Episode 332: 09-03-15
On this week’s show discuss how to save money through green energy, how a CCIM deisgnation helped Adriana Rosillo build her business, and Jim shares his thoughts on retail following the ICSC Florida Conference 2015.
Green Energy and the Bottom Line
Don Weidenfeld, Managing Member at Magnum Energy Solutions, explains how to save up to 40% on your commercial real estate operating expenses and take that right to the bottom line.
Julio Gonzalez is CEO of Engineered Tax Services, one of the only qualified professional engineering firms that has a staff comprised of its own licensed engineers, to include LEED Accredited Professionals, and tax experts ranging from CPAs to a former senior IRS executive.
We discuss how to modify your building to save money and pay for it through green energy tax credits.
Benefits Of A CCIM
Our CCIM Voice this week is Adriana Rosillo, CCIM, Senior Vice President at Colliers International. Rosillo is an expert in both landlord and tenant representation. This gives her a balanced view on how both sides view the transaction.
We discuss why she got her CCIM designation and how it has helped her build her business. We also get an update on the Miami office market.
ICSC Florida Conference 2015
Jim was at the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) Florida Conference 2015 in Orlando this week. Hear his thoughts on where the industry is today and where it is heading tomorrow.
Episode 332: 09-03-15 (To download, right-click and select “Save Link As”.
Transcription:
Jim Fried: Let’s get right to it. We’ve got a great show today, lots of real estate the whole show. We’ve got our CCIM voice and this is somebody who is made for TV but we’ve got around radio, AJ Rosillo. We’re going to talk about how the CCIM helped her build her business. She’s also an expert in office leasing. We’re going to talk about some tips she has for landlords and tenants with the office market heating up. We’re also going to talk about how you can save money by going green with our new sponsors Magnum Energy Solutions and Engineered Tax Services and then I’m going to bring up the final segment of the show and talk to everybody about what I learned about the retail industry at the ICSC Orlando Conference. We’re going to go out. D is going to take it away. We’ll be right back with AJ. Take it away, D.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We are back and we are rolling with the CCIM voice and I know somebody wants to welcome AJ to the show.
Frank Rodriguez: Hey, good afternoon, AJ. It is Frank Rodriguez Melo calling in and welcoming you to Jim’s show. We know that Adriana is very active in our group with the charity’s committee and we hope to hear a lot from you today.
Adriana Rosillo: Great. Thank you Mr. President.
Jim Fried: Alright, Frank, thanks so much. AJ, you’re a CCIM. Why?
Adriana Rosillo: Why?
Jim Fried: Yeah, why did you become a CCIM?
Adriana Rosillo: I got hired by Jack Lowell and I had to keep up with him. So to speed up and fast track I took CCIM.
Jim Fried: Okay. So your background was what?
Adriana Rosillo: Engineering.
Jim Fried: So you knew numbers but there was a component missing. What did CCIM help you learn that being an engineer didn’t teach you?
Adriana Rosillo: The money lingo, the investment lingo, the useful decision lingo that comes together when you’re sitting on the negotiation table.
Jim Fried: So you learned the language of real estate then?
Adriana Rosillo: Correct.
Jim Fried: That’s great. And what other things do you get from the CCIMs that you meet with and do business with on a daily basis?
Adriana Rosillo: We get a lot of tools, technology, software for financial analysis, for research analysis so it is very good toolbox that I can have when I’m talking to my clients and working for my clients to save the money.
Jim Fried: Okay, that brings me to my next question: what is it that you do specifically in the commercial real estate world and how do you save your clients’ money?
Adriana Rosillo: Well, I work very hard so that they get a very pleasant environment where they can work and stress-free, being productive so that way they grow and they increase their money and the revenue.
Jim Fried: So you get them to have a great environment and I guess that because you’re out there all the time you help them get a good deal too?
Adriana Rosillo: Of course, yes.
Jim Fried: So then, what do you see today as far as a couple of trends here in South Florida in the office market?
Adriana Rosillo: The office market has been a very healthy market for the last two years. And it’s actually turning into a landlord’s market so for the companies, for the tenants, I would say ”Do your deals now because the sales are coming off the shelves, basically”.
Jim Fried: So now is a good time for landlords which means that somebody really needs to negotiate against them. I guess it’s kind of where you come in because you’ve also worked with landlords, you kind of see both sides.
Adriana Rosillo: Correct. So we understand – you would call it – the psychology and what the landlords are looking for and making a win-win situation for both and being able to get the client where they are looking for.
Jim Fried: Office is strong. What do you see in other market segments too? Do you have other thoughts on, say, retail or any of the other components?
Adriana Rosillo: I know that a very healthy market here in South Florida is the industrial market. I mean, vacancies over there are just in the single day there which makes it very hard.
Jim Fried: Would you be able to wrap a tenant into an industrial space also?
Adriana Rosillo: Actually thank you for asking. A little portion of my business, mostly I do office but I also do a little percentage, I would say 10-15% of my business is sold to industrial users.
Jim Fried: So then your clients really are small business people here in town?
Adriana Rosillo: On average, we’ll say is 5,000, maybe a little..
Jim Fried: That’s not so small.
Adriana Rosillo: No.
Jim Fried: That’s pretty big. What kind of clients do you have? Accountants, attorneys?
Adriana Rosillo: All of the above. Professional services, corporations, national corporations too. We have represented, truly we just finished an 85,000 square foot transaction here.
Jim Fried: It’s huge.
Adriana Rosillo: So I’m very happy. I can’t announce who it is.
Jim Fried: So your CCIM toolkit helps you do this then?
Adriana Rosillo: Absolutely. And actually because of this sales activity as you probably know, Jim, it’s being very active here in South Florida. We were able to participate last year in a very good Coral Gables there was sale of the Mercantile Bank Center and we were able to assist on that transaction and I have to say a CCIM helped me a lot with all tools that we have in our hands.
Jim Fried: It sounds to me like the CCIM was very accretive to the process for you, it helped you get involved, helped you get a peer group, guide people that you could talk with, a great way to get you comfortable it seems.
Adriana Rosillo: Correct. I also, like I mentioned to you before, I have a great team, I had Jack Lowell and Wayne Schutts as part of the team gear.
Jim Fried: Oh, you got Wayne? He’s the best. Jack ain’t bad either.
Adriana Rosillo: Yes. I’ve been blessed to work with those two and they’re very sincere people and definitely a wealth of knowledge and having the CCIM help me to keep my wait.
Jim Fried: What is it that you see coming up in the future that you would tell your client to help them prepare to enter the office leasing market?
Adriana Rosillo: From the tenant perspective, I mentioned make sure you get you deals done right now. From the owner side, I think it’s a great time to sell and there is a lot of appetite for investors here in South Florida.
Jim Fried: Going forward, do you expect to see additional office buildings being build because the office market is tightening like this?
Adriana Rosillo: We hope so. Within the next five years certainly because vacancies are already going down so the demand starts getting there and the prices are starting to get very tight and high so therefore, absolutely in the next five years I expect that they’re going to start hopefully putting something in the ground.
Jim Fried: Frank talked about the fact that you worked on their charity’s committee here locally. Is that true?
Adriana Rosillo: Yes.
Jim Fried: Tell me a little bit about what CCIM does with its charities. Because I think that’s an important point to bring out.
Adriana Rosillo: We like to contribute to the community and we selected three charities last year so that we could be very active, involved with what they do or at least support and bring awareness about each of these charities.
Jim Fried: Which three?
Adriana Rosillo: With the Easter Seals.
Jim Fried: Beautiful.
Adriana Rosillo: With Habitat.
Jim Fried: For Humanity?
Adriana Rosillo: Yes. And..
Frank Rodriguez: The Children’s.
Adriana Rosillo: And The Children’s.
Jim Fried: Frank, you’re still hanging out back there, you little snurky, sneaky you?
Frank Rodriguez: Absolutely, always.
Adriana Rosillo: Thank you.
Jim Fried: You’re the man.
Frank Rodriguez: Absolutely. Charity is very important and we are actually revolving every year on those different initiatives so there’s always an opportunity for others. The CCIM is not only necessarily of the business side but also that we as professionals support those individual charities.
Jim Fried: Well, I got to think that it’s important to everybody to give back and creates a positive environment and allows your team members to network in a positive environment. Yes, Frank?
Frank Rodriguez: That’s correct.
Jim Fried: Okay. AJ, what do think about coming up next year? What do you think you’re going to get involved with as a committee next year?
Adriana Rosillo: I think that we’ll continue with the charities.
Jim Fried: Oh yeah? You like that? You’re going to switch some next year?
Adriana Rosillo: Maybe. If Frank talks me into..
Jim Fried: Oh, Frank, you got it under control in this organization, man.
Frank Rodriguez: Actually, we have, normally they are selected right around the end of the year and it’s a collaborative effort honestly. It’s not just myself. Britt’s our incoming presidents so they will be changes in the air coming soon. We’re always looking for other organizations to help.
Jim Fried: Frank, how do you raise the money that you donate? Do you have a fund raising event of something like that?
Frank Rodriguez: We actually, from my members subdues and from our outlook conference that comes up in January and from different organizations that are sponsors like TotalBank. It’s our great sponsor right now this year and we have basically funds that we can support. We have educational events and those educational events the surplus funds are used for sponsorships of this type in the charity side and also we do educational scholarships for students and people professionals that want to become CCIMs. Right now our district has five scholarships instead of one. And John Leonardo leads that effort in his committee. He’s the chair for it. At the end of the day we’re non-profit and we use the funds that we raise back into the community.
Jim Fried: Frank, that’s great. We’ve got a minute left. I want to go back to AJ. Is that okay?
Frank Rodriguez: Absolutely.
Jim Fried: I love you, Frank. You’re the best. Offline we’re going to talk about the great things we’re going to do. AJ, we’ve only got a minute left, if somebody wants to work with you, Jack Lowell, Wayne Schutts, how do they find you because I want you to get the commission?
Adriana Rosillo: Thank you. You’re my kind of broker.
Jim Fried: That I am. I always recognize the procuring cause.
Adriana Rosillo: My best way to contact me could be my cell phone 305 310 4271 or by email adriana.rosillo@colliers.com.
Jim Fried: Oh my God. You are just absolutely amazing. Frank, are you still out there? Frank dropped off. Okay, that’s because we gave you the end of the show.
Frank Rodriguez: I was just muting.
Jim Fried: Oh, there you go. He’s back. AJ, I want to thank you so much for coming, being the CCIM voice today. I tell you, Frank, I don’t know where you get these folks. Each one every week is better than the last. I’m looking forward so much to doing deals with all of them.
Frank Rodriguez: Thank you so much.
Adriana Rosillo: Thank you Jim. It’s been a pleasure to be here with you.
Jim Fried: AJ, I wish that we could broadcast that smile over the airwaves. Listen, Frank. Thanks. We’re looking forward to next month’s voice. D, I’m going to give it to you, you’re going to take it away and when we come back we’re going to talk making green with green energy, with Magnum Energy Solutions and Engineered Tax Services and I bet you we’ll even get a little charity talk in there too because I know those guys like to give back too. D, it is all yours!
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We are back and we are rocking. We have got live from Pro Payers stadium. It’s still Pro Players stadium, right? I think so.
Don Weidenfeld: Yes, we are, Sun Life stadium.
Jim Fried: Pro Player? Land Shark?
Don Weidenfeld: No, it’s Sun Life.
Jim Fried: Sun Life? Don, thank you for saving my bacon. Don Weidenfeld live from the biggest suite at Sun Life stadium, Don Weidenfeld and Julio Gonzalez. Guys, I got to say it this way: Welcome back to the show. Donny?
Don Weidenfeld: I’m sorry, the loudspeakers were speaking at the stadium. Go ahead, Jim.
Jim Fried: Don, welcome back to the show. Can we hear him, D? Can you boost him at all? Okay. Maybe you guys can go back in a hallway behind the booth. But anyway, Don, I want to thank you for being back on the show. Tell us a little bit about Magnum if you will. Hello?
Don Weidenfeld: Yes, go ahead.
Jim Fried: Okay. We’re going to start again. Don, welcome to the show. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about Magnum?
Don Weidenfeld: Thank you very much for having us in the show today. We appreciate that we are live from Sun Life stadium. Magnum is an energy management company. We specialize in wireless and batteryless control for your real estate property. That being said, the controls are, we generally say between 25 and 40% of your energy consumption and how that happens is we use occupancy sensors that take the body temperature of the occupants when they walk in the room and turn the air conditioning on and when the occupant leaves the room, it reduces the air conditioning temperature, so therefore reducing the amount of energy usage.
Jim Fried: Okay. So, you guys then basically help somebody save money on their electric bill. How does Julio get involved?
Don Weidenfeld: Julio’s company actually handles paying-for-hour products and let me put Julio on and he can speak to that point.
Julio Gonzalez: Yeah, it really is a great combination because the federal tax credits available to be energy efficient are quite substantial on the fact that his product is local high value, the credit offset is installation costs and product costs so basically, to go energy efficient with this product is doing so that the federal credit is not coming out of pocket.
Jim Fried: So basically, what you guys are telling me is that Don can come, he can install an electrical system, he helps me reduce my energy and then you come in, you audit the thing and I get a tax break that basically helps me pay for part or all of the thing?
Julio Gonzalez: A 100% typically. I’ll give you an example. For instance, in our building, we have a 10,000 square foot building, Don came in and did about a $20,000 installation and we ended up getting a tax credit just above that. So, basically, the installation was for free and now we’re saving about 40% on our energy per month and able to do it in real time to make sure that our tenants are turning off the lights and I’m turning off the HVAC system, the things that we couldn’t control and things that we couldn’t afford under different energy systems prior to this technology which is affordable.
Jim Fried: Wow. That just sounds like something every building in the country should have. Is there a specific property type or this works better or is this something that works on all of them, Julio?
Julio Gonzalez: Yes. I think it probably works great for every property owner because we have to remember that when you reduce your costs and we reduce our costs by 40%, that goes to the bottom line and it’s the value of our buildings are dictated on the income. So, it’s substantial. And without the product we can’t control what the employees or the tenants do. You can imagine any property that has a lot of different spaces like hotels, student housing, things like that, it’s going to be amazing because every little space has an opportunity for energy waste in such that they extend that, he can go in, increase the that energy efficiency per space. Obviously, it’s very valuable.
Jim Fried: We talked about business, and we’ll get back to that in a minute but I know that there’s a lot of things besides business that are important to you, Julio. Who do you have in a booth there with you today?
Julio Gonzalez: We’re so fortunate to have Nelson here with us from the Voices For Children Foundation and it’s amazing program and we’re going to put him on right now just to give a little overview of what he does.
Jim Fried: Great. Nelson?
Nelson Hincapie: Good afternoon. Thank you.
Jim Fried: Hi, Nelson. My name is Jim Fried. You’re on the air here on 880 AM thanks to Julio and Don. We’d like to hear a little bit about your charity. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about – it’s Voices for Children, right?
Nelson Hincapie: That’s right.
Jim Fried: Beautiful.
Nelson Hincapie: We are a fund raising organization for the Guardian Ad Litem program and they represent the volunteers from the community who represent children who have been removed from their homes.
Jim Fried: My mom was a Guardian ad Litem for years here in Miami Dade County.
Nelson Hincapie: That’s right. We are, so whenever they need uniforms or anything else, we come in and provide for them.
Jim Fried: That’s absolutely super. How many children are you able to help at any particular time, Nelson?
Nelson Hincapie: There are 3,800 children in foster care right now in Miami Dade County.
Jim Fried: It’s just in Miami Dade County? 3,800?
Nelson Hincapie: Just in Miami Dade County. 3800. Statewide there are about 30,000, nationwide 500,000.
Jim Fried: My heart is breaking.
Nelson Hincapie: Yeah. It’s staggering and the good thing is, not only is Julio and Don great business people in the community but there are so involved that we’re here with three kids from foster care who have never been to the stadium, have never seen a football game and are right now watching the players on the field practice.
Jim Fried: Are they anywhere near you? Nelson, are they anywhere near you? Are they anywhere physically near you? We’re going to go to a break in a couple of minutes. Maybe you can put one of them on and we can ask them if they’re having fun? You think they’d like that?
Nelson Hincapie: They’re on the field.
Jim Fried: They’re on the filed? Wow, are you a big shot! How do I get to be friends with you?
Nelson Hincapie: We’re up here.
Jim Fried: Wow. I guess in that case they might be bigger thrill on that. Nelson, how do people get more information, internet, phone number? And go slow because Jets fans sometimes listen to the show. You got to go slow for them.
Nelson Hincapie: www.beavoice.org
Jim Fried: Say again, be a voice?
Nelson Hincapie: beavoice.org.
Jim Fried: That’s beautiful. We’ve got another minute left. Nelson, why don’t you tell me another, have you taken the kids to another event here with Julio or done anything else with Julio? Are they loving running around that stadium with Julio?
Nelson Hincapie: They will be running around the stadium with Julio hopefully. He’s going to have to take off his suit and his tie.
Jim Fried: He’s always with Mr. Feeno, he’s always the most beautifully refined guy in the thing. You got to make sure you guys hit us on Facebook. Make sure Julio sends us his Facebook. Why do we do this? We’re going to go to a break and then we’re going to come right back after break. And we’ll do more from the stadium with Julio and Don talking about keeping in green and making green and we’ll do some really good things for the kids also. We’ll be right back after this short break. Nelson, you’re the best. There is nobody else I’m interviewing today that I wanted to talk to more than you Nelson. High five!
Nelson Hincapie: Thank you.
Jim Fried: God bless. We’ll be back after this with more Julio and Don from the stadium. D, it’s all yours.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We are back. I feel nice like sugar and spice and that’s always my clue to go back to the guest. Don, are you there?
Don Weidenfeld: Yes, we’re here, Jim.
Jim Fried: Awesome. Tell me a little bit about how you and Julio do business, how it saves me money. Do you have a witness up there?
Don Weidenfeld: We actually do. We have the CEO of the Family Office Network here, Andrew Schneider and his clients are large family offices that own billions of dollars of real estate around the country. So let me put Andrew on the phone and he can let you know how it all works.
Jim Fried: Awesome. Sounds great. Andrew?
Andrew Schneider: Hi, Jim. Thanks.
Jim Fried: Thanks for joining us on the show.
Andrew Schneider: You bet.
Jim Fried: Tell me a little bit about how Don and Julio’s technology and tax work help your clients save money.
Andrew Schneider: Absolutely. First, to just give a quick background. Family Offices are the largest or wealthiest families throughout the country and throughout the world and typically are the largest real estate owners. So as that being said, there’s tremendous amount of cost saving that comes from using Don’s service and a lot of that is paid through companies like Julio’s that specialize in the engineered tax services which is a great combination that fuse firms together. You’re getting savings and just tremendous benefits.
Jim Fried: Also I think that they give great service too from what I’ve understood. How do your clients feel once they’re done dealing with Don and Julio in the process?
Andrew Schenider: Not only they’ve been satisfied that they’ve been also referring some of their own relationships. I think that says a lot.
Jim Fried: It sure does. Tell me a little bit about the Family Office Network while I got you on the phone.
Andrew Schneider: Absolutely. Family Office Network is the largest community for family offices. We have about 13,000 members and over 3000 family offices and our goal is to educate wealthy families from everything from investment opportunities to estate planning to preservation of wealth management or capital and other we’ll say professional services. And that can range from charities to estate planning to energy management etc.
Jim Fried: Andrew, I’m not up there so I’m going to ask you: Are the kids having a good time?
Andrew Schneider: The kids are having a great time. I’m watching this from their eyes and they are like kids in the candy store. It’s a great experience. I wish I was..
Jim Fried: You wish you were a kid again? Listen, just one more question I got for you. It seems to me that you do a lot of work with the family offices, you’re up there with Don and Julio. They both have their own family offices too. This family office thing, it seems like it’s going to stay here for a while.
Andrew Schneider: You bet. I believe we’re in the first or second inning of a doubleheader. Family offices have really evolved and they continue to grow and grow.
Jim Fried: I got to ask you if we can have you once sometime in the future. Maybe when you’re going to come down here during November. We can get you over here and really get you on and drill down deep on family offices.
Andrew Schneider: Absolutely, you bet. It’d be my pleasure.
Jim Fried: That’d be great, Andrew. Now the guys over there, I want to give a little bit more time to the guys.
Andrew Schneider: Absolutely.
Jim Fried: Thank you for coming on, Andrew. I really appreciate it. The president of the Family Office Network, Andrew Schneider. Don, is that you or do we got Julio again?
Don Weidenfeld: We’re both right next to each other here. You can have either one of us.
Jim Fried: That’s the statement I thought I’d never hear. So you’re also there. You got Ashley Rouese. Who’s that?
Don Weidenfeld: She’s with the kids charity as well. She’s not in the room right now, she actually took the kids down onto the field.
Jim Fried: So she’s the lucky dog? Let’s put Julio on, I want to talk to Julio about what it’s like to be an NFL owner. Get that guy on the phone.
Don Weidenfeld: Okay. Hold on one sec. Here he comes.
Julio Gonzalez: Generally, I’m trying to be a suite owner and enjoy the experience here. Now we need more people up here.
Jim Fried: Pardon me now? You need more people where? Up in your suite or out on the stance.
Julio Gonzalez: We need more people on the stance.
Jim Fried: Oh, come on, Julio. It’s the forth exhibition game. I guarantee you that you won’t see a sliver of aqua on the 27th September.
Julio Gonzalez: Yeah. I think the stadium is filled out and it’s very exciting.
Jim Fried: It is exciting. Now I want to go back to you, what made you pick the charity that you’re working with? How did you select the Voices for Children as the charity that you wanted to entertain tonight?
Julio Gonzalez: I think for us it’s all about the children. We definitely have different children throughout the season but certainly it’s just a passion for us to see the games with children, through their eyes. I mean, it’s so rewarding.
Jim Fried: Now, I’ve been up in the suite, I know it’s a great experience. Do you and Don find it as a good way to develop business?
Julio Gonzalez: I think it’s the best way to develop business. I think the people, they come here from all over the country and it’s phenomenal. I think more businesses should take advantage of the opportunity to bring clients here and entertain them and use this way to develop business.
Jim Fried: I love using the suites to develop business because it’s very difficult to find a time when you can get together and build a relationship with somebody around the event that you’ll never forget. It’s really one of the top ways to do that. Now, from your vantage point you can see pretty much the whole stadium and I know you’ve walked around and checked out all the improvements. What’s your favorite improvement that the team has made?
Julio Gonzalez: I think their improvements are: 1 – the seats from our beautiful red. We have the aqua green seats up in the stadium, we have a lot of different venues from the stadium where football can include technology and watching a game so there’s amazing locations throughout the stadium that use technology. It’s just amazing. Everyone should come out and hopefully we are guests sometime.
Jim Fried: I’m sure they’re all going to want to take you up on that but I wouldn’t give up that phone number because you’ve got great seats now. I want to say something here. You guys came up today. I was at the South Florida business journal retail round table giving my expert opinion. And there were two people there from Goldstein Schechter Koch. We know them as GSK. I went up to them and said ”Hey, do you guys do cost segregation?”. Julio, you know what they told me?
Julio Gonzalez: That I’m their provider.
Jim Fried: High five to you Julio! The world is getting smaller. I was just cracking up. This is one of the biggest CPA firms in town and they’re recommending their clients to you. Why?
Julio Gonzalez: We have a great relationship with them for a decade or so and it’s just for us a great relationship over the years. I just wanted to say one special thing real quick. One of the children that’s here from up on the stadium, can we just..
Jim Fried: Oh yeah, that’s what I asked them to do that before. We’ve got a minute left. I want to talk to the young person.
Julio Gonzalez: Alright. Here he goes.
Kid: Hello?
Jim Fried: Hi, you’re on with Jim Fried. We’re live on 880 AM with the Julio Gonzalez segment here. So you were down on the field. Tell me what it was like.
Kid: It was fun.
Jim Fried: Okay. Are you getting ready to have a hot-dog or did you have one already?
Kid: I didn’t have one yet. I had the wings.
Jim Fried: Oh yeah, you had the wings? How were they?
Kid: They were good.
Jim Fried: Well you better get off the phone before they eat all the hot-dogs, man.
Kid: Alright.
Jim Fried: Listen. I want to hear what you think about Mr. Gonzalez. What do you think about Mr. Gonzalez?
Kid: He’s a nice person.
Jim Fried: Alright. Put him back on the phone so we can thank him, alright?
Kid: Okay.
Jim Fried: Alright. Thanks so much.
Julio Gonzalez: That’s wonderful.
Jim Fried: Julio, we’re smiling. You bring great information and you bring tax savings but you just brought something that nobody else could bring. Happiness.
Julio Gonzalez: It’s all about happiness. That was wonderful. I have them on the field and I have them on the radio.
Jim Fried: You’re the greatest. I can’t wait to come see you and give you a hug. I want to thank you and Don for joining our team of sponsors. I want to thank you for putting Andrew on to talk about the family offices and everybody to talk about the charity. This is one of the most uplifting segments we’ve had in a long time and I can’t wait to do more charity work and more good informational stuff with you and Don. Thank you again for coming on the show, joining our team and helping us get the good word out.
Julio Gonzalez: We appreciate that.
Jim Fried: Alright. We’ll be back after this short break. I want to talk about what I found out at the ICSC show in Orlando. We’re going to talk about shopping centers. Back after this!
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Jim Fried: We’re back. I was at the International Council of Shopping Centers in Orlando. It’s an annual event. I’ve been going for 30 years. It’s been great, I watched it grow. We’re on our third venue. Grand Cypress to the Gaylord and now the convention center, my gosh! It gets bigger every year. There is a difference though this year. A lot of my friends aren’t going anymore as the crowd gets younger. That’s the truth. The crowd is getting younger. You need to be young to do that leasing and the office-based stuff but there are a lot of senior principals that are there and I go and talk to them all. They’re all my friends and we catch up and we talk about the retail developing business. And let’s talk about what’s changed. What’s changed is publics is in buildings, so many stores. Now the big dog is Walmart. And you got all kinds of Walmart. Super centers, grocery stores, we do a lot of them at our shop, we buy them, we sell them, we finance them, we give them preferred equity, we’re the Walmart experts. And it’s a good thing. We also do a bunch of financing for some of the other big box retailers that are expanding like Ross. You got to find a good location, a good developer, get the right tenants and you are going to go to town because retail is hot if it’s done right. But some of the centers, they’re going to lose some tenants to the internet. So you got that big long vacancy that is going to start happening in the big centers in Broward County. They go ”What do you do there?”, I say ”Town homes, buddy”. Those are great real estate locations for residential or also medical office.
And what we’re going to see more and more is this traffic gets worse, people aren’t going to drive seven or ten miles away to go to some place. They’re going to stay right there in their little vertically integrated neighborhood. And so you’re seeing more of that, you’re seeing different stores come around. That’s why Walmart is doing smaller stores so they can get into those neighborhoods. And what’s going to happen? I can guarantee you one thing. I’ll tell you what’s good to decide this: the people with capital and the people with demand. Because when the demand meets the capital, that’s when it gets built. It doesn’t matter the product type. Right now it’s retail. And Dade County? The Broward County? And Palm Beach County? The lesser the creep under retail, it’s going to be more and more retail. But you’re going to see fewer mom and pops. Mom and pops today are like salt and pepper. They just used to spice up these real estate deals a little bit. You liked that? Did you? I got the audience today AJ stuck around. So yeah, it’s like salt and pepper, it spices up the real estate deals. Maybe a little garlic and salt on occasion. And so that’s what’s going on. You’re seeing all these new development notes coming in. Delray Downtown, Delray Atlantic did some deals up there back in the day and are going to do some more. But I’ve been going there for 20 or 30 years and you wouldn’t recognize the place. Mom and pop are being driven off Atlantic Avenue going up to the Pineapple deal up there just a little bit north because they just can’t afford the on-street lends anymore. And they got to go to the side streets. But if you’re a local tenant with a local following people will find you. If you got good service and a good product. So other things are changing in the nature of the jobs of these retailers because I’ll tell you, it used to be that a person that was the most important person was the greeting person that came up and met you. No more.
Now the most important person is the one that gets your stuff out of the truck, the person that’s delivering what you order on the internet. And all by the way, I take my iPad in. I can shop on the iPad while I’m walking through the store. Must be turning these people’s eyeballs red seeing that with anger. They must not be too happy. D, how much time do I have? I’m ratting and rolling here. Alright, I got a lot of time left.
What’s another thing that’s important? It’s differentiating the different shopping centers in areas. And how do you do that? With the experience. I talked a little bit about the salt and pepper of mom and pop. Well, that’s what helps add the experience. And we’ve got other people talking about bringing in new experience here. Ghermezian Brothers are talking about bringing this new big shopping center up by the county line, Dade Broward line on the Dade County side. And what’s that going to do? I don’t really think it’s going to do anything except maybe extend the stay at the visitors year and maybe give Jim and Vivian and folks that live here some place nice to go occasionally. I don’t see us going there every day the way we go to publics but every once in a while, the way we go to Target but once in a while, once a year go skiing and on the motorboats and go pick up a couple of souvenirs and have a day of it. And the air conditioning? Heck yeah, I’m down for that! I think it’s going to be good. And I don’t really think it’s going to do anything to hurt any of the other malls out there. I don’t think that Sawgrass Mills has anything to worry about. And what else is going on?
Place making. That’s what they called the differentiation in the experiences. They also call it place making. And you can see the evolution of place making at places like Lincoln Road. Lincoln Road is gone from the mom and pop and Kik stores to the fancy local entrepreneur driven stuff and now it’s changing again. You’re not going to really see papyrus out there. You’re going to see the gap. And the gap is there. They’re not going to be paying the rent to sell close, they’re going to be paying that high rent for advertising. It’s got place. What they’re doing is they’re not using these high street retail locations, the fancy retail places that we used to not be able to get anything, now you can get everything. You can get stuff from stores I don’t even know what they sell. Only three more minutes, I’m going to start wrapping up but I still got a little more to talk about the shopping centers show. So it was big, we saw everybody, I want to thank Grey Robinson for the great coffee they have every year but all my friends were there and they’re all talking about one thing. They’ve got a lot of capital and they’re having a tough time finding deals which is interesting because Florida is the expansion state, it’s supposed to be a hot year but when you go outside Florida it’s kind of soft. And places that aren’t called Raleigh, that aren’t called Atlanta, that aren’t called Dallas or Houston it’s still a little slow out there in these south-eastern United States. So the retailers are always looking for opportunity and they’re not going to cannibalize their stores but they are going to start putting them close to each other as this urbanized city state vertically integrated – Mike Fay calls it doughnut concept – continues to come into four. And that’s what I learned at the ICSC this year.
Now I want to thank all of the people that make the show possible. Of course, the first person I want to thank is AJ. She stuck it out the whole time providing me with positive energy and great interest and thank you so much for that, AJ! And what is AJ? AJ is a CCIM. I want to thank Frank and the CCIMs. Stay tuned, we’re going to be doing a lot of really cool things with the CCIMs coming up. We’ve got their annual event coming up this winter as well. South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine – thank you to them; EarlyShares – capitalizing those deals; Magnum Energy Solutions and Engineered Tax Services – welcome to the show guys; I want to thank of course Warren Henry and UHealth, our mainstays; I want to thank KIND Snacks and Terek Maddox, Social Media 305 and Xpresso Marketing. But the people that I want to give the most thanks to are you, our listeners because without you we wouldn’t have a show. And you go ”What show?”, I go ”Six-year anniversary next year, everybody”. Six years because of you, six-year anniversary and that’s what I want to do, I want to thank you. Next year we’ll have a lot of special guests on for six-year anniversary, we’ll be on 880 AM, Thursday at 6:00. Why? Because I think you know by now. I just love to do this. Now remember, a person who wants to do something finds a way, the person who doesn’t want to do something better out of my way! This is Jim Fried for Fried on Business. I put you deaf, but it was fun. D, it’s all yours!
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