How One Guy Bought a Chicago Skyscraper for $7.5M (And What Happens Next)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Joe Smazal from the Real Estate Chicago Style podcast. We're here at the Pittsfield Building. We just had an awesome conversation and tour with the skyscraper guy. Many of you have seen him on TikTok or Instagram. We got a behind the scenes look at the property in no time. I'm a little bit better. Looking forward to taking you guys through. Welcome to the Real Estate Chicago Style podcast. I'm Joe Smozzle, a broker at Inter Realty, also an owner operator of smaller apartment buildings on north side Smiles Apartments. We've got the skyscraper guy with us today. [00:00:40] Speaker B: I mean, appreciate you, man. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Thanks for making the time. Enjoyed a lot of the content. Good to be here with you today. Where I wanted to start is when I remember reading the Cranes article. When you bought the Pittsfield Building. [00:00:54] Speaker B: Sure. [00:00:54] Speaker A: In the Pittsfield Building. For anybody in Chicago real estate, it's been on the radar. Incredibly historical building, storied past. More recently, kind of a troubled past. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:07] Speaker A: And I remember reading the article when you bought it and I said, tom from Grand Rapids, like, like, tell me about your background. Tell me about how you became the skyscraper guy. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you're right. First off this in terms of the building. Yes. It was a very troubled past, this building. In fact, you know, in one of the videos I did, I throw down this scroll and those are all, dude, I've seen facts. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:01:31] Speaker B: That we're going to be going through. [00:01:33] Speaker A: For me, it's like Seinfeld. Like, I could quote all the old articles. I could, I could. You could reference anything in your content. [00:01:39] Speaker B: So. And so I remember, funny story, I was at a vent. Right. This building has probably gone through 20 different developer hands. Yeah. Everybody and their brother was trying to buy it. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:50] Speaker B: For 10 plus years. Okay. And I remember buying this building in 23. And I went to a networking event and they're like, what do you got going on? I'm like, oh, you know, I just kind of. This building downtown, they kind of look at some stuff. Right. And the guy says to me after I bought it, mind you, like six months or three, four months after, and he says, oh, the Pittsfield Building. We're so close to buying that thing. We're literally ready to under. Like we've been through underwriting. And I go, really? And so that just goes to a testament about how troubled this building was and how many people tried to do something in this building. Yeah. And it was really. When you ask about, you know, how did the skyscraper guy get created? [00:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:34] Speaker B: And it was opportunity. When all Those other developers were looking at it prior to. It was prior to Covid. Yeah. So the vision of what the building was was exactly what everything was prior to Covid, which was a hotel, you know, something office was very good. You know, like. Yeah. Mixed commercial use. Right. Yes. And so that was the problem. That was pre Covid. And what happened when it allowed someone like myself to come into the game or all the skyscraper games is Covid, because 80% of skyscrapers are offices. And when Covid happened, we clearly knew what happened to offices. They completely. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Especially in the loop, you know. [00:03:19] Speaker B: In the loop, yeah. We're in a financial district. Right. And a lot of buildings really suffered. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:23] Speaker B: And so this created this vacuum for people like me that just do a lot of math and understood. I thought, you know, half the time when we. When we really win in real estate is our basis is really good. You know, we got room to say, well, maybe we couldn't play around and lose a couple million here and be [00:03:44] Speaker A: okay, you know, talk about your basis. Maybe I'll interrupt, you talk about. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, it's nothing private. Right. So we bought this tower that we're standing in right now for seven and [00:03:52] Speaker A: a half million and 300,000 square feet. [00:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah. This whole building is about almost 500,000. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's bifurcated, which there's different things we're working through right now. [00:04:04] Speaker A: So 20 bucks a foot, $25 a foot. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've been able to buy other things. [00:04:09] Speaker A: The price of a single family home in Lincoln Park. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Exactly. In fact, we've bought entire city blocks here in the Loop for less than $8 a square foot blocks. And so it's just created this. This vacuum. Apologize for the sound, by the way. No, that's the whole thing. [00:04:27] Speaker A: I like it. We got. You got a team swarming down here. We got people coming in and out of Pittsfield Cafe. It's. It's urban city, man. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:34] Speaker A: We're working. [00:04:35] Speaker B: That's what we're doing. We're working. So to go back to that skyscraper. Skyscraper guy was created because of COVID It created this opportunity for new. Let's call it new blood. New investor. Old money, New money. Right. [00:04:50] Speaker A: New energy, New vision. Different approach. Flip it on the Fed, the whole. Everything is different. [00:04:55] Speaker B: You got to look at everything different. We are in a space called adaptive reuse, which is. Let's readapt this to what it is. We know housing is needed here, right? Yeah. Especially in these empty buildings. If it can't be an Office anymore. What can it be? Yeah, and that's, it's a basic question, but people don't actually sit there and think about it. They don't pencil it. They don't. They start thinking, well, what about the systems? And I'm like, I don't know, figure it out. Right. It's a shell, so. Yeah. [00:05:24] Speaker A: So you have a, the basis is as right as right gets. Right. I mean, you're 20, 25 bucks a foot for this. I mean, I, I told, I told Tom, told the skyscraper guy when we came in. It's like, it takes your breath away a little bit. You know, the detail in this building and like the history that you can feel when you walk in. You could never, I mean, you could never build it again today. Even if you were to build a more sterile version of it today, it'd be a multiple of 15, 20 times a foot. [00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:54] Speaker A: Or more. So. Okay, so the basis is right, but the basis in a case like this is only part of the. I mean, it's a 200 plus million dollar project. So the basis is like less than 5% of the deal. For a lot of people that might not understand, what is it? Talk to us about a little bit about the capital stack for a deal like this. I mean, it's an, it's an, it's a much more complex project. Somebody could see and be like, oh my God, about that much real estate for seven and a half million dollars. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Tell us. You still got to do a lot, Right. To get it to a project that, you know, is like your vision coming to fruition, Right? [00:06:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:06:29] Speaker A: So what's been some of the complexity in that? [00:06:31] Speaker B: So just because we buy a piece of property, we have a vision for what it could be. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:37] Speaker B: But unless the city approves that vision, you don't have anything. Right. In this case, we said, you know, we want to make apartments, 400 plus more apartments and we want more open public space. So we have to get that approved, which is the hardest part in a lot of ways, because it's zoning, it's all kinds of different things. Yeah. Fortunately, after literally 12 years, we were able to achieve that in October. And that was the rocket ship, because now you can put a real stack together because now you know what you're going for to the bank. You're doing, you know, exactly what you can do. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's, it's no longer this. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Correct. Yeah, yeah, correct. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Otherwise, imagination. It's like, here, this is what we have. Right, Exactly. [00:07:23] Speaker B: And so everyone kind of looks at you Like, I don't know they're doing it. You know, I don't. I'm like, well, it took two years to put all that together, and finally when we pull it off. Yeah. [00:07:30] Speaker A: I think you did a few things really right in that process. Number one is you proposed uses that are in demand. Right. So, like, you weren't trying to jam a square peg in a round hole or whatever the expression is. I mean, you were trying to. You were trying to actually utilize this building into what the public wants. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Public space, housing. The other thing that I think you did really well is the promotion of it. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Sure. [00:07:54] Speaker A: And, like, giving people a sneak peek behind the curtain. And this positivity that you bring, this energy that you bring, this humility that you bring, this humor that you bring to it, I think is very different. We were talking about that a little bit before we started, and it's like, I think that personifies it a little bit. I know it's all brand, and I know that that's not an accident for you. So talk to us about, like, the. The social media element of it and this. This idea of creating this brand behind it to support the economics of this building, this undertaking that you have. [00:08:24] Speaker B: So there's no other skyscraper guy in the world. You know, the. The concept of when we do brands, how do we differentiate ourselves? The purple cow scenario. Right. And I knew in the industry of skyscrapers before COVID it was really tight. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:40] Speaker B: It did not allow for people like me to come in the game. [00:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:43] Speaker B: And in fact, there's still people out there today that literally hate on me because we're doing things that are supposed to be coveted in so many ways. [00:08:52] Speaker A: Supposed to be pension funds and whatever it is institutional and out of reach for. [00:08:56] Speaker B: It's out of reach for guys. This is like the mindset. And for the longest time, I felt that way too. Like, oh, I'm doing something real big. You really can't understand it. You know? And then it dawned on me. I'm like, this is such a beautiful building. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Such a beautiful building that it can't be withheld from the public. You got to share this kind of stuff. And so in that mindset. Right. [00:09:20] Speaker A: And then also it's this level of appreciation for after the fact. Okay. Because if you don't see the journey in it, then it can be done. Everything can go really well. People will still appreciate it. Because you've taken this building that's been left behind, the scaffolding's been up for a decade or whatever, and you brought it back to life. That's great. It's appreciated. But if you show them the story, it's much more than that. It's much deeper because you see it along the way, right? [00:09:45] Speaker B: That's right. [00:09:45] Speaker A: And see you climbing up the, you know, the elevator shafts with the Hazmat suit on, all this stuff, right? Yeah. So I think that that was just a job well done. I think it's. It. This business can be too sterile sometimes and getting people look behind the scenes. I think it was a really smart thing. [00:10:01] Speaker B: Think about any other skyscraper owner that would never go in the top of a building like that. You're not thinking of these things, right? [00:10:08] Speaker A: I mean, like I watched some of them and I feel like I'm watching that guy that just climbed this. It's like my palm. People don't know who to tag, by the way. I know we're going to walk around like I'm not going anywhere. Like we're. I'm kind of scared of heights. So anyway, these buildings have been on sale, right? I mean, these buildings like. And there's a lot of them in the city that could use a shot in the arm. Right. So why the Pittsfield building? In addition to the basis, in addition to the opportunity. But it's more than that, right? Because there's other buildings that would have the rich history, that would have kind of a blank slate and that you could buy pretty cheap. So why this one? [00:10:42] Speaker B: Okay, so it's very specific when you're thinking office to resi conversion. [00:10:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:46] Speaker B: There's very specific reasons. And what that comes down to is not all buildings can be converted to residential. That's the main game of what we do. Adaptive renews. Take it and put it something else. And office, the resi is being financed really well right now. So it's main focus. Now when you think about buildings like The Pittsbuild built 1927. Okay. Buildings actually built prior to 1935, we call these kind of like the, you know, the roaring twenties era. People who came to work before 1935. [00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of the stock in the city. This type of product in the neighborhoods too. Exactly. [00:11:20] Speaker B: They came to work and they enjoyed work. There's actually buildings that I have that have smoking ledges because they would go and hang out and everyone got a window. So what that means when you say why the Pittsfield building? It's not just why the Pittsburgh building? Why do we own other buildings that are built in this era? It's because Prior to that 1935, buildings either have an Atrium like this or they're shaped like an H. So you got your elevators in the middle and then wings. And everyone gets a window atrium. Everyone gets an interior window. Buildings built after 1935 goes into World War II. And now people came and they're working no time. [00:11:53] Speaker A: Kind of like what do you call that where it's a single load or double load or whatever. You kind of walk around, you go into the office and it's like a maze. When you get it right, it makes it a lot more challenging for the floor plan. Exactly. Yeah. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Center shaft, elevator. So you think about buildings like the Aeon Building or any of these big squares, big rectangles. You can't have 1800 square foot units with just three windows at the end and have hundreds of those. Nobody's going to rent those. You see the difference? [00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So, so we talked a little bit about the history and I don't want it like you've talked about the history too in your channel. So I don't want to be redundant to that. Talk to us about, you know, I know your, your bio is. Or your, your tagline is, I think, preserving the history while building for the future. Some. Maybe I got a little bit wrong. [00:12:31] Speaker B: What's the future here? [00:12:32] Speaker A: Talk to us about what the project is like. So how many apartments, configuration of the units? How are you going to kind of unlock some of the common area space, the amenity space? I know you talked about some public use here. [00:12:42] Speaker B: Mm. And that's probably. Give us the download we're most excited about is the public space, but also these new builds that we're doing. Okay. So this building as it sits Today already has 228 apartments in it. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:54] Speaker B: So we're building another. [00:12:55] Speaker A: And just for the, you know, for the sake of clarification, that's floors 10 [00:12:59] Speaker B: through 10, all the way up to 21. [00:13:01] Speaker A: Okay, cool. [00:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:02] Speaker A: And so yeah, what you have is like it's vertically subdivided. Right. So you. Ownership is kind of bifurcated here. So you own everything else. Right. So you're. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we own 80% of the building. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:12] Speaker B: Okay. And then, you know, as we go through it's. It's meant to be all in, in one big building, one big ownership. Yeah. And so the apartments that we're building are going to be a little more unique and it kind of goes into this social media aspect of it. We've been able to create this incredible funnel of one people who are on a wait list to come in, but more importantly people who want to help save this 100 year old skyscraper. So we take these savings from all these different people that want to contribute and we pass that on to the development. Meaning these apartments are going to be very much condo finishes, but for an apartment. So gold faucets, mahogany hallways that are original, 1920s bedrooms that are like 1920 vibes. That's not normal because no developer could pencil that cost. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:03] Speaker B: We are able to do that because of what we've structured totally different. So very excited about bringing that to market because that's going to be a [00:14:11] Speaker A: leaning into the vintage without compromising any of the amenities that somebody coming in today expects. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, right. But now when we talk about the public space. Yeah, that's the very, very unique thing. And as we go up and see more of the building as a normal developer, we look at a top of a building and we say, penthouse, penthouse, penthouse. 50 grand a month. 50 grand a month. That's how most developers think. Because that's. You could take to the bank. Because if you try to do anything else, you're saying, bank, I'm going to spend $20 million to make this observation deck. They're going to say, yeah, go finance that piece somewhere else. That's what they're going to say. [00:14:47] Speaker A: It's too abstract. It's. [00:14:48] Speaker B: Where are you going to. How is it going to make its money back? This and that. But it's all mathematics. But it's more than mathematics. It's more. It's about. Well, it's not a. If you build it, will they come? That's. That's kind of the trick that you're playing with the bank. We don't have that problem because we have hundreds of millions of views on socials with millions of inquiries and comments and DMs. Yeah. People saying, hey, we want to go see that building at the top. [00:15:15] Speaker A: It validates something that's different because without that, it's just different. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:15:19] Speaker A: Without the validation, you have to go to them and you have to say, hey, we really think there's a market for this. [00:15:24] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:15:24] Speaker A: And a bank doesn't have this entrepreneurial vision. They don't have this. They need to see the validation. So when you go show people like, look, here's the support that we have for doing it this way, it kind of flips it on its head. Right. You're able to do something a little bit more radical. [00:15:38] Speaker B: That's right. We have a wait list of hundreds of thousands of people. Well, you probably should do that. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:44] Speaker B: You know. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so as we go up, you See that? And then when you go up there, I ask you like, hey, is this view worth X dollars? And then you do the math in your head, right? And you're like, oh, this should work. [00:15:56] Speaker A: You know, when you have something like this, you know, something that struck me is, how do you bet? Like when I was listening to your content, it's clear that you're passionate for. Even when you hear you talk for, you know, five or ten minutes, however long, clearly you're passionate about that. How do you balance the love for the art and the architecture this building represents with the economics of it? Because those two can be in conflict with each other. Right. So sometimes, you know, even if you want to do it a certain way, how do you think about that? [00:16:23] Speaker B: Well, you have to remember that when you do buy these older buildings, you have to account for that part. Like that's just a line. Even, even facade work. Any building that's over 200ft that has a facade on it. Critical facade inspection, your minimum 10 million. Yeah. Just off the cut. But you, you are restoring. You are also typically dealing with landmark. So you can account for that. But then you also realize, hey, if we do this, you get, you get credits because you're doing something that no one else can do. So you can pencil it in. [00:16:53] Speaker A: That way you have some historic tax credits as part of the capital stack, I assume. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:59] Speaker B: I mean, you get it. That's what you get. This is a landmark building. And so you put that as part of your stack. So it helps bring the load down. Right. Then it just becomes a normal deal at that point. When you add things like public space that provides more juice to investors and things like that. Because that's not normal. Right. So you get that, that factor. Yeah, that multiple. [00:17:23] Speaker A: When you were buying it. I mean, it, there's due diligence and then there's like, wow, this is just a, it's a, you can never know every nook and cranny. I mean, I've seen you're discovering some sections of the build. How do you think about that in terms of like the risk in it? Right? Like it's good and bad. You could say, you know, something that was a surprise that you found that was negative. You could say something that was really positive that you discovered. But like, you just have to have, when you're buying something like this and you have, you know, it's a 200 plus million dollar project, it's 300,000 square feet. Like, you just have to have a margin for rolling with the punches, right? How did you think about that when you bought this? [00:18:00] Speaker B: So that's probably the big difference between myself and maybe other developers is I've always taken risk. I'm either 110 in or I'm totally out. Yeah, yeah, that's how you have to [00:18:12] Speaker A: make it cleaner that way. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Right. And so believe it or not, the due diligence, this was a foreclosure. What happens in a foreclosure so unseen? Yeah, you go in. You didn't even get financing for that. Yeah, you got to. You got to literally do a cash deal however you have to do it. So this was a. Can you believe it? All these floors, 40 stories, and I didn't even get to see any of them. I just said, we're buying it. [00:18:36] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:36] Speaker B: Should work. [00:18:37] Speaker A: I'm going to throw my arm into it. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Should work. You know, they're like, it's low enough. We should make this work. You know, and you just think about, okay, what are the main pieces that I could activate immediately that can help offset that? Seven and a half. Well, we got apartments with this acquisition. We got active first floor retail. Just those two pieces alone should cover what we need on the nut. So it's like when we look at that and we think about the risk. I didn't actually understand why no one else thought about it. I thought I was taking crazy. I thought it's crazy thinking, why do I know this math and no one else does? I couldn't quite figure that out. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Well, there's an expression. Oh, Warren Buffett expression in that. Right. You know, be bold when others are fearful or whatever it is, you know? [00:19:17] Speaker B: Well, because remember, think of the game. Before I came in, they were. They would come in, they would sit, and no one else is in the game. We're just gonna sit here. Let's wait till it gets to $500,000, then we'll buy it, you know, but let's see how. In a way, like, let's see how it's greed in a lot of ways, like, let's wait. Let's wait. They can just keep suffering. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Well, and you have to be patient enough. I mean, that was two and a half years ago, right? I mean, so you have to be patient enough to. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And that. So, yeah. [00:19:43] Speaker A: What are the next steps with the project? We're sitting here just to put a timestamp on it. We're sitting here in February 2026. So what? Talk to us about what's on the horizon this year. Here's. [00:19:51] Speaker B: Well, right now we're going Through. [00:19:52] Speaker A: I know we got people swarming down here. So we got lively. [00:19:55] Speaker B: That's right. So we're just getting all the bids in place to get construction loan to get all the different pieces in place. We should probably see this building. I would love. I know this sounds crazy, but I know it's possible for certain parts of the building because remember, we're not building like a completely gutted building. We're building only an extra hundred and so apartments. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:16] Speaker B: That's not that big much. And all the infrastructure is here. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:20] Speaker B: So that's what people remember. And as you go through the floors for me and we see them, they're empty. They're already abated, they're already cleared. That alone clears 18 months off your schedule. That puts us at a 20, 27, 28 completion. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Which is incredibly fast. But we're halfway there. [00:20:37] Speaker A: How much of the infrastructure was usable? How much of it was obsolete, you know, in terms of like elevators, plumbing risers, that sort of thing? [00:20:44] Speaker B: That's an interesting question. You know, when you go into these big buildings, one of the biggest costs that could literally help destroy a deal is elevators. [00:20:52] Speaker A: How many elevators are here? [00:20:53] Speaker B: There's 16. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:55] Speaker B: And each one of them in a million. Five. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:58] Speaker B: Fortunately, you don't need that many. You only need one per 100 unit. This is kind of the code. And so knowing we have all that, that means all the empty elevators now become infrastructure. That's the other thing when you think about adaptive reus is you have these hollow shafts where you can run all your systems in addition to whatever is already there. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Are you going to leave the doors on the first floor, though? I love. [00:21:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:23] Speaker A: They have to stay. Okay. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Everything you physically see, like right now has to stay. [00:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:28] Speaker B: And be updated. Even the chandelier, it's landmark, not. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Not just extra inside too. You have to preserve. Okay. [00:21:34] Speaker B: Correct. [00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Layer of complexity. Lot of people wouldn't. [00:21:37] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:21:39] Speaker A: I mean, and it'd be a shame. Like, it's just the chandeliers, all of the, like the tray ceilings, the detail around it is outrageous. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Yeah. When this shines up, I mean, even the chandelier, as we go up, you'll see it. It's so dusty right now. This thing shines like glass. And we're restoring everything here in the building. Nothing is going off site. [00:22:02] Speaker A: So I mean, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you about social media because, you know, like, everybody tries to do it. [00:22:10] Speaker B: Sure. [00:22:11] Speaker A: I try to do it to some extent. And you like as A real estate developer. You've also become a real personality. You went from being this guy that everybody was like, who bought that? So, like, now more people probably know you in the Chicago real estate landscape than arguably any other developer. So I understand. I understand the initiative for the brand, but you approached it noticeably differently, you know, and so climbing around the building, you're having fun with it, you're energetic about it. I mean, you could talk to us about what you're releasing this afternoon. [00:22:43] Speaker B: Like, [00:22:46] Speaker A: that's not just an accident. Right. So talk to us about, like, how that was the. Or how that came to be, how the skyscraper guy, as we see him today, came to be. Because I think you have 500,000 followers on Instagram. I'm not on TikTok, so I don't know how to measure that. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:02] Speaker A: Hundreds of millions of views that you referenced earlier. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Like, that's a business too, right? [00:23:09] Speaker B: Sure. [00:23:09] Speaker A: I mean, so how did you. How did you do that so well, so quickly when a lot of people probably cringe at most of the real [00:23:18] Speaker B: estate, like, oh, absolutely. [00:23:19] Speaker A: Content that's out there. [00:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So one. It starts with the story and the right team. So there's a. Our brand manager is named Elliot, and he's a lot of the vision behind telling the story. He understands the demographic that lives in the bracket of 18 to 40 right there. In terms of the amount of time they need to see from when we do cuts to even the music choices. Yeah. These are really important things in terms [00:23:49] Speaker A: of more of a production than people would appreciate. Correct. [00:23:51] Speaker B: It's a huge production. [00:23:52] Speaker A: Shout out, Elliot. [00:23:53] Speaker B: That's right. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:54] Speaker B: That's right. And so. [00:23:56] Speaker A: But it still has to hit. [00:23:57] Speaker B: It still has to hit. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And so it's gone viral, I imagine, beyond your expectation. Maybe not. Maybe not. Because you think big. [00:24:04] Speaker B: Okay, Appreciate that. [00:24:05] Speaker A: But. [00:24:06] Speaker B: But even, for example, even we did this mail video, and it's got. I think it's over 6 million views on the. On a mail shoot video. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:14] Speaker B: And it completely hit a different demographic. People. It's like they've never seen these things before, and they were just not. Unless you lived in a building at a mail shoot, you would never know. And so when we approach skyscraper guy, there's a lot of funnel that happens from that. But just like when we. When we do deals and we're trying to raise money, let's say, because that's the name of the game when we're doing real estate, it's syndication, still the [00:24:40] Speaker A: lifeblood of the business. Right. Like, you can have all These ideas. But if you don't have the money, you can't get correct. Yeah. [00:24:45] Speaker B: And as a sponsor, the one puts the deal together, you can only do so much, right. Hey, I'll help lead this round. I put the risk forward. [00:24:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:53] Speaker B: But then you got to get other people to see that vision, see that excitement. You don't sell them by saying, we got to remember that same investor you might want to talk to, they're probably talking to 10 other guys that can give them a 20% IRR. [00:25:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:07] Speaker B: You're no different than whoever else. So the presentation has to be exactly the way you see it on socials. It's nothing about how much return. It's a byproduct of doing a good project. So you present the cool, the fun. Like, this is an exciting project. Here's why. Look at all these things. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker B: And now it opens up a window where people are like, I want to be a part of that. And now and then there's a sponsor. Well, what way would you like to be a of part? Yeah. Right. Because the general public, you gotta remember they've never even had opportunities to be a part of a skyscraper when you think about that, have you? [00:25:40] Speaker A: So I. The part about the social media funnel that you're creating and creating customers and creating the proof of concept for this is easier for. Are you also seeing a lot of investors come to you by way of your channel or is it more of like a reinforcer? Is it like, hey, yeah, you know, it's a network that you've always talked to in your other place projects and stuff, but now look what we have going, like, or is it, is it new inbound people wanting to be a part of it? From an investment standpoint. [00:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah, from an investment standpoint. If I told you the real numbers, it would. It's to the point so much where we're creating a structure called a reit. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Because the fund has grown to that amount. [00:26:21] Speaker A: So is your equity fully subscribed here? [00:26:23] Speaker B: It's always because if it were one off buildings. Yes, but because there's so much that people want to participate and see these visions. There's other buildings that we have here in the Louvre. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:37] Speaker B: At the end of the day, what we have vested in Chicago is in the billions, plural. And so people can partake in that. Exactly. Like Pittsfield. But because we're doing one project at a time, we can't just overload everyone. Say, there's another one, another one, another one. We have to do it all together. [00:26:56] Speaker A: So you've Got the Pittsfield is the one I see in, like, you're. You're, you know, in the content. And I gather now that you're doing it kind of sequentially, so. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:06] Speaker A: What's next for the skyscraper guy? Can you speak to any of those projects that are in the pipeline, whether you already own them or whether they're correct? [00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:13] Speaker A: Just on the radar. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So we do own other ones. Okay. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Why are you more private about those than this one? [00:27:20] Speaker B: It's not necessarily that we're private about it. It's because we're working on something that has to release in seasons. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:28] Speaker B: If that makes sense. We can't just release them all at once. [00:27:31] Speaker A: No, it's fair. I mean. I understand. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Okay. So this one is just getting started, and there's so much more to experience in this building. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:41] Speaker B: But the other buildings, for example, when we start buying skyscrapers. Okay, people, remember, where are you normally buying a skyscraper? It's in a city. And normally when you're buying one, you're not normally just doing one because you're responsible for all these hundreds and, you know, thousands of people living hundreds of apartments. Right. And you do another one, you got more hundreds of apartments. It's not necessarily just about the one skyscraper anymore. You're realizing that you're now directing tax money. You're directing a movement in an area. [00:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:12] Speaker B: So now we don't focus necessarily just on buying skyscraper. We focus on shaping cities. And so when we talk about another project that will be rolling out probably in six months or so is the city block that we bought. Right. And realizing that we need to have. When you have that much housing, you can't just build all these apartments. You need to have infrastructure. You need to have a school, grocery store, store, and any other type of entertainment. So this one building, it's a massive building. So we have mixed parts. We have a school concept, K through 12. Not, you know, not just like a high school. It's K through 12. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:50] Speaker B: So that families are living. Because now Chicago has a very strong initiative for urban development. Urban living. Completely different. [00:28:57] Speaker A: Sure. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Concept urban living. Right. Not. Not here to work. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Not that you're just taking the metro down when you're out, you know, here to live here. [00:29:04] Speaker B: So school. Then we have a farming system. So then we're doing a big proof of concept for farming. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Oh, sure. [00:29:13] Speaker B: That is a lot. Like millions of pounds a year. As we prove that out. Then there's other buildings that can't be office. The resi that we convert into farming [00:29:25] Speaker A: did you, like, grow up in the business or how. How did you. What's your background? [00:29:29] Speaker B: The only business. [00:29:30] Speaker A: So when you. When we. I don't know. I. I know I'm going way back now, totally out of order, but, like, when you talk about doing your part to shape a city like Chicago, right? And, like, the amount of people that'll live here, the amount of people that will come in and out for the public uses, amount of people you're putting to work by getting a $200 million deal done, I mean, it. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:52] Speaker A: It's easy to sit here and talk about it and say, like, you feel like you're maybe above what you're like. I'm trying to think of a way to explain it. Like, it's. It's in a massive undertaking with all these ripple effects that are incredibly meaningful. Like, what you start with. Like, how did you get there? Do you ever take a second and, like, think about the gravity of what you're doing? You know, and the. [00:30:17] Speaker B: As you know, that's. [00:30:18] Speaker A: I know that was a shitty, like, intro. [00:30:21] Speaker B: No, no, I understand the question. No, no, I understand the question. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Like, this is big stuff. [00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Did you kind of grow up in this, or is this. How do you appreciate what you're doing today? [00:30:36] Speaker B: No, and this is a good question because it's important for audience to know. To know this is that I didn't grow up with this. I grew up. My first job was a chicken farm. I share this story all the time. Like, I literally, before an egg, saw a human hand. Like, right now, if you get an egg, it's all automated. Chicken. Egg comes out of chicken. It goes in a carton and never sees a human hand until you open that cart. You know, that's how far along automation has come. Before all that, I was the guy that had to take the trays of chicken, put it on my chest, and put it in a big washer. That was my job. [00:31:12] Speaker A: Not as glamorous. No, man, not all this is glamorous. [00:31:15] Speaker B: Right. And so when you ask, like, the appreciation of what I do. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:21] Speaker B: It's. You appreciate. You know, it's kind of saying, why did I go 110 in on this? And, like, all in is because I never had anything to lose because I started with nothing. [00:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:31] Speaker B: So everything I get is you appreciate it. [00:31:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:31:34] Speaker A: And so I appreciate you getting there with the answer, even though I rambled about the question. [00:31:39] Speaker B: But. No, no, but that's. [00:31:41] Speaker A: I mean, I think you get so wrapped up in the day to day of what could. What could come of this. And you know, looking at this, just standing in the atrium and seeing what you're, you know, you have your vision and seeing the impact it'll have on the city and people's lives living here. It's pretty cool. [00:31:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I mean, and that's the thing, as you get into it, then you realize you have a lot of responsibility. You know, God's been giving. Giving something to you and you got a lot of responsibility. [00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:06] Speaker B: And so you think about that and that's when you start you realizing that you're just not doing the skyscraper. Yeah. You're doing a whole city. [00:32:14] Speaker A: This is an ecosystem. Yeah, correct. [00:32:16] Speaker B: And if you focus on just. I'm just doing this guys character, it's the same as saying, I'm just gonna do a duplex. Yeah. Right. And it. You see where if you were just to focus on duplex, you're always going to do a duplex. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:28] Speaker B: But if you focus, you know, if you don't, if you go outside of just skyscraper, say, we're going to need a school, we're going to need grocery, we're going to need entertainment, you realize that you're responsible for. For a lot more stuff to keep your rent up. [00:32:40] Speaker A: And then in the spirit of what you talked about at the beginning of having this, like this proof of concept and this support behind you, now you can go with this. The next project sounds like you'll be more ambitious yet. You can go to the public and say, I understand there's a lot of moving pieces here, but here's the public's appetite for it. Here's the support we have. Here's what we're doing at the Pittsfield when nobody else could do it. Here's what we're going to do next. And then they don't look at the lenders, the investors. The city won't look at it as this abstract. This crazy guy with an abstract idea. They'll say, okay, this guy's actually getting it done. He's crazy enough to get it done. [00:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker A: So. [00:33:15] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's the, that's the hope. That's the idea. But socials further solidify and validate those things because they see it without ever meeting. Yeah. And you go to city hall and everyone's like, that's the guy. [00:33:29] Speaker A: This is a skyscraper guy. Yeah, skyscraper guy. And how often people like. [00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:35] Speaker A: See out and about. [00:33:35] Speaker B: If I were to say, I mean, [00:33:36] Speaker A: I know you split time between Grand Rapids and here, but. [00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's funny, if you don't wear a hard hat, no one will recognize. [00:33:42] Speaker A: It's a secret power. [00:33:43] Speaker B: It's like Clark Kent, you know, put the hard hat on and, like, that's the guy who yell for me on the street. [00:33:48] Speaker A: That's awesome, man. [00:33:49] Speaker B: I just learned the other day, the guys that do the bus tours, you know, and the boat tours. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah. They see the Pittsfield, and they say you might recognize that that's the sky's coming. They say that in the tours now, I'm like, that's so dope. [00:33:59] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:34:00] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's been. It helps. It helps with all those things. [00:34:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:05] Speaker B: But when you're doing all these different. The validation. Because then they're more supportive, saying, hey, this. This could be something really big. And when you look at all the comments and things that we have, it's all the positive stuff about Chicago, they didn't even know this thing will exist here. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Who? I mean, of course, there's crazy people in the comments at that scale, regardless of what you're doing. But who. If you're rooting for the city, why wouldn't you root for you? That's what I understand. If you. Yeah. If you love Chicago. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:32] Speaker A: Why wouldn't you root for the Pittsfield? Coming online, you know, sure. Jobs, tax revenue. But then also this. This piece of history coming back to life, that's been, like, sad for a while, you know? So keep at it. Well, can you walk us around a little bit? [00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah.