and.

You know you all and I you know we
all have a part in shaping that city

in the choices that we make whether
it's how we spend our time or

how we spend our money or even what we
choose to do with our life's work and.

My I guess and in general I would urge
all of us to be very thoughtful and.

And very deliberate about the choices
that we make in making great choices so

that we can shape the kind of city and
the kind of communities and

neighborhoods that we all will be
proud of but I think most important of

all it's because those those cities and
communities have the ability to bring

out the best in people and it's all
about people at the end of the day so

I will stop there happy to answer any
questions and not appreciate your.

Being here today thank

you.

And in the back.

OK.

I just wanted to start with getting
an update about city markets and

how that redevelopment is is going and

how it got through the real estate.

Slump in the city have that affected
the great great question and just for

clarity I I had the good fortune
of working with Jamestown for

a number of years and overseeing the
development team that led that project I

spun off our Green Street company that
was sort of the in-house development team

back in the fall so I do still of course
stay in touch with my colleagues and so

what I'll share is sort of through them.

Parts of the market opened in the for.

All the first phases were
the residential with multi-family

you know movements kind of occurring
month to month and that's all been

going really well the office space opened
up with athenahealth and cartilage ICS and

mailed him a number of the tenets that
you might have seen in the press.

The retail will be opening in phases so
this spring for

example there's a series of food
hall tenants that will open and

some of the sort of the first wave of
that public food hall that will really be

the heart and soul and gathering place for
the public to come enjoy the project and

then they'll be another wave in the fall
of the sort of the balance of the retail.

It was interesting with Potts we started
that project in the in the bottom of

the market you know it was a crazy
leap of faith to buy a two million

square foot into a building in the middle
of you know just sort of covered up with

barbed wire and fences and and.

We found that the office space
was the first to take off and

ended up leasing about seventy five
percent of what was about a half million

square feet in just one year so
it just sort of shot out of the gates and

then the residential right
behind it in the retail so

we were deliberately just sort of
rolling the phases as the market

supports delivering those
phases to the market but.

The the project did not have
a sort of cut the ribbon everybody

runs them all grand opening it's been more
of a sort of organic rolling opening so

that's how it's it's it's sort
of stepping through the phases.

But I was wondering how did you how
do you guys make the decision to

take on a project like the market or like
the mixing case today that you shared with

others like like you said it's
a giant leap of faith how do you guys

what's your process for
deciding to jump in.

That's a it's a great question so
just as a quick bit of history green.

Property's was a company that had its
origins with the Glenwood Park development

in Grant Park East Atlanta area
if you may be familiar with that.

It was acquired by Jamestown private
equity firm in two thousand and eight and

Jamestown had this whole
portfolio of broken deals that.

Were development deals that they
had done with twenty five or so

developers all over the southeast and then
the market just slammed the brakes on and

so Jamestown needed an in-house
development team to go methodically

through this one point two billion
dollars portfolio of projects or

about twenty five of them and in each
case reposition recapitalize restart So

we had a lot of Nixon's sort of test
you know how do we do this and.

So it's a little bit of an unusual answer
your question in that we as a team

sort of inherited all of these deals and
everything from Raul and

to a ninety percent complete condo
highrise in Brooklyn that had just

stopped and ran out of money and
was full of liens.

And really just sort of had to think
creatively and holistically about how to

attack each case by case so going
forward as I mentioned you know spinning

Greenstreet off now that that
portfolio is often study footing.

It's much more starting with a clean
slate about a fresh opportunity that

you know isn't a place
that we just choose.

As opposed to sort of starting with
that portfolio if that makes sense.

What do you think is the greatest
challenge to the current projects that

are coming up inside the city of Atlanta.

I think the biggest Well there
are lot of challenges I think.

What I'm saying is that
land prices continue.

Go up and up and up and you know as
sellers see the market recover and

see projects built they want
to get the same thing for

their land as the person down the street
just got and so with those higher land

prices there's a lot of pressure to
build a lot of density and I think

it's important to be able
to absorb all that product.

And so sometimes you sort of get in
this spiral of having to build enough to

support the land price or justify the land
price you pay but it may or may not be.

Enough or it may not be the right amount
of product that the market really can

support and absorb so I worry a little
bit about all of this land driving this

sort of capacity question.

I you know you talked about
how you're worried about

Atlanta having a lot of sameness when it
comes to development and I was at another

panel discussion that talked about how
Atlanta's got to the point where they can

leverage opportunities so
when developers come in because so

many people want to build
here you know they can gonna.

Customize it where they can make sure
that the development is is influencing

the community so how would you
recommend developers coming in and

working with the community where that
uniqueness shows with the development so

it's not all the same his but it's
a representation of the people that live

there.

I don't have a silver bullet
answer maybe just some ideas.

It's interesting from
the development side.

It's amazing how much influence the
community has through the zoning process

and Atlanta is built as many
of you know on this N.P.

you neighborhood planning unit.

Process where you know
adjoining neighborhoods and

you sort of go on up to
broader groups affect.

But they get so
involved in commenting on the look and

feel of a project it's pretty interesting
and I've been a part of a number of

projects where a lot of it was very
perscribe you know you have to have.

X. the square footage of Windows or
you know it I think through zoning and

through even the community approach or
the you know planning

department approval in the city of Atlanta
they have a lot of influence and so for

those developers who may need a little bit
more of a nudge in that area I think there

is an opportunity for the community and
for the city to have an imprint and and

that's why I think you know my appeal to
everyone is that you have more of a voice

and you know through different channels
where you can have that communication

if you live here or
even in other cities of course.

At the end I All right so as we're looking
forward into the next say three to five

years I have a two part question so the
first is which markets in communities and

neighborhoods are you looking to target
within those next two years in Atlanta and

the second part is what are the sort
of defining characteristics of those

neighborhoods that you look for
when you're starting a new project.

Well going forward.

Our particular focus has actually gone
into a strategy that we call urban

acupuncture where.

We feel that by you know projects
as small as you know one or

two acres even you can go into
a wonderful historic neighborhood

put in what I think of as
sort of micro mixed use but

have this transformative impact
on everything around it and.

We're not necessarily focused on
highrise you know Peachtree spine for

example we're focused on neighborhoods
like poncey Highlands and in the park.

You know a fourth ward even on the west
side you know areas where there's sort

of medium density two to
five stories very walkable

an existing mix of uses so that we can
have mixed use but we don't have to build

it ourselves we can go in with
residential and street retail but

then maybe we're next to the beltline or
we're next to an office existing office or

single family neighborhood so
it's important that our target

neighborhoods have a fine grain mix
of uses already but but we want

to come in at that sort of main and main
intersection of the neighborhood and and

put in a great little gathering
place that brings it all together.

You already gave us a few examples of
being projects you've done Atlanta but

are there any others that you could give
us more information about maybe future or

current or past.

So.

Just in terms of some
examples maybe you're OK so.

I.
Mentioned Glenwood park which was a.

Wonderful opportunity we were teamed up
at the time with Charles Brewer who is

the founder mine spring who was a great
example that patient equity capital and

started that project in two thousand and
one was a twenty eight acre site

hundred twenty million dollars project but
we were able to it was very early for

sustainability so we were able to incubate
a lot of sustainability technologies and

experiment and
sort of do some out of the box.

Testing a product because we
were all equity funded and

Charles was a wonderful entrepreneur
with that sort of value set.

So that project has just recently
sort of sold its final phases but

was a great opportunity for
walkability and sustainability in a.

Going back in my post properties chapter

I oversaw the team that built
the post Riverside pride.

Picked that was interesting I
was in the mid ninety's and.

We brought.

Planning firm called D.V.C.
to Atlanta which was very and

this whole notion of New Urbanism
was a brand new thing and.

So we were trying there are some new
planning concepts that were very

much against the grain of the sort of
standard suburban code which was what that

Lana still have from the sixty's so we had
to really sort of struggle with that and

change street dimensions
in architecture and.

So you know each one has been its own
different set of experimenting and

trying to innovate but push the envelope
on the existing codes that were in place

and that takes definitely out of patience.

But thankfully over time I think with
some finished product to point to people

you know we've had the chance to build up
trust so when we go talk to the city they

know that that experiment is
probably a good ones to make and so.

You out of that answer your question.

I think.

You've talked a lot about sort of
the portfolios that you know you did and

I was curious about Brooklyn and
project and

if there were any unique lessons learned
there and also just if you've done other

work in New York that you can share.

Gosh Brooklyn.

That was a highrise condominium
project called the skirmish horn and.

It was just.

A buff a of of challenges and
opportunities everything from.

Flooding to.

Construction leans to permit in
challenges to repositioning and

remarketing what was a failed
project because it just

literally had just stopped ninety
percent complete just stopped.

It we were able to restart it and

clean it up legally and restart
the construction finished the units

we sold them all it ended up
thankfully being the highest or

the the best selling condominium project
in New York in two thousand and ten and.

I think in terms of lessons learned.

It was just we just had to be very
thorough because there were so

many different issues we just
had to literally like and

a tangle use had to go one by one and
pick each one apart and

very methodically track everything and
chase it down and there were no shortcuts.

Jamestown our prior owner has is
headquartered here in Atlanta but

has an office in New York so
Jameson has all sorts of

projects in New York that are properties
like Chelsea Market our own and

existing assets but in terms of sort
of ground up development we haven't or

we didn't do any other work
there besides the current one

project.

I think it's going to take for the entire
mix and master plan to be built.

It's a great question I think if this
point it's driven largely by the pace of

absorption of the single family homes.

I would you know.

I would guess another
five years realistically.

Just because it's North Charleston and
you know there's only so

much product that that
submarket can absorb.

Glenwood park just as another datapoint
took thirteen years from start to finish.

But it went through two
downturns in the market so

you know who's to say with a healthy
upswing maybe mix and can go faster but

that you know those mass those master
developments they just take a long time

there's a lot there to absorb sort of back
to the question a little bit earlier.

I think it's important to be realistic
about how fast the market can absorb

a project and it's only going
to go as fast as it will go.

Sustainability I have a question the
effect is do you keep in mind when you're

running a development for example if you
are planning away from the center of

the city most of the people have to
come into the city for their jobs and

the traffic issues are already
getting you know problematic in US So

how do you foresee that because if you
know if if more developments are being

made just outside the city although in
the Sedona of the city where I was late

did a lot of high rise buildings abandoned
buildings in the downtown which could be

you know good wood introduced into a small
community so how do you factor in all

those traffic problems I know
this is the inability to use.

Well going forward our focus is
really urban infill so we wouldn't

you know we're not pursuing
Greenfield locations like

you know out from the city and
you know I guess our philosophy is that

the most inherently sustainable thing
you can do is to reuse existing

infrastructure you know the city and its
taxpayers have built all the sewers and

all the roads and all the transit systems
and all the you know physical and and

you know soft infrastructure to support
people and if you can go in and

leverage that that's inherently
sustainable just as you know New York is

one of the quote Rina cities in the world
which is very counterintuitive but

it's just incredibly efficient because
it's walkable and connected so.

That at a very high level is is our
philosophy about sustainability because

the first thing you can do
to make a sustainable choice

is to pick a location that's.

Efficient from that infrastructure
perspective and then you go.

And of the sticks and bricks and the water
fish you know all the details but

you got to start with
getting the right location.

I have one more last question in the
couple a couple questions had touched on.

How long the mixin developments going to
take in and that you had talked about

how you need to be patient just
the question of the students who may want

to get into are interested in real
estate as a profession what kind of

characteristics and traits do you think
have made you successful in your role and

what do you think that they should bring
to the industry both the challenges

that or or what has made people successful
in the past but also the challenges that

the industry is facing now for to morrow.

That's a great question.

I guess the way I describe the real
estate a real estate career or

profession is that you have to be
the consummate generalist you have to know

about this incredible breadth of
topics from politics to finance to

property management to sales to design
construction engineer I mean it's just

everything and then you know maybe
it's only a few inches deep but

you've got to know enough to bring
together and lead a team that each of

whose members are expert in
those different topics and yet

the other challenge is that any one moment
you have to go down into the weeds so

you know we go and have to match the key
with the numbers on the mailboxes

I mean literally little details all
the way up to high level strategy

of you know market positioning and
customer perception you know so

it's this sort of broad Parys Onil and
deep vertical and you have to it

is just a really multi-dimensional
career in terms of getting into it.

There is no one perfect way.

I find a lot of times people will come in
through one of the vertical areas like

construction or through design or finance.

I happen to think it's really important no
matter which channel you come through to

really understand and be grounded
in the financial because it's so

critical to being able to be profitable
because no one will ever imitate you or or

or you know create a better place for more
of these projects occurring if you're not

financially successful so I think whether
through graduate school or undergrad or or

wherever you learn it through your
training as an analyst to really

be sharp with the numbers is a really
important tool to have in the toolkit but

otherwise you know there's just so many
different channels you can come in and

then ultimately sort of
have that broader exposure.

And a lot of it is just learning by
doing which is how I had to do it and.

Thank you very much for

coming to church and
thank you very much thank you thank you.