Brokering Luxury Retail: Inside Chicago's Premier Retail Brokerage with Elan Rasansky

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to the Real Estate Chicago Style podcast. I'm your host, Joe Smazel. I sell mid sized apartment buildings on the north side of the city and in Hyde park and owner operate some smaller buildings on the north side as well with my wife Kate and that business is called Smiles Apartments. Today we've got a friend of mine, Alon Rznanski from Canvas Real Estate joining us. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Thanks for doing it, man. Yeah, I usually read the bio of the guests. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:33] Speaker B: But I went on your webpage and your Bio is like 50 badass assignments. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:40] Speaker B: And it's like 25, like luxury brands and deals that you've worked on and like 25 like basically household name landlords. So why don't you, in your words, tell us what you do. [00:00:54] Speaker A: So thank you for that and we'll get to the bio in a second. But we. So I'm a partner at Canvas Real Estate. Canvas is a private boutique retail brokerage company. So we specialize in retail and restaurant brokerage in downtown Chicago and the neighboring suburbs. [00:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:12] Speaker A: You know, we pride ourselves on representing the best in class retail brands, best in class restaurant operators, not just in the city of Chicago, but you know, national restaurant groups, obviously global fashion brands as well and trying to bring them to Chicago and help curate all the, you know, neighborhoods that we love enjoying, whether that's, you know, where we live in Lincoln park or. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:34] Speaker A: Where we work and spend most of our time for Market River North, Gold Coast. It's, it's fun to, you know, look at these submarkets and put together pieces of what we all love to do. Yeah. Eat, shop, drink. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:50] Speaker A: And that's just, that's what we do. [00:01:53] Speaker B: How do you. So we're going to, we're going to unpack basically all that, but we're going to go out of order. Now how do you get to the point where your business is representing the best in class people whether whether it be landlords or tenants? Because nobody starts by representing Louis Vuitton, you know, whatever, you know, you want. [00:02:12] Speaker A: To, you want to talk about where I started? I mean, I was, I would, I think one of the first tenants that are represented was Advanced Auto Parts. Right. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:20] Speaker A: You know, when's the last time you went to Advanced Auto? I think, you know, they're bought by autozone or you know, one of the other major companies and you know, go there for oil changes, get your muffler fixed, get your tire fixed. That was one of the first tenants I represented. [00:02:34] Speaker B: I, you know, not quite as sexy as Louis Vuitton. [00:02:36] Speaker A: No, not Louis Vuitton. No. Prada. No. Cartier. But. But you know, I got my foot in the door. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:02:42] Speaker A: It was shaking land loose, trying to dig up dirt, sell them the dirt or sell developer the dirt and do a ground lease. But that's how I got my. That's how I started. And then from there, you know, we went from. I think I was put on the Panera account. We did a few Panera deals, some Starbucks deals, some Jimmy John's deals. Great clips. Remember great clips. Like putting them in shopping centers all across, you know, the city, but also all around the suburban, you know, surrounding suburbs. [00:03:07] Speaker B: We great clips has been some. The butt of some joke, like unfairly the butt of some jokes in my friend group. Like, you get a bad haircut. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Like, dude, the box cut. [00:03:15] Speaker B: That's a great cliff. [00:03:18] Speaker A: The great clip special. [00:03:20] Speaker B: All right, let's kick off with some rapid fire questions. I usually ask, like, favorite restaurant, favorite coffee shop, but you got to probably play like Switzerland on some of that, right? Like, those are all your clients. [00:03:31] Speaker A: I mean, hit me. I'm. [00:03:33] Speaker B: What's your favorite Chicago? Let's start with coffee shop. Favorite coffee shop in the neighborhoods. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Favorite coffee shop. I think La Colombia's great coffee. [00:03:44] Speaker B: That's been a popular answer. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Blue bottle is great coffee. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:50] Speaker A: You know, vibe wise. So water is great. Hard to beat that. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:56] Speaker A: But there's. There's a ton. [00:03:58] Speaker B: You know, I love all those. And those are popular answers. Yeah. The other vibe coffee shop, I think is dark matter. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Dark matter. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Not. Not really in your, like, neighborhoods as much. Like more like kind of on the periphery or the fringe neighborhoods. But cool vibe too. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:15] Speaker B: All right, let's get to the ones I asked. What is a word that your colleagues would use to describe you? One word. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Passionate. [00:04:22] Speaker B: Okay. About everything or is it. Is it targeted? Passion targeted. Yeah. [00:04:31] Speaker A: That's good. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel you. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that. That's my bio. [00:04:36] Speaker B: Put me in like the footnotes at the bottom. Name an up and coming Chicago real estate person that you think deserves some recognition. [00:04:45] Speaker A: That's a really good question. [00:04:46] Speaker B: You got a few on your team. You got some people that you deal with. I mean, you deal with so many people in the brokerage community. [00:04:52] Speaker A: I'm gonna say Rachel Nasty's here. She just started with us at our company. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Why does she get the nod? [00:05:01] Speaker A: Fresh out of college, just gets it. Yeah. Grew up in the city of Chicago. You can just tell. [00:05:10] Speaker B: I mean, does she get the brokerage business more or the city more? [00:05:13] Speaker A: Like, what is it right? And what is it right? Like you run a brokerage shop. It's. You put something in front of her, you give her a shot to just wagon. Right? [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:23] Speaker A: And it comes 80, 85. Correct. That to me, is getting it right. Like, it's your first site survey that you put together for a tenant. Right. Where you put together sites that we think this tenant should look at. [00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:34] Speaker A: And you only have to make a few modifications. It's impressive. [00:05:38] Speaker B: Here's also an example of somebody, like, a lot of times people are, well, I want somebody that has three to five years of sales experience or real estate experience or whatever. We hired a guy, Tommy Richard, who interned with us last summer. And I had kind of had a bias against, like, fresh out of college, because I think sometimes going and having a job somewhere is powerful before you start in brokerage because, you know, you don't really just want to have a job. You want to make it a lifestyle. You want to build a business around it. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:07] Speaker B: But what we got from Tommy, what you get from Rachel, I think is no bad habits. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:13] Speaker B: And also this, like, fresh energy, I guess, for lack of a better way. [00:06:18] Speaker A: To put it, like fresh energy, but also like a natural and like a, A passion to work hard. [00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Right. I remember, like, one of the first days, it was like later in the afternoon, it was. I don't call 3, 30, 4 o', clock, whatever it was, she comes to my, to my office. She's like, is there anything else I can help you with? I'm like, what? You know, it's refreshing. [00:06:37] Speaker B: When's the last time? [00:06:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Like, yeah, because your job, a lot of times to make other people's lives easier, you know? Right. [00:06:44] Speaker A: And, and that, that to me was like, that was the first kind of like, oh, all right, let's go. [00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:48] Speaker A: Because that's how I was. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:49] Speaker A: You know, I remember, you know, my, my now business partner, but my mentor at the time, Anthony Capani. Like, I would go to his desk or his office door and I would say, what else? What are we doing? Like, what do you need help with? [00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:00] Speaker A: And, you know, sometimes it was nothing, but sometimes it was whatever. And that's just, that's how you learn, Right. They throw at you and you have no idea how to do it, but you just figure it out, right? [00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Just try. Just try. Work hard and try. [00:07:13] Speaker B: But dude, a lot of people probably ask you for advice, and a lot of people in your, in your job, like I said, to answer your clients, answer the retailer, landlord or Whatever is to help other people. It's refreshing and it's like pretty powerful for a new person to, to have the realization that, you know, obviously the, the drive to want to do more, but also the realization that like, you could use some help. Yeah, what can I take off your plate? You know, so. [00:07:40] Speaker A: Exactly. And by the way, you can't, in my opinion, you can't go to school for that. You can't teach that. No, it's either you have it or you don't. Right. You're there like you want to grind, you want to work hard, you want to learn, you're passionate or you don't. [00:07:54] Speaker B: But dude, it's hard to screen for. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:56] Speaker B: It's hard to interview for even if you feel like you get to. You get together with somebody a handful of times or whatever or you know, some similar people. [00:08:02] Speaker A: 100%. [00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Until you sit in the seat. We got lucky. So aside from your phone and car, what's a tool that you use in your work day that helps you improve productivity or efficiency or however you want to answer it? [00:08:15] Speaker A: My EarPods. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's basically a phone. [00:08:18] Speaker A: I know. So call it part of the phone. But I mean, like, I have to be hands free because if I'm on the phone, I'm taking notes, I'm sending an email, sending a text to one of my partners. We got to do this. I'm on the phone with so and so, like, I need this, I need that, I need that. But you know, phone, computer, you know, you mentioned the car. The car. My car is like my second home. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker A: I am in my car. I think more than my house, definitely more than my desk. [00:08:39] Speaker B: I have car add because of that. Because I'm just like, I'm tired. Yeah. I mean, I just freaking sitting in it for eight hours a day for. [00:08:45] Speaker A: The last, I think, you know, I, I have some shoulder issues because I, you know, I lean onto my center console and I just work off my computer. Right. And that's just. I pull around whatever street. [00:08:54] Speaker B: And yeah, what I like about it is like the most productive days I have, I'm like hardly on the computer. And so my phone is like, if I like scroll, you just keep scrolling at all the calls or the text or whatever. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:05] Speaker B: That's productive day. The least that I can work on the computer at my desk the better. And I'm not talking about around at a coffee shop or whatever. I'm talking about like interfacing with people. [00:09:16] Speaker A: I don't at this point in my career I think, obviously, you know, you think the same, but if I'm at the office all day, I'm not doing something. Like, I gotta be. [00:09:24] Speaker B: I get anxious. [00:09:24] Speaker A: There's. There's somewhere else I can be. Right. There's a client I could be out to lunch with. There's a client I could be at drinks with or dinner or whatever. Like. Like, there's a property I can walk. There's a submarket I can, you know, refresh my brain on. Sitting at the desk is not. [00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:37] Speaker A: You know, that's why we build a team. That's why you hire people that you can trust and do what we need to do. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Thin crust or deep dish? [00:09:45] Speaker A: And from where? Thin crust. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a. [00:09:47] Speaker A: Where. I have a number one, but there's like a short two and three. So number one is Pizza Michi. [00:09:56] Speaker B: I haven't been there. It's on all the lists. My Instagram is all food, so. [00:10:00] Speaker A: Do you remember they used to have a joint called Pizza, fried chicken and ice cream in Bridgeport? It's the same couple, and they're really cool, too. They're young couple. I really enjoy their pizza. It's the best I've ever had. But very, like, right behind that, I would say, is Vito Nicks. Right. Like, most people still don't know what Vito Nick's is now. Maybe it's because they don't want to go all the way down to. Was it 84th and Pulaski? [00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Right. But you got to go to Vito next. [00:10:29] Speaker B: It's party going. Is being there, too. [00:10:32] Speaker A: Being there with. [00:10:33] Speaker B: The tables are a little sticky. Like, sticky. [00:10:36] Speaker A: What about the red. The red water cups like the low ceilings. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:40] Speaker A: You know, I'm sure if you just pulled out a cigarette, they wouldn't mind, but. And then Zarella. Zarella is. Has a great product. [00:10:47] Speaker B: You got to mix a new. You like old and new there, too. You have some. You gain some credibility in the answer because you. You answered it a couple different ways. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Ways. Yeah. But, I mean, you throw any three of those at me, I'm. I'm a happy. [00:10:57] Speaker B: I like Pats in our neighborhood, too. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Pat's is good. [00:10:59] Speaker B: That's always. You know, my beef with Pato is the delivery guy was getting kind of gossipy with me for a while, and I'm like, dude, I thought there was supposed to be, like, this is like a patient. Doctor confidentiality. Oh, you know, the guy over there. Like, what are you saying about me? Like, anyway, should be. This is a question I'm particularly excited to See your answer to favorite intersection or corridor in the city for Mr. Mr. Prime neighborhood Russian belle. [00:11:25] Speaker A: You call, you know, bag of triangle. [00:11:28] Speaker B: Middle of the world. Feels like you're in the center of the city. [00:11:31] Speaker A: There you sit and have a cocktail at one of those tables at Gibson's overlooking that corner. I don't know. Tell me that there's a better intersection, not just in the city, but in the country. It's bright, like, especially with Bellevue back and, you know, you got Carmines reopening, and it's hard to beat. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah, hard to beat. All right, longer form. Tell us about growing up and lead us to how you got into real estate. [00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:02] Speaker B: And answer why you got into real. And not just the how, the why. [00:12:05] Speaker A: So I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was born and raised there. Lived there until back to brewers or Cubs. Brewers. Sorry, guys. I mean, this. Your. Your viewership's gonna, like, it's gonna take. But hey, you're gonn. Right now we're down.02 to the Dodgers, and now we're going back to LA. So I'm sure there's a lot of Cubs fans that are psyched to see that, but I'm. I'm a loyal dude, right? So Bucks, Brewers, Packers, Packers. I'm Die Hard. [00:12:31] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Don't even. [00:12:33] Speaker B: I respect the allegiance. Okay. [00:12:35] Speaker A: So, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My dad was a retail broker. So. [00:12:39] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:40] Speaker A: Same line of business, you know, a little bit of a different product. Like, I remember growing up, we'd be driving up and down 43, whether it's to a baseball tournament, back from a baseball game or soccer, whatever. He's like, we have to stop at this Home Depot or we have to stop at this, you know, grocery store. I'm like, why? He's like, well, I did it. What do you mean, you did it? Right. And it wasn't until I was older that I understood that, oh, he brokered the deal. Right. It was just driving up. You know, his story kind of lives on. Driving up the highway, and you see, you know, the IKEA and this and. [00:13:11] Speaker B: The season, a lot of big box stuff like that. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Okay, right. So a little bit of different work, but same thing. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:17] Speaker A: Brokers. Yeah. And, you know, I thought it was always cool that he could point to what he does. Right? And in that world and that big box world, like, you're not just changing a little intersection or a. Or a submarket. Right. Like, you're adding in interstate highway entrances and exit ramps. And, you know, if you're doing a 60,000 square foot big box deal or a 150,000 square foot big box deal. Well then there's gonna be another shopping center that goes up right behind it or maybe a new residential complex or neighborhood and it just completely transforms. It's not just a street, it could transform an entire new town. Right. [00:13:53] Speaker B: Jobs, economic. [00:13:55] Speaker A: And I think it, you know, back then it was different. You know, I show my dad today like all these tools like the phones and the, and the whatever, like how we negotiate proposals and leases and I mean they had a handwrite all changes on every single negotiation. Right. Mail it, hope that they get it right. Wait. Or hand deliver it. And that's how they negotiated leases. Now I think I always argue that now everything is just openly negotiated. Right. Like a document is way too easy to redline. You hand it to an attorney, you hand it to a broker, you're going to want to put your name on it, you're going to rewrite the whole thing. And you know, now a negotiation that could have been done in, you know, a day or two takes two, three, four weeks, sometimes a year. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Right. Because it's too easy. [00:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:42] Speaker A: So there's also another story there that we can dive into that I think the whole world has changed. And I just always loved. And I got a little sidetracked. I just always loved what he did. You could point to what he did. [00:14:55] Speaker B: You know, it's. I'll. I'll interrupt you to say that like I, for a long time I just felt about my business is a little bit more intangible and I kind of missed some of the tangibility because it's, you know, it's like not building. You know, I'm the salesman, you know. And so, you know, I was thinking about like my kids would be building Legos or building magnet, whatever they're doing. It's all very hands on very. And like I grew up more like from a manual labor kind of. I like mowing the yard, I like, you know. But it's very. By the way. Yeah. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Like we actually just had to fire our guys. So we can get into that too. But for my six by six, I'm over piece of grass. Like please come down the street. [00:15:37] Speaker B: But it's very tangible. And the way that you described it about your dad, I think is a really good illustration of it. Like that that all manifested because of his work. Somebody else might have been swinging the hammer. [00:15:50] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:50] Speaker B: But he was really kind of like the. I was going to say the architect. Obviously not an architect. He was really kind of like the deal maker. Putting all the pieces kind of the quarterback of it. [00:16:01] Speaker A: And when you see, like, I mean, you get it, right? Like, some of these deals can take years, right? And especially in that world, like, those deals can take 5 years, 6 years, 10 years for one of, you know, one of his deals took over 10 years. And to then finally see that finished product, right? Like that supermarket that opened, or whatever it was, it's like, after a decade sometimes. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah, right? [00:16:21] Speaker A: Here we are. There's this beautiful parking lot in this beautiful building, and there's all these jobs. There's all these happy people. We finally got Ikea. We finally got, you know, whatever it was to our neighborhood. And it's just watching that, like, fulfillment was. I was like, all right, this is cool. Let's learn more about this. Let's. Let's dive in. [00:16:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And you. I mean, we can. We'll talk about it later, but, like, I think you experience that today. Really strong degree. You know, talk about going to a restaurant, talk about going shopping or whatever, but before we get there. So I had a similar experience a little bit. My dad was an entrepreneur. He owned a small commercial laundry and dish detergent business. So wasn't. It wasn't in real estate, and it was in Iowa, and it was a small business. And he, like, kind of, you know, he taught himself the chemistry behind it. But, like, we'd be, you know, going out to eat or whatever on Saturday night and be like, I gotta go make a delivery. You know, he'd have the Suburban, and the back of the Suburban is like a couple drums of, like, detergent. You know, I gotta go take. And so I didn't learn, like, real estate from that, but by osmosis, I learned a lot about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. And, like, that Saturday night or whatever, getting the call. And we're both parents to young kids, so how do you know? I think it's hard to balance. Like, look, my kid, we're fortunate to live a good lifestyle, right? Dad's got to talk on the phone sometimes. I don't mind them seeing that, knowing it. Dad doesn't make it home for dinners most week. I don't mind them. Like, of course I'd rather be at dinner more. [00:17:49] Speaker A: Of course. [00:17:49] Speaker B: But, like, how do you balance. Your kids are a little younger than mine, but, like, exposing them to it. Yeah. I mean, so put yourself in a few. [00:17:57] Speaker A: My daughter's four. My son will be one this month. Right. I think, like, I think if you have anyone on this podcast, I said there's, like, a written playbook to how to make this work. When you're entrepreneurial and sales, like you're full, right. Like every day is a new day. Every day is a challenge. And it's hard. Yeah, right. Life is hard. You know, I think, how do we make it work? I don't know. You. You try and be home as much as possible. When you're home, you try and be present, which I'm horrible at, you know, Again, the phones phone rings. It's like there's a deal on the other end of that call, right? And everyone says, oh, it can wait. It could. Yeah, it can wait. Or it could go to the next broker, Right. And once you lose a deal ever in your career to another broker, you can't get over it. You'll never forget it. [00:18:39] Speaker B: There's also an element. There's. There's the possibility of losing it, which is probably less likely. I think the more likely it happens, though. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but the more likely thing is it just like compounds into work. You have to do it at some point. Like a friend of mine told me recently. He's like, if I answer the email at 10 o' clock at night or 6 o', clock, I have to do it at some point. So it's like I have a full day tomorrow. If I'm going to defer a bunch of stuff, right. Then I'm buried tomorrow. I'm waking up buried, you know, but then you're. [00:19:09] Speaker A: You're going to bed knowing that you didn't finish your work. Right. Like, I don't sleep well when I know I have so much to do the next day. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:19:15] Speaker A: I'd rather just finish it. If I have to stay up till midnight, one or two in the morning, I'd rather just do it. [00:19:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Get it done. And you wake up fresh. And whether it's less sleep and then you're waking up fresh, I'd rather that. Yeah, I mean, let's. We could talk about that too. [00:19:26] Speaker B: We've been at Midtown Hungover together, I'm sure. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Too many times. You know, maybe every day. But you just. Every day is a new day. I go day by day. That's my thing. I go day by day, try and figure it out. I'm a young dad. There's no playbook. Just do your best. [00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, do your best. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Let's talk about. I know that you didn't start at Canvas. You could. And you could, you can start your answer by where you started and how you got to Canvas, because that might be informative for your answer, but Canvas is the best example I can think of in Chicago of competing with the large national firms at. Call it the highest level, like in, in the multi family space in Terra and some of our competitors, we have a commanding market share in the middle market, we don't do as much like institutional work, do some, you know, but really kind of on the lower end of institutional, upper end of private capital. But like Canvas as it relates to like your market share versus CBRE or jll and you seem to have a really strong market share in kind of like the, the big leagues of what you do. Retail leasing, how do you think that you've established or you know, it also, you know, not to ask too much of a rambling question, but also in the context of retail, leasing can be a very national business. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Yep. [00:20:48] Speaker B: Right. Because some of these firms have relationships on a corporate national level. Correct. So how do you guys. How do you think that you win a lot of that business? [00:20:57] Speaker A: It's a great question. And also thank you for, you know, putting Canvas up there with, with the big boys. So I would say, you know, as we all know everything, this whole business is a relationship business. Right. It's all about the people. And you know, while like some of the larger corporate companies have these national accounts. Right. So like cbery may represent like, you know, Verizon. I'm just using an example. Verizon nationally. Yeah. Right. And a lot of it maybe is corporate services work, right. Where they do a lot of like, you know, repositioning or whatever. And some of the other internal work for the retailers is it's all about the real estate manager locally. Right. So if you have a relationship with that real estate manager locally in Chicago, she's going to decide ultimately who she wants to work with. And you know, if she was formerly at Sweet Green and now she's at. I'm just using an example now she's at Nike and she loved her Sweet Green rep. She's probably gonna hire Sweet Green rep. Yeah. To the Nike account. Right. So it's just, it's about maintaining those relationships and doing good. And I think as long as you always service your client and take care of. Take care of client and put your client first. You know, in real estate, everyone always says, right? It's like, what are the three most important words? And everybody's always says location, location, location. As a broker, I say service, service, service. If you service your clients, coming from. [00:22:19] Speaker B: A guy who's business pretty snobby about Location, too. That says something. [00:22:23] Speaker A: But it, like, as a broker, you have to put your clients first, always, whether that's a landlord or a tenant. You have to do what's best for them every single day. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Agreed. What about the. The initial, like the prospecting, retaining the client on the front, Like, I think the relationship management. I'm not going to say it's easy because it's really hard, but when I think about, like prospecting in your business, I think it's probably a little bit different than my. There's some similarities, some differences, and I understand that the distinction also between, you know, landlord rep and tenant rep, for sure. And that's probably different. Prospecting. How do you guys prospect for new business? [00:23:01] Speaker A: So I'll kind of tap back into what you were originally asking is, you know, how do we. How do we keep canvas, like at the top of the map with the larger firms? And I think, you know, where we learned how to do it. My partner, Anthony and I is, you know, we open and ran the office, the New York office for Robert K. Ferdman, RKF. And I don't know if you remember, but from 2012 to 2018, there were more blue and white RKF signs in every single window throughout the city than any other side. [00:23:28] Speaker B: You guys opened it here or you worked. [00:23:29] Speaker A: We opened the Chicago. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Okay, okay, yeah, I remember rkf, right? Yeah. [00:23:33] Speaker A: And at the time, they had New York, they had Miami, they had Vegas, they had Los Angeles, they had an outpost in London. And then we opened Chicago. And we did it because they were doing so many. The tenant brokers from New York and all the other major cities were doing so many deals in Chicago that they're essentially just giving so many commission dollars away to all the other, you know, because you have to be licensed here, you got to then pay the local co broker that you worked with. And they were like, listen, we. I think the. The alt. You know, the end deal was when they did the top shop deal, FMAN was like, I need an office. This is ridiculous. We're doing all the deals on the avenue. Like, we should have an office. So that they were the best at branding and marketing. They were a. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Why just. [00:24:19] Speaker A: They were just always a step ahead of, you know, how to do, you know, even our marketing flyers for our properties. You know, how to make them sexy, how to make them simple, sexy and cool. And our signage was simple. It was black. I'm sorry, it was white and blue. Yeah, it said rkf, retail for lease. And the number. Yeah, that's It. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's kind of a very New York way. Right? [00:24:39] Speaker A: New York way. You see it, you're in your car driving. You memorize the number. At that point, there's so many signs. Everyone just knew our number. You want to reach rkf, you call that number rkf dot com. It was just simple and you just couldn't go anywhere without seeing it. And then from there we just. It was just. Again, it's, it's the tenants that we worked with, it's the landlords that we represented to be consistent with our brand, and they have to align with each other. Right. So, you know, how do you build what you. One of your questions was, how do you. We do a lot of cross marketing. Right. So a lot of our, One of our biggest pitches is, you know, for example, we have. We have Friedman Properties, entire portfolio in River North. Right. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Which we've had for sitting in one of their buildings. [00:25:22] Speaker A: One of their buildings. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Hard not to sit in one of their buildings. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:24] Speaker B: North. Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker A: For 15 years we've been doing their work. So, you know, they own 90 of River North. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:29] Speaker A: Right. So one of your questions, how do we prospect for restaurants? Well, we get a lot of calls from all the restaurants, and that's just not locally, but also nationally. Right. So we get national tenant rep brokers from all the other cities calling us for our spaces, and we're always the first call. Right. So then we've just curated all this knowledge and data and all the contacts for all these groups to then go out and get all the other restaurant spaces and all the other major markets. Because now people know if someone's going to open a restaurant in Chicago, they're going to call on and Anthony. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah, they are. Yeah. [00:26:02] Speaker A: They're going to say, hey, what spaces? Even if you're marketing them or not, if they're off market or could be made available, they're going to call us first because we know. And then, you know, speaking for my, for my colleagues who do more tenant rep, they crush that business. And again, what I was saying, they put their client first. And every single tenant rollout that they've done, they've just done perfectly. They've executed perfectly. You know, sweet green. How many sweet greens are in Chicago? I don't even know at this point. [00:26:28] Speaker B: I know because pretty much every time, Sweet Cream, Foxtrot. [00:26:33] Speaker A: Now they're launching Meno Fish Farms, which, you know, there's, there's one right here that, that we all did together. And their willis tower just opened or is about to open. And Van Leeuwen, it's, you know, if. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Sweet Green Trust Ice cream. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, it's like, if Sweet can trust you, then Mendo will trust you, then Van Leeuwen will trust you. And it just, it's like a domino factor. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Branding in real estate is like. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:57] Speaker B: I mean, I think too many people, especially when you're earlier in your career, maybe you don't feel like you have an established brand yet, so you end up kind of chasing deals versus, like building a business. Right. It either can be an incredibly powerful snowball, as you just described, like these, this restaurant business kind of compounding and like drive down any prime corridor in the city, you know, assuming there's any vacancy, you're going to see your signs. Right. If you, even if you were to do a big assignment that was inconsistent with the brand, it's to the detriment of what you're trying to. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Correct. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Curate. Right. But that takes a lot of discipline. So did. Was that in a later in your career type of thing or it was all taught by Anthony or somebody else? [00:27:45] Speaker A: I would say that that kind of goes back to the RKF days. Right. Like, you have to keep a consistent brand. Like you can't, you know, you brought up a great point. Like you want to play in the sub markets that you want to play in. Right. But you have to believe and be passionate about the sub markets that you're in. So if you're not going to spend any time in. Just give an example. You're not going to spend any time in Logan Square. How can you go pitch a landlord that you're going to be the right broker? [00:28:11] Speaker B: No, you don't know the dynamics, you know, the customer wants. You don't know like the particular drivers of one corner versus another. Right. [00:28:17] Speaker A: And it's not like we always say, like, if you're going to get one listing in a submarket, get them all. Right? So we're not like, we can't. We, we don't. We're not too good for any market. It's just unless we have a broker in our office that is the right broker for that submarket, we won't let him do it. Right. And once they do it, then they'll get 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 listings where it's like when everyone's walking around the neighborhood, they're going to call that number, that cell phone number, because he's on every single building. And that's how you really brand and curate a market too. Then you have control, right? If you're gonna put Starbucks here, then you're putting another great restaurant here. There's a lot of. It's kind of like an athlete. Right. You're only as good as your last game. Right. And as a broker, you're only as good as your last deal or your next. [00:29:05] Speaker B: I don't know how to think about. Right. Yeah. [00:29:07] Speaker A: So if you do a bad deal, it's got your name all over it. You don't want to do bad deals. [00:29:12] Speaker B: So what happens if you've got. You know, you've got. Use Armitage as an example. You know, at Lincoln park, the stretch of Armit has become incredibly vibrant and clearly has a vibe. So let's say you're representing a landlord, and they. They have. They have investors, they have debt to service. And, like, what you have in mind is something consistent with this, like, kind of clicks to bricks or these cool, like, kind of shopping brands that are smaller folk, but they're like, we need to get this space rented, dude. And they're a smoke shop or a massage parlor or whatever, you know? [00:29:47] Speaker A: Totally. [00:29:48] Speaker B: How does that balance work? So. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Because it's a great question, and it's also. It's a great example of a street. So we represented Acadia on Armitage. [00:29:58] Speaker B: They're speaking of, like, owning the whole. [00:30:00] Speaker A: Right. They. They bought a portfolio from actually, one of our other clients, and they. They owned. Yeah. Almost the entire strip. And, you know, we've had some deals that, you know, spaces that turned over in the last four or five years. And we recently just did. We did rails with them. So we put rails in the former Outdoor Voices. And then we had another space, and it was the two tenants where it was Levaine Bakery, which was going to open next month. So we went with Levain, and I'll tell you why. But then there were another five, six, seven proposals that were even at higher rents for the Levain space. [00:30:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:37] Speaker A: Right. But Acadia said, well, wait, like, all we have is. It's all now kind of like fashion and retail. [00:30:45] Speaker B: Levain brings people another reason to come in the morning. Right. [00:30:50] Speaker A: In the morning and at night. And different demographic, you know, a little bit more, like, family oriented. And, yeah, we went with. We convinced them to do Levain, and they were all. They were all for it. Right. But it's going to enhance their portfolio on the street. [00:31:02] Speaker B: So it's. So to you, the. It's partly about educating the client, not just about highest dollars. It's about what it does for the rest. In this case, it might be they're looking at it probably a little bit more globally than one particular space. [00:31:14] Speaker A: And by the way, they own real estate in all these other major markets. So it's like if they can do a Levine deal here, then maybe they can do a Levain deal in another market. And at the end of the day, it's the spaces. You know, let's just say a space is 2,000 square feet. [00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:25] Speaker A: And you have five of their offers that are five, six, seven bucks a foot higher. They're really going to do that much. You know, Are you really going to take that offer just because they're paying 5, 6 bucks a foot more? Are you going to do the Lavain when it's a better deal for the street? [00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:37] Speaker A: And you own 10 building on the street and then that can maybe boost your rent at that space, you know, which is going to come up in two years or whatever. Like, you have to think about the block and curating the neighborhood and doing what's best for the surrounding area. And if you do that, and I wish that other brokers would have that mentality, but they don't. And you'll see a lot of deals that just kill submarkets. They kill a streets vibe. And it's just whether it's a smoke shop or just a restaurant that has no place in that specific neighborhood, it's just bad. It's bad for everybody. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Levaine's the. I go to Levain for coffee in the morning a lot, and coffee's great too. My only beef is like, the smell is like, it's an exercise of discipline every day to go there. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Like, I mean, listen, it's a. It's a thousand calorie $5 cookie, right. Like, I think it's the best cookie. [00:32:31] Speaker B: They. They're excellent. I. I like summer house cookies and I'm a connoisseur, so I think I. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Have you been to their new, like, little cookie cookie bar in Streetville? It's basically like Summerhouse, Santa Monica's cookie bar that they have. But then it's. They have their own little shop. [00:32:47] Speaker B: I think lettuce kills it with about everything. I have tremendous amount of respect for those guys. So we're talking about our kind of love for real estate and our love for Chicago and housing has a lot to do with, of course, the neighborhood and you know, how people live somewhere. Obviously. I think it's like a super obvious statement, but I think sometimes people take for granted the gravity of the housing stock in a particular neighborhood. Retail, obviously, same type of thing where like, you know, Armitage Avenue or Oak street or Southport. You've had an opportunity to work on all those corridors and you know, the places that we all go. Yeah, plug a couple either, you know, plug a landlord, plug a tenant. Some answer it. If they were. They were cool to work with. You think they had the biggest impact. They did something like you. The example that you gave with Acadia, you know, where somebody took a deal maybe for a little bit less rent. Just like plug. A super positive experience you've had recently on a leasing assignment, regardless of where it was. [00:33:59] Speaker A: That's a really good question, Joe. [00:34:01] Speaker B: Or just somebody that you like that is an extreme pleasure to work. I have so many people in my business that I'm just really lucky to interact with. Somebody you really like to work with. Makes things easy, thinks about things big picture. You really try and do. Of synergy with. [00:34:19] Speaker A: We'll try and do a few examples in your summer. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Well, that's fair because I asked like six questions. Trying to ask. [00:34:24] Speaker A: Let's. Let's start. Let's start in F. Right. So we represented Tomadera with Asana. Asana is a REIT that came into Chicago. [00:34:38] Speaker B: They had a. Like Nashville. Right. [00:34:40] Speaker A: They are out of Charlotte. [00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah, Charlotte. You're right. Yeah, Charlotte. Yeah. [00:34:45] Speaker A: And you know, it happened to be building where, you know, I think it was eight years ago. Anthony and I did the original leasing for Madison capital. So it's 939West for market and massive capital. [00:34:58] Speaker B: Pretty good real estate. [00:34:59] Speaker A: The real estate across the street was 936, 939, and then 312carpenter, where the vegan is now. [00:35:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:05] Speaker A: We actually did the original vital proteins lease. [00:35:07] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Right. And that's when vital proteins was. You know, it's blown up. It was. The Kardashians were all over it and collagen was like the new. Like. Oh, like college. [00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Whatever. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So they made it their headquarters, but then they never built out the ground floor. And the ground floor they were going to do, you know, whatever, like a cafe and a bar and a, you know, this whole like smoothie shop. And it was never built out. And nine through nine full. It was just, you know, it's like a. An apartment building that you sell. Right. It's a building that I never forgot. It was the. It. I. I still think it's the most beautiful building in the city. You know, old meat packing, timber loft. But just like you. When you walk in, it's just, it's. It's beautiful. It's open, high Ceilings, like the wood and everything. The brick is just. It's beautiful. I don't know. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Yeah, whatever. [00:35:57] Speaker A: Don't know. But they had their office, headquarters upstairs on two and three. [00:36:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:01] Speaker A: And the ground floor was just kept vacant. And we always knew it was vacant. And then we, you know, we. We struck out a couple times. It kind of went. This whole deal went full circle. So I've been trying to bring to Madera with our counterpart out in la, Rachel Rosenberg. She does all of their work across the country. And we've been trying to bring them to Chicago since 2014. I remember some of our first tours in Fulton, Market, River North, Gold Coast. And, you know, to keep this short, we had a deal die at execution in river north, in Covid. Due to the, you know, the crime. Right. Remember when Harvard was giving. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:39] Speaker A: Getting pretty lit up in the news. Yeah. So that killed. That killed the first deal. We had a deal die in Fulton, I think, even before that. And then, you know, they just went on. They. And then they just. They boomed. They went to major markets like, you know, they did Houston. They opened Medusa in. In New York and Miami. And finally we, you know, it happened to be that one of my good buddies was now the new asset manager for this building for Sana. And my buddy now lives out in la. He used to live here. So I call him. I'm like, you know, the office tenant brokers have this building on the market for sublease. You know, I'm like, well, what. What's going on? Like, the lease is coming up. I have the lease. I have a restaurant tenant that I know will like this ground floor if I send it to them, like, what's the deal that we can strike? We basically made the deal over the phone. I called up Rachel in Los Angeles. I said, here's the deal, here's the site. I'm telling you, this is the building. That's it. Yeah, we made the deal pretty quickly, so. [00:37:40] Speaker B: And it's funny because somebody could look at that example and say, oh, look, Alon just slammed this deal together. [00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:45] Speaker B: You know, but 11 years later, 10 years before, you know. Yeah. [00:37:48] Speaker A: So it was a full circle, like, moment for me, just again with all the relationships. Right. Like, my buddy Brian, you know, I think, like, when we were really hanging out, it was like 2012, 13, 14. I haven't seen him in a long time, but now he's out in LA with his kids and his wife. And, you know, all that just came back so quickly. We, you know, we argued a little bit. Said some words to each other, but we made the deal and it was great. And, you know, they're gonna open probably end a year next year. [00:38:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:17] Speaker A: You know, call it end of 26. And it's just. That was a. That was a great deal. Yeah. That's fun. And then I would say. And I had no involvement with the deal, but, you know, kudos to Fulton street companies. Alex, Najam and Ross. [00:38:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:31] Speaker A: Across the street of a 17, 000 square foot gibsons that's going to open in May, June of next year, I think. And then, you know, above that, they have the 40,000square foot flagship Equinox. And, you know, that development, I would say, is. And now we're actually working on the development for them for the remaining retail. But that development will create a new epicenter in the market. And that is, you know, that whole block was just like that missing piece of. How do we keep that energy flowing down Fulton as you go further west? [00:39:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:01] Speaker A: And they crushed it. They crushed it. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Do you. Do you think that there are any other corridors or areas of the city that are, you know, setting the bar at Fulton Market would be incredibly high bar. But like, I lived in West Loop kind of when. Yeah, when West Loop was starting to turn. But I used to, like, park in front of our condo every night. Like, it was totally different. And I'm in real estate. I read all the newsletters and I still go to. We go to, you know, Fulton Market or Randolph or whatever, and I'm like, this kind of happened, like, under my nose. And I'm in real estate. And I didn't. I didn't see it. It's like almost I feel like an old man a little bit because I'm like, so, Whoa, look at all this stuff. Like, how this all happened. [00:39:46] Speaker A: Obviously, you know, a lot has happened in the market, right. And I think, you know, to the general public, everyone's like, oh, this all happened so quickly. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:54] Speaker A: I remember, like, when I was first starting, you know, it was. It was. It was. Google was just announced, and then shapek announced Soho House. Right. But then all these things take so much time, right? And you hear all the pitches and the tours and all the restaurant tours that we did in the market of like, oh, now we have Soho House. Now we have Google's moving. Okay, well, the Google thing, that took two and a half years to. Yeah, right. To redo the building. Get them in there. And then Soho House took many, many years and then. But it was just, you know, from a retail Restaurant, brokerage. But it's not enough yet. Right. You can sell the dream, but, you know, one hotel isn't gonna convince one restaurant, hey, we need to be here because of one hotel. Right. And that was just a domino effect of. [00:40:36] Speaker B: All right, is one hotel coming? Was that a plug for one hotel or is that just. I love one hotel. That's good. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd love to see the one in the west loop. [00:40:45] Speaker B: Same. [00:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? [00:40:47] Speaker B: But like, call me. Call a line. Actually, I wouldn't do anything for it. [00:40:53] Speaker A: But, you know, it. It's the domino effect. And then you had, you know, it's. [00:40:56] Speaker B: Like somebody else's kids that you don't see very. You, like, see your own kid, like, oh, you know, you're growing, I guess when I, you know, you try your pants on from last winter. But right. You see your buddy's kid from LA or whatever, and you're like, holy, you grew a foot. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Right. You know, so I think like, you know, again, the outside world, it's like all this happened overnight, but it didn't. Right. Like, I'm still walking buildings that I've walked 10 years ago that are vacant. I'm still walking pieces of land that are under, you know, they're not developed yet. And Fulton Market still has not seen. It's here. I think there's 3,000 current residential units in Fulton Market. Right. I think there's 10,000 planned in the next 18 to 24 months. You know, maybe that might be a misquote. Maybe it's 30 months. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:35] Speaker A: But you're gonna see 3x the amount of units come out of the market, and that's what the overall market is missing. Right. You have the office now there, you have the retail coming and there's more coming too, which I was hoping today I can announce something, but we're pretty close on. On a pretty game changing tenant for the full market. Yeah. [00:41:53] Speaker B: Oh, sweet. [00:41:54] Speaker A: So we'll do a follow up to. [00:41:55] Speaker B: This, but you can tell, you just. [00:41:57] Speaker A: Whisper, no, I'd be so. [00:42:00] Speaker B: So Fulton Market has a longer way to go. I like that answer. [00:42:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:03] Speaker B: Is there any other area of the city that you're feeling this like, energy towards or you're getting, you know, like restaurants want to be there, or you're thinking that you should deploy another agent. [00:42:13] Speaker A: There's a huge push for the neighborhoods. Right. And I think like, when you see the success of like again going back to Lincoln park, like, you see the success of, of Soda Cough with AR House, right. Like Armature Dale House is one of my favorite restaurants. If I'm not there once a week, I'm disappointed. But when you're there, you're. You're kind of like lost. You don't feel like you're in the city. I mean, you. You just. You just. Unless you've experienced it, you don't get it. Go. Right. And then the food always is amazing. But then now we have, you know, Dimmy. Dimmy just open. You can't get a reservation. Yeah, you obviously have the. [00:42:46] Speaker B: Which is further west. I mean, even soda, even Armitage Jailhouse. Like, people really weren't going west of the train there. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Right. And that's west. But yeah, can't get a reservation at WW and, you know, but then you have the classics. You have Athenian Room. You got. You know, Avi is still doing a great business up on Rightwood. And so I think there's still a huge push in the neighborhoods because these guys are realizing that they can do the volume. [00:43:12] Speaker B: Right, and you can do smaller footprint. Right? [00:43:14] Speaker A: Smaller footprint, much less rent. [00:43:15] Speaker B: Rent's not as. [00:43:16] Speaker A: And, you know, they're doing similar volumes to what you're doing, you know, per foot in Fulton or River north or Gold Coast. [00:43:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:24] Speaker A: I think with Chicago, I think we're. If, you know, look at like Chicago and some of the major developments, like you have these mega developments that are really about to unfold and happen. Right? And I think there's. There's three main ones. You got the 78. You got. You know, obviously Lincoln Yards is traded hands, you know, or half of it traded hands. [00:43:41] Speaker B: Foundry Park. [00:43:42] Speaker A: Right, Called Foundry park, which we're obviously excited about up in Lincoln Park. But, you know, when you look at the players that are involved, right, you have related and then you have Lechinger and, you know, let's. Let's Is a guy that just kind of gets things done. Right. So I think I'm really excited to see what is going to happen With a cool touch. With a cool touch. [00:44:01] Speaker B: You know, the stuff he did like, for Moody Bible. I mean, I know he's done a lot, but I thought about that when I was. I stopped on Wells, north of Chicago Avenue there, which is kind of no man's land, stretch of Wells by Walter Payton and stuff like that. And he put. I don't even know what the name. Two. Two tenants. [00:44:17] Speaker A: And you. [00:44:18] Speaker B: I'm sure you know the name. Yeah, one's like kind of coffee shop, Foxtrot Esque. You know, like cool convenience stores. [00:44:23] Speaker A: I mean, David Martin, you know, like. [00:44:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:25] Speaker A: Remember DMK and Sure. You know some of those classic. They were over on. They're on Sheffield still. [00:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:31] Speaker A: No, but I mean that's a guy that just like he believes in something, he does it and he delivers every time. [00:44:37] Speaker B: The third mega development. [00:44:38] Speaker A: Third mega development. About. [00:44:40] Speaker B: I think you probably. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So should talk about the 191 project I think is. Is a pretty exciting project. It's obviously, you know, It's. It's a 7 billion dollar privately funded development by you know, the WS and RhinoSource and the United Center. You know they have 55 acres of. Of parking lots that are going to. I think they're going to completely transform the entire west side. Right. Like the United center is a. In itself today is a tourist attraction. [00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Destination. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Right? It's a destination. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:11] Speaker A: You know you got obviously Michael Jordan and the Bulls and the Blackhawks and all the concerts that happen year round and you know you obviously have Windy City smoke out and. But I don't think people really understand the impact that this development is going to have on the, on the entire west side. Right. Like you go to the United center. You're going to the United center today and you're leaving. It's not going to be the case. Right. You're going to go to the United center. You're going to stay, you're going to take your family there on the weekends. Even if you're going to, you know, a concert, a sports. [00:45:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:40] Speaker A: Game or not, you're going to go there. You know, they're building a 6,000 person music venue which I think is really cool. You know, today the United center is a 22,000 person music venue. Right. So unless it's like salt shit. [00:45:54] Speaker B: I was like versus Salt shed for. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Salt shed I think is a little bit smaller. It's like I want to say 3,003, 500. Right. So like they're going to try and capture, you know, all the other. They, they must. They turn away so many, you know, of the smaller performances because they can't do it. It's a 22, 000 person venue at the United Center. So I think it's going to be really, really cool to see what happens. And we've been hired to do the retail and the. [00:46:21] Speaker B: Yes. I want to, I want to talk about. That's like an outrageous assignment like because you're literally putting your fingerprints on a part of the city that's going to move the needle on the city as a whole. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:33] Speaker B: But so I think about that and I'm sure it Is, is a, you know, in some ways kind of a daunting assignment. Right. Because you have, you have 55 acres of land. It's like really more blank slate than what some of the stuff you do is, you know, some of the stuff is like filling in what's more infill already. Right. Is that fair to say? [00:46:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:56] Speaker B: So this, like, how do you think about in the vein of what you discussed earlier is like merchandising, making sure. Yeah. Like you create some synergy. You start with the right stuff, you. [00:47:06] Speaker A: Know, like they have, they already have it all phased out. Right. So phase one is, it's going to break around at the end of this year. Phase one is music venue, hotel, and then, you know, restaurant and retail also. Then over and, and kind of combined with public park space and public parking spaces. Okay, Right. So you're building on top of parking spaces. You gotta, you gotta give back the parking. [00:47:33] Speaker B: Good start. So. [00:47:34] Speaker A: And that's all been phased out and like, you know, thought out with architects, engineers, people way above my. [00:47:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Pay grade. Right. We're given site plans, we make recommendations and we're, we're working through, you know, the size of the spaces and, you know, where the spacers should, you know, what direction they should face or, you know, how big they should be, the storefronts and. But the phases and the overall, like architects of the project is pretty much already mapped out. [00:48:00] Speaker B: But what would be best for you? Like what's the ideal start in your eyes? So say we're sitting here In a year, 18 months, you know, what would you be really excited to kind of have in terms of like traction on the onset, to be able to then create the snowball for the rest. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Our goal is to get a major. I'm going to be careful, a major restaurant group, whether it's locally or nationally. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:26] Speaker A: To commit to the project and not just for one restaurant and not just for one opportunity. [00:48:30] Speaker B: And they like to do that, don't they like to kind of cluster and. [00:48:32] Speaker A: Then they can put their name on it. They could, you know, they can make it their own. They can do one concept that then complements another concept. Right. It's more of like a market share grab. That's what we're trying to get. And we're trying to get a, a name that we can also brand and market off of as well. [00:48:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We decided before we shot this that we're going to do, we're going to do a little feature, I think on. [00:48:56] Speaker A: The night that'd be great. [00:48:57] Speaker B: Very fun. [00:48:57] Speaker A: We'll do a little follow up. [00:48:58] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. I'm gonna switch gears on you and talk about just like things in your business that I've wondered about and I figured maybe somebody else. So your business is very, it's competitive, hyper competitive. Of course, it's also outrageously collaborative. Right. Because a lot of times, you know, there's a lot of canvas and canvas deals, you know, where you, Michael or Andrew are representing the tenant, you guys are representing the landlord. It's great. But there's a lot of deals you're working with, you know, for the examples I mentioned earlier. Cbre Jll. Right. You know, you're friends with and you do a lot of business with. How do you foster like collaboration? Yeah, I'm sure these are people that you're also like friends with. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:46] Speaker B: Knowing you're also like probably competing on 10 assignments at any given time. [00:49:50] Speaker A: I mean, listen, competition is good, Right. I think in our city, you know, I think Chicago, it brings out like we're a hard working city. Yeah, right, we are. And whether it's whatever you do, city. [00:50:04] Speaker B: That works, people work hard. [00:50:07] Speaker A: So I compliment a lot of my competitors. Like there's some great retail teams out there that we're competing against. Yeah, they work hard, they do good work and we have to make deals with them, but we also have to compete with them. So, you know, how do you like, keep that relationship? And I think once you're in the business long enough, you just realize like you're going to do the deals with the same call it 20 brokers. [00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah, you just are. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Right. And if you're focused on downtown and you have a new assignment, you already know who your first 10 calls are. And you just have to find a way to, you know, you got to work with them, you got to work with them. And then when you, when you're going up against them and competing in a pitch, listen, we, we always just, we take the high road. [00:50:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:53] Speaker A: We talk about ourselves, we don't talk about other people. And that's just, that's how we work. And I think, I hope other people do the same. But you can't get rid of them. So you got to work with them. [00:51:05] Speaker B: Once you do it for long enough too, you realize that it's better for the market for the deal to be done well, you know, so if you guys aren't going to get it, obviously you're trying to go after everything that, you know, you have an opportunity to pitch on. But if it's not you, you'd rather have it be somebody that you know is going to do a good job and not be reckless and not, you know, do something to the detriment of the neighborhood overall. [00:51:28] Speaker A: Correct. [00:51:29] Speaker B: Or do a sloppy job even. [00:51:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:51:30] Speaker B: You know, if there's too many people running around, you know, ambulance chasing and brokerage versus, like, running a process and really thinking about it the right way. [00:51:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:51:40] Speaker B: It makes it a lot harder for you to. To run the process and to curate the neighborhood. [00:51:44] Speaker A: You also, like, you also want good brokers on the other side of the deal, right? Like, so if I'm representing a tenant and a other broker, a competing broker is representing the landlord. If I'm working with a good broker. No, dude, it makes the deal process so much easier, right? Like, I know he's gonna. He wants the deal. He knows how to make the deal, and so do I. So we're gonna work together, and he's gonna then go have a conversation with his client. I'm gonna go have conversations with my client, we're going to come back and we're going to make the deal. I think brokers, that. Brokers, you got to drop your ego, right? And it's easy to get one, but you got to drop your egos. And I think if, you know, when other egos get involved, deals die. That's just the name of the game. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:24] Speaker A: And. And then what do you have, right? You have six months of work, a year of work, two years of work that are just, poof, gone. Nobody makes money, deals aren't done, your clients are pissed off, and here we are, a bunch of wasted time and a bunch of wasted cocktail receipts. Then. [00:52:38] Speaker B: My colleague and manager said, do you want to be right or do you want to be rich? You know, too many people, like, argue about what they think is right in every little thing as opposed to being like, all right, well, let's find a middle ground here. You know, that's our job. [00:52:50] Speaker A: We're middlemen, right? So your client is going to want, whether you're a landlord, landlord's going to want what he wants. Your tenant, your tenant's going to want what they want, right? So it's your job to represent your client and their best interests. You have to drop what you think. We're here to give our professional opinion and advice and guide and make sure that what we believe are the right decisions are made. But at the end of the day. [00:53:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I made that. I mean, the service industry, I made it, like, similar to what you talked about. Talk to Matt Larosi on the residential brokerage side about, you know, when he interfaces with a, a less professional or experienced or you know, broker on the other side of it, you know, somebody, I want my, you know, nephew or whatever to get a chance to learn. It's not just the client who chose to be represented by the nephew that's interfacing with that person. [00:53:40] Speaker A: Yep. [00:53:41] Speaker B: It's the other 12 people that are involved in the deal have to deal with, you know, the goofball that's trying. Everybody has to learn. But like there should be as a standard time and a place, you know, like teach. Like. [00:53:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean like think about it. [00:53:54] Speaker B: Like it's like, you know, if you're, if you're learning to drive and you get an F1 car, you know, wrap around a telephone pole. Right. So. [00:54:02] Speaker A: But it's also, I, I don't think people understand like, you know, let's talk about, let's talk about simple restaurant deal. Right. Let's say a restaurant's 10,000 square feet and you're going to do a high class restaurant with the groups that we love eating and dining at. That restaurant in total is going to cost anywhere from 8 to 12 million dollars to build. Right. So whether that's, you know, majority of that's coming from the tenant or majority of that's coming from the landlord. You're talking about serious dollar spent here. [00:54:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Right. You're talking about big rents that need to be paid and you're talking about big dollars need to be raised to, to build out a restaurant. Right. So it's serious. You're not dealing with pennies here. And you know, it's, it's, you know, you make these deals to hopefully see that these restaurants are open for, you know, their entire tenure. And, and we pride ourselves on like, you know, just walking here after parking. Right. Seeing the Smith still packed. [00:54:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:55] Speaker A: At lunchtime. [00:54:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:56] Speaker A: I don't even remember when we did that deal. But you know, seeing them still busy and that's what I love to see, that's what I pride myself on is my restaurants that I do or my deals that we do at Canvas, they're going to stay open, they're going to be successful transactions. [00:55:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:10] Speaker A: At the end of the day, like it's a partnership, tenant, landlord, partnership. And if they're not aligned, it's a bad deal. [00:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah. One other question. Well, I actually have two other questions for you. One is basically a commercial for you, so. Yeah. My other, I've wondered about, you know, retail is. It feels very opaque. Like maybe your answer is just like well, that's a big advantage of doing a lot of business. But like in investment sales, something sells public, publicly recorded what it sells for, obviously a ton of nuance, you know, condition of the building. Yeah. All this stuff, you know, which is a big advantage for me because I stay, you know, ear to the ground on everything. But when you're talking about lease not recorded, you know, it's also. But even if it was, there's, you know, the ti, the abatement, the guarantee, all these things that. [00:56:03] Speaker A: So how do you get the information? [00:56:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so. [00:56:09] Speaker A: It'S a good question. It kind of goes back to working with the other competing brokers that you have to have good relationships with. Right. Like a lot of my competitors, I'm grabbing drinks with and I'm texting with and we're hanging out because sharing information is the only way that we can all grow. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:25] Speaker A: Right. So if I sign a new restaurant lease in Fulton Market or down the street in river north and he's marketing a restaurant space for his other client, he's got to know what my comp was. Right. A lot of people don't share, and I have no problem saying this, but you got to share market comps so that we all sustain, you know, and, and inform our clients of what market is right now. We do a lot of deals internally at Canvas. So a lot of our deals are. Obviously all of our information is shared. [00:56:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:54] Speaker A: We're a team. [00:56:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:55] Speaker A: And that's where I think we also are a little bit different, is we're not competing against each other at our company. Right. So we're, we're one team. We all kind of specialize in different things, but no one's pitching the same assignment. You know, no one's pitching the same tenant. Like, yeah, communication is shared, so that, that never happens. But you have to, you have to play ball with the other brokers. You have to. [00:57:19] Speaker B: Because the guy or gal that tries to hold the information close to the vest could very well be on the other side of the table. Use the next. You know, they have a tenant, they want to rent one of your spaces. And like, not to say that you'd stonewall them, but doesn't do anything good for like a long term relationship. [00:57:34] Speaker A: Right. And by the way, like, you got to get the info too. You know, if I'm representing a landlord in the market and a deal was signed at another site, I better know that. Rent. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:57:45] Speaker A: So it's. I don't have a choice. It's. [00:57:48] Speaker B: It's good in your position to control a lot of the market. So you can, can you. So you can share the information. Correct. Because then you gain this goodwill with everybody else. [00:57:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:58] Speaker B: My last question is hardly a question, but you're fresh off the. The cranes. [00:58:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:03] Speaker B: 40 under 40 list. Incredible, incredible honor. It's in Ben. Many of the who's who in Chicago business have been on the list over the years. So tell us about how you, how did you find out that you got it? [00:58:16] Speaker A: First of all, the, the. It's. It's fresh. It was a week ago. I am, I'm honored. I'm humbled, like, to be on that list, you know, and reading kind of like years prior and the people that are. Have been on there. It's, it's cool. It's a great recognition and super, super happy. Honored and humbled to be on that. There's a lot of, like, big time players on the list this year, so it's, it's cool. And I haven't, I've tried to reach out to most of them, but I hope to connect with all of them. And if you watch this podcast, please, let's do it. But I was notified. So obviously a lot of our deals are written up in Cranes. [00:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:56] Speaker A: Right. So Rachel from Cranes is. She's obviously one of the main reporters and, and writers for the real estate articles. [00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:07] Speaker A: And I think she just contacted my business partner, Anthony, and they, they have a good rapport. Like, you know, they share a lot of information and, you know, we obviously get quoted a lot for a lot of our deals that are mentioned. And I don't know, it just kind of came to. And I think, I don't know, maybe she realized I was under 40, but there was no, like, well, look, man. [00:59:29] Speaker B: It'S another reason to be nice to people. [00:59:30] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:59:31] Speaker B: And be willing to share and be willing to chat even when you can't. Even when you can't say something. Be like, I'm sorry, I can't say something. I'd love to. Trust me, I'd love always. [00:59:37] Speaker A: You always got to pick up the phone. [00:59:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:39] Speaker A: And if you miss a call, you always got to call, call back. Right. You never know who's going to be on the other line of the call. And you gotta always go, like, always call people back. You're always calling people. We're always pitching. We're always asking a landlord or a tenant to call you back. So you got to return the favor. Yeah. But again, it's, it's been fun. The reach outs are still coming in. [00:59:57] Speaker B: And dude, it's no small feat. You should soak it in. Thank you. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. [01:00:02] Speaker B: What are some. You can answer it in any, you know, any period of time. 5 year goal, 10 year goal, like what's either. And also just answer it personally answer it as, you know, for canvas. What are some of your, like, kind of medium term goals? [01:00:17] Speaker A: I want to grow. I want to help grow canvas. I think we all are aligned. Like there's five partners. I think we're all aligned on what we want to do and we just want to continue to grow. [01:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:26] Speaker A: You know, we want to be the. [01:00:29] Speaker B: Is that higher? Is it, is it new neighborhoods? Like, what does growth look like in that answer for, for you? [01:00:34] Speaker A: That's a, that's a good question. I think short term, it's locally. Right. I think, you know, I could use, we could use more brokers tomorrow. Right. It's about finding the talent and finding the right people that you want to work with. And I think, you know, a lot of people just hire to hire. Yeah, we hire because we, we gotta love you and you gotta love the people that you work with. And if you walk into the office and you don't, you know, they may be smart and they may be hard working, but if you don't love them, you're spending more time at the office in your, your home. Right. So. [01:01:05] Speaker B: And a small, a small firm, we have that in common with ina. Like you got one bad actor, it. [01:01:12] Speaker A: Break, it could bring down the whole ship. Right. [01:01:14] Speaker B: Well, in two ways. Energy in the office as well as image in the marketplace. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Correct. You know, and you know, you, you say energy. Energy to me is everything. Right. So like you walk in to the office, it's got to be good vibes only. Right. You're having a bad day, go home. So, you know, short term, I think we want to continue to grow our office with, with young talent that, you know, we want to be with. You know, we want to expand outside of just retail brokerage, leasing. You know, you, you guys obviously know investment sales pretty well, but, you know, we want to do all of it. You know, there's so much of commercial real estate that we haven't even really touched. I think once we can get our arms around how to expand locally within Chicago, we can talk about, you know, beyond beyond Chicago. [01:02:05] Speaker B: Well, you guys also would be able to. Our business is hyper local. You know, we're dealing with, I mean, deal with plenty of people from out of state, but most people have a presence in Chicago. A lot of your clientele is national and is in these major markets already. So if you decided to do that, you could probably kind of parlay some of those relationships. [01:02:25] Speaker A: And we've kept a lot of those. Yeah, we've kept a lot of those relationships. So, you know, every time I go to Miami or if I go to New York, it's kind of feels like I'm at home. [01:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:35] Speaker A: You know, I need a reservation done. [01:02:37] Speaker B: That's a good. [01:02:38] Speaker A: All goes back. [01:02:38] Speaker B: That's a good perk. [01:02:39] Speaker A: All goes back to the reservation. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's a good way to. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Start, but, you know, whatever it is, it's like, you know, what are retail rents on fifth Avenue today? You know, what are retail rents on Madison Avenue? Or what are retail rents on, you know, wherever. Brickell and Design District? It's. It's one phone call. Right. And like, that's. As a broker, you need the information. You just. You need it at your fingertips, and we have all that. So. [01:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Our two rap questions. Why do you love Chicago as a place to live, to raise your family, to run your business? [01:03:11] Speaker A: I think Chicago is, you know, all around. It's one of the best cities in the country. There's no question you can take it. [01:03:21] Speaker B: One of the. The best. [01:03:23] Speaker A: It's the best. [01:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:25] Speaker A: You know, I don't mind. Again, I grew up in Milwaukee. I don't mind the winners. I don't mind the cold. Do I want more summers and seasons like, we just had, like, where it's October and we're still wearing V necks and T shirts? Yeah, sure. Let's do it. But you got sports, you got culture, you got great food. I think the best food in the country. A lot of people are gonna say New York. No way. [01:03:47] Speaker B: No, dude. I mean, soda crops. Got five restaurants, like, for Charles here. [01:03:51] Speaker A: My friends in New York text me for reservations to his restaurants in New York City. So what? I don't hear it anymore. [01:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's not just that. It's through the whole spectrum of, you know, food in Chicago. [01:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And. And to me, like, I'm a big foodie. I love food. I love new restaurants. But we. I. We have it all. Like, it's a sports town. [01:04:11] Speaker B: Diverse economy, too. [01:04:12] Speaker A: It's a glorified sports town with amazing food. [01:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:14] Speaker A: Like, how you're not gonna love it. Yeah. And, you know, for us, like, it's. It's manageable to live in downtown with a family and not have to go to the suburbs. And I think, you know, in other cities, it's just, you know, it's just much harder. [01:04:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:30] Speaker A: And who knows? But we're here to stay. I love Chicago, and I'm here to make it a better place. [01:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, me too. I. That's why a lot of the reason why we're doing this because I just, I. I love the city and I, you know, just get sick of people. [01:04:44] Speaker A: We get a lot of. We get a lot of bad press. Right. Like, you know something. We didn't touch on a lot of phone calls today. [01:04:50] Speaker B: We're gonna. [01:04:50] Speaker A: I know. [01:04:52] Speaker B: Sorry. [01:04:55] Speaker A: You know, my friends come from wherever. Like I said New York or Miami or whatever it is. And they're like, dude, Chicago's awesome. Yeah, Yeah, I know. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:04] Speaker A: That's why I don't tell you. Like, they're like, watch. I don't like traveling in the summer. Like, this is the best city in the world in the summer, dude. [01:05:11] Speaker B: Also, like, I, you know, the winner get whatever. First of all, you could just say it gives you some perspective on the summer and you appreciate it. [01:05:18] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:05:18] Speaker B: The other thing is, like, go to Armitage jailhouse, to use your example. Right. On a cold winter day, I'm a happy dude. Cozy as in there. Eat some hearty food. It's good living. [01:05:32] Speaker A: But also to that point, too, is like, wintertime. You want to get away. It's like, all right, we're in the center of the country, right? It's on a plane, hour and a half to New York. [01:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:40] Speaker A: You know, it's two hours in Miami. Two hours Miami. Two and a half hours, Miami. You know, you want to fly from New York to Vegas. That's a six hour flight, right? Like, that's a long flight. [01:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:51] Speaker A: Vegas to me. Let's go. [01:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, let's go. I'm on a no booze kick right now. [01:05:57] Speaker A: So that I know you told me that otherwise there'd be a bottle of tequila on. [01:06:00] Speaker B: I have to say that every time I think of something fun like that, I have to remind myself, when is. [01:06:06] Speaker A: That on, by the way? [01:06:06] Speaker B: What's that? [01:06:07] Speaker A: The no booze. [01:06:08] Speaker B: It's great, actually. Like, jokes aside, it's actually. I think I'm going to keep it going for a long time. [01:06:12] Speaker A: How long? [01:06:13] Speaker B: Been at it for like, three months. [01:06:16] Speaker A: That's long. [01:06:18] Speaker B: You know, it's kind of the. I won't make this along. It's. It is kind of liberating to be able to go to a lot of things that I just associated with drinking and not drink. Like, I had a work dinner late last night and I'm just like, no I don't. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not drinking right now. And it was. Woke up, worked out, you know, it just. [01:06:36] Speaker A: It's eating benefits in the morning. [01:06:37] Speaker B: Some pressure off of that. So that's great. [01:06:40] Speaker A: Whatever. [01:06:42] Speaker B: Last one. What's a piece of advice you give someone either starting in real estate to get going, or it's maybe been doing it for a few years, that wants to take their business to the next level? [01:06:54] Speaker A: If you don't love it, get out now. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. [01:06:57] Speaker A: Right. It'll chew you up, spit you out, crush your soul, keep you up at night. But then also, you know, if you're in it and you love it and you're passionate about it, it's very rewarding. But you have to have that. You got to have that stomach to get beat the up, kicked in the shins, you know? [01:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think, like, everybody I talk to that's been at it, you know, you and I, maybe 15 years or so. Is that about right? Yeah. So. Thinks back at the beginning very fondly. I know that there were days for me that were tougher. [01:07:31] Speaker A: I mean, remember? [01:07:32] Speaker B: Cool. But, yeah, me, but, like, that at that point, right. Whatever. I had enough. I had some money. Say that, you know, like. But it was very, very stressful. But the beginning, the first two or three years, when I'm, like, not going on vacations and, like, driving around, like, a market on the weekend to try to, like, take pictures of management signs. And I think back at that, like, very fondly now, so. And even at the time, I was like, all right, I'm starting my business. I got to do it. But a lot of people that, you know, interview or like, hey, how would you recommend getting started? Like, make sure you really, really, really want to do this as a lifestyle, not as your job. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Yes. [01:08:07] Speaker B: Because otherwise there are so many other ways to make a living, and it's just not for everybody. And I don't say that like a, like. Like a elitist way. Like, oh, it's for me and not for you. It's just different. Like, you have to be all in. [01:08:23] Speaker A: You have to. You know, it's funny. I remember when we were much younger and we be, you know, in Ubers or cabs, and I'd be with my friends, and they'd be like, why are you always looking out the window? Like, you know, looking at storefronts, Guys, this is just like, train myself. It's like, it is part of your life. Right. You're going to dinner and you're like, oh, there's a new sign. There's a new available sign in that window. Or that. Or like, oh, that restaurant open. And my eyes are just always. They're just trained to just look. [01:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:49] Speaker A: At the storefront. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, keep it up, man. You're doing an awesome job. [01:08:53] Speaker A: Thank you. [01:08:53] Speaker B: You're guys. [01:08:53] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. [01:08:54] Speaker B: Your guys work makes for. For a lot of what we enjoy in the neighborhoods. Yeah, we'll do a follow up. That'll be fun. Yeah, let's do it. We're gonna have to, you know, take the show on the road. [01:09:05] Speaker A: Bring your sneakers. [01:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah. But thanks, man. Appreciate you. [01:09:07] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Joe.