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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Tatiana Manning. I support our voice of a

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Speaker 1: Customer team at Pgenie. If you're a small business customer,

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Speaker 1: we're here to support you. That's why I want to

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Speaker 1: tell you about our new podcast, Real Talk with PGENI.

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Speaker 1: We know small businesses are dealing with rising costs and

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Speaker 1: looking for ways to boost their bottom line. On our show,

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Speaker 1: you'll hear from our customer experts with our small business

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Speaker 1: Engagement team, who will show you effective ways to improve

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Speaker 1: your operations, find important resources, and most of all, save money.

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Speaker 2: I ride the RAND analysis for the Emergency Food Bank

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Speaker 2: and based on their usage history, by just making a

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Speaker 2: simple rate change at no costs, it was a twenty

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Speaker 2: five dollars annual savings.

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Speaker 1: So listen to Real Talk with Pgenie and find more

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Speaker 1: resources for your business by visiting pge dot com for

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Speaker 1: slash real Talk.

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Speaker 3: Let's just redesign the building and let's get ourselves up

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Speaker 3: to sixteen hundred, so one hundred below or sixteen fifty,

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Speaker 3: you know, to be just below to you know, to

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Speaker 3: pay respect to one world trade, but to be the

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Speaker 3: tallest building. I made the decision, I said, change the design,

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Speaker 3: come back with a building that's sixteen hundred and fifty

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Speaker 3: feet tall or better. If we're going to build the

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Speaker 3: first guyscraper and we've waited this long to get a

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Speaker 3: chance to do it, it needs to make a powerful statement.

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Speaker 4: It needs to be the best.

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Speaker 5: My graduates from my school being forced.

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Speaker 6: Back drop back drop might drop back drop, b drop.

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Speaker 4: Make some noise.

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Speaker 5: I hope you guys fully appreciate this opportunity to ahead.

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Speaker 5: As gentleman speak, it's not every day that you you

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Speaker 5: hear somebody of his caliber, you know, communicate. So this

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Speaker 5: is something that's very very, very very important, and something,

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Speaker 5: like I said, we actually flew back from LA for

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Speaker 5: this because we understood how important this was. So first

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Speaker 5: and foremost, I want to thank you, appreciate it, thank you.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think I'm on Yeah. So, by the way,

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Speaker 3: it's also important for me. So I was in Boston.

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Speaker 3: We've got two projects in Boston and that we're developing

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Speaker 3: right now. And I was in Boston Wednesday through Friday,

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Speaker 3: and left my last meeting and then went and flew

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Speaker 3: to the Hampton's uh to go to a friend of

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Speaker 3: mine's birthday party.

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Speaker 4: And then I drove in here.

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Speaker 3: A couple of hours ago so I can make sure

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Speaker 3: i'm here as well because it's very important.

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Speaker 4: There you have it.

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Speaker 5: So this this is gonna be a fun conversation, a

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Speaker 5: high level of conversation. But before I just want to

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Speaker 5: preface it so we actually it's interesting how life. So

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Speaker 5: this was years ago, probably when I first graduated from college.

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Speaker 5: My dad he got me a book. And I really

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Speaker 5: don't even read a lot of books, honestly, I'm of

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Speaker 5: an audio guy. But I actually took the time to

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Speaker 5: read this book and it was The People Principles and

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Speaker 5: I was reading the book and I learned a lot

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Speaker 5: about you. But after that, it was an event in

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Speaker 5: New York. It was a networking event in New York.

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Speaker 5: And this is when I first started my career as

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Speaker 5: a financial vile. It used to be a financial visor

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Speaker 5: before I do this, before I did this, And I'm like,

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Speaker 5: I gotta go because I heard he was going to

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Speaker 5: be there, so I gotta go, and we went. I

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Speaker 5: went by myself and I met him and I was

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Speaker 5: telling him like, you know, I'm a big fan. I

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Speaker 5: read your book. I didn't really have anything to offer,

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Speaker 5: but I just wanted to just introduce myself and he

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Speaker 5: was like, yeah, man, keep working. I'm sure we're running

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Speaker 5: to each other again. So like fifteen years later, we

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Speaker 5: read it to each other again.

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Speaker 7: So, yeah, your dad wanted to let you. He told

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Speaker 7: me before we came. Make sure a seat tells a

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Speaker 7: story of me buying him the book. So thank you

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Speaker 7: on his behalf for sure, for sure.

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Speaker 5: So mister Peoples needs no introduction, but I'll try to

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Speaker 5: give a brief form before we get into this conversation.

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Speaker 5: Real estate entrepreneur, developer, author, political activists, and you know,

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Speaker 5: it always gave me great pride when I went to

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Speaker 5: South Beach because when we were young, we used to

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Speaker 5: go to South Beach a lot and the Royal Palms,

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Speaker 5: and that was your hotel. And I believe that was

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Speaker 5: the only black owned hotel on South Beach, right, that's right, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: So we used to stay there. So I stayed there

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Speaker 5: before I even knew it was your hotel. And when

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Speaker 5: I found out that it was your hotel, like, it

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Speaker 5: gave me even more of a pride to actually stay there.

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Speaker 5: So and I don't know if these numbers, you know,

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Speaker 5: but I guess I did some googling. They said seven

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Speaker 5: hundred million networth that was.

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Speaker 4: In two thousand and seven. Okay, so.

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Speaker 6: I'll let you do the man.

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Speaker 4: Slight slight stunt.

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Speaker 6: Hey, Mike, edit this. This is gonna be a billion

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Speaker 6: dollar conversation.

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Speaker 4: To the man.

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Speaker 6: But I want to jump into this.

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Speaker 4: So, how did you get your start in real estate?

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Speaker 6: I know, I believe it started in d.

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Speaker 4: C, right with the mayor. I did start in DC.

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Speaker 3: And and by the way, and I think one of

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Speaker 3: the things you mentioned, the fourbe story about the seven

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Speaker 3: hundred million dollars, I would not cooperate with them anytime

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Speaker 3: after that, mainly because that isn't who I am. And

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Speaker 3: I don't want anybody to know me based on that,

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Speaker 3: whether it's a dollar or seven hundred or billion, whatever

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Speaker 3: it is. I mean, I would like to think that

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Speaker 3: my purpose is deeper than that. And so I got

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Speaker 3: into real estate in d C because I was initially

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Speaker 3: gonna be a doctor and then change my mind and

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Speaker 3: quit school and went back to d C. But I

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Speaker 3: learned it from my mother, and and I mentioned that

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Speaker 3: because it's shaped who I am and what kind of

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Speaker 3: business person I am. So and I think it's important

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Speaker 3: for everybody to understand a bit about I think what

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Speaker 3: drives me as a business person, because I think it

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Speaker 3: drives you all as well, and we all have different experiences.

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Speaker 3: But I was born in nineteen sixty, so that was

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Speaker 3: during the peak of the civil rights movement, the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 3: and so I remember as an eight year old when

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Speaker 3: Doctor King was assassinated. I remember my community being inflamed

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Speaker 3: and my mother driving me home from school and having

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Speaker 3: me get down on the floor of the car because

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Speaker 3: our city was on fire. And I remember Robert Kennedy

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Speaker 3: getting assassinated, and so that shaped my life quite a bit.

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Speaker 3: And so my mother, who had me at nineteen years old,

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Speaker 3: was a secretary, and then after buying a house in

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Speaker 3: Prince George's County, Maryland, saw on the closing statement how

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Speaker 3: much the broker's commission was and how little time the

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Speaker 3: person with her, and so she decided to go to

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Speaker 3: night school and get her license, and then she and

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Speaker 3: I relocated to Detroit, where her sister was living and

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Speaker 3: with her husband who was doing his internship in residency.

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Speaker 3: And that was nineteen sixty eight, so they had already

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Speaker 3: experienced the riots, and we'd moved there, and my mother

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Speaker 3: got a real estate sales license, and then a couple

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Speaker 3: of years later, my uncle was in private practice and

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Speaker 3: invested in her and backed her as a real estate broker,

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Speaker 3: and she had her own real estate business and broken business.

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Speaker 3: And then the recession hit in nineteen seventy three, and

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Speaker 3: my aunt and uncle moved and she moved.

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Speaker 4: She and I moved back to d C.

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Speaker 3: And she got a job in DC and it was

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Speaker 3: a job being the sales director for a project called

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Speaker 3: town Center in Southwest Washington, d C.

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Speaker 4: Which was under urban renewal.

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Speaker 3: And she there was no internet, there was no faxing,

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Speaker 3: there was no video conferencing, no FaceTime. So she got

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Speaker 3: her job based on a telephone interview and a resume

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Speaker 3: that was mailed. And so when she reported to work

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Speaker 3: in DC, they didn't know she was a black woman,

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Speaker 3: and they were sended the offer and said that they

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Speaker 3: didn't think that the white sales team would be comfortable,

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Speaker 3: you know, reporting to a black woman, even though they

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Speaker 3: were selling many of those properties to black professionals. So

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Speaker 3: my mother had to go back and being a secretary.

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Speaker 3: And so I was thirteen when that happened, and unfortunately

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Speaker 3: she got one of her temporary jobs was at Fannie

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Speaker 3: May and she came across, you know, a man who

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Speaker 3: you know, was a senior executive and she was a

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Speaker 3: secretary and when he found out what she was doing,

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Speaker 3: he said, you're way overqualified for this, and then he

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Speaker 3: arranged for her to get a position as a mortgage

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Speaker 3: analyst at Fanny May and then that helped.

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Speaker 4: Her resume her career.

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Speaker 3: But I watched her throughout my childhood confront obstacles as

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Speaker 3: a black woman, and so being a Black American, there's

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Speaker 3: one obstacle we have, and as black men, we confront that.

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Speaker 3: Women confront that, but black women have a double headwinds

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Speaker 3: at them. And I saw that, and so it shaped me.

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Speaker 3: And from day one, I wanted to run a different

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Speaker 3: type of business and one that would be receptive to

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Speaker 3: someone talented like my mother. And that shaped me as

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Speaker 3: a business person. And that is what I try to

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Speaker 3: do each day I'm in business, is to knock down

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Speaker 3: those kinds of barriers. And so that story I just

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Speaker 3: told you is much more relevant about who I am

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Speaker 3: than Forbes or anybody else saying how much money I

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Speaker 3: got or something like that.

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Speaker 6: Clip it off for that. So you went to college,

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Speaker 6: but you didn't finish college.

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Speaker 7: A lot of the stuff you learned real estate obviously

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Speaker 7: you watch from mom, and it was kind of self taught.

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Speaker 7: At twenty three you start your own business, but at

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Speaker 7: twenty six you develop your own first building. Take us

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Speaker 7: through that process twenty three, like he said, we were

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Speaker 7: at the Royal Palms at your building at twenty three

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Speaker 7: year building of a twenty six year building, the first one.

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Speaker 6: Let's talk us about that process.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean I so I when I moved back

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Speaker 3: to DC, my mother thought it was important that I'd

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Speaker 3: be exposed to black men achieving things and also to

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Speaker 3: understand the power of politics. So she had me volunteer

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Speaker 3: for a DC in nineteen seventy four, so I was fourteen.

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Speaker 3: That's when the city got home rule and got a

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Speaker 3: chance to elect its own government. So she had me

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Speaker 3: volunteer for a She said, you got to pick one

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Speaker 3: of these candidates that's running for the city council and

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Speaker 3: volunteer for them, you know, for one month out of

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Speaker 3: the summer. And I'm like, I don't want to work

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Speaker 3: for free. Well you have to do that, and you

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Speaker 3: got to pick somebody. So I picked the most radical person,

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Speaker 3: I mean, the most progressive one, and it was a

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Speaker 3: guy named Marion Barry, and he had. He was the

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Speaker 3: co founder of SNICK with John Lewis and let the

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Speaker 3: Students Nonviolent Coordinating Council, and was very active in the

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Speaker 3: civil rights movement with doctor King and had come to

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Speaker 3: d C and was pressing an agenda for economic empowerment

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Speaker 3: for black people, and so I volunteered for him. I

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Speaker 3: was fourteen, met him a few times with a kind

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Speaker 3: of talkative young man, and you know, we were friendly

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Speaker 3: and I made him laugh a little bit. He won,

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Speaker 3: and then you know, he was on the city council.

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Speaker 3: I went to the inauguration and all that stuff. And

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Speaker 3: then after that, four years later, I mean two years later,

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Speaker 3: my mother said, you know, you need to go work

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Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill learn politics there. So she got me

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Speaker 3: a six months patronage or a term to be a

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Speaker 3: page on Capitol Hill. And I didn't even know what

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Speaker 3: that was until I went to work there. So that

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Speaker 3: a school on the top floor of the Library of

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Speaker 3: Congress and right across from the US Capitol. And you'd

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Speaker 3: go to school there from six in the morning until

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Speaker 3: ten thirty, and then eleven o'clock on you'd walk you'd

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Speaker 3: be at the US Capitol and you'd work as like

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Speaker 3: a messenger for the Congress. So I went up there

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Speaker 3: for six months. I ended up staying there for two years.

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Speaker 3: I became very friendly with Ron Dellams, who was a

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Speaker 3: congressman from California, John Conyers, who had brought me up

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Speaker 3: there from Michigan, and Charlie Rangel, and I worked for

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Speaker 3: all three of them and got a chance to really

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Speaker 3: get a perspective of about what black leadership was about

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Speaker 3: and what a sense of purpose was. And then after

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Speaker 3: that I went to I graduated high school and my

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Speaker 3: graduation ceremony was in the Cannon Caucus room where they

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Speaker 3: elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. In that morning,

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Speaker 3: my mother and I and my grandfather, my aunt and

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Speaker 3: uncle went over to the White House and got a

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Speaker 3: certificate of achievement from President Carter in the Rose Garden.

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Speaker 3: So I had, you know, kind of big expectations. I

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Speaker 3: was going to be a doctor like my uncle. And

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Speaker 3: then after my first year quit and I went back

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Speaker 3: to d C. And that was nineteen seventy nine, and

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Speaker 3: then nineteen eighty I started working as an appraiser with

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Speaker 3: my for my mother, and then Barry ran for reelection

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Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty two and I got much more engaged

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Speaker 3: in his campaign. He won a second term, and within

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Speaker 3: a few months I was appointed to the Property Assessment

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Speaker 3: Appeal Board, which was a board that reviewed all the

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Speaker 3: real estate assessments for the city. And then the following

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Speaker 3: year he made me chairperson. So at twenty three I

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Speaker 3: was on the most powerful board in the city. At

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Speaker 3: twenty four, I was chairman of it, and so I

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Speaker 3: was a very powerful person in local politics and local

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Speaker 3: government at that point. And then a year or so later,

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Speaker 3: his government and he agreed to prelease an office building

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Speaker 3: that I proposed developing in an area called Anacostia that

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Speaker 3: had been destroyed by the riots that I remember in

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight. And then I became a part of

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Speaker 3: helping rebuild it and that project with one hundred thousand

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Speaker 3: square foot building, the goal was to kickstart economic development

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Speaker 3: and a predominantly black community and start redevelopment of a

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Speaker 3: black community and then to you know, you know, ignite redevelopment. Today,

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Speaker 3: Homeland Security spend over five billion. I built that building

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Speaker 3: in nineteen eight, I delivered in eighty nine. Today Homeland

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Speaker 3: Security is a five billion dollar campus over there. It's

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Speaker 3: one of the hottest neighborhoods in Washington, DC a lot

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Speaker 3: of economic development activity and that project. That wasn't easy though,

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Speaker 3: because I ended up on the front page of the

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Speaker 3: Washington Post and other people didn't like the fact that

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Speaker 3: Barry had supported someone who was inexperience like me. And

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Speaker 3: I never owned a house yet, alone a building, but

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Speaker 3: I built the building about nine months early, and that

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Speaker 3: was the beginning of my career. And I would never

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Speaker 3: have been here today if it wasn't for him given

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Speaker 3: me that opportunity. And that's why I say, I mean,

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Speaker 3: we cannot look. I mean every black political leader to

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Speaker 3: knock down these barriers was a target. Doctor King was

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Speaker 3: a target of our own government. By the way, the

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Speaker 3: FBI has never been the friend of black economic empowerment.

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Speaker 3: Jaka Hoover ran a racist organization and that was the

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Speaker 3: culture of the FBI, and they investigated doctor King, Malcolm X. Mecker, Evers,

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Speaker 3: every civil rights leader, including Barry, and Barry was vulnerable

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Speaker 3: and they got him and embarrassed him. But he had

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Speaker 3: done some transformative things and I am an example of that.

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Speaker 3: And so we can't let one mistake when we live

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Speaker 3: in a society where so many people are given second

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Speaker 3: chances that we can't say that black men only get

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Speaker 3: one chance, one striking, you're out. And so we got

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Speaker 3: to judge people by the entirety of who they are.

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Speaker 5: Yes, clap it up for that and rest in peace

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Speaker 5: to men and Marion Barry. So let me ask you this.

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Speaker 5: There's a lot of people here that are looking to

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Speaker 5: get into real estate, real estate development. Your start came

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Speaker 5: from working with the government. How important is it to

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Speaker 5: make in roads with local government officials if you want

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Speaker 5: to be in real estate, especially real estate development, And

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Speaker 5: what are some ways that you can make in roads

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Speaker 5: with politicians?

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Speaker 4: Great, great questions.

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Speaker 3: So, first of all, I think one of the reasons

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Speaker 3: why I ended up in a deal where the government

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Speaker 3: was involved is because I could not get a fair

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Speaker 3: chance from the private sector. The DC was a majority

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Speaker 3: black city and there was one black developer in it

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Speaker 3: when I started. And there was a reason for that

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Speaker 3: because if they opened, if the floodgates got opened, then

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Speaker 3: and more of us walked through those doors, and there'd

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Speaker 3: be no excuse to say, well, why don't we have

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Speaker 3: more black developers? And so the development community has never

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Speaker 3: been hospitable to change. And we can look here in

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Speaker 3: New York City, and which hopefully we'll have a chance

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Speaker 3: to talk a little bit more about later. But there's

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Speaker 3: not one major building, not one skyscraper in New York

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Speaker 3: City own or developed by someone black. And as far

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Speaker 3: as I know, the only major building south of one

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Speaker 3: hundred and tenth Street owned by a black developers mine

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Speaker 3: at one away Leonard Street. So that tells you that

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Speaker 3: we have an unfair system. So the idea, though, and

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Speaker 3: also the idea in the private sector, you to break

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Speaker 3: down some barriers. You gotta have a lot of cash

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Speaker 3: to do it. And government you can have political power,

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Speaker 3: the right, the opportunity to vote, the opportunity collectively to

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Speaker 3: shape you know, the outcome. And so let's just think

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Speaker 3: about Joe Biden. Joe Biden would be on the porch

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Speaker 3: of his house in Rehopa's Beach, Delaware, looking out of

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Speaker 3: the ocean as a private citizen if it wasn't for

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Speaker 3: black people, especially black women, because black women brought him

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Speaker 3: to the Promised Land in Georgia. Never would have won Georgia.

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Speaker 3: Without black women, he didn't win. He went won Michigan

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Speaker 3: because of black voters. He won Pennsylvania cause the black

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Speaker 3: voters and that got him presidency, and in the primary

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Speaker 3: he was dead in the water there and it was

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Speaker 3: Jim Clyburn in South Carolina that saved him there. So

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Speaker 3: black Americans elected the president of the United States. So

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Speaker 3: he oh, so he owes us a big debt and

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Speaker 3: it's time for us to collect it. And June Teen's

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Speaker 3: while a nice important memory, isn't enough to pay the debt.

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Speaker 3: And I think that's part of the mindset that we

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Speaker 3: need to have. So I got into public private partnerships

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Speaker 3: because I knew I got a fair chance.

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Speaker 4: It was somebody fighting for me.

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Speaker 3: The mayor of Washington, DC said we're doing this and

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Speaker 3: it doesn't matter that you're complaining about it or you're

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Speaker 3: saying that he's a protege a of mind. So what

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Speaker 3: I'm doing this And that was a political power, and

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Speaker 3: the voters backed him up and kept re electing him.

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Speaker 3: And so public private partnerships are designed for theory fairness.

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Speaker 3: So if we think about where we are in this

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Speaker 3: country today, there's two issues that this country. There's two

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Speaker 3: moments in time right now for this country. The first

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Speaker 3: one is a global pandemic that COVID has decimated our

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Speaker 3: economy and our entry, and this is you know, a

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Speaker 3: once in a century. The last pandemic of this magnitude

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Speaker 3: was a Spanish flu exactly one hundred years ago. And

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Speaker 3: the second one is the unprecedented civil protest around the country,

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Speaker 3: fighting and protesting for economic equality and criminal justice fairness

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Speaker 3: for black Americans. Those are the two moments. So right now,

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Speaker 3: those two moments are right for us because you have

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Speaker 3: the government spending trillions of dollars to rebuild our economy,

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Speaker 3: and supposedly the private sector has heard the voices of

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Speaker 3: the protesters and all of us about this quest and

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Speaker 3: our quest for fairness. So the private sector is not

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Speaker 3: doesn't have those burdens of responsibility.

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Speaker 4: I think they're getting closer to that.

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Speaker 3: So the public sector provides economic opportunities, and so the

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Speaker 3: government does affordable housing buying large and so my view

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Speaker 3: is that shouldn't affordable housing be reflective of the population

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Speaker 3: demographics of the people who occupy them, and shouldn't the

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Speaker 3: economic benefits from them be reflective of the population demographics.

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Speaker 3: Shouldn't development opportunities in New York City that is sixty

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Speaker 3: nine percent of people of color and fifty three percent females.

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Speaker 3: Shouldn't those opportunities be distributed reflective of the population demographics.

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Speaker 3: They should be, and they can be, and we have

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Speaker 3: the currency.

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Speaker 4: To require that.

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Speaker 3: So that's why I like public private partnerships. And then

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Speaker 3: on the real estate side, the simplicity of it is

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Speaker 3: that we don't. If I want to go and build

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Speaker 3: a tower in Manhattan and the site's worth five hundred

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Speaker 3: million dollars, I got to go pay five hundred million dollars.

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Speaker 3: And that's the and whoever pays the most money is

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Speaker 3: going to win. That is going to get the right

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Speaker 3: to buy that property from the seller, if it's a

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Speaker 3: private seller, the public sector, the government wants other things.

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Speaker 3: They're not land speculatd So normally they want a certain outcome,

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Speaker 3: they want a certain type of building, they want a

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Speaker 3: certain type of use, and in theory they say now

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Speaker 3: more often they want inclusion and diversity, and so those

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Speaker 3: are other griting criterias are not relevant to dollars, so

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Speaker 3: you can not have to pay as much. The other

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Speaker 3: thing is is that you don't pay for the land

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Speaker 3: until you're ready to develop the land. So to think

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Speaker 3: about that for a second, let's use an example. There's

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Speaker 3: a project called eleven X one right on the high

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Speaker 3: Line that went into foreclosure, etc. And that was developed

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Speaker 3: by HFZ. They paid a billion dollars for that site.

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Speaker 3: Took them three years to develop that site to start construction.

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Speaker 3: So the carrying costs we're about twenty percent of the

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Speaker 3: year property taxes, insurance, debt service on the interest and

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Speaker 3: the equity. So that's two hundred million dollars a year

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Speaker 3: they're carrying that cost, right, So and then so you're

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Speaker 3: starting off with the land actually costing one point six

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Speaker 3: billion dollars. Now go up the street to Hudson Yards

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Speaker 3: and Related has that whole development there. They don't pay

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Speaker 3: until they commenced construction on a piece by piece basis.

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Speaker 3: They fix their price back when they got the rights

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Speaker 3: to do it, and I think O seven and you

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Speaker 3: know how prices have gone up. So they got this

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Speaker 3: big arbitrage. And then the city and the states gave

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Speaker 3: them a subsidy apparently of about two billion dollars and

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Speaker 3: they built a subway station to support that. So there

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Speaker 3: the developer has made billions of dollars just on the

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Speaker 3: land appreciation and the valuation of the subsidies. And so

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Speaker 3: think about Related which and I hate to pick on

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Speaker 3: them because they're a great company, but think about them

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Speaker 3: as the largest private developer in the United States. Their

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Speaker 3: biggest projects have been public private partnerships. Arted off as

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Speaker 3: a as a affordable housing tax credit lawyer, then got

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Speaker 3: into building affordable housing himself. Then the AOL Time Warner

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Speaker 3: Center that was on government land. That was an old

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Speaker 3: New York Coliseum site. And then Hudson Yards, which is

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Speaker 3: gonna have a dozen or more buildings, and that was

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Speaker 3: government land. So imagine if I told you I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: sell we're in a hot market. I'm gonna sell you

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Speaker 3: a piece of property, but that's worth a billion. I'm

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Speaker 3: gonna sell it to you below market for seven hundred million,

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Speaker 3: and it's gonna take you three or four years to

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Speaker 3: build the first building, and you don't have to pay

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Speaker 3: me any of the money until then, and there's no interest,

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Speaker 3: and you don't have to pay property taxes, and you

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Speaker 3: don't have to pay any insurance. I'm gonna pay all

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Speaker 3: That be a great deal, right, and you shouldn't. And

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Speaker 3: you have to go out of your way not to

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Speaker 3: make money. So that's the probab private process in a snapshot.

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Speaker 6: So that's incredible so let's talk about it.

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Speaker 7: Since we're on the top of the New York development,

438
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 7: the Affirmation Tower and Portant, and correct me if I'm

439
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 7: on a toilest tower that, when finished in New York City,

440
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:05,000
Speaker 7: the first black, fully black developers that are doing it.

441
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 6: What was the process of getting that in the importance

442
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 6: of doing it?

443
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 3: Well, I think first of all, look, I was so

444
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:16,160
Speaker 3: this came the state issued in RFP for that site

445
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 3: in two thousand and twenty, I think late twenty twenty,

446
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,160
Speaker 3: and so we had a global pandemic already, people were

447
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 3: leaving New York. Businesses were leaving New York. Office market

448
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,880
Speaker 3: was soft before the pandemic. So initially, when I looked

449
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 3: at it and my team look at we all agreed

450
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 3: to pass. And then I happened to be reading an

451
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 3: article about Hudson Yards, and I'm like, wait a minute,

452
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 3: we ought to go Maybe we should go after this

453
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:47,679
Speaker 3: site because the chances are we won't be building anything

454
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 3: for three, four or five years so and prices are

455
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:53,880
Speaker 3: down now, so maybe we take a shot and tie

456
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 3: it up. So we kicked it around and we looked

457
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 3: at what the use could be, and then I thought

458
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 3: about it, and I said you know, if I'm going

459
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 3: to take a risk and do something in New York,

460
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 3: because this is probably the last big deal I'm gonna

461
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 3: do in New York for a while, you know, how

462
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 3: do I want to do it? I want to do

463
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 3: it differently, And so I started off toly I want

464
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 3: it to be all black owned and or majority black owned.

465
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 3: So I called up Cheryl mckissack, you know, who runs

466
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 3: the oldest black owned construction company in the country, And

467
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 3: I said, like, I want you to, you know, partner

468
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 3: up with Suffolk, who is the large, the largest privately

469
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 3: owned construction company in the country who we do business with.

470
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 3: I want you to partner up with them. We're going

471
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 3: to do this on a joint venture basis, and you're

472
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 3: gonna We're going to develop this project, and I want

473
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 3: you to also be a owner in the development. So

474
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 3: she came in on the development team as well, and

475
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 3: then Craig Livingston Livingston of zach Kapitel brought him in

476
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,239
Speaker 3: and then our company. But I recognized, and I think

477
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 3: this is always very important. I think the true mark

478
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:54,120
Speaker 3: of business intelligence is to recognize our own limitations.

479
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 4: Right.

480
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 3: So I had never built a skyscraper in New York before,

481
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 3: so I said, okay, well let's make it so that's

482
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 3: not an excuse not to pick us. So I contacted

483
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 3: a friend and business associate, Steve Whitcoff, who had just

484
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 3: finished a building called one eleven Murray, which was a

485
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 3: super tall building and geometry wise similar to what I

486
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 3: wanted to build, and brought him in. And he's a

487
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 3: twenty percent partner and he his company and our company

488
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 3: or co developing it. And so once we had the

489
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 3: ownership set and I said, okay, I want to build

490
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 3: a transformative building. I want a black architect, but I

491
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 3: want to send a message. So I brought in David Adj.

492
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 3: David Adj is the one of the he's one of

493
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 3: the top architects in the world and the world's most

494
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 3: prominent black architect. He did the Museum for African American

495
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 3: History and Culture on the Smithsonian Mall. So I brought

496
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 3: him in to do the design, and then we brought

497
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 3: in I wanted to give the NAACP of New York

498
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 3: their headquarters in our building.

499
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 4: Brought them in and then the design.

500
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 3: So I David designed the building, gave him the sense

501
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 3: of what we wanted to do in terms of uses.

502
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 3: So it's going to have two hotels, sculpture garden showcasing

503
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 3: Black New Yorkers who've affected, you know, the lives of

504
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 3: you know, of all of us, and then we do

505
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 3: offices and then observation deck and some other stuff on

506
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 3: the roof. So they came back to me with a

507
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 3: building that was about twelve hundred and fifty feet tall

508
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 3: and a budget to build it. And I'm you know,

509
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 3: super tall buildings are very expensive to build. So twelve

510
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,479
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty feet way twelve fifty Well, that's how

511
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,239
Speaker 3: the layout went on the far and so forth. I said, well,

512
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 3: let's look at doing something different. What's the tallest building

513
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 3: in New York And so they said one World Trade

514
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 3: and I looked. We pulled it up on a screen

515
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 3: and we're looking at it, and it was really not

516
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 3: so it was sixteen hundred seventeen hundred feet, but it

517
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 3: was at the top of a spire, this little antenna

518
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 3: almost on the top of it. And so I said, well,

519
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 3: why don't we build let's just redesign the building and

520
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 3: let's get ourselves up to sixteen hundred so one hundred

521
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 3: below or sixteen fifty, you know, to be just below,

522
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 3: you know, to pay respect to One World Trade, but

523
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 3: to be the tallest building. And I also would ask

524
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 3: what's the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and it

525
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 3: was One World Trade, And I said, to the roofline,

526
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 3: what is it? And then there was some other buildings.

527
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 3: So we decided to build what would be I made

528
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 3: the decision. I said, change the design, come back with

529
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 3: a building that's sixteen hundred and fifty feet tall or better.

530
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 4: And that's what we ended up with.

531
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 3: And that's how we designed it because I mean, so

532
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 3: my point was is that it was going to be

533
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 3: the first. It's the first guyscraper to be built in

534
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 3: New York City. If we're going to build the first

535
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 3: guyscraper and we've waited this long to get a chance

536
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 3: to do it, it needs to make a powerful statement.

537
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 4: It needs to be the best.

538
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 5: Go bigger, go bigger. So can you walk us through, like,

539
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 5: how does financing for a project.

540
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 4: Like that work? I mean I think that.

541
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 3: Look, I mean the thing about development, and I'd say

542
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 3: one of the other elements of why I think I've

543
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 3: been successful at this is that I'm a dreamer. I'm

544
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 3: a pisces. And I remember my mom telling that when's

545
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 3: your birthday? March second? All right, seven?

546
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 6: So we got a March thing going, man, Yeah, pisce.

547
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 3: My mother told me that pisces were dreamers, and so

548
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 3: I said, okay, and I and I took that kind

549
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 3: of almost negative. It's like a challenge. I said, well,

550
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 3: I'm a dream big I'm gonna make them come true.

551
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 4: And so I have. Again. We talked about this earlier.

552
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 6: I do.

553
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 3: I mean, I worked initially for money because I wanted

554
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 3: to be able to eat and have a roof over

555
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 3: my head like everybody else, and to live well and

556
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 3: then to be able to live as well as anybody else.

557
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 3: But but it got to a point real fastt I

558
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 3: mean that, and it was never just that, But I

559
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 3: got to a place where I wasn't looking to work

560
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 3: for for money. I was looking to work for transformation.

561
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 3: I wanted to do something very different, and I wanted

562
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 3: to make a statement, and I wanted to knock down

563
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 3: some barrier so that we could have greater diversity and inclusion,

564
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 3: because I just don't think that black Americans can. We

565
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 3: should not be burdened with a disproportionate burden of poverty

566
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 3: and the way that that changes isn't by somebody giving

567
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 3: it to us. It's that we got to go out

568
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 3: and set the course ourselves. So I've always worked to

569
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 3: try to do bigger. So I always look at the

570
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 3: next bigger deal, the next bigger deal, the next bigger deal,

571
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 3: And I always figure I learned a long time ago,

572
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 3: I figure it out as I go. And so in

573
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 3: this instance, though, I had to prove to the state

574
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 3: that we could afford to build it.

575
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 4: So the debt.

576
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 3: I contacted a fund that we've done a lot of

577
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 3: business with that I know the CEO of the fund,

578
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 3: and said, look, we're doing a three point six billion

579
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 3: dollar development. So good news is you can deploy a

580
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 3: whole lot of capital, but I'm gonna need you to

581
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 3: step up and lend us sixty percent of that. And

582
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 3: then I caught one of the largest asset managers in

583
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 3: the world who've been touting how they're going to be

584
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 3: more inclusive in ESG, and I said, I want you

585
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 3: to think beyond affordable housing. I want you to think

586
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 3: beyond you know, helping a few small business people's think bigger.

587
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 3: You're going to build the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere,

588
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 3: and it's going to be an instant landmark. And you

589
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 3: also are going to get to deploy over a billion dollars.

590
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 3: And so you're going to get to deploy a billion

591
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 3: dollars because in the end of the day, they're in

592
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 3: the business. You got to think about this. They're in

593
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 3: the business to make money. They have to deploy capital

594
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 3: to make money. Give you any Blackstone just did a

595
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 3: fund and raise twenty five billion dollars.

596
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 4: For an equity fund.

597
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 3: There's so much capital going on out there that's out

598
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 3: there that they can't deploy enough. There's more capital than

599
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 3: there are opportunities. They just don't look at us as

600
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 3: a business opportunity. They look at us philanthropically, as opposed

601
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 3: to seeing us as a place to do business and

602
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 3: people to do business with. But there's a tremendous amount

603
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 3: of capital. So when I was at an event the

604
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 3: other day speaking and I was saying, because I gave

605
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 3: a statistic that showed how unfair you know, white men

606
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 3: have this, you know, tremendous advantage, I said, nothing will

607
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 3: ever be taken from you guys because they can't deploy

608
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 3: all the capitol now, So you want to deploy it all,

609
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 3: it'll be better. You'll make more money because you'll be

610
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 3: able to lend all the money out. So anyway, so

611
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 3: long and short of the story is is that we

612
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 3: got this company, this firm to step up to over

613
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 3: a billion dollars of private equity and UH and then

614
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 3: to commit to that and give us a letter. So

615
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 3: we went to the state and when we presented, the

616
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 3: one thing that the analyst said is who was who

617
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 3: was doing the financial analysis and the consultants that we

618
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 3: have no doubt that you walk in finance a building.

619
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 3: And I thought that was a pretty powerful statement. At

620
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 3: three point six billion dollar building. We proposed building a

621
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 3: bigger building than anybody else, and we proposed building a

622
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 3: taller building than anybody else, and we proposed unprecedented diversity

623
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 3: and and and also had the money need to pay

624
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 3: for it. And so I thought that was a winning proposition.

625
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 3: And then Andrew Como had to leave office, and then

626
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 3: we got a new governor and she's tiptoeing around and

627
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 3: so they have now canceled the RFP and are going

628
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 3: to reissue it. And so that is indicative of what

629
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 3: kind of happens is that you know in New York

630
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 3: more than any place else, is that when we cross

631
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 3: the barrier, then the barrier gets moved. But we are

632
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 3: close to making an announcement to bring the Civil Rights

633
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 3: Museum to Affirmation Tower as well, and we're not giving up.

634
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 3: And there's such a great deal of support for what

635
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 3: it stands for. And by the way, I am building

636
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 3: it for what it stands for. I will be risking

637
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 3: almost all of my net worth to build it, but

638
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 3: it's something that has to be built, and I want

639
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 3: to build something so that when our young people look

640
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 3: at the skyline, because that's what New York City is

641
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 3: known for, when they look at the skyline, they can

642
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 3: see that the tallest building was built by people like them.

643
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 6: Powerful powerful.

644
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,320
Speaker 7: You know, as you were speaking, I remember this this

645
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 7: jay Z line. He was like, there's more blacks to

646
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 7: how I go. And so you're kicking down doors, you're

647
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 7: breaking barriers for all of us. I'm wondering, was this

648
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:30,359
Speaker 7: somebody that helped you, like in the mentorship role. As

649
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 7: you're climbing this ladder and on the other end, are

650
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 7: you seeing young more black African Americans as you're climbing

651
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 7: that You're like, you know what, I love what you're

652
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 7: doing in this space.

653
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 6: Let me give you some tutelage as I grow as well.

654
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, when I started, there were not

655
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 3: many black business people in the real estate space, very

656
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 3: few black entrepreneurs, and so my mentorship really came from

657
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:59,439
Speaker 3: black politicians. I mean, I cannot underemphasize what I learned

658
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 3: from me Arian Barry and I I mean, I can't

659
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 3: underemphasize what I learned from a John Conyers or Ron Dellams.

660
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 3: I mean, they were my role models. And then I'll

661
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 3: never forget, you know. And it was Barry who introduced

662
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 3: me to other black business leaders in DC. And so

663
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 3: when I was doing my first building in Anacostia, the

664
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 3: first building I did while so there was another developer

665
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 3: who had wanted to develop that a white developer, and

666
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 3: so he leaked out a story to the Washington Post.

667
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 3: So one day I came in from my office, came

668
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 3: from a meeting outside my office, and then my assistant

669
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 3: gave me, you know, the messager throwing sheets of paperback.

670
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 3: Then this is nineteen eighty six, and so there's a

671
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 3: call from a report at the Washington Post. I said, Wow,

672
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 3: this is great. They're going to do a nice story

673
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 3: about you know, this nice building. That we're doing a

674
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 3: built by.

675
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,359
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676
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689
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692
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693
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694
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695
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696
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701
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702
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707
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709
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710
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 3: Washingtonian a black developer redeveloping a major project in a

711
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 3: historically black community. We're rebuilding our community.

712
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 4: It's all good.

713
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a great story. So I called the reporter.

714
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 3: Back reporter gets on and says, how, I'm Tom Sherwood.

715
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 3: I'm from the I'm an investigative reporter from the Washington Post.

716
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 3: I said, what do you mean, investigative reporter and he said, well,

717
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 3: we're looking into your relationship with the mayor and how

718
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 3: that resulted in the city paying you more than what

719
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 3: the rent's worth for your building. And I'm like, okay, well,

720
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 3: let me call you back. So I called the mayor's

721
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 3: office and spoke to his press assistant, and the press

722
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 3: secretary advised me on how to handle it, and so

723
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 3: do a meeting in person, record it and so forth.

724
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 3: I did this meeting, and I had remembered when I

725
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 3: I wanted to make it easy for Barry because I was,

726
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 3: you know, pretty, I was somewhat politically astute. So when

727
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 3: I made my proposal, I had offered to do to

728
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 3: lease the space for less money than what he had

729
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 3: signed a letter of intent for with a white developer.

730
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 3: So a white developer was going to develop this site

731
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 3: but hadn't had the site under control and was negotiating

732
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 3: with the seller. And went to the seller and gave

733
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 3: him this letter from the mayors saying, no one's gonna

734
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 3: buy your land other than me, and I'm gonna pay

735
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 3: you seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it. The

736
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:08,320
Speaker 3: broker for that seller happened to be a subtenant of

737
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 3: mine and brought the deal to me, and that's how

738
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 3: I got it. So we offered this mayrite signed a

739
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 3: letter for twenty two dollars and fifty cents a square foot.

740
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:21,479
Speaker 3: I did a letter for eighteen seventy five, so less money,

741
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 3: and so it's better deal for the city. So this

742
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 3: guy did this article and it was on the front

743
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 3: page of the Washington Post, next to the Iran Contra

744
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 3: articles of Ronald Reagan. There was my little building in Anacostia,

745
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 3: and I'm like, God, I'm trying to get ahead, and

746
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 3: this is what I got a deal with. And I'm like,

747
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 3: I'm twenty six, so I'm really not, you know, mentally

748
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 3: as strong enough to deal with an attack from one

749
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 3: of the most powerful media organizations in the country. And

750
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,880
Speaker 3: I'm like, why are they coming after me? So I

751
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 3: went to lunch that day to meet a friend of mine,

752
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 3: and I went to this place. It's called Joe and Mose.

753
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,720
Speaker 3: It was a power lunch place of DC.

754
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 4: A lot of.

755
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 3: Real estate power brokers and political power brokers locally, and

756
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,720
Speaker 3: some black business people. It was kind of the hangout

757
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 3: for the business establishment there in DC. So I walk

758
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 3: in there and the head of the oldest and largest

759
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 3: black bank in the country, Independence Federal Savings Bank, And

760
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 3: the guy's name was Billy Fitzgerald, and so I walked

761
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 3: down these stairs coming into the restaurant. I'm like holding

762
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 3: my head down a little bit. Billy comes over to

763
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 3: me and I was, as I said, twenty six. He

764
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 3: was probably my age now sixty two. So he comes

765
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 3: over to me and he says, welcome to the club.

766
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 3: And then he explained to me that you are not

767
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 3: going to have a fan club here. There's not gonna

768
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 3: be a cheering section for you. They're just gonna be

769
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:50,760
Speaker 3: land mines and obstacles, and the cheering section is gonna

770
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 3: be us. We're going to cheer for each other, and

771
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 3: you're gonna cheer for each other. And I want you

772
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 3: to remember this day that how you're feeling, well, some

773
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 3: of our and sisters are going to feel that same way.

774
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 3: And I want you to do what we're going to

775
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,399
Speaker 3: do today. And so he said, you're taking a day off.

776
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,240
Speaker 3: I had my lunch, we hung out, We played poker

777
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:11,320
Speaker 3: and hung out in the back room and played cards

778
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 3: and had a good time. And it cemented a friendship

779
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 3: for the rest of my life with.

780
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 5: Him always going to be obstacles in life. Is there

781
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 5: a set of real estate commandments that you live by,

782
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 5: No location, location, innovation is something that I know you

783
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 5: were credited for.

784
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 4: So can you explain that?

785
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 5: And are there real estate commandments that you live by?

786
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:34,879
Speaker 4: Yeah?

787
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,839
Speaker 3: They are, And the number one is make your money

788
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 3: going in. So I gave you a little hint about

789
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 3: public private partnerships. So rumor has it that Hudson Yards,

790
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 3: before the pandemic related was up three and a half

791
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 3: billion on land value alone, and that that gave some

792
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 3: resources to buy the dolphins. So that's what rumor has it.

793
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 3: But so imagine now again, if you control the property,

794
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 3: you fix the price, and you go three years down

795
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 3: the line. Remember the billion dollar asset. I told you

796
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 3: about how two hundred million a year to carry it.

797
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 3: So if the value didn't go up at all, you're up,

798
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 3: you know, six hundred million dollars if you didn't have

799
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 3: to pay that right. So the public private deals I

800
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:24,800
Speaker 3: like the most because I can control I don't. The

801
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,360
Speaker 3: price number one is not the sole determining factor, and

802
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 3: so we have to be smart enough to figure out

803
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 3: how to give people something more than price. Two, you

804
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:36,800
Speaker 3: pay when you're ready to start putting the land to

805
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 3: use and not before. And three you don't take intitle

806
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 3: of risk. So I like to make my money going in,

807
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 3: so I take risk, but they're very controlled risk. And

808
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 3: I like the public private space because it allows me

809
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 3: to make my money on the land value. So historically,

810
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 3: throughout my career, I've always looked to make sure that

811
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 3: the day I'm committing to the deal, it's profitable and

812
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 3: that I don't have to ride the market up.

813
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 4: I don't.

814
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 3: I'm insulated, and so make your money going in. Look

815
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 3: to get the best value. Anyone, well not anyone, but

816
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 3: most people. I mean, it doesn't take a lot of

817
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 3: ingenuity if you have cash or access to capital to

818
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,240
Speaker 3: go pay more than anybody else. And in a hot market,

819
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 3: that's what you have to do in order to control

820
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 3: a piece of property in the private sector. So you

821
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 3: got to figure out how to do that. And I

822
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 3: do it through public private projects, or I take entitlement risk.

823
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 3: I take more complicated deals and then say give me

824
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 3: time to make your deal uncomplicated and I'll pay you

825
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 3: more money. And so that's the number one principle is there.

826
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 3: And then the second one is to think big. I

827
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 3: mean to be uncomfortable. I mean, you know, I had

828
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 3: to stop listening to all my relatives. I'd stopped listening

829
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 3: to my mother, as well intended as she was. It's

830
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 3: because they're trying to protect me, and I wasn't really

831
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 3: interested in being protected. I was interested in excelling, and

832
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 3: so I had to get way out of my comfort zone.

833
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 3: But I would say that the number one thing make

834
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 3: the money going.

835
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 6: In yeah, valuable.

836
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:13,920
Speaker 7: Let's so, we obviously talked about the barriers that you

837
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 7: face here in New York trying to develop.

838
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 6: We know what you've done in DC, but.

839
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 7: I watched this like thirty minute interview when they were

840
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 7: asking about it in the next twenty years, where's a

841
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 7: place in America that we should be looking at for

842
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 7: talking about developers?

843
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 6: And you said, Miami. Obviously you have some. You know,

844
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 6: we talked about I stay there.

845
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 7: But what is it that you saw in Miami as

846
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 7: from the development side that made you make that statement?

847
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 3: Fundamentals, I think you got to look at things. I mean,

848
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 3: one of my most favorite quotes, It's been inspirational to

849
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 3: me for so long. Robert Kennedy used it a lot.

850
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 3: It was some people see things as they are and

851
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 3: they ask why I dream of things that never were

852
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 3: and asked why not. That is how Barack Obama got

853
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 3: to be president, right, That is how all of us

854
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 3: made it. The progress that we've made in our lives

855
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 3: is why not. And so I have looked at I

856
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 3: look at Miami, and you have to look at real

857
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 3: estate differently. So New York has always been New York.

858
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 3: It's New York, New York, New York, okay, But Miami's growing,

859
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 3: And so what would make Miami attractive? And why people

860
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 3: beginning to shift down here? Well, they were shifting down

861
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,919
Speaker 3: to Miami. One reason is nice quality of life, nice weather,

862
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 3: no snow, nice quality of life, the beach, the ocean,

863
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 3: and then one other thing. And it was a reason

864
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 3: I moved there. So I was living there. I got

865
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 3: a vacation home there in nineteen ninety five and won

866
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 3: the rights to the Royal Palm was in six months,

867
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 3: and so I was going back and forth to DC.

868
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 3: And my son was two years old, and so we

869
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 3: had an apartment down there, and I was going back

870
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 3: to DC to meet with my offense team, my staff,

871
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 3: and the development side, and then I met with my

872
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 3: accountants as well. Because it's like in some early April

873
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 3: and then it had been hit by this massive snowstorm

874
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 3: and the snow was piled up on both sides of

875
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 3: the roads where they plowed it. So I met with

876
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 3: my accountants and they were telling me how much I

877
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 3: owed in local taxes, and I'm like, why am I

878
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 3: paying that? I mean, I don't my son doesn't go

879
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 3: to public schools, go to a private school. I mean,

880
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 3: I don't use the infrastructure here. I'm not burdening the

881
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 3: infrastructure with that much money. And he said, well, you know,

882
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 3: you could save all of this if you just became

883
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 3: a Florida resident. So I said, really, all of it?

884
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 3: And he's all of it. So I reloke. I got

885
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 3: a home in Miami. I sold my house in DC,

886
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 3: and I moved my company down to Miami. And I

887
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 3: did it because the quality of life and economics. So

888
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 3: I always felt okay, But I made that decision in Washington,

889
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 3: DC's my hometown. I mean, I had as if I'm

890
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 3: gonna have home field advantage, it was there. It was

891
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 3: a predominantly black city. I knew the entire political establishment,

892
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 3: and I'd learned to navigate the city.

893
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 4: And I picked up and left.

894
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 3: So I felt that if I were willing to do that,

895
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 3: I mean, couldn't that argument be made by many more

896
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 3: people in DC, many people in New York, many people

897
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 3: in Chicago and so forth.

898
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 4: And I felt that that would be the case. And

899
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 4: also I found Miami.

900
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 3: To be more multicultural and more diverse on an everyday experience,

901
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 3: as opposed to I saw New York as more segregated.

902
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 3: I saw DC as more segregated. And so I thought

903
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 3: that that would be the future. You know of our

904
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 3: country is greater connections amongst people. And so I saw

905
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 3: Miami and all those reasons, and it was undervalued.

906
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 4: So you could buy.

907
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 3: An apartment in Miami on the ocean, say back in

908
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, you could buy or right after,

909
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 3: say after nine eleven, etc. When everything's percolating, Let's go

910
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 3: to two thousand and eight and buy an apartment, a

911
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:49,800
Speaker 3: beautiful apartment on the ocean in Miami. The best building

912
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 3: for eight hundred dollars a square foot. Best building in

913
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 3: New York was, you know, eight thousand a square foot.

914
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 3: So the economics were more compelling, and so I thought

915
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 3: for those reasons, Miami had a lot of runway, because

916
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 3: it can compete favorably to New York, and it can

917
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 3: compete favorably to Chicago and other areas in the Northeast

918
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 3: and the mid Atlantic, and that's all true. And then

919
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 3: Citadel Ken Griffin, Illinois's richest citizen, just announced yesterday's moving

920
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 3: his whole company down to Miami, a thousand people and

921
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 3: taking his money with him. And I think we're gonna

922
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 3: and more and more New Yorkers are down there as well.

923
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 3: So I think looking at what can be as opposed

924
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 3: to what is is a great way to invest in

925
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 3: real estate.

926
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 5: They're also trying to become the crypto capital of America.

927
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:40,240
Speaker 5: They're taking strong steps forward with that. So yeah, Miami

928
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 5: real estate is hot right now. But let me ask

929
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 5: you this, as far as the real estate market in

930
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 5: general has not declined, even when the stock market has declined,

931
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 5: crypto has declined, real estate has continued to going up,

932
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 5: and now you know interest rates arising, it's pretty much.

933
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 5: I think we're already in a recession, but they haven't

934
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 5: announced it yet. You know, after this quarter will probably

935
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 5: officially be in a recession. So people are concerned about

936
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 5: real estate. What is your overall thoughts about the real

937
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 5: estate market commercial residential? Are you concerned or do you

938
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 5: have any fear in it? Well, I mean I think

939
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:20,480
Speaker 5: your assessment's right. I think we are in the recession.

940
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 5: We're seeing it in the statistics and start showing it soon.

941
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 5: I think that we real estate.

942
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 3: If you're in the real estate business, then you can

943
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:35,799
Speaker 3: make money in every aspect of it. So I made

944
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 3: more money, the most money at the time of our

945
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 3: company's history, back in the early nineteen nineties when I

946
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 3: started buying, because we had a banking and financial crisis

947
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 3: and the junk bond crises and the SNL crisis. In

948
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 3: the early nineties, I started buying up land in downtown

949
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 3: d C. You know, at twenty cents ten cents on

950
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:02,399
Speaker 3: the dollar, and and I was able. I bought one

951
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 3: building for million, five million dollars and then cut a

952
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 3: deal with the defaulting tenant to pay off their lease

953
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 3: for a million two fifty, so I paid three million,

954
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,919
Speaker 3: seven fifty. I ended up holding it for a little

955
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 3: while and then converting it it was an office building,

956
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,320
Speaker 3: converting it to a Marriott hotel, which I owned for

957
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 3: twenty years, and it was in an enterprise zone in

958
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 3: downtown DC, so there was no capital gains tax for

959
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 3: first twenty years. I sold it at the end of

960
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:34,240
Speaker 3: the twentieth year for one hundred and thirty million dollars

961
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,399
Speaker 3: and I put all in. I think I had twenty

962
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,880
Speaker 3: million in it, so there's always a way. And then

963
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 3: we made money all along the way too in cash

964
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:44,839
Speaker 3: lit So if you're in the real estate business, it's

965
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,320
Speaker 3: gonna be great buying opportunities. But I think places like

966
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 3: New York, the real estate markets pulled back in New

967
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 3: York and overall in the country. While prices have been holding,

968
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,759
Speaker 3: volume is down for the four straight months, so but

969
00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 3: all markets aren't created equally. So New York there's no reason,

970
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:06,760
Speaker 3: just fundamentally to think about how New York will continue

971
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 3: to hold values right, because now I'll hold it at

972
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 3: the moderate level and at what would be entry level

973
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 3: for luxury in New York, which is a couple million

974
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 3: dollars because it's supply constrained, but going up beyond that,

975
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 3: people are going to be much more interest rates sensitive

976
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 3: because now the cost of a mortgage is double what

977
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 3: it was a year ago. And also less people are

978
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,280
Speaker 3: living here and people are working remotely. So a place

979
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 3: like New York, you'd have to look at certain pockets,

980
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 3: but overall, as a market, it's going to pull back. Miami,

981
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 3: where they can't build a housing quick enough. They can't

982
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 3: build office space. We're doing two buildings in South office

983
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 3: buildings in South Speech because there's not enough office space.

984
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 3: And so for King Griffin's going to have to I

985
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 3: don't know where He's going to have his employees. I

986
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: mean they have to be in an apartment or something.

987
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 3: I mean they'll work remotely because there's no space for them.

988
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 3: So that I mean, so that market is going to

989
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 3: continue to attract Nashville the Sun Belt in general, but

990
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 3: the cities with strong fundamentals, lower taxes, business friendly and

991
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 3: opportunity for growth and quality of life. And so you're

992
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 3: going to see some of those markets. Chicago's in big trouble.

993
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 3: DC on the office market is in terrible shape, and

994
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 3: because people are working remotely, so all markets, it's important

995
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 3: that everybody think about this. Yes, there's a recession, so

996
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 3: now there will be a time period and I think

997
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 3: what's gonna happen. I think we're going to have an

998
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:36,359
Speaker 3: experience very similar to nineteen seventy nine nineteen eighty where

999
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 3: an Opec had an oil embargo against US. Inflation was

1000
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 3: running out of control, and the feed were trying to

1001
00:52:42,360 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 3: control inflation by raising interest rates, and it put us

1002
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 3: into a terrible recession. And then Ronald Reagan came in.

1003
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 3: Is as horrible as he was as a president, it

1004
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 3: was great for business because what he did is immediately

1005
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 3: gave tax cuts and push an interest rays down. So

1006
00:52:56,800 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 3: I think we've got two years of very painful experiences

1007
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 3: to happen in many sectors of our economy, and then

1008
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 3: it'll roll into twenty twenty five you'll start seeing some

1009
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:10,959
Speaker 3: real runs. So the thing to do on real estate

1010
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 3: in place is if you look at real estate as

1011
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 3: a twelve hour clock, which is how I like to

1012
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 3: look at real estate, twelve o'clock being the peak, right,

1013
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:21,279
Speaker 3: then you want to definitely not be a buyer, you know,

1014
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 3: at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, right, because you

1015
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 3: know you're losing money, right, so you want to start

1016
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 3: buying though about four o'clock four thirty, and you want

1017
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 3: to buy all the way up until like seven, eight o'clock,

1018
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 3: nine o'clock because you're making money, but you buy so

1019
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 3: but from twelve to four you're a student of the market,

1020
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 3: and then from nine o'clock ten o'clock, depending on when

1021
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 3: you bought, you're a seller, and if you play it

1022
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:54,239
Speaker 3: that way, then you can always perpetually be in real estate.

1023
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 4: And our company.

1024
00:53:56,280 --> 00:54:00,480
Speaker 3: I focused our company on geographic diversification. That's why we're

1025
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 3: in multiple markets because while New York may not be moving,

1026
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:07,279
Speaker 3: you know, Miami's on fire, so we just do more there.

1027
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 4: Or Charlotte it's on fire.

1028
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 3: So you know, Boston Life Science office market in Boston's struggling,

1029
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 3: but Life Sciences is on fire, big backlocks, so we're

1030
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 3: doing two life Science buildings. I mean, so playing geographic

1031
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 3: product type diversification and being in the real estate business

1032
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,319
Speaker 3: so make money when other people are losing money.

1033
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 4: Happens all the time, a.

1034
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 6: Whole lot of game.

1035
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:35,880
Speaker 7: So can we talk the legacy for a second, because

1036
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 7: your company is first generation, right, Obviously your mom introduced

1037
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:41,759
Speaker 7: you to real estate, but your company, you've started the

1038
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 7: business itself.

1039
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 6: You have two children.

1040
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 7: Obviously your son's in real estate, your daughter, I'm assuming

1041
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 7: hopefully how did you get them involved that they just

1042
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:52,800
Speaker 7: had a natural interest for it because they were watching

1043
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:53,439
Speaker 7: what you were doing.

1044
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,399
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting my son did not want to work

1045
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 3: in the company when he was a teenager, and so forth,

1046
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 3: he's more interested in spending some time with me, and

1047
00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:04,840
Speaker 3: so I kind of we had this kind of interaction

1048
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:07,200
Speaker 3: where he'd spend some time with me as I coached

1049
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 3: him in basketball, but he also spent some time with

1050
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 3: me working, and so he got exposed to the business

1051
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 3: a bit, and I gave him moments. He introduced me

1052
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:20,240
Speaker 3: into groundbreaking ceremony for the bass club condo, for example,

1053
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 3: when he was eight or nine, and I've involved him

1054
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:26,960
Speaker 3: more in the business. So and then he let him

1055
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 3: do his own thing when he went to Columbia, and

1056
00:55:29,239 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 3: then after after a couple of years, decided he took

1057
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 3: an internship. I did a summer internship with us, and

1058
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 3: after working in a couple other places, and then he

1059
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 3: took to the business.

1060
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 4: He got a good aptitude for it.

1061
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 3: And and then he you know, he and I compliment

1062
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 3: each other where similar in some regards were different, but

1063
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 3: it was that it was I gave him the freedom,

1064
00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 3: gave him the freedom, uh, you know.

1065
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 4: To learn.

1066
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 3: He didn't work for me or report to me. He's

1067
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:56,720
Speaker 3: reported to two different people, one the head of development

1068
00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:58,800
Speaker 3: in New York. And then he went to d C

1069
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 3: and was on his own while I was here. So

1070
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 3: more giving him the environment, but also you know, the

1071
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 3: rewards he learned as he matured that he was working

1072
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 3: for himself.

1073
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 4: And uh and so.

1074
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:14,320
Speaker 3: You know, I think that part of that was adding

1075
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 3: And I think I've instilled nothing else. I've instilled in

1076
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:24,760
Speaker 3: our kids a sense of purpose and a sense of purpose,

1077
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 3: not money focused, but a sense of purpose of being

1078
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:32,240
Speaker 3: a transformer to observe and see the wrongs in our society,

1079
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 3: but to not consider themselves spectators, but parts of solutions

1080
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 3: of how to right these wrongs and how to change

1081
00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 3: the course of things. So, you know, so that's kind

1082
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 3: of how I got him in. It's interesting, though, my

1083
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:49,400
Speaker 3: daughter is got more like my personalities, is really stubborn

1084
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:51,440
Speaker 3: and uh and so she's told me, I'm never going

1085
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 3: to work with you. And now she's got a point.

1086
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:59,799
Speaker 3: She's a rising sophomore at TCU, and she's beginning to say, well,

1087
00:56:59,800 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 3: you know, if you if you're gonna, if you give me,

1088
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 3: you know, like some you know, some independence, I could

1089
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:09,800
Speaker 3: maybe work with you. So right, But I but I

1090
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 3: tried to. I called her. I was in uh La

1091
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago. I got in COVID, so

1092
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 3: I was quarantining in La and I was getting our

1093
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 3: company was getting an award for diversity and inclusion here

1094
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:25,720
Speaker 3: in New York City. She was in the city and

1095
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:26,840
Speaker 3: I said, look, I can't go.

1096
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:27,600
Speaker 6: You know.

1097
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 3: I called her the night before and I said, I

1098
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 3: can't go. You know, you have time to go and

1099
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 3: accept the award for me. She said, well, what do

1100
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 3: you mean You're not going to be to go And

1101
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 3: I said no, And I said, Donna Hues in Charlotte

1102
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 3: he can't go, or he's in Boston, one of the

1103
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 3: two and he can't go. So either, I mean, no

1104
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 3: one from our family's going to be to go, and

1105
00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 3: so but maybe you go. Let me think about it.

1106
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 3: So next day she called me up and says, okay,

1107
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 3: I'll do it. I said, okay, well, I'll have some

1108
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 3: remarks written for you and then you can tweak them

1109
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 3: and so forth. So I said remarks for her and anyway,

1110
00:58:01,680 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 3: then she, you know, said okay, I'll do it. And

1111
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 3: then she said, because somebody has to be there to

1112
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:08,280
Speaker 3: accept it, and I said ok and she said you

1113
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 3: should have been here. I said, I'm sick.

1114
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:10,560
Speaker 4: I can't be there.

1115
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 3: And so anyway, she went and took it and accepted

1116
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 3: the award and uh, and then felt good about it,

1117
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 3: felt good about her contributing something and accepting something. And

1118
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 3: she's you know, a big, you know, proponent of of

1119
00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 3: inclusion for women, and so I think that piqued her

1120
00:58:28,720 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 3: interest a little bit. And so and even today I said, look,

1121
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:32,680
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna be able to go, you know, hang

1122
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 3: out with you and watch your horseback ride today, I'm

1123
00:58:34,600 --> 00:58:36,520
Speaker 3: gonna be doing this. And she said, that's very important.

1124
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 3: You should go, and she put some water in a

1125
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 3: selda by the door for me to drink on the ride.

1126
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 6: End.

1127
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 3: So I think ultimately getting them interested in the greater purpose.

1128
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:48,440
Speaker 3: I mean, it's hard to motivate someone especially, I mean

1129
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 3: someone who's had, you know, never had never had to

1130
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:55,800
Speaker 3: worry economically about anything. It's hard to motivate them with money.

1131
00:58:56,120 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 3: So it's more about a sense of purpose. And so

1132
00:58:58,120 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 3: I think Donahue operates from with a sense of purpose,

1133
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 3: and I think Chloe definitely will. If she goes into

1134
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 3: the business or does whatever she does, it will be

1135
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 3: with a sense of purpose. And again I think that

1136
00:59:08,040 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 3: that's the way to be suc truly successful business people,

1137
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:16,120
Speaker 3: to be motivated by a sense of purpose. I mean,

1138
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 3: because at a certain point you'll get to a place

1139
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 3: where you say the money is worth this, I mean yeah,

1140
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 3: and so you'll need something else to propel you and

1141
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 3: give you that purpose.

1142
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:31,800
Speaker 5: So in twenty nineteen, you announced a fund initiated just

1143
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 5: five hundred million dollar fun I believe for minority and

1144
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 5: women developers. So how has that gone? What type of

1145
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 5: projects have been funded with that initiative.

1146
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 3: So I've always I've been very frustrated to see the

1147
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 3: lack of diversity in the development industry and the real

1148
00:59:50,680 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 3: estate industry. Very frustrated, and so I've given a lot

1149
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:59,040
Speaker 3: of thought and research as to why that is the case,

1150
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:03,400
Speaker 3: and I you know, came up with you know, my

1151
01:00:03,560 --> 01:00:08,000
Speaker 3: conclusions were, one, our young people don't get exposed as

1152
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:11,680
Speaker 3: much to real estate and entrepreneurship as they should. And

1153
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 3: so I got lucky. I was exposed to it real

1154
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 3: estate at eight years old.

1155
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 4: But so how do we do that?

1156
01:00:18,440 --> 01:00:20,520
Speaker 3: And so we can do that through exposure early on,

1157
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 3: through you know, putting it in public schools systems. I

1158
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 3: mean to learn about American history, you know, and the

1159
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 3: founding fathers as useless to our young people, as opposed

1160
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,520
Speaker 3: to why not teaching them about how to manage money,

1161
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 3: how to go into business and so forth. I think,

1162
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 3: so exposure to the industry itself, and opportunity for adults

1163
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 3: to get into the industry by having opportunities to work

1164
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:45,200
Speaker 3: in companies and to learn the business. And then the

1165
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:48,720
Speaker 3: other one, and the bigger one, was capital. So every

1166
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 3: black business person I know, and I got to believe

1167
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 3: that there's I mean, I'd be interested to see is

1168
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:58,440
Speaker 3: there one person in this room or anybody in this

1169
01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:01,160
Speaker 3: room who's in the real life state business or any

1170
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 3: kind of business doesn't need any money.

1171
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:08,480
Speaker 4: Speak now, now I'm curious, do you all?

1172
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 3: Does every raise your hand if you have all the

1173
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 3: capital you need to start or grow your business. Now,

1174
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 3: think about that one person in the background, Okay, one person?

1175
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 4: All right?

1176
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 3: So all right, now all the room in here, right,

1177
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:25,880
Speaker 3: So I'm like everybody I know, So why is that

1178
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 3: the case?

1179
01:01:26,320 --> 01:01:27,480
Speaker 4: So I did some research.

1180
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 3: So there is sixty nine trillion dollars, sixty nine trillion

1181
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 3: dollars currently invested in venture capital and private equity, sixty

1182
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:43,000
Speaker 3: nine trillion. Now, Biden spent less than two trillion to

1183
01:01:43,120 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 3: try to save the country for COVID and build back

1184
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 3: from the recession and all that, and sixty nine trillion

1185
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:56,320
Speaker 3: in that two sectors. Now, of that sixty nine trillion,

1186
01:01:56,600 --> 01:02:04,840
Speaker 3: less than one point three percent is invested in firms founded, run,

1187
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 3: or owned by women and people of color combined one

1188
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:17,000
Speaker 3: point three percent. Now give you a little footnote. Last year,

1189
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:21,280
Speaker 3: the one group who started the most small businesses of

1190
01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:26,480
Speaker 3: any category were black women. Thirty percent of all small

1191
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 3: businesses in the United States and twenty twenty one were

1192
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 3: started by black women. Black women get less than two

1193
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 3: tenths of one percent of venture capital or private equity.

1194
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 3: So imagine the unfair advantage majority of the country of

1195
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:50,080
Speaker 3: female The country is becoming more and more diverse, and

1196
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 3: so yet we don't have this kind of access to capital.

1197
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 3: So white men receive ninety eight point seven percent of

1198
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 3: all capitals. Imagine that. Now imagine how unfair that is.

1199
01:03:05,640 --> 01:03:08,320
Speaker 3: And so when you look at that, I said, Okay,

1200
01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 3: well we got to do something about it. So I

1201
01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:13,280
Speaker 3: can do a private equity fund. I've been doing this

1202
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:14,600
Speaker 3: for a long time. So I said, I'm going to

1203
01:03:14,640 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 3: raise a private equity fund, and I'm going to raise

1204
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:22,640
Speaker 3: it for you know, minority developers and women. And so

1205
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:25,320
Speaker 3: initially I was told, one, you can't do that. I

1206
01:03:25,400 --> 01:03:30,120
Speaker 3: got to say it's for emerging developers. And because I

1207
01:03:30,200 --> 01:03:32,440
Speaker 3: can't do it based on race, and I can't do

1208
01:03:32,520 --> 01:03:35,400
Speaker 3: it based on gender, so I said, okay, So I go,

1209
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:38,040
Speaker 3: and I go to these public employee pension systems, like

1210
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 3: say New York City for example.

1211
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:41,000
Speaker 4: Now give you an idea.

1212
01:03:41,320 --> 01:03:45,240
Speaker 3: New York City eighty percent of its workforce is people

1213
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:49,960
Speaker 3: of color the government, and over sixty percent of its

1214
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 3: workforce is female. And yet they have invested less than

1215
01:03:54,440 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 3: three percent of their money in firms run or managed

1216
01:03:59,080 --> 01:04:01,480
Speaker 3: by women and people of color combined.

1217
01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:04,960
Speaker 4: And so I went to them.

1218
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 3: I went to others, and they say, hey, we invest

1219
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:09,520
Speaker 3: in your company, but we think it's too risky to

1220
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:14,560
Speaker 3: invest in you know, minority firms and the small minority firms.

1221
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 3: And so I have been going around trying to raise

1222
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 3: this money. I got the State of California teachers gave

1223
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:26,600
Speaker 3: us a proposal, a term sheet. We've got some proposals

1224
01:04:26,640 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 3: from a couple of different banks. But it's been the

1225
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 3: hardest exercise to raise. I mean, it took me thirty

1226
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 3: five days or so to get the commitments to finance.

1227
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,720
Speaker 3: You know, our building in Tribeca, it was five hundred

1228
01:04:39,720 --> 01:04:43,480
Speaker 3: and forty million. It took less than a month to

1229
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 3: get commitments of three point six billion for Affirmation Tower,

1230
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 3: and I'm like, wait a minute, we're going to this

1231
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:52,000
Speaker 3: is right during, this is George Floyd, the protests, all this,

1232
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:54,720
Speaker 3: everybody's saying they want to do more, and these public

1233
01:04:54,760 --> 01:05:00,560
Speaker 3: employee pension systems would not commit. New York State says

1234
01:05:00,600 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 3: they don't do first time funds. I said, well, we're

1235
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 3: not a first time fund we are. Our company's been

1236
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:08,480
Speaker 3: in business for almost forty years. We've been developing for

1237
01:05:08,600 --> 01:05:11,400
Speaker 3: thirty six years. Yeah, but you haven't been a fiduciary,

1238
01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:16,680
Speaker 3: so we can't do that. So we have yet to

1239
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 3: raise a little, tiny five hundred million dollar fund.

1240
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:20,520
Speaker 4: I just told you all.

1241
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:24,760
Speaker 3: Blackstone raised last month twenty five billion for Opportunistic And

1242
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:29,080
Speaker 3: now the irony is that both the Controller of the

1243
01:05:29,200 --> 01:05:32,400
Speaker 3: City of New York and the Controller of the State

1244
01:05:32,480 --> 01:05:39,280
Speaker 3: of New York, Tom DiNapoli, are elected. And no Democrat

1245
01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 3: can win statewide without winning New York City, and no

1246
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:50,600
Speaker 3: Democrat can win New York City without getting the majority

1247
01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:53,840
Speaker 3: of the black boat. So we need to be more

1248
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 3: educated about how our capitals deployed. And the irony is

1249
01:05:57,080 --> 01:06:03,120
Speaker 3: in New York City. Again of the workforce are people

1250
01:06:03,240 --> 01:06:06,320
Speaker 3: of color, and yet we can't get fair access to

1251
01:06:06,480 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 3: our own money. So the challenge is access to capital.

1252
01:06:09,920 --> 01:06:11,280
Speaker 3: So if all of you all want to be in

1253
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 3: a position where one day you can raise your hand

1254
01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:17,040
Speaker 3: like the woman in Red, you all need to be

1255
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:22,320
Speaker 3: engaged in the political process because it's our money, but

1256
01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:27,320
Speaker 3: yet we can't get access to it, fair access to it.

1257
01:06:27,480 --> 01:06:29,400
Speaker 3: We wouldn't be I wouldn't be making this an issue

1258
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:34,720
Speaker 3: if the sixty nine trillion was deployed reflective of the

1259
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 3: population demographics of our country. But it's unfair to have

1260
01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:45,040
Speaker 3: to compete at such an extreme disadvantage. Now that doesn't

1261
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:47,520
Speaker 3: mean we give up or have an excuse. I don't

1262
01:06:47,600 --> 01:06:50,280
Speaker 3: look at it as an excuse. I didn't expect it

1263
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:53,240
Speaker 3: to be harder. My grandparents told me I was going

1264
01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:55,560
Speaker 3: to have to be twice to three times as good

1265
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,280
Speaker 3: and never expect it to be easy. I would have

1266
01:06:58,360 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 3: hoped by now it would be easy, but it isn't.

1267
01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 3: So my advice is, don't expect it to be easy.

1268
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:11,000
Speaker 3: Keep pushing hard and keep fighting and growing your business

1269
01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:14,560
Speaker 3: and being successful like that. Thirty percent of the black

1270
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 3: women who were starting businesses last year. They didn't give

1271
01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:20,520
Speaker 3: up or quit. They kept going. But at the same hand,

1272
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:26,400
Speaker 3: we cannot ignore this systemic discrimination when it comes to

1273
01:07:26,520 --> 01:07:29,960
Speaker 3: access to capital. Remember what doctor King said during the

1274
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:33,240
Speaker 3: Civil Rights movement? What good does it do the negro

1275
01:07:33,720 --> 01:07:37,200
Speaker 3: to desegregate a lunch counter when they can't afford to

1276
01:07:37,280 --> 01:07:38,200
Speaker 3: buy a Hamburger?

1277
01:07:38,880 --> 01:07:39,000
Speaker 4: Right?

1278
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:45,400
Speaker 3: So there's a capitalistic democracy and we need to be active,

1279
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:51,960
Speaker 3: equal participants in that capitalism. And you all cannot accept

1280
01:07:53,560 --> 01:07:58,320
Speaker 3: this unfairness, and so it's important that you all challenged

1281
01:07:58,400 --> 01:08:02,160
Speaker 3: the system too and demand that these politicians step up,

1282
01:08:02,400 --> 01:08:05,480
Speaker 3: because think about it again, this city, and this is

1283
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:09,120
Speaker 3: majority minority. Why is capital not deployed that way? But

1284
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:11,720
Speaker 3: that's why I'm doing this fun and I'm keep pushing.

1285
01:08:12,040 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 3: And by the way, I committed to putting up ten

1286
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:16,000
Speaker 3: percent of the fund. I'll never forget. I went into

1287
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:18,719
Speaker 3: one meeting with the owner of a big private equity

1288
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 3: fund and we're talking about I said, I'll put up

1289
01:08:22,200 --> 01:08:24,040
Speaker 3: We're raising four hundred and fifty million dollars and I'm

1290
01:08:24,040 --> 01:08:27,960
Speaker 3: gonna put up personally ten percent of it. Now Blackstone

1291
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:30,479
Speaker 3: and they're twenty five billion, is putting up like one

1292
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:33,840
Speaker 3: or two percent. We're and the guys you're putting up

1293
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,639
Speaker 3: ten percent And I said yeah. He said, well, why,

1294
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:38,439
Speaker 3: I said, you think anybody's going to give me any

1295
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:39,920
Speaker 3: money If I don't put up ten percent, They say

1296
01:08:39,960 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 3: you don't have enough alignment of interests. I said, I

1297
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:43,640
Speaker 3: want the fund to be raised, So I'm going to

1298
01:08:43,760 --> 01:08:46,559
Speaker 3: keep pushing. And I don't mean I'm doing it because

1299
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:48,760
Speaker 3: I know because of all of you all who didn't

1300
01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:51,599
Speaker 3: raise your hand, I know the challenges that you're having,

1301
01:08:52,080 --> 01:08:54,160
Speaker 3: and that's why I'm going to keep trying to do it.

1302
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:56,600
Speaker 3: And if I fail, I'm going to keep trying and

1303
01:08:56,680 --> 01:08:59,160
Speaker 3: keep trying and raising This is an issue. And what

1304
01:08:59,280 --> 01:09:01,400
Speaker 3: I really would like if I could ask anything from

1305
01:09:01,439 --> 01:09:03,240
Speaker 3: you all, it's for you all to start raising this

1306
01:09:03,280 --> 01:09:05,919
Speaker 3: as an issue. It's just not fair and you shouldn't

1307
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:10,519
Speaker 3: accept it. And imagine. Let's imagine the world in a

1308
01:09:10,640 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 3: place where out of that sixty nine trillion dollars, thirteen percent,

1309
01:09:15,360 --> 01:09:18,920
Speaker 3: which is our population demographic in the United States, went

1310
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:26,480
Speaker 3: to black businesses, so that would be eight trillion dollars.

1311
01:09:28,439 --> 01:09:32,400
Speaker 3: We'd all have our hands up right. So I need

1312
01:09:32,520 --> 01:09:35,439
Speaker 3: you all to realize that this is the frontier that

1313
01:09:35,520 --> 01:09:38,040
Speaker 3: you're going to have to keep confronting. But you're not

1314
01:09:38,240 --> 01:09:42,200
Speaker 3: getting the capital because your ideas aren't as good. You're

1315
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:46,040
Speaker 3: not getting the capital because you're not capable. You're getting

1316
01:09:46,080 --> 01:09:49,800
Speaker 3: the capital because the way it's deployed is systemically discriminatory.

1317
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 3: Because what these pension funds do is they don't they

1318
01:09:53,280 --> 01:09:56,679
Speaker 3: don't deal directly with us. They deal with Blackstone, black Rock,

1319
01:09:56,760 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 3: gold Ma, Sachs and others, and they deploy capital and

1320
01:10:01,160 --> 01:10:03,519
Speaker 3: human and capitals deployed by human beings.

1321
01:10:03,640 --> 01:10:04,040
Speaker 4: Companies.

1322
01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:08,559
Speaker 3: Companies execute their plans by human beings, and those human

1323
01:10:08,600 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 3: beings bring their own perspective, and if they look at

1324
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:14,680
Speaker 3: you philanthropically, then you're not gonna get anything unless they

1325
01:10:14,680 --> 01:10:15,320
Speaker 3: want to give it to you.

1326
01:10:17,680 --> 01:10:18,680
Speaker 4: So before.

1327
01:10:21,240 --> 01:10:23,000
Speaker 5: Before we wrap, I just want to I want to

1328
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:25,240
Speaker 5: ask a question that I'm sure a lot of people

1329
01:10:25,280 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 5: are asking, so I'll ask for you. There's probably a

1330
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 5: lot of emerging developers here. How can they work with you?

1331
01:10:33,520 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 4: Well, anyway?

1332
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:36,760
Speaker 3: First of all, anyone can reach out to us and

1333
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:39,960
Speaker 3: I and we will try to connect you with someplace

1334
01:10:40,040 --> 01:10:45,640
Speaker 3: to have capital. But ultimately the emerging developers all need

1335
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:50,880
Speaker 3: to demand to write the controller, to write the newspapers

1336
01:10:51,080 --> 01:10:55,000
Speaker 3: to do op ed pieces, to write to your politicians,

1337
01:10:55,160 --> 01:10:58,439
Speaker 3: to call them. You want fair access to capital, because

1338
01:10:58,439 --> 01:11:01,559
Speaker 3: that's really what this is all about, and we are

1339
01:11:01,760 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 3: never going to make the great progress.

1340
01:11:04,360 --> 01:11:05,280
Speaker 4: They'll be an outlier.

1341
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:08,320
Speaker 3: They'll be a Robert Smith, they'll be my friend Tracy

1342
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:12,520
Speaker 3: Maitland or Byron Allen or me or somebody will be outliers.

1343
01:11:12,600 --> 01:11:12,760
Speaker 4: Right.

1344
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:17,679
Speaker 3: But that's because we found that little kind of crack

1345
01:11:17,760 --> 01:11:19,760
Speaker 3: in the wall that no one could see and we

1346
01:11:19,920 --> 01:11:23,519
Speaker 3: just by luck happened to hit it. And so but

1347
01:11:23,720 --> 01:11:27,800
Speaker 3: in terms of having a meritocracy, that means that we

1348
01:11:27,880 --> 01:11:29,439
Speaker 3: got to open up the door as a capitol, and

1349
01:11:29,600 --> 01:11:31,439
Speaker 3: you all can't have to do I cannot do it

1350
01:11:31,520 --> 01:11:33,840
Speaker 3: by myself. I can raise the issues, and I promise

1351
01:11:33,920 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 3: you I raise it every time I have a conversation

1352
01:11:37,640 --> 01:11:40,920
Speaker 3: in the media or in environments like this, but you

1353
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:45,040
Speaker 3: all have to be the change agents. You guys cannot

1354
01:11:45,120 --> 01:11:46,200
Speaker 3: accept this anymore.

1355
01:11:54,280 --> 01:11:57,719
Speaker 6: Well, we thank you. This has been incredible. I'm impressed

1356
01:11:57,760 --> 01:12:00,559
Speaker 6: by your memory, the way you're running the numbers off.

1357
01:12:00,560 --> 01:12:01,960
Speaker 7: I'm trying to do the math in my head like

1358
01:12:02,640 --> 01:12:05,080
Speaker 7: then this is from twenty thirty forty years So thank

1359
01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:07,400
Speaker 7: you for all the knowledge thank you for everybody that's

1360
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:09,840
Speaker 7: been here that got to receive this knowledge, and thank

1361
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:10,639
Speaker 7: you for all your.

1362
01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:12,600
Speaker 6: Work that she's done for our community, and we'll continue to.

1363
01:12:12,760 --> 01:12:15,360
Speaker 6: We appreciate you all hardly my pleasure, appreciate it.

1364
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:23,000
Speaker 1: My graduates from my school being forced back drop bag

1365
01:12:23,160 --> 01:12:26,519
Speaker 1: drop Mike drop back drop dropt.

1366
01:12:36,960 --> 01:12:40,599
Speaker 8: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child

1367
01:12:40,680 --> 01:12:44,440
Speaker 8: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador

1368
01:12:44,720 --> 01:12:48,800
Speaker 8: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with

1369
01:12:48,920 --> 01:12:52,760
Speaker 8: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just

1370
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:56,639
Speaker 8: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President

1371
01:12:56,720 --> 01:13:00,200
Speaker 8: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine Noman, the United State

1372
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:05,080
Speaker 8: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border

1373
01:13:05,120 --> 01:13:08,639
Speaker 8: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over

1374
01:13:08,760 --> 01:13:11,920
Speaker 8: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you

1375
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:15,840
Speaker 8: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly

1376
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:19,920
Speaker 8: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will

1377
01:13:20,040 --> 01:13:23,639
Speaker 8: never return. But if you register using our CBP home

1378
01:13:23,720 --> 01:13:27,040
Speaker 8: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.

1379
01:13:27,479 --> 01:13:32,120
Speaker 8: Do what's right leave Now. Under President Trump, America's laws,

1380
01:13:32,400 --> 01:13:34,799
Speaker 8: border and families will be protected.

1381
01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:37,000
Speaker 4: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,