Episodi
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We often donât realize that the âway things areâ is just a reflection of some radical change that happened in a previous era. While Iâm a firm believer that aspects of human nature havenât really changed much through the millennia, it is true that weâve shaped, reshaped, and reshaped our societies over and over again. And the most visible evidence of that change is our cities and towns.
Todayâs discussion is about looking past the way things are, in many dimensions, and realizing that it is possible to make big changes. In fact, it happens at fairly regular intervals whether we want it or not.
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Rik Adamski is a man of many hats. But first and foremost, heâs someone that cares deeply about the people side of urban planning. So often, planners, architects and developers get mired in the technical side of building community. And of course, we have to, because thereâs a lot that requires our attention.
But in this episode, Rik reminds us that planning is really about people, and about helping people make their own place better. The reason we fall in love with a place is more about what the people create themselves, and not what is imposed from above.
As an owner of Ash and Lime, and part of the Storefront Renaissance League, Rik focuses intently on the incremental steps to helping communities. One thing he mentioned in this that I loved is that incremental doesnât necessarily mean small. It just means taking the next series of steps or bets.
Kevinâs Note: Iâve had some audio issues recently, I know it. Iâm working on it. Thanks for listening regardless.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Episodi mancanti?
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From the earliest days of my interest in urban planning, I became very interested in the overlap between design and culture. By that I mean, how cities shape human interaction, and how human interaction shapes cities. Why are some places successful when others arenât, even when they have similar design and planning features? Why do some communities seem so tight and together, when others do not? Is it all just a design problem, as Iâve been taught?
In fact, the obvious answer itâs not just a design problem. Itâs also about how we relate to each other as humans, and the networks we form. Dr. Seth Kaplan is a true expert in this area, having studied and worked with fragile states all over the world. In 2023, he turned his attention to American cities and wrote the book, âFragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time.â
Seth and I talk in this episode about the overlap between design and a true sense of community. That is, we explore what it takes to create the kind of place that kids have broad independence, where people truly look out for each other, and where people feel deeply invested in its long-term success. Iâll tease out one piece, where he talks about the difference between people he is friends with in his neighborhood, versus people he has a relationship with. And, how important that is for a successful place, and for more fulfilled people.
Seth can be found here on his LinkedIn page, and you can see some of his writings here.
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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I had the pleasure of meeting Charles Brewer right when he was starting to get interested in becoming a real estate developer. This was after a very successful short career in the dot-com world, as he was a founder of Mindspring. When he exited, he became interested in New Urbanism, and decided to shift his career toward the building of new, walkable communities.
Twenty-plus years later, we get a chance to talk about his journey. And, we get to spend a lot of time discussing Las Catalinas, his remarkable new town on the beach in Costa Rica. I wrote some about Las Catalinas, here, after a recent visit.
Charles is especially interesting in that heâs a firm believer in many of the principles of New Urbanism, but heâs also willing to challenge them and all of us who have worked on these communities. His first project, Glenwood Park in Atlanta, is a fantastic infill development by any realistic measure. Fascinatingly, he calls it âmainstream New Urbanism.â
For him, the real challenge and next frontier is figuring out how to create car-free (or mostly car-free) communities. Charles in particular has been very motivated by the experience of kids and families, and how to encourage and allow for more freedom of movement and life for them.
Iâll also just editorialize and say, his projects are a great testimony to the power of an individualâs passion to just get things done, and get them done well. Despite what outsiders and critics might think, these projects are very challenging. Part of the reason we have so few examples like them, is that it takes a rare kind of determination to go against virtually every professional silo in the built environment. Someone used to call this âstick-to-it-ive-ness.â Itâs a quality I greatly admire in people, and I hope you do as well.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe -
Itâs truly a rare thing in life to run across people that are uber-talented, thoughtful, and just fantastic human beings. Dhiru Thadani is one of those rare people.
An architect, urban designer, author, teacher, and prolific sketch artist, Dhiru has been involved in the New Urbanism movement since the earliest days. Heâs written multiple books about the famous new town of Seaside, Florida, and we spend a bit of time rehashing some history on this episode for those that are unaware.
One of my most enjoyable lines from this talk, was Dhiru relating that âThe most original architects have the largest libraries â thatâs their secret.â In essence, we all steal from each other, and from history. Nothing is original; everything derives from something else. Some may find that statement stifling, but if you truly care about making beautiful places above all else, itâs actually liberating.
Dhiru and I talk about the possible future evolution of Seaside. Can it, in fact, evolve? Many of us that know and love Seaside as it is have a lot of heartburn with this notion. We hate seeing beloved buildings come down.
My editorial, though, is that this line of concern is really just a symptom of an era of horrible architecture. Our ancestors never felt this way, because older buildings (which often were attractive), were replaced by new buildings that were more attractive.
That all stopped with the advent of the modern movement in architecture â most notably the âinternational style.â Now, we just donât have confidence that beauty can be replaced by beauty. We rightly fear that beauty will be replaced by ugliness. But in fact, we can build beautifully, and we have. People like Dhiru have been teaching us how to do so for more than forty years. Itâs now incumbent on us to keep that fire burning.
For inspiration, check out Dhiruâs Instagram account, and pick up a pencil and draw.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe -
The world of architecture is full of megalomanicas, wanna-be stars, and also a whole lot of good people just grinding out beautiful work outside the spotlight. One thing I enjoy with my little platform is shining a light on some of the people that do that beautiful work, and rarely get national attention.
Don Powers, of Union Studio in Providence, Rhode Island, has one of those firms. Union Studio has grown over the years to do a lot of different kinds of work, but what I really wanted to focus on for this interview is their work in courtyard housing and affordable housing.
Educators and media within the architecture profession will routinely tell us we canât build like the old ways, nor should we. And yes, of course, thereâs some truth to the fact we have different materials, means and methods now. But Union Studioâs work shows us it is in fact possible to produce new buildings that build off of living human traditions, add grace and beauty to the world, and will certainly stand the test of the time. Thatâs as true for higher-end housing as it is for âaffordable housing.â Good design is a choice, itâs an intention. In this episode, Don walks us through how theyâve made some of it happen.
Give the whole thing a listen, but do remember some key points: fight for those one or two good details on any project, including doors and windows. And, good landscaping is cheap. Donât overlook the importance of simple, but good, site design.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe -
Austin Tunnell is one of the shining stars of a new generation of designer/builders for creative smaller projects, and he also happens to work in the world of mass masonry construction. In this episode, we talk about his journey from accountant to mason and beyond, with his really cool company called Building Culture.
Austin now lives and works in the Oklahoma City area, and heâs aggressively expanding his scope with a new project called The Townsend. Audio doesnât really do these projects justice. You really need to look these up, and/or see them in person. Not to get too frou-frou, but they touch your soul in a way that most new buildings just do not.
Some links below:
Podcast with Clay Chapman
Podcast with the Mayor of Oklahoma City
Podcast with Hiatus Homes
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe -
Itâs not often you run across people in the development world that have deep knowledge in both the smallest scales of projects and the biggest. The industry, like many, is very bifurcated. People who do small projects tend to keep doing small projects. People who work on really large projects tend to keep doing that for their careers.
Joe Perry, who works as his day job as the Vice President of Development for PortKC, has had one solid foot in both worlds for his entire career. We talk about what itâs like to exist in both realms, to prosper in both, and some key lessons learned. For anyone interested in house hacking or house flipping as a side gig, Iâd highly recommend listening to Joe discuss what heâs done over a few decades.
Joe and I worked together on the New Longview project in Leeâs Summit, Missouri, and you can hear more about that in my interview with developer David Gale.
I really enjoy some of Joeâs advice to others, especially to young people. Stay tuned for the whole thing, itâs worth it.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe -
âJust do it. Do it as quickly as you can.â Thatâs the advice of architect Doug Moss, who came to doing small-scale development projects after working for three decades as an architect. Doug left small-town Texas to pursue a career in New York, and boomeranged back several years ago to pursue his dreams as a developer. Now living in Austin, Doug has a healthy side gig doing small projects in Taylor, Texas, where he grew up.
Doug and I met during the Small-Scale Developer Forum, which is a group Jim Heid gathers together twice per year. If youâre someone interested in improving your own community with development, these are your people. Doug still works as an architect with Steinberg Hart, but also does development with his company Public Sketch. Doug is such a modest guy, but this story is great inspiration for anyone who wants to use the professional skills theyâve learned to help a community they know and love.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Allen County, Kansas is not a place most people will be familiar with, but the story is one youâve probably heard before. Located in southeast Kansas, an hour and a half from the nearest major city, it features much thatâs typical of rural America. Iola, the county seat, is a city of 5,300 people. It has a classic town square and lies at the junction of a couple of state highways. The beautiful Flint Hills and its majestic cattle ranches are not far away.
But after the community lost its hospital in the early 2000s, the usual questions emerge - is Iola, and the whole county on the verge of permanent decline?
Out of this tragic circumstance was born Thrive Allen County Jared Wheeler, their Economic Development Director, joins me to talk about the path that Iola, Humboldt and the whole county have taken since that time. And, the remarkable successes theyâve achieved. Humboldt, for example, was featured in 2024âs â15 Best Small Towns to Visitâ in Smithsonian Magazine.
You might not know much, or even care much, about rural Kansas. But I think youâll still find this to be an inspiring conversation and story. Jared and I cover a lot of ground, talking about rural community development, place-making, a culture of experimentation, and even bike paths.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Text Transcript:
Kevin Klinkenberg (00:01.158)
Welcome back to the Messy City Podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg joined in studio today by a special guest from Central, what did you call it? Central Kansas? Southeast Kansas. Southeast Kansas, yeah. Southeast Kansas, all right. Well, shout out to my buddy Jason Carter-Solomon who hooked us up. He said, you know, just was out in Iowa, Kansas and I met this guy doing really cool stuff and it's like, you've got to talk to him.
And it sounded intriguing and here we are. So welcome to the show for Jared Wheeler. You got it. Jared Wheeler. I am economic development director for a nonprofit in Southeast Kansas called Thrive Allen County. So I'm thrilled to be to be here today. Well, it should be a lot of fun. I have I've been through the area a little bit, have not stopped in Humboldt, which I know is like the big.
tourist draw now. Right, right. Who would have thought that a community of 2,500 people would be in the Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, all these national publications saying you got, you have to come check this place out. Yeah. So why don't we start a little bit by just talking about, first of all, what thrive Allen County is, and how you came to be a part of it. So thrive Allen County.
was initiated when the hospital in Iola, Kansas was closing. And as part of the agreement, anytime a hospital closed at that point, the idea that assets would be sold and then the money put it into the, with the intention of creating a 501c3 nonprofit, specifically dedicated towards public health initiatives. So Thrive Allen County was born out of really a crisis. So it's kind of birth from a crucible.
the hospital in a small town closes. If you speak rural life fluently at all, that is a recurring theme that the hospital in town closes and you are left with some amalgamation of clinics or some specialty shops or just a general practice with limited beds, no overnight stays, that sort of thing. So the hospital closes, thrive, Allen County is born.
Kevin Klinkenberg (02:20.988)
And its initial mandate is to improve the community health. Just to interrupt for just a sec. So give people perspective. How big is Iowa? Yeah. Iowa, Kansas is about 5,200 people. Relatively small. It's the county seat of Allen County, Kansas. The next largest community is humble of 2,500 people. So the entire county's population is 12,000. Right. So for those of you who are in urban context, you are.
probably struggling to imagine that sort of lack of population density, population scarcity. It's funny. It reminds me. So I went to high school in a small town in central Missouri. That was about 12,000 people. Okay. But when I hear you say, you know, Iowa is 5,200, it just reminds me that like when you're in a smaller town, like the hundreds matter. my. Saying 5,200 versus like 5,600, that's like a big deal. Right. It's the same way, you know,
parents of young children still measure their kids age in months. It's like, is it about 27 months? It's the same situation for those of us who are doing our best work in rural communities, like 5,200. Because if I say, it's about 5,000 people, somebody out there is listening going, my graduating class was 5,000 people. That makes no sense. So Thrive, that's our context in which we work. And for the last,
17 years Thrive has existed to enrich the health of citizens in Allen County. And that was initially in specifically related to physical health. So we have healthcare navigators that try and make sure that as many people as possible are insured. We operate vaccination clinics throughout the county, especially in even more rural and remote context. And then
about halfway through the lifespan of Thrive, economic development was added. And economic development is really pursued from the perspective of community health. What is going to be a source of good, benevolent disruption? That's my approach constantly is what is going to disrupt the systems that are in place that contribute to the lack of health?
Kevin Klinkenberg (04:45.788)
for our community members through economic development. So that's my role and I am part of, technically I'm a one man department, but we all work together at Thrive and with our partners, both public and private partners in the communities. So how big is the organization overall? We have just under 30 employees right now. Yeah, and so we're fortunate in that some of those employees are in a transition period because we operate Allen Regional Transit.
which is a public transportation organization in a rural context, which I know some of y'all out there are picturing like covered wagons. That's not exactly what's going on. But so we operate a public transit organization. And then we also have within our organization, the seed of another nonprofit that will probably spin off called Thrive Kansas, which is working for the same sort of rural community health goals.
that we do in Allen County, but is trying to create statewide networks to do that. And how did you, are you from the area? Man, my rural bona fides are legit. I am, I am from a town of 500 people originally called Thayer, Kansas and in the same region, Southeast Kansas again, born and raised there. And really, so you have to remember I grew up in the nineties, early two thousands. So my experience of the wider world.
was purely through pop culture. We didn't go anywhere. I was as hasty as they come. I knew what sushi was. did not eat. I had not had a bite of sushi until probably when I was on my honeymoon. And my cousin and I had a wonderful time. I'm just kidding. And so that's my baseline understanding of the world. But then I...
I lived and worked in churches and schools after that. Did my grad school in Portland, Oregon. And so I did intensive weeks out there. So I was spending time in Portland in the Pacific Northwest for a couple of weeks at a time for four or five semesters. And so I've experienced a lot of different contexts. And then we moved back to Southeast Kansas, my wife and family and I from Kansas City actually. And so we lived up here.
Kevin Klinkenberg (07:12.294)
and then moved back about nine years ago with the choice to locate our family in a rural context. that's my route towards economic or community development is incredibly circuitous. And I really, I've found that that was a point of embarrassment for me initially when I took the job, because I just thought, everybody knows this stuff better than I do. And now I'm learning more and more about our conversation off mic before that.
You were in architecture school before you got into community development. And I think that's, that is true for so many people that the reason they end up in community development, economic development, especially in a rural context is because they love the place. They love the place. They are invested in it and they have lived it. And again, bear the burden of what could be, or they have lived it and they are so quintessentially formed by it.
that they believe other people should benefit from that formation as well. And the same is true for me in both directions. So, really the only experience I have with your area has been driving back and forth between Kansas City and Tulsa, which is kind of like the most direct route, really. Maybe not the fastest route, it's hard to say, but it's more interesting anyway, a little more scenic.
been through Iowa. don't think I actually have driven through Humboldt yet. Humboldt, as you mentioned, has been a place that's gotten a lot of attention in recent years and it's kind of on the radar for, you know, like glamping and for cycling and everything else. Why don't you talk a little bit about like how and why has the area started to get the level of attention that you mentioned before?
I think there's two categories I should speak to. The first is material and then maybe the second is going to sound a little weird, but it's mythological. So materially, one of the reasons that the area has gotten attention is because quite frankly, it's cost effective to develop and to try things in Allen County. The economic ecosystem in rural Kansas has typically been one of either extraction or exploitation historically.
Kevin Klinkenberg (09:35.81)
It is a wildcatting pioneering economy since my goodness, since the 19th century. And so the, industries that boomed the turn of the 20th century into the 19th century were extraction based businesses. Let's pull things as pull natural resources out. mean, my goodness, near Iola, Kansas, there is literally a city called gas and it is called gas because you, you made your bones.
as part of a natural gas business there, that that's the way you made it so that the name stuck and in Humboldt and Iola there, there were massive, concrete businesses. there are these huge firms that, mined a mineral from that area and then use it to turn it into cement and concrete. So it's one that's still an operation monarch cement company in Humboldt, Kansas, but
That is the case. either you're pulling a resource from the landscape and when that is exhausted, you leave. And so that that also funnels into that exploitation idea. It's extraction or exploitation. So there's a sense amongst the folks who live and this may be true if you're a real person listening, you might be nodding along or you might want to fight me either way. Where
There's an idea, the scarcity mindset that blends in that says, well, everybody who could have left did. Everyone who had the chance and the means and the capacity to leave when it was time to leave did, and we are what remains. I don't think that's accurate. I think that's sometimes, unfortunately, the way that small communities understand themselves. They either become bitterness factories or hope factories. That's very rarely.
in a community that is somewhat remote and rural, is it in between those two extremes. You're either a community of hope or you're a community of bitterness. What could have been and what might be. So those are your two extremes. And I'd love to talk to people if they feel like they live in a community that exists right in the middle of those.
Kevin Klinkenberg (11:51.238)
So the first reason why the community, the area is getting more attention is because materially it's more cost effective to try something new there. That economic ecosystem of extraction or exploitation is given way to one of experiment. Let's try something new. And so there are people who are either coming back to the area or they are relocating from other parts of the country.
because they have an idea that is impossible due to the cost constraints of where they live. I am assuming even for our folks who are listening in Kansas City, that if I started doing cost analysis comparison between opening a storefront business of some sort in Prairie Village compared to Iola, Kansas, you will not get the population density for traffic or tail lights, but
for your permit cost, you might be able to buy a building in Iola. So that's really at end of the day, it's more cost effective in our area just because things are cheaper. I don't mean to be crass, but that's what it comes down to. That's the material side. The second one, the one that I'm maybe even more interested in is the mythological side. Why are people so interested in that area? And I wanna ask this question as I hold this off in my head.
How do you think people from non-rural contexts experience or how is their perception of the rural world formed by what pop cultural artifacts, so to speak? in the fifties and sixties, I would say it's probably Mayberry, you know, it's the Andy Griffith show. And what's the essence of the rural experience? Well, everybody knows you, you're not going to get away with anything because you're
your mom's hairdresser's aunt saw you do that. And so they're going to report back. And then as it moves forward, what there's kind of this, it's dearth of pop cultural artifacts that have, kind of monolithic effect, except I believe there is now a new pop cultural phenomenon that everyone at least is aware of that is giving people a lens to look through.
Kevin Klinkenberg (14:16.988)
and see the rural context. And this is going to be absolutely ridiculous to most people, but stay with me. If you're familiar, if you, if you are familiar with the incredible pieces of art, they're known as hallmark movies. You have had a rural experience because those movies never take place in urban settings. Or if they do, it's only momentary because they're trying to escape it to get
to the rural place in which you are going to fall in love, achieve your dreams and feel your stress melt away. And that's silly, it's ridiculous. But at the same time, I believe there is a, I think that is a very kitschy way of seizing on a groundswell of
Collective emotion right now where people are looking for something that is more simple. Our lives are incredibly hectic. We know they're hectic. We know that we are addicted to everything and anything. So how can I simplify? And then how can I take charge of my life and do what I want to do and have some agency? And with a little bit where your dollars go a little bit farther and maybe the pace of life slows down, people feel like they have a little bit more agency.
And then finally, where can I still access some version of the American dream, whatever that is? And I think that is a piece of mythology that has been so twisted and turned, but there's, it's still baked in somewhere to us. And I think at the end of the day, part of that dream in a rural context is can I be known by people and can I know other people? I'm sure you are aware of the
the emphasis and the buzzwords of, you know, quality spaces, place making third spaces. mean, we are, we are addicted to those. And in a rural context, I think the perception is when you look through the lens of an artifact, like a hallmark movie, that the entire community is a third space because you're going to bump into the person you work with elsewhere. You're going to see someone.
Kevin Klinkenberg (16:38.764)
at one of the three restaurants in town that you saw yesterday crossing the street or so on and so forth. So I think that's one reason why the community has been so, or the area has been of interest is because mythologically, it provides an avenue towards some essential thing that we want out of living life in community that may be a little bit more difficult.
in, if not an urban context, certainly a suburban context. So if I were to put a dot in Iowa and then draw like a circle 100 miles around it, there's an awful lot of small towns within that circle. Right. What has distinguished Iowa and Humboldt that you see more positive
rebound and attraction than maybe some other towns that are within that context. One thing that has really helped so much are collectivist approach to problem solving. for example, my organization Thrive Island County, especially in the area of economic development, we would be completely inept and ineffective if we didn't have
close and active partnerships with local government and local business leaders and confederations of industry leaders as well. So that's one of the first reasons that Iola Allen County has been successful is because it's taken a collectivist approach to problem solving without any sort of political machinations behind that, or sometimes even completely devoid of
political ideology, just because, something needs to change. What do we do about it? Another reason is because folks who have been successful in Allen County have taken it upon themselves, even though there isn't a whole lot of philanthropic infrastructure, or they don't see philanthropic models that you might see in a larger community. you start a foundation, that foundation does this, this is the way in which you...
Kevin Klinkenberg (18:59.088)
you know, are able to recoup some of what you've given away through tax breaks and so on and so forth. That infrastructure doesn't really exist in Southeast Kansas and small communities, but successful individuals have taken it upon themselves to think critically about the complex issues that their communities face, identify the areas in which they can have an impact and aggressively pursue that impact. So, and
I'll be somewhat discretionary simply because the individual in question is not a huge fan of publicity, but there's an individual, a family in Humboldt, Kansas, that at the time of the pandemic redirected a considerable amount of its workforce towards making community improvements as opposed to laying off workers at their industry. That's turned into almost a parabolic story.
but it is exemplary of this individual and this company's approach to community improvement. And even without a model that said, is how you do this. There's no, there's not a Carnegie library in Humboldt, Kansas, even serving as a beacon of what philanthropy looks like. This individual became a quintessential philanthropist to solve
problems and it's in his small community again, because he loves it. And that example has had a profound impact throughout the region where there are more and more folks who have been successful and have realized that their success has resulted because someone else made a provision for them and they've turned around and said, okay.
How do I address the complex issues? Not merely I'm gonna endow a scholarship, which by the way, we love that, keep doing that everyone, but we need new curb and gutters in the road. I bet I could do something with that. I bet I could have an effect in that direction. So we've been very beneficial through collectivist solution making and then also,
Kevin Klinkenberg (21:19.676)
the inspired philanthropy of successful folks. mean, that's so interesting. It kind of hits on a broader topic. know Aaron Wren on his podcast has he's talked about this as well. But like one of the real differences today versus in communities, say 100 years ago, is that 100 years ago, the bank in town was locally owned. Right. The department store was locally owned.
Right. You know, most of the, and this is true in cities of towns of almost all sizes, that your local leadership class were people who owned prominent businesses in the town. Right. And that is something that has been lost in an awful lot of communities because of, you know, just changes in the economy and so much
So much of a shift towards sort of larger corporate owned Businesses that then just have branches in places and you just never have the same buy-in right you're like if you're like the branch manager of a bank that's got 500 Locations right you're gonna have a different buy-in than if you're like the owner of the bank. Yeah and and the same goes for for a lot of industry so I think that's it's really interesting what you mentioned that you sort of start starting from a kernel of somebody who owned
an important business and lives in the town and says, just like you said, I'm not going to just do a scholarship fund, but I'm going to invest in things that make, improve quality of life where I am. Right. And I guess that's, as you were, as you were talking about that, I, I couldn't help but wonder, and I'll, I'll ask you directly if you, do you think a community can outsource its self identity? no. Okay. Okay. So, but that's, that's the tug.
When so many things are operated or owned remotely is what happens is this, I really think an existential crisis for a community to go, then what are we and who are we? And if you don't have a thing to point to that provides an place of orientation for your community, it gets really hard to then invite people to invest in that community.
Kevin Klinkenberg (23:44.63)
And so I think that's, I think you're exactly right. That when, when that autonomy evaporates, then you do have a, identity crisis, so to speak. And so that's one thing that's been really interesting in both Iola and Humboldt is, you know, the businesses that are added, we have some community investment, groups and, some microloan groups and
so on and so forth. The businesses that have been added are not, mean, there is no retailer that's saying we'd love to drop a branch in your town of 5,000 people. It doesn't make sense for them. So what's added is homegrown. It's local entrepreneurs who we claw to find capital for them and then they take a swing and we're fortunate in that. I sit on a board of what we call a entrepreneurial community.
a lending group, micro loans. although, you know, to us, they're not micro to other folks. might be, we have over 25 loans on the book right now and 99.9 % of them are making their payments with regularity. And we have businesses that are crossing that year to five to year six, year six threshold, which is enormous for anybody in the entrepreneurial world. And we've just been fortunate because, there's nobody coming to rescue us.
think that is, that is a shift in mindset for small communities. That's so important and it requires a bit of, I mean, you, have to be brutally honest with yourself that you, you need to empower the folks who are there to ask why not instead of why here. Yeah. And
If something else comes along, if something locates itself in your community, that is an extra. But if you can empower the folks who are local to take a chance, then I think you're onto something that could be sustainable. Yeah. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more, maybe some specific examples of like the homegrown approach. The reason I ask that is I'm old enough to remember
Kevin Klinkenberg (26:09.818)
that the standard approach to rural economic development for a long, time was go plat an industrial park on the edge of town, put the infrastructure in, and try to attract what basically were like low wage industrial jobs from big companies. that's how you will save your community. what you're describing is a really different sort of a bottom up approach to working with people who are already there.
I wonder if you could talk more about like some of the successes or some of the other couple of stories you can share. Absolutely. and we still do that. I mean, I, got, I got two industrial parks right now that are planning and ready to rock. So if you're out there listening and you, and you want to, know, you need a spot for your biofuel company, hit me up. Cause I am ready to talk. so we're not, we're not opposed to that approach. I just think that, charting that as the only course is, really risky.
And to be honest, I don't know how much, how reliable it is. I think it's a part of a solution model. But so for example, we have a coffee shop in Iola, Kansas. Every community has got a coffee shop at this point. It doesn't matter how small you are. This coffee shop, shout out Wild Bloom Coffee in Iola. And this coffee shop got started as a
lower level commercial space on the square. Like every other cute coffee shop in a small town bought the bare minimum square footage that they could afford as just one half of a building, one half of the lower level of a building. And the coffee shop has been so successful and it's been able to
apply for and receive grant funding. It's been able to benefit from a neighborhood revitalization program that's a tax rebate program when they made improvements to the space. It works considerably with our organization in small business coaching and in capital pursuit through our micro loan program. And this coffee shop has now purchased the entire building that they're in. They offer
Kevin Klinkenberg (28:29.468)
kind of a subscription based bourbon taste in nights and cigar bar evenings. And they're going to expand to catering and they they serve brunch now. And in our little coffee shop in Southeast Kansas, the other day I had the best ramen I've had in years. we have, they're really talented folks who are owning and operating that shop, but it's been able to expand consistently.
due to again, these collectivist approach because there's so many people, it's not only that they serve a great product, they do. It's not only that they provide a great customer experience, which they do, but it's also because they have been willing to not only want help, but ask for help. And that's an enormous difference. Wanting help is just the awareness that you need something. Asking for help is putting your hand in the air,
I said, okay, I'm willing to reach out and grab whomever is going to help out, but I'm asking for it. And so that's an example that we've had in Iola. In Humboldt, Kansas, and I can take no credit for this, there's a group known as a Boulder Humboldt. And that is a confederation of business owners, entrepreneurs, movers and shakers who have added businesses throughout Humboldt. So the best...
And from my money, the best little honky tonk in Kansas is the Hitching Post in Humboldt, Kansas. And they have live music every night, every weekend night, excuse me. Probably the most expansive collection of whiskeys that you could want or need. And it is an incredibly successful business and an incredibly successful gathering place. And again, was started.
by an individual who moved to Humboldt who had connections with people who had multiple generations of their family within Humboldt. And they were able to continue to build that business and be patient as it was built. they live, to your point earlier, they live and work in the community. The gentleman who owns that business is a city council person in Humboldt, Kansas. And...
Kevin Klinkenberg (30:48.88)
is really devoted towards overall community health and community growth. those are, and those businesses are now moving beyond. So Hitching Post is moving towards, I think it's third year of operations. So kind of living past that initial start at birth. Wild Bloom, I believe is to year four and five in Iola. So we have some wonderful businesses that are outside of what people would expect in a small community.
again, because there've been collectivist approach. So hitching posts exists because of the collective that is a bold or humble and humble. Wild Bloom exists because of multiple collective groups within Iola that were, had a vested interest in these success stories. So the one, I confess the one business I remember from going through Iola is I stopped at the butcher shop right off the highway, which was a pretty incredible operation.
And I think at the time I was kind of thinking about, we're not very far from ranch country. I had a cooler with me. want to buy some steaks or whatever and take them home with me. And of course the selection was incredible. The prices were way better than when I get in the city. And it's pretty much like fresh off the ranch. Right. I mean, you might have driven by cattle that were lamenting that their buddy was gone and ended up in your cooler instead.
Yeah. So one of the thing I definitely I know about the area is you have this north south bike trail. Yeah. That comes through that goes for, I don't know, 100 miles or something. Yeah. Is that the Prairie Spirit? Prairie Spirit Trail. Yeah. What impact has that had on the area? So one, we have a very high rate of folks who bike or walk to work. Comparatively, I just pulled that data.
We are higher than the state average, I think almost twice as high as the state average and people that walk or bike to work. So to me, that signifies two things. is it's pedestrian or bike traffic is built into the community. think part of that is because of the trails. There's 60 miles of trail in Allen County alone.
Kevin Klinkenberg (33:09.622)
so that's around the, what will become the new state park, Lehigh Portland state park. That's going to be on the edge of Viola. let's say it was a lake that was publicly owned and privately owned and then was deeded over to the state of Kansas and, Kansas department of wildlife and parks is turning that into a new state park. So there's a lot of trails around that and people have access to those trails for a while. Thrive Island County, maintenance is those trails on behalf of KDWP right now.
we have trails though, that also we, we think of in, in rural communities, you think of your trails as out somewhere out towards the woods. I mean, you're go ride around and walk around, but there's also dedicated trails in Iola, that go to the hospital. spoiler alert, we did get a new hospital. I started the story talking about the, this, closing of the hospital, new hospitals added, to the elementary school, a new elementary school and to the high school, middle school, and also to around.
Not to, we're working on getting trails all through the main thoroughfares in town, but there's also trails around Allen Community College in Iowa as well. So we are addicted to trail building and maintenance because we have a population that in many respects is income challenged. And an automobile, even though to most of us is an automatic purchase to a lot of our neighbors and friends, it's a luxury.
And so if you do not have an automobile, but you need to get to work or you need to make your appointment or you need to get to school, you need to have a safe way to do so. And so I think that that trail system is. It's part of a wider, pedestrian and bike travel understanding and folks in our community are not embarrassed to do so. And it's because there's not.
There's not the income stratification that exists. I mean, in some communities, if you see someone that is riding their bike to work, there's three categories either, they're, they're a granola type that just wants to show us that they're more fit and better than the rest of us. They are too poor to purchase a vehicle or they get a DUI and they can't drive right now. I mean, that is the truth in, our community because the, because of the prevalence of the trail system.
Kevin Klinkenberg (35:35.002)
If someone is walking or biking to work, it's really hard to codify them. I wonder if they fall into this category or that category just because it's the norm. So we're very fortunate that those trails exist and they do. It also affects, as you mentioned, the glamping outdoors, outdoor recreation, infrastructure and commercialization that exists in our area. That's very helpful. So again, in Humboldt, there is a camping, kayaking,
and BMX riding facility known as Base Camp. And it is located at a trailhead. And so you can jump off Prairie Spirit or Southwind Trail. You can go into Base Camp. The, again, the state park is full of trails and also on Prairie Spirit and connect to Southwind Trails as well. Yeah. And then if you ride it far enough, you'll connect to the Flint Hills Trail. Yeah, exactly. Which is.
over a hundred miles East West trail. Right. Exactly. My wife and I have ridden a few times. Okay. Cool. Yeah. we, we, one of our favorite events of the years, we go to the symphony and the foothills. Yeah. which is, I almost hate to talk about it because I don't want, I don't want it to become too popular. You don't want people to show up. Yeah. I really don't want people from the coast flying in and, and, making this, you know, too expensive, but my God, it's an incredible thing. Right.
just one of the coolest events that we do on a regular basis with where the Kansas City Symphony goes out onto a active cattle ranch in the Flint Hills and performs a concert. But we've made a habit of going and writing a different section of the Flint Hills Trail every year, which is really a fun experience as well. But haven't done the Prairie Spirit, so I'm...
Interested to do that. You absolutely should. mean, we, we talked to cyclists who do the same thing, who are connected using the Prairie Spirit to get to the Flint Hills. We're doing a major ride and they're always impressed with the quality of the trails. the Prairie, I, I can only say I only ride or have ridden a portion of it. so, and if you happen to see me riding, can, you can, guess a, is it.
Kevin Klinkenberg (37:46.192)
Poverty is a DUI or is it granola? one? What's the reason? But no, we're very fortunate that that trail system exists and fortunate that we are the custodians of that trail system. And that's one thing that I would say to, if you're in a rural context and you're just trying to think of something that you could add that would improve quality of life, would be a quality of life amenity, which by the way is an absolute necessity now.
That's reason people are choosing to locate themselves in different places. Obviously housing matters, obviously childcare matters, obviously the possibility of earning a comfortable income matters. But if those three things are satisfied, they're making decisions about where to land based on, you know, is there a quality of life, amenity that I can connect myself with? You have, you have space and you have dirt. You are almost there. You are almost to the, to having a trail.
or a system of trails in your community on the edge of your community. Please, please talk to Thrive Allen County. We have a lot of experience of doing trail work. We have blown it and messed it up in different places so we can help you avoid those problems as well. But that is a way in which you can activate your community and you can also contribute to the overall health of your community as well. So I want to talk a little bit more about the place making aspect of this.
Like I mentioned before, went to high school in a small town in central Missouri and before that I did first through eighth grade in a small town in southern Minnesota.
things that were memories that really stick out for me was, know, if you live in a small community and you're a kid, like riding a bike is a normal thing. Yeah. And I used to ride my bike everywhere. And it was accepted. It was normalized. It was easy to do and safe. There's very little traffic on most of the streets. But as soon as you hit 16 years old, like it is the
Kevin Klinkenberg (39:54.78)
uncoolest thing in the world. You've got to have a car. You've got to be cruising around. there, one of the things that has really interested me that I've tried to, I've tried to articulate, I haven't done a great job of it, but I've thought a lot about, which is most small towns are absolutely natural places for the sort of walking, biking lifestyle that.
quote unquote urbanists talk about all the time. it's actually, they were built for that originally. But it also bumps up against like the, there's a culture aspect, which seems to not embrace that in most small towns. And I experienced that. I still see it all the time. And I've often thought like really, I guess maybe I want your reaction to this. One of the things I've thought is that
one of the best economic development approaches for a lot of small towns is to be the antithesis of the big city and the big city, people think of it as urban with all this cool stuff to do. But the reality is most people are spending a ton of time in a car, getting from place to place, commute, whether not just commuting, but going shopping, kids activities, et cetera. Looking for a parking spot. Looking for a parking spot. but in a small town,
those, it almost ought to be like, that's the place where you could really sell this idea of a lifestyle where you get on your bike and get to a lot of places. You could walk to the town square and that should be a real competitive advantage. wonder if you could, you think that's. Yeah. So why does that not happen? No, I think that's a, I think that is such an insightful question. and one that we struggle with a lot. so I want to, I want to tackle it in a couple of different ways.
One is back to the mythology. What's a marker of success? Marker of success is to be able to have your preferred automobile and typically multiple automobiles. And that doesn't end just because you're in a small town. People still want to virtue or virility signal with their automobiles. And because of the work and the terrain in which people live in small towns in rural Kansas, automobiles are typically bigger. Automobiles are bigger anywhere.
Kevin Klinkenberg (42:13.868)
Always constantly. that again, back to the American dream model, excess is our love language as a culture. so at the same way you got, you have a lot of big vehicles and we need, we're going to signal that we're doing well via this big vehicle, especially if you struggle with multi-generational poverty. Here's a purchase you can make that is a signal that does not require the type of overhead as a home.
So I'm going to buy this vehicle. It's going to show everyone that I'm doing okay. The only way to show everyone that is to use said vehicle until I can't make the payments on it anymore. that's not a, that's not a purely rural experience, but it's one that shows up a lot, especially in socioeconomically, depressed areas. Yeah. Here's my $50,000, vehicle in front of my $40,000 house. Sure. Sure. yeah. So that, that, that occurs a lot. There's still,
There's still status signaling through via vehicles. That's the first one. Second one is it costs communities more to provide the infrastructure necessary for safe pedestrian and bicycle traffic. If you have X amount of dollars in your county budget or in your city budget to build roads and it's going to take, you know, 5 % more to add a bike lane.
to change the width of your sidewalks and you have to decide either we do the project without those things or we don't do the project at all because everyone is clamoring for those things. In most cases, they're going to choose to add the infrastructure without these dedicated spaces. Part of my organization's efforts is to educate communities that you can do that in a cost effective way. You can add those things in a way that's cost effective. So,
I think we're moving the needle in that direction. I think that that's still a big issue. we have some, so there's some cultural status signaling. We have some infrastructure cost challenges there. And then also the antithesis of the big city idea is very interesting because typically when people see adults riding their bikes, if you are from a rural community,
Kevin Klinkenberg (44:34.576)
You only see that when you go to larger communities. I remember having, again, I did grad school in Portland and Portland is an incredibly bike friendly community. If you talk to people who drive in Portland, who do not also cycle there, they lament how bike friendly it is. But if you are a person traveling in a large city, from a rural context to a large city, you see for the first time.
city infrastructure that has bike lanes, has bike crossing, pedestrian cross, a lot more foot traffic, a lot more bike traffic. And it can be really alarming to your sensibility of what it is to get from place A to place B. And so, man, did we have a scare, I almost hit that person on a bike. Do I really want to deal with that back home? In a place where you're sharing literal traffic lanes as opposed to driving next to a bike lane.
so on and so forth. So I think you're right. think there there is a sense in which, you do want to be the antithesis of the big city. But where you say that and you go, so make yourself more walk walkable and bikeable. There are folks in smaller towns who go, yeah, man, there's a lot of cyclists in that big city that I that I visited. And it was really difficult to navigate. I think that's shifting. We're very fortunate in that even in our town of five thousand people, there are folks who are interested in.
making a transition from predominantly using their vehicle, their automobile to get around to using their bike or just walking again, twice as high as the state average of folks who getting to work that way. So I think we're seeing that, that shift. And I think that is a selling point for why we're inviting people to spend time in our area or consider moving to our area. Because if that is a lifestyle change you would like to make or that you've already embraced, then
There's probably a way in which you can get everywhere you need to go in Iola or Humboldt or elsewhere in Allen County on your bike or on your own two feet.
Kevin Klinkenberg (46:38.566)
Another thing that has been really interesting the last few years, in the wake of COVID and all of the policies and changes that happened, there's been an awful lot written and talked about in regards to like people moving. People leaving cities, looking for smaller towns. Sometimes they're leaving the city and moving to the suburbs. Sometimes they're maybe moving from the suburbs to a small town or an exurb.
And obviously, I don't need to rehash all of that, but there's been a lot of conversation about that for the last few years. And it feels a little bit like there's been a shift in perception in the culture about small town living in a positive way. What have you noticed the last four or five years? First, a little bit of a, I don't want to dampen that.
that exuberance for small town living. But I think the data is starting to show us that people dip their toe into rural life and then they have went back to the cities or to the suburbs or so on and so forth. But in some cases, that's that's true. Just people have chosen a city, a new city, and they've left. So Austin's a great example. Austin boomed post pandemic and now their vacancy rate in particular apartments, condos, things like that.
is astronomical because people are like, well, this was cool. And now I'm ready to go back to where my job is or where I lived previously. And so I think that's happening. The shuffling of the deck is resettling itself, so to speak. I do think you're right that there is a more positive perception of rural living than there used to be. I think it's because COVID taught us that everything could be truly remote.
And if you can survive and maybe even thrive, and you talk to some folks and the best years of their life, with all due respect to people who lost loved ones during COVID or struggled with that, or still dealing with the health effects following COVID, there are some people who will tell you that COVID changed my life. I was at home with my family. I was taking more, more direct self-care. I was making efforts to
Kevin Klinkenberg (49:00.964)
identify some things in my character that I want to change. It changed my life. So being remote was a positive. And so I think, what if I did that geographically as well? What if I did that socially as well? And I located myself in someplace a little more remote. Would that also be advantageous to me? And I think COVID also reminded us of the power of knowing people and being known by people.
I think that is probably the primary reason in which people are choosing, if they're not business owners or entrepreneurs, people are choosing to live in smaller communities or move to smaller communities, even if the numbers aren't as great as they were immediately post-COVID, because they see an opportunity to be known by their neighbors and to know their neighbors. Because when that was taken away from us, for so many of us,
that was relationally cataclysmic. And it made us, it gave us all, but it also gave us time to go, okay, how well do I really know the folks that I'm not seeing anymore? And does that bother me that I don't know them? And could I know them better? And I think in a rural context, there's still that capacity to know the people that live on your street and to really interact with them. And not that it's impossible.
in an ex-urban or suburban or urban context, but it might be a little less immediate than it is in a rural context. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the joke that the best thing about living in a small town is everybody knows everybody. The worst thing about living in a small town is everybody knows everybody. For sure. That's absolutely true. I think maybe COVID reminded us though.
The worst thing isn't as bad as the best thing could be good. doubt. What are, what are some of the things that your communities need to get better at? like what, if you were to chart a positive course or continue the improvement, what, what do you need to do better? What are you trying to work on now? So one thing we need to do is accentuate a positive that I mentioned earlier, more firm and reliable collective approaches to problem solving.
Kevin Klinkenberg (51:22.138)
So that's one thing. A second thing that we need to get better at is our anchor institutions need to position themselves as irrepressible agencies for good. So, for example, our school districts, our community college in Iowa, Kansas, and then the city governments and county governments, they need to, we need to work together to see ourselves as innovation agents.
and benevolent disruptors as opposed to status quo maintenance agencies. And again, I think that's applicable in most rural contexts and probably applicable in a lot of community contexts, because again, you are either moving towards becoming a hope factory or bitterness factory and status quo will lead you to bitterness because those who don't achieve it will become in bitter that they didn't achieve it.
or those that you're trying to force feed it to as the end result of their life will wonder why you didn't chart a more hopeful course for them. So we need our anchor organizations to see themselves as agencies of good and do so without shame. And I think that is obviously a difficult thing to map out or reverse engineer, but what it requires
is leadership that is constantly in pursuit of not utilitarianism or what works, but what is going to have the best long term effect on the quality of life of the people that work for the organization or that the organization serves. those are two things that I would say even more collective approaches to problem solving. So housing is a great example.
Everybody's struggling with housing right now, whether you're in an urban context or a rural context. And the old ways of solving that, just, you know, here's a here's a platable era, you know, several plaits, plaited land that the city owns. And we want a developer to come in and you can build a subdivision. And we're going to give you these tax breaks. We're going to incentivize this in so many different ways. I think that's still maybe possible in certain contexts and rural contexts. It's just not possible.
Kevin Klinkenberg (53:44.828)
One, because the city typically doesn't own that much land. And two, a developer then has to say, can I, what are the margins going to be? Because I'm going to have to bring a crew down here. I'm going to get supplies down here. Are there already contractors down here? There's already people. There's master craftsmen and so on and so forth. But there's not a contractor and there's not a readily available crew. So, for example, the state of Kansas right now, the Department of Commerce has offered the frame grant.
that is going to give capital to community colleges that have a building trades program, construction program to help identify the gap in the housing ecosystem and address it. And I think things like that, ideas like that are going to be so important moving forward because they're going to be necessary for everyone to get on the same page. In Humboldt, Kansas, the most reliable developer, with the exception of maybe in the past year,
was the school district. High school built one house every two years or so. And it was a guaranteed reliable development. One house in Kansas City, who no one will notice, in a community of 2,500 people, a new house is, I guarantee you, is the talk of the town. So I think that is something that's going to be necessary is that we continue to embrace and expect collective solutions.
collaborative solutions to complex problems. And then that our anchor agencies, and this could even include our anchor institutions and maybe even our industrial partners, see themselves with a responsibility to be benevolent disruptors.
One thing kind of as part of that conversation, I might be reading a little bit into this, but I certainly know from my experience that oftentimes in rural communities, there is more of an acceptance of just status quo. It is what it is. I don't mean to say this like an insulting way to anybody, but.
Kevin Klinkenberg (55:58.22)
not necessarily a push for excellence or striving. Maybe the better way to say it is not as much striving to achieve. And I think part of that's because it's more comfortable and easy to live in a smaller town, costs are less, et cetera, et cetera. In a big city, you find a lot more people who really striving for something. Is that an aspect at all of kind of like, as you think about
the next phases are achieving more in your county? No. I'll elaborate. No, if you don't, if you don't believe that striving for excellence is part of the rural expectation, you have not been to a county fair. So if you go to a county fair and see the effort that people put into things that will never
be recognized outside of a three day event and the sweltering heat at the end of July in rural Kansas, then I don't know what to you. if it's speak with, communicate with folks who are trying to grow the best stand of wheat that they have in their life every year, speak with people who are
do not care about commodity prices, but are proud of the way that they're being fields look, or the person that is growing the best beef you've ever eaten in your life. and I think that pursuit of excellence is still there. I understand what you're saying that, and I think the, what you're, what you're actually articulating is something that's present in rural communities, which is the reluctance to be disruptive. I don't, I don't want.
to in any way rock the boat because rocking the boat will, could potentially bring shame on myself. And they still on the honor and shame, social economy and small towns is still very real because most people are multiple or are part of a multiple generation. you know, family tree it's been in that area. So my gosh, if you mess up, then the shame that bring on your family.
Kevin Klinkenberg (58:21.628)
it moves up and down that family tree. It's not isolated to just yourself. If you are an entrepreneur in Atlanta and you have no connection to the community, you just landed there, and you try a business and it flops, but then you're able to go somewhere else. There's no shame involved in that. You, you are.
a pioneer. You are, you know, you're an entrepreneur and everyone is going to be impressed by you because you had a great big idea that just didn't work. And here's 18 reasons it didn't work that you had no control over. If you're an entrepreneur in Iowa, Kansas and your business flops and you still have to live in that community and everybody's going to ask your aunt when she goes to church on Sunday, well, you know.
We saw that he started that your, your nephew started that auto body place. Is this, is it still open? Didn't seem like there were many cars there. Didn't seem, didn't seem like he's doing, is he doing okay? he's, they had to close. that's terrible. And your aunt's the one who has to answer that question for you. And so I think, I don't think it's a reluctance to pursue excellence. I think it is a fear that they will somehow.
do something that will be shameful. Interesting. And I think that that's very real. And that burden of failure sits heavy in a rural community. failure in a rural community historically is very obvious. It is driving by a field that is fallow. It is driving by a farmhouse that's in disrepair.
because there's not money to take care of it. So it is so much louder than it can be in other places. Interesting. I appreciate that. last thing I wanted to ask about, as I've looked before at coming to Humboldt in particular, I was really impressed by just the amount of activity that is programmed in the town on a regular basis.
Kevin Klinkenberg (01:00:33.979)
That's something that most small towns don't do much of. I wonder if you could speak to a little bit. So like, I always think about that, like in a community there's hardware and there's software and that's like the software side and talk a little bit about what Humboldt has been doing and what that has meant for the overall success of the place. And the credit again goes toward Boulder Humboldt, that group, and then also their
City Administrator Cole Herder, shout out Cole Herder. Listen, if you want to know what it is to be a good City Administrator in a small town, which is part PR Director, part Public Works Director, part Ombudsman and Accountant and everything else, Cole Herder and Humble Matt Rader in Iowa, those are dues that you need to put on your radar and have a coffee with.
In Humboldt, that software analogy is so perfect because that directly connects to their sense of self. And so all of these events take place. For example, they brought back an event called Water Wars in the summer in which the municipal fire department is involved and it's a part parade, part massive citywide water balloon fight, part public water sports.
events on the town square. And there is, it is pure frivolity, but they have embraced it because it is a spectacle of joy for the community. And in that capacity as a spectacle of joy, it ceases to be frivolous because again, if you are driving or trying to move your community to
a becoming a hope factory, you need spectacles of joy. You need reasons that people can revel in the fact that they live in that place, because so often we are told as rural people, it's a shame you live there. Gosh, wouldn't it be great if you just moved somewhere else? So these spectacles of joy in which people can fully embrace, my gosh, I'm so proud or even because we don't have to defend it.
Kevin Klinkenberg (01:02:54.96)
And that's typically what a small town person is told they have to do. Defend why you want, why do you live there? No, I'm just going to be happy that I'm here right now. Iola just had their Christmas block party on the square in which, you know, Santa visited and kids played games and the businesses served hot chocolate. And it's, mean, it's, it is very Hallmark movie. By the way, one of the, one of the largest
town squares in Kansas. So come and visit if town squares are your thing. First of all, you and I probably aren't going to hang out at parties, but if that's what you love, come to the Iowa block party for Christmas and you will get a taste of Americana that you have been hankering for. But again, it's just a spectacle of joy and communities need those things.
They need those spectacles of joy. And I think that's also to your point earlier about why people are choosing to locate themselves in rural communities, because they can do it in an unabashed way. They don't have to defend why they're doing it. doesn't have to be cool. It doesn't have to be on trend. It can just be a thing that's fun that you can revel in. And in in Humboldt and in Iowa, in Humboldt especially, there have been a group of folks who have sought to add
to the community calendar, these spectacles of joy that have become a collective experience of hopefulness and celebration. And I don't know that you need to defend that. And I think we would probably all live in healthier communities if we engaged in those things without the need to qualify why they exist.
Jared, I think that's a great place to wrap. Very, very, very interesting. This was a lot of fun. I think at some point down the road, I might like to have you on again and talk some more. There's probably four or five more questions that I still have in my head. I'd love to talk about. But this is super interesting. If people are trying to find you and find your communities, what's the best way to do it?
Kevin Klinkenberg (01:05:09.084)
ThriveAllenCounty.org. You can find out everything about the organization that I work for and you can connect with all of my colleagues there. You can email me at Jared, J-A-R-E-D at ThriveAllenCounty.org. And that's the best way to get in touch with me. I'm on LinkedIn because I'm trying to be a grownup right now. But other than that, I am willfully disengaged from social media.
beyond that, for minutes, not because I'm a rural lead, but because I'm trying to protect my peace in that way. So shoot me an email, find my phone number on, on the internet. And I'd love, I'd love to talk to you. If you are rural and you want to argue with me about this stuff, please, if you are a person living in a different context and you want to chat more about this, I would love to do so. Fantastic. Jared, thanks so much.
Good luck with everything and I'll definitely make a point to bring the family down and come visit one of these days. Sounds great. Thank you so much Kevin. Thanks
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Jesse Russell and Ryan Andrews fit the profile of successful small developers. That is, they had no experience at all before trying it, almost no money, but have a ton of passion and creativity. Jesse and Ryan discuss how they came from the worlds of tv show production and finance to create a small development business in beautiful Bend, Oregon. They now focus primarily on cottage-style housing and unique, communal projects.
Beyond their projects, what is incredibly fascinating is their story of creating a locally-based investment fund so they can do more projects and truly work hand-in-hand with people invested in their communityâs success. If youâre someone that is truly based in your community, and want to see more small-scale projects get done, the details of their model are worth a listen. Itâs an astonishing example of starting with one modest project, and quickly moving up to having $100 million of projects in progress.
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Mayor David Holt, far younger than me, has an impressive resume for any big-city Mayor. Heâs been elected overwhelmingly twice, and his city is clearly on the rise. If youâre not familiar with whatâs going on in Oklahoma, this is a chance at some insight.
Moving out of a dark period in the cityâs history in the early 1990s, Oklahoma City took it upon itself to pursue a dramatic makeover. Every city is a work in progress, but whatâs been accomplished in the thirty years is remarkable. Mayor Holt and I discuss the MAPS program, initiated by his predecessors, and now working through its fourth installment.
Most cities and city leaders talk about the importance of âquality of lifeâ issues and improvements, but Mayor Holt and OKC have actually done something about it. Their MAPS program, which has a unique pay-as-you-go feature, is a terrific example of local government initiative. Does OKC show a model of successful big city governance? Listen, and decide for yourself.
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Itâs an intriguing irony that we live in the managerial age, with more managers than ever, and yet so much in our society is so poorly managed. But what can be done? Is it just an inevitable fact of modern life?
In this episode, I break down my experience using the design charrette process in planning and architecture. And, I discuss the lessons learned from years of creating these very successful processes. Can this unique approach to problem-solving help us better manage our cities, towns and institutions? How does the charrette process get to such successful solutions, in so short a period of time?
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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If youâve traveled much to countries outside of the US, you frequently see a type of building that sits right up on the street, but has a landscaped courtyard space behind it. Instead of the ubiquitous American form of street-front yard-building-back yard, this type of building lacks a front yard in exchange for park-like spaces in the interior. As architects, we call these a variety of names, from courtyard buildings to perimeter blocks and on and on.
Alicia Pederson has come to Twitter/X and quickly gained a large following by highlighting the virtues of this kind of building. In particular, we talk about why it works so well for families with small children. This historic type is actually quite rare in the United States, but common virtually everywhere else in the world.
Alicia follows in the footsteps of people who have a passion for urban living, but arenât necessarily design or development professionals. She focuses on this one approach, and we talk about how it might happen in her city of Chicago and elsewhere.
For a little more depth, check out this site for her exposition on this building type.
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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In the urbanism and planning world, we talk a lot about Missing Middle Housing. Rightfully so, since itâs a critical element that helps a community succeed and provide the total range of housing options. And, itâs historically what we used to build a LOT of, before the advent of zoning and modern development codes.
Hal Shapiro of Real Property Group in Overland Park, KS, talks with us about his unique niche and take on working in this field. Hal started on the lending side of the equation, and eventually worked his way into property ownership and development. But his projects are something different than what we talk about with Missing Middle Housing. Hal has worked on projects somewhat larger than the historic four and six and twelve-plexes we talk about so much. But heâs also much smaller than the big boys.
Hal and I had a chance to reconnect at the most recent Small Scale Developer Forum, hosted by Jim Heid. I interviewed Jim recently on the podcast as well. Hal has been very involved in the Forums for several years, and is an enthusiastic supporter of entrpreneurship generally. Hal offers some great tips in this for working at a unique scale, that hardly anyone else pursues. For anyone thatâs got a bit of experience in the development world, and loves walkable places, this is definitely worth a listen.
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Stop what youâre doing, and listen to this episode. Trust me, itâs worth it.
I came across Joe Jimenez by way of Coach Carson, who has interviewed him twice. Joe lives in Kalispell, Montana, and now owns a business called Switchback Suites. Joe and I discuss his interest in the FIRE movement, (FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early) and how he eventually translated that into his own world. A key piece has been using house hacking to get into real estate investing, and to as he says, âplay life on easy mode.â
I absolutely loved this discussion, and hope itâs helpful to listeners. I hope it can especially reach younger listeners, as Joe really lays out well what can be accomplished to set your life up for success. All it takes is some intention and a willingness to make a few sacrifices.
Joe and I also get into some depth on travel hacking, which is essentially making a game or system of using credit card bonuses for travel. Iâve used this for years, as has Joe, and we talk about how to do it, the benefits of being systematic, and he shares some very fun anecdotes.
Hereâs Joeâs photo of Singapore Suites Class:
A few links we discuss:
* Mr. Money Mustache
* Chris Guillebeau and The Art of Non-Conformity
* Go Curry Cracker
* Paula Pant
* Jillian Johnsrud
* One mile at a time
* Frequent miler
* Choose FI travel
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Before this episode, I knew nothing about Mineral Wells, TX. Now, iâm interested to visit. Mineral Wells is a small, historic resort town west of Fort Worth. Itâs the sister city of Hot Springs, Arkansas. And our guestâs family has been on the forefront to save it from recent decline.
For me, this, what Macy Nix Alexander relates to me is how people who truly love their place can be the change that helps turn its fortunes around. This is a remarkable tale that can be relatable to all manner of places, regardless of their historic assets. Mineral Wells has some advantages, to be sure. But what they really seem to have are people willing to put their time and money on the line to make a difference. And as much as anything, Macyâs story speaks to the power of her fatherâs motto to âlive below your means.â
I wonât give it all away, but the story of how theyâve gone from owning inexpensive rental properties to starting local businesses and renovating majestic old hotels is nothing short of inspiring.
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Eric Kronberg, of Kronberg Urbanists + Architects, is a wealth of knowledge for people wanting to truly understand the realities of new construction in cities. First off, itâs Kronberg with a long o, not as I initially pronounced it. Apologies to Eric.
Eric and I talk about his work in missing middle housing, working in development in Atlanta, and the opportunities and perils of doing infill new housing. TLDR: it ainât easy, but there are solutions.
A couple of great takeaways I had from this episode are that the most cost effective way to build is a 3 story walk-up and the typical current strategy of upzoning commercial corridors and protecting single-family neighborhoods does not get us to an affordable place. In fact, itâs encouraging the most expensive forms of housing, and discouraging the least expensive.
I highly recommend checking out Ericâs site for more. Hereâs a few links:
Power Plexes
La France Walk
Inc Codes
ATL ADU Co
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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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So-called âurbanistsâ tend to travel to foreign lands and come back with the obvious takeaways: foreign cities good, American cities bad. I get that. I understand the impulse. Iâve done it myself, so who am I to judge?
But letâs suppose for a minute we put that impulse on pause, and ask, what can we learn that can be applied quickly and inexpensively to American cities? If we look past the charm of thousand-year old human settlements, are there other lessons worth learning? I explore this, and have some quick thoughts on the IDA conference in Seattle as well.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
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Monte Anderson of Neighborhood Evolution and Options Real Estate in Duncanville, Texas joins me to talk about extremely practical matters: making money in real estate. That is, as a small developer, how is it actually done? What are the pros and cons of different approaches, such as buying and holding vs selling?
We start this by discussing a YouTube video from The Real Estate God. Yes, thatâs the real channel. Titled, âThe best way to 3x your money in 2024,â the video is a good jumping off point for how to structure deals in an ideal world. And, it goes over the differences between general partners and limited partners.
Monte talks about why nothing ever works as quick as he thinks it should, and the realities of development fees. We discuss the challenges, but also the joys, of working in development.
Find more content on The Messy City on Kevinâs Substack page.
Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If youâd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.
Intro: âWhy Be Friendsâ
Outro: âFairweather Friendâ
Episode Transcript:
Kevin K (00:01.733)
Welcome back to the Messy City podcast. I'm Kevin Klinkenberg. Got our returning champion, Monte Anderson in the house here today. Monte, it's always great to see you and talk to you. Where are you in Dallas? Are you roaming around the country somewhere?
Monte Anderson (00:16.022)
Yeah, I am in Dallas today. Glad to be here with you, but I am in Dallas. I'll be in Lafayette, Louisiana tomorrow morning and Elkhart, Indiana next week. So lot of traveling coming up, but I'm home for this afternoon. It is. It is. We've been going down there for, this is our second year. And so yeah, there's a lot of good food down there. Yeah.
Kevin K (00:26.257)
Cool, Lafayette's a really cool town.
Kevin K (00:39.449)
Yeah, was going to say amazing food, fun people, it be a great time.
Monte Anderson (00:43.647)
Yeah, they are fun people. lot of entrepreneurial spirit down there, know, they've had to do a lot with a lot of things against them, know, hurricanes and, you all the things that you've got in that part of the country.
Kevin K (00:53.627)
Yeah. Yeah.
That's right. That's right. Well, guess depending on where you are, you've got something. like we don't have hurricanes, but we've got tornadoes and floods.
Monte Anderson (01:06.668)
Yeah, yep, that's right. There's something always out there, the unknowns.
Kevin K (01:10.245)
Yeah, I know. I think I texted you a couple of weeks ago, we were up in Dubuque, Iowa, where I know you're also doing some work and they were dealing with the Mississippi is flooding this year. It's been very, very high. And so they've had some flooding in different portions. So in fact, we were going to take like one of their riverboat cruises and we couldn't do it because the river is too high.
Monte Anderson (01:28.705)
my.
Yeah. my, that's because that town is right in between the river and the bluffs. The downtown is right there in the valley, if you will, between the two hills. Yeah.
Kevin K (01:37.67)
Yeah.
Kevin K (01:42.063)
Yeah. It's really cool. had not spent a lot of, I've driven through, I'd driven through before, but I hadn't really spent any time there. And it's really a neat, neat little town with like incredible bones and, just a really pretty setting there on the river.
Monte Anderson (01:52.802)
Yeah.
Yeah, the great thing is it doesn't have any major interstates that go through it.
Kevin K (01:59.569)
But they had a lot of urban renewal. I'll say that. For a small town, boy, did they have a lot of urban renewal that was done to them. anyway, Monty, I wanted to talk to you today. We were exchanging some emails. I sometimes subscribe to these just kind of random YouTube channels or blogs or whatever that touch on real estate or design or planning or whatever.
Monte Anderson (02:03.544)
Yes.
Monte Anderson (02:07.554)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin K (02:27.953)
this is one, that I shared with you that is a YouTube channel, from somebody who calls themselves the real estate God, which, of course kind of made us laugh, but it was a really interesting short video. has some pretty interesting content, especially for, newbies, in this video that, I wanted to talk about today, the email, called it the best way to three X your money in 2024.
but really it was like a seven minute video that was about a basic investment strategy for real estate that I think is real, that is similar to what you teach. And I wanted to kind of walk through this and talk about it because I think it is, it's interesting. we've talked about financing before we've talked about different aspects of development. It's interesting to take it kind of step by step.
and help people understand how, you know, where you put money in, how you get money out, how you make money doing some of these smaller projects.
Monte Anderson (03:30.506)
Yeah, that's a really big deal for people getting started, you know, in this business. I mean, how do you get money out? Right? You put it in, but where does it go? And how does it come out fast? And it doesn't come out fast unless you buy and sell. That's basically the bottom line. If you don't buy and sell, it doesn't come out fast. You know, because if you buy a, you know, if you buy a property and you get a loan and you restore that property,
Kevin K (03:37.969)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (03:59.286)
and you run it and you get it leased up over time. It's not going to cashflow really great in the beginning. It's going to take, it's going to take a while where I find myself these days and making money as far as making, pulling money out is, and this is what the big, developers do, buying something, fixing it up, getting it all rented up or, or, or buying something and getting it ready to sell, you know, and then selling it. And that's where.
A small developers have to do more like buying and selling. And in my case, you know, I charged myself, you know, brokerage fees and management fees and things like that. So my operating company, you know, gets commissions and gets development fees. And that's how we live. And big, big companies do the same thing. You know, the big developer will buy, you know, build a 200 unit apartment complex, lease it up and sell it to the Ohio state teacher pension fund.
You know, and that's where the money's made. That's where the big quicker money is made. But it's, it is really difficult as a small scale developer to buy a property, fix it up, build it and get, and I mean, you're building wealth. Okay. Because usually the property is going up in value, but you don't get a lot of cash flow out of it really quick. It's just, that's just, I think in my opinion, and you know, of course, I don't know everything. It's kind of unrealistic thinking. It looks good on paper.
but it's unrealistic thinking.
Kevin K (05:29.967)
Yeah, it seems like so generally when we talk about making any money in real estate is either you're making money off of the cash flow of the project itself, whether it's a residential project or a commercial project, you know, it's producing more income than your expenses. So you're making a little money year after year on that, or you make money when you sell it to somebody else, assuming you've added value along the way and you're selling it for substantially more than what.
you put into it.
Monte Anderson (06:01.614)
That's correct. And then depending on how much equity you put in in the front and how much leverage or how much debt, how much loan you put on the property, you know, will depend on what your cashflow is going to be. So if you've like in the, I've always been one for putting as, you know, having as little debt as possible because you can go through the times like we just went through in the last year or two when interest rate, like on one of my properties went from four and a half to seven and a half percent.
like it renewed and just went up. mean, they could have went up to 8 .5%, but my bank lacked me, so they did 7 .5%. But if you have much debt, if you have a lot of debt, first of all, you're not going to probably cashflow for a while. And then secondly, when the markets change, when the markets change or when interest rates go up or when vacancy goes up, then you're going to be in trouble.
And that's when you see foreclosures and that's when you see, like right now we're seeing a lot of properties on the market right now, either not so much in foreclosures, but people just needing cash. So they're selling their properties. So.
Kevin K (07:13.233)
Yeah. So like, you know, let's just say if you, random project that you're a small developer and you scrape together $50 ,000 and you, you put that into a deal and then you have debt on the back of it for the balance of the project. You're, you're either getting that 50 ,000 back to you when you sell it. Hopefully plus a profit or you're getting it like drip, drip, drip over time, over a number of years.
Monte Anderson (07:43.211)
Exactly.
Kevin K (07:43.429)
which like you said, at that small of a scale, that might be maybe make a few thousand bucks a year, but you can't make a living off that.
Monte Anderson (07:52.47)
Right. Well, you can't make a living off the drip, drip, drip part. You can't really make a living off that, but you can if you have a hundred units then. Okay. Then you have it. And you can, if you're in the real, if you have a real estate operating company, like I do, where we do our own leasing and management and development and construction. So we pay ourselves to do those, do those things. If, if the money is available, you know, if there is enough, you know, to do that, but
And many times these days, I put myself in better positions. You know, I should have learned after 30, you know, 35 years, I should learn, but I put myself in better positions where I can get those fees mostly. So even if the property is dripping, I'm still getting the fees for operating the property. Now I've got a big one that I'm sitting in right now in Duncanville, Texas. It's called Wheatland Plaza, which is an old strip center, know, with some townhomes I'm going to put on the parking lot.
And right now I've got all my fees into it. got, you know, I've got, I sold another property to, you know, make the cash calls to keep this thing going because I didn't want to get more debt right now while interest was high. So I made a conscious decision not to add more debt on. In fact, I may not have even been able to get more debt on because I'm in a leasing upstage and I bought a
Kevin K (09:06.673)
Mm
Monte Anderson (09:17.87)
strip center that was 60 % least and it went down to 28%. Now I'm back up to 80, but I'm still not up to really breaking even, know, nearly up to breaking even. And when I put the 20, the 19 townhomes on the parking lot, you know, I'm to have a mixed use building. And then now I've got something that's operating, but it takes, it takes time. So that'll probably take me, what I just described is probably take me four or five years to get that done. So you got to last that four or five years.
Kevin K (09:47.589)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Monte Anderson (09:47.736)
you know, negative cashflow and you've got a cash negative cashflow has got to come from from somewhere. So it's, it's funny to hear like in the, the podcast or the, the YouTube we were talking about, it's funny to hear some of the people talking about this stuff because they, this would be the way I would put it on paper to show you a deal. I would show you that in reality, it's just not that easy. And you're constantly having to,
You're constantly having to look for new ways of financing or finding another property to buy and sell to make cash flow or buy and sell something you've already got or raising capital from what we call community impact investors who don't expect huge high returns but are also, they expect a little return but they're as interested in the community impact as they are the return. They're interested in both.
Kevin K (10:45.541)
Yeah. Well, so let's look at a couple of the basics that he talked about just to clarify. He described the way he looks at it as like being a real estate private equity company. I think, I mean, that's clever, but I think it's just basically kind of the way a lot of real estate deals happen. And that is you have general partners and you have limited partners. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about like in your experience, how those, what's the difference between the two?
What roles do they play?
Monte Anderson (11:16.29)
Yeah, like I'm the general partner or the managing partner in, in, you know, nearly all the deals I do. And I have partners, limited partners or, or members. These days we call them members of the LLC. Same thing, same, but they're passive, passive investors. And so in any real estate deal, you really need two things. And this is what I talk about in all small scale developers need two things. Really. We need really a good, decent loan from a bank.
And I always say a bank, bank servers are still our best partners. They're going to be the probably lowest interest rate. They're also be the toughest to underwrite you, know, looking at your paperwork and, you know, looking at you closely and asking you questions. And then you need, you need affordable equity. You're either providing that equity or the down payment or your investor partners are providing that down payment.
Kevin K (12:09.617)
Right. Just like if you're buying a house and you have to put 5 % down, 10 % down, 20 % down, whatever it is. For a real estate deal, it's the same way. And a bank is probably going to require 25 % down pretty typically or more. Yeah. Yeah.
Monte Anderson (12:14.079)
same thing.
Monte Anderson (12:23.726)
or 35 % today, or you may want to put 35 or 40 % today at seven and a half or eight, eight and a half percent interest. I can remember years ago that used to be not be that bad of a rate, but we got used to this low rates. we kind of, you know, below 5%, I kind of call that free money. It's kind of free, you know, really. So it really makes deals easier to do. when they go up, but
Kevin K (12:45.265)
You
Monte Anderson (12:51.822)
Yeah, it's the same thing. You you buy a piece of property, you need a loan, you need equity, whether it's 5 % on an FHA loan to buy a house or whether you got a commercial loan at a bank and you need 25, 35%. We used to say 20 % down on commercial loans, but now these days I would say it's minimum 25 to 35 % down that banks are requiring. Not such a bad thing either, to tell you the truth, but it's kind of going back like a hundred years ago when we didn't have financing.
Kevin K (13:21.211)
Mm
Monte Anderson (13:21.678)
Cause if you think about most of you're in my friends, not wealthy, you know, we didn't grow up with extreme amounts of wealth. 35 % might as well be, you know, might as well be a hundred percent, know, we got nothing, you know, you got nothing, you know, it's still a, still a lot of money. But once you get your, your, your investors, your limited partners, your, your members of your LLC, your passive investors, the passive investors don't, don't operate.
Kevin K (13:33.859)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (13:49.806)
on a day -to -day basis. They're just like they have stock in your deal. And they need to be accredited investors, which means they have to have a certain amount of knowledge or net worth or wealth. They have to make a certain amount of income. They have to be sophisticated and accredited investors of sophisticated investors. In fact, it's a business person that it's not like a little old lady with their last $50 ,000 in the bank.
That's a non -accredited investor or somebody that makes less than a hundred thousand a year. That would be non -accredited investors. So you want accredited investors and these accredited investors, that means they're sophisticated and if they lose their money, they're big boys and big girls. they, buyer beware kind of beware. So they're going to be passive partners. The general partner or the managing partner operates the real estate venture.
hires the contractors, hires the leasing agents, hires the property managers, hires the architects, negotiates with the bank. Quite often in my case, the general partner would personally guarantee the real estate notes, which I do just about on everything I do. I hear people talk about not personally guaranteeing these commercial real estate deals. It's not in my world, really. That's just not realistic. I have to personally...
Kevin K (15:14.949)
Yeah, how does that even exist? Who gets away with not guaranteeing a deal?
Monte Anderson (15:21.514)
I hear people talk about it on YouTube and things like that. But it's just not realistic. there are different kinds of loans where a lender looks at a bigger real estate deal, big, where the asset is so strictly regulated by the bank or by the lender that you may get.
Kevin K (15:25.125)
Hahaha.
Monte Anderson (15:48.098)
you know, a situation that we, know, that you don't have to personally guarantee. So the asset is lots of equity. You know, it's the lender is really looking at everything you do, commissions paid, finish out, you know, construction, you know, things like that. They're approving everything, approved leases. They might as well be the owner. That's the only time I see that where you don't personally guarantee, you know, your real estate in that case. But.
Generally speaking, is general partners got to guarantee the loan, got to run the operation. Also it's got to get, can get paid for running the operation. We get paid a leasing fee, a property management fee. We get paid a development fee. We get paid all these fees if there's enough cashflow. And since I'm the one putting the deals together, I always feel responsible when there's not enough cashflow and end up leaving my fees in.
because I feel responsible if I didn't make the projection quick enough. it seems we just never make the, nothing ever works as quick as I think it should. It never works as quick. It's the nature of the beast. There's so many different things that can happen, whether it be.
building permits or zoning or platting you know, a supplier, subcontractors, or didn't get a tenant, you know, early enough. mean, these days in most cities have hard trouble, have a hard time with building inspectors. So you may not get, you know, inspections as quick. We used to get building permits in two weeks and, you know, we could build a building in six months. That's just no longer the way it is. You know, it just takes a lot longer than that.
You know, it just, and I used to go to California and they'd say, well, it only took me two years to get a permit. And I said, well, we're from Texas. We got a permit in like two weeks. You know, well, we're like California now. It takes us forever. It takes us forever to get things. So all of those things compile up and can cause you delays and stuff like that. And delays are going to cost you money, you know, and, and
Kevin K (17:51.985)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (18:07.692)
You know, I'm always changing things too. My projects are done incrementally. So we might start in one end and by the time we get through, it's different than what we originally conceptualized. And that's, it's got, it's good and bad. mean, bad is that it's changed and it's different and likely costs more. Good is it might be a better project because we're more curating the type of businesses or people that are there than we are just filling spaces.
Kevin K (18:33.615)
Yeah. I mean, just like on a personal note, the town, like as an example, the townhouse project that I'm working on with my partners, you know, we, as we have progressed through construction, we have found a lot of things that we decided we wanted to change. And a lot of that was really based on, we know like the price we're going to end up selling these at.
And so it kind of changed our minds about who we think like the buyers are. It's a, it's a more expensive, home now than, it was originally. so, you know, we, for example, during the course of construction, we're like, well, you know, maybe we should change that kitchen. maybe that pantry should be different. Maybe we should have a different kind of countertop or finish. And, you would think that all that would be figured out ahead of time. But like you said, during the course of the project,
Monte Anderson (19:04.589)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (19:14.98)
Yeah.
Kevin K (19:28.355)
you know, especially something I'm at take two or three years, things change.
Monte Anderson (19:32.908)
Yeah, they do. know, time, time happens so fast these days and with AI and other things, mean, the, the speed of, of everything that's happening is, you know, if you're copying something somebody did yesterday, you're already behind. I mean, you've got to be figuring out, you've got to understand this business and know where it's going rather than copying where somebody's been. can, you can learn from someone, but you really can't copy from place to place. know, you principles are the same, but
Kevin K (19:48.027)
Hehehe.
Monte Anderson (20:02.318)
Yeah, like in the center I'm working in now, it's a 90 ,000 square foot shopping center built in the 60s. And we, you know, it was, we're converting it to mix of uses from retail and restaurants to coworking, you know, school and, you know, state of Texas lease and things like that. And we start off thinking we're going to get, you know, $16 a square foot or $18 a square foot. And we'll put a little lipstick on it here and a little, you know, fix some roofs here and stuff. What we find is if we
If we cut the spaces up smaller and we really gut them out and really make them nice inside, we can get $24 a foot. So $24 a square foot versus 16's a lot of money, you know, to the bottom line, which makes the property a lot more expensive. It's just what you just described with the townhome. You got a better kitchen in, you know, we're going to, we can get more money. In fact, if we keep the cheap kitchen in, we may not sell it.
because we found out that the market was a little bit different. And by being an incremental or a nimble type developer, you can make those decisions on the fly and adjust and hopefully profit, you know, hopefully profit from that. In the meantime, you got to get more money somehow. So where do you get it? You either get it from your equity partners or you get it from your, from your bank. And this is a good reason to have community at your partners you want to have. You don't want to have poor partners.
Kevin K (21:17.521)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin K (21:30.907)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (21:30.958)
You want to have rich partners because poor partners can't help you if you get in a situation.
Kevin K (21:34.362)
Yeah.
Kevin K (21:41.297)
Well, and I like your point about the fees part of it, because I think that was something I didn't really know anything about related to development 15 years ago, was that, if I'm the managing partner or the developer of this project, then I essentially pay a percentage fee to myself, and that's part of the construction loan and everything. And I remember in the first workshops that John Anderson did that I
paid attention to, he was like, you know, it's kind of 5 % of hard construction costs in the ballpark. And so I was like, that sounds good. You start to bookmark that. then, you just like you said, that can evaporate during, you know, if things go a little bit sideways. And like on our project, we had budgeted a development fee for all, for the three of us who are managing partners and the construction costs changes and the inflation that's happened over the last few years have really caught up with us.
And we basically having to contribute those fees back to the project to cover other things that we would like to do to it. So we hope to get paid out at a later date, but the reality is we're not going to make that fee during the course of the project.
Monte Anderson (22:53.218)
Yeah. And that's, I would say that's more normal than not. I would just say that's more normal than not. Cause I don't know something about in the idealistic stage, you remember when you were getting ready. I remember when you were getting ready for the townhomes and stuff. And it's the idealistic stage. It's fun during that stage, you know, it's like, it's like new love, right? It's like falling in love and you're in love, you know, all of sudden and everything is, you know, right. Unicorns and rainbows, you know, and then, and then all of sudden, you know, the reality.
Kevin K (23:07.483)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (23:22.414)
the reality kicks in. But I think that's more normal than not. In fact, I'm embarrassed to say this, but in my one, I had a hotel project in Dallas up here and the, was paid my development fee. I did the project in 2004 and 2005 and I sold it in 2015. And that's when I got my development fee in 2015. And it was my own fault.
Kevin K (23:46.233)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (23:52.586)
In fact, my own arrogance, my own thinking I knew everything when I started that project that caused that to happen to me. And I wanted to do the project no matter what. I was just going to do it no matter what. I just wanted to do it. And that, and I was like kicking the can down the road, but that own arrogance.
I tell Bernice and I talk about this all the time, Bernice Riedel and I, don't fall in love. She says fall in love with these projects. I say, don't fall in love with them until you own them. Don't fall, because it excuse your, and I fell in love with this project before I did it. And so I just had to do it anyway. Sometimes you just, you and I were talking earlier, sometimes you just, and if you're going to do that, that's fine. Just know that the pain is coming. Just know the pain is coming with it.
Kevin K (24:32.145)
Mm
Monte Anderson (24:51.178)
I understand it. I understand loving a project more than anything and you want to do it. I understand it. Just be prepared, you know, for the stress and the high level of anxiety that will come with that.
Kevin K (25:02.481)
So, Monty, that begs the question then. If you didn't get paid your development fee for 10 years, if that's more common than we'd like to admit, how do you live? How do you make a living during the course of doing these projects? Because you have to have some cash flow to pay the bills on.
Monte Anderson (25:21.774)
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I started off as a real estate agent leasing and selling space, you know, and buildings in my commercial real estate agent. And so all in the beginning days back in the early years, 100 % of my business was third party broker. I was doing this for somebody else, you know, and that was easy. You know, I had an easy life back then. And then I decided to be a developer.
Kevin K (25:48.667)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (25:51.406)
So, but what happened now today, I have about 80 % is my own stuff and 20 % is other people's about 80 % today. And so you still need to be working. We call it working in the flywheel or working in the area. You're still working to crank that flywheel to move your company along, to move your own personal life along. You still got to make income. So I always kept brokering space for others.
people. And if you're an architect, so you would still keep doing architectural work for other people or doing your podcasting or doing your, you know, if you're an IT guy, you still, you know, you're working on your IT in these buildings, you're doing, you're doing work in other buildings, you know, but you're doing in hopefully in your farm or in your community, or anywhere you're where you're, you know, you're committed to where you're committed. That's a really key to this is, is working in an area that you, you know, that you commit to as a small scale developer, you need to
You need to stay close to home and not try to be working in, you know, Kansas city and St. Louis and Oklahoma city and, you know, Dubuque, you know, you'll be, you'll, that's a good way to go broke. You know, it's being too scattered out, you know, like that. You, and some people may can do it, you know, I'm just not capable of doing that. You know, you have to stay close and that's how I make a living. And I keep my, another thing is, you know, you want to keep.
I mean, it's just silly stuff to say this, you know, live on half of what you make, try to get used to that, you know. That's a really hard thing to tell people and that's, you know, try to live on half, you know, try to really live, you know. I've had to sell my houses before. I've had to sell my cars. I mean, I've had to, you know, when the going gets tough, you know, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Now, on wood and thankfully.
And by the grace of God, I've been able to build my net worth continually. But when you sell a property and you make a lot of money on it or you make a profit, you've got capital gains, you know, then. And so the only way not to pay those capital gains is to do, you know, to trade that property or do a 1031 tax deferred exchange and put the money into another property. So I sell a property and I get some money and I either pay a bunch of taxes on it or I have to re -spend it.
Monte Anderson (28:17.826)
But if I respend it, hopefully I can get a brokerage fee, an architectural fee, construction fee. And so I end up living on these fees. You know, I'll end up in these fees I pay myself. I'm able to pay myself. they're not, you know, they're market fees. They're fair to my partners, fair. You you always want to put these fees and stuff in your partnership agreements.
You want to put what you're going to get paid. You always want to put that in your partnership agreement. So your partners know what you're getting paid. You want to have that upfront. You don't want that to be a surprise. You know, as you're putting, I've got partners for like over 20 years, financial partners, and they just, trust me. It's whatever you want to do, do it. You know, and because they're used to me, you know, taking care of them. And that's really important as you take care of, you know, your
your people that invest with you like that. gotta take, I would, if I had to, would sell everything I had to make sure my people are whole and my banks are paid if I had to. And I'd just start over again. I haven't had to, but thankfully, but I've sold things along the way when I really didn't want to sell them, you know, to be able to keep on going.
Kevin K (29:31.323)
So, I mean, I think it sounds like then, if this is a fair way to say it, that if you're doing this sort of thing, first of all, it's probably, especially for a lot of people, it's better to think of it as like a side hustle, at least initially. But more importantly, it's it's great to be able to have one of those people in the flywheel that you would normally pay a fee to.
it would be great to be able to replace yourself with at least one of those. So whether that's brokerage, property management, design, engineering, anybody that you might normally be cutting a check to, if you have an expertise in one of those areas and you can claim that fee, then that is a way to keep getting yourself paid.
Monte Anderson (30:13.302)
Yes.
Monte Anderson (30:18.538)
Yeah, yeah, think about this. Think about this in your farm up there and your Kansas City farm up there. You're working on this project right now. You're having to put your fees back in, but you're also working on a project for another guy, John Doe and Jane Doe down the street. You're doing the same things. You're still improving the neighborhood. So it's really, I don't look at it as a side hustle. You're doing architecture for yourself and you're doing it for Jane and John and these other people.
Kevin K (30:39.91)
Okay.
Monte Anderson (30:45.42)
And then every third or fourth or fifth deal is your deal. And every third or fourth or fifth deal, it's your deal. And then the more you get going over time, every other deal is your deal. And then every two deals is yours and one is somebody else's. And every three deals is yours and then one is somebody else's. So over time, it becomes, but I think it's good as a small scale developer to have.
the term used, side hustle, is true to be able to start right now. Because right now you can adopt a place, start doing your architecture in that place, stop building, know, start working on hospitals all over the country, just work in your own farm, and do small jobs, do storefronts, come and help people do their lettering on their windows if you're an architect. You know, help them just fix things up.
You you make enough money to make a living and at the same time, now you're working on your townhomes. You know, you're working on your townhomes and now you find another project and I'm always looking for an opportunity. Because if I can find an and what is an opportunity? An opportunity is where something is below the market. Like the shopping center I bought, 90 ,000 square feet, 60 % occupied, the rates were like six or $7 a foot per year. You know.
When I get through, it's 90 ,000 square feet. The rates are 22, $24 a square foot. So I bought it. It was way below the market, but the market site is a $6 building. The market didn't see it as a $24 building because it had the cheap kitchens. Like you say, in the townhouse, had, so we put good kitchen, you know, we did better and we had to do, we had to spend more, but it was, we were able to make a lot more money.
And in the long run, it will be. I can tell you this on all of my projects, all of them, just a hundred percent. If I keep it long enough, I will get all my fees and a really good return because what I'm doing is improving a farm. I'm improving a community together. And as they say, it's the tide rises, so to all chefs. So every time I'm improving something in that farm, the one I've got is going up in value.
Monte Anderson (33:10.412)
And over time that'll go up. If we look at it at three or four years, that's where the problem is on the YouTube video that we talked about is looking at stuff that could get rich quick scheme is, don't know. There's guys who flip houses and do things. Gals that flip houses and do things that probably they get rich. They get somewhat rich, you know, I guess. And some of them get rich, I guess. And you know, you can do that.
Kevin K (33:22.523)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (33:38.552)
That's just never been my goal in doing real estate. My goal has been one of a townmaker, you know, of making our lives better. And I know you have the same goal in mind. So do most of our friends have that goal. We want to make the built environment better. Money's important, but it's not always the only important thing.
Kevin K (34:02.363)
Yeah, I think it's, kind of took the words right out of my mouth. That's like, you're not, you're not describing a, get rich quick scheme at all. But you're describing something that has a different kind of reward that somebody had. Obviously your, your goal is still to make money and make good money if you, know, if you're smart about it, but you're not going to be rolling up in a brand new Maserati in two years or something like that. It's because your goal is really to improve.
Monte Anderson (34:08.93)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (34:28.098)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin K (34:31.525)
your place and lift your own community up and do really good stuff along the way.
Monte Anderson (34:39.084)
Yeah. And, and like you said, make making money. always tell people wherever I go these days, making money is the most important thing. Doing good is equal, but I didn't say doing good is the most important thing first. And then make it my, you know, I said, making money, said most of them, because without making money, you can't continue. You're going to be stuck. You know, if you build those townhomes.
all your money's gone and all your credit's tied up and you weren't able to sell them or you weren't able to get the rents, then everything you got's tied up. And I can't tell you how many friends I've got all over the country right now that are one time, developer and out. They're one deal and out, you know? And so when I get stuck on a project and I do, I'm on one of those right now, it's just big and it's bulky, you know, and it's hard.
So I've got to continue to do these littler projects around that keep me. That's what keeps me making, know, my own salary, you know, making, you know, got to, we, had a meeting with my staff this morning and said, okay, what are we going to sell right now? What's, what's on the board that we can sell? You know, what can we do? That's when we make our fees, you know, brokerage fees and development fees when we sell these properties. And then we can do another one. We'll fix them up. And hopefully we get to.
sell them to somebody good, you know, that hadn't been the case always with me. I sold some stuff to some people I didn't, I wished I wouldn't have, but sometimes I have no choice. You know, sometimes I have no choice. have to do, but the difference too, in what you and I are talking about today, you're in the middle of it yourself right now. And I am in it all the time constantly is that we're in the middle of this, you know, of
very difficult, you know, complex, you know, maybe more complex than somebody doing a big, you know, $100 million building over here. Because a $100 million building, you've got lawyers and lobbyists and architects and planners and engineers and contractors, and you've probably got a big bid and you're going to build it all at once and it's going to be over and it's financed by the Ohio State Teacher Pension Fund.
Monte Anderson (36:57.602)
know, has financed it and it's probably easier because the developer didn't have to be the developers more of a financial architect, more of a financial wizard, you know, if you will, whereas a small scale developer like us, you know, we're the, you know, we're everything. Yeah, we're quite often we're the contractor, you know, handling leases, we're going to raise the money, we went to the bank to sign the note, you know, if the plumbing's broke, you know,
Quite often I might be the one that's called depending on when it is, if it's in the middle of the night or something like that. We're very close and these are personal. We know the names of our tenants or our buyers. kind of, know our people. That's the big difference. And so you gotta be, you gotta really be, I think more knowledgeable sometimes about building, about developing and building. And I would think that this is the way people were a hundred years ago. I would think.
100 years ago when there was no financing, or maybe a little longer, but 100 years ago when there was no financing and you're building these projects in towns with all cash or borrowed money from the attorney in town who had a little money, or that's quite often who's building those things back in those days. Quite often it was bankers and attorneys back then, bankers built.
We're developers. can't do that these days because of the laws, but quite often bankers and things were developers. And you were raising all cash and you're doing it. That's why all of the buildings are small, a lot smaller back in C. And they were built incrementally. When we talked about incremental development, we didn't invent incremental development. That's the way the beginning of time. Yes.
Kevin K (38:48.143)
Yeah. Yeah. That's the way all development was until really fairly recently. I'm curious about if you could talk about some of the ways things go wrong. So you mentioned you have some friends who are like one project and out. What's going on? How does something like this really go wrong for somebody where, or are there a couple of key mistakes to just really watch out for?
Monte Anderson (38:55.5)
Yeah, it was.
Monte Anderson (39:16.748)
Yeah, the biggest mistake is humility, not enough humility. I mean, really to have that open mind to really look at the reality and the facts, know, really have your ego checked and the reality of facts. You really need to look at those facts. Do not try to, you know, cherry coat it. not try to do that.
What happens in these cases is be a guy like you or me was starting out, you you put together a deal and you put all your money in, you put all your money in just to get the plans done and, you know, know, down payment on the property and engineering and, you know, bank fees and attorney's fees. And you put all your money up, you got your money. And then now you got a couple of partners and you've promised these partners. You've promised them certain things, you know, that are probably too good to be true.
Kind of like the guy on YouTube. Probably too good to be true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And we've promised those. And we've promised those things and now it's not the right, we said it was. Or we want to upgrade the kitchens. Or I want to change the spaces. In fact, I have a meeting this afternoon at four o 'clock after this to talk to one of my partners about this exact.
Kevin K (40:21.903)
Yeah, if it sounds super easy, watch out.
Monte Anderson (40:44.318)
banking today and saying we need more, we need more money. And then you, then you, can't get much more money. You, you, you spend two or three years getting their project together. You used all your money, you used all your in -laws money to part of your investors. You got your credit tied up. You finally did get, say that in the best cases or in some of the best cases, you got it all built. It's built and you're not, you're for one thing, you're brain dead.
your brain dead, you're just deal dead. And secondly, you've got no more money. You got no more credit. You've got to go back to work wherever you are, doing whatever you can to make money. Because you still had your house and your wife and your kids. You still had to, and so that's actually best case in some scenarios, you didn't go broke. But in many cases where the deal maker, the promoter, the developer promises things.
They might even lose their interest because they can't, especially if it depends on how they promise the payback to the investors. You could actually lose your interest. call that, you there's a preferred return. A preferred return is when you would maybe guarantee an investor return. You would guarantee them maybe a 6 % preferred return, which means you're going to get 6 % from day one in the deal. And if you can't pay me back, that's 6 % plus a percentage of the profit.
then I take your interest. And that happens, that happens a lot. And that's not as bad as a bankruptcy or a foreclosure, but you ended up doing all this work and you end up with nothing. And so I never do preferred returns with anybody. I never do those, just don't do them. There's too many unknown things. There's just too many things that can happen. Preferred returns sometimes it's like having a bad credit card. You can't get the interest, you know, paid.
And it just keeps going every day while you're having delays or not getting the project done quick enough.
Kevin K (42:51.697)
So then for your, do you have a recommendation then for dealing with investors so that you don't have to do the preferred return? How would you structure, recommend structuring?
Monte Anderson (42:59.246)
Yeah, I do. I do. have a, what I call the whole pie. I'd say it's the promoter. And this is, I'm going to oversimplify this, promoter, the developer, you put up the money to pursue all the money to do the deal, the architecture, the due diligence, the earnest money, the legal money, and you sign the note. And then the investors, which you may be an investor in your own deal. If you put cash in your own deal, your investors get 50 % of the deal.
And they put up 100 % of the cash needed, the equity needed. And as the cashflow is there, they get their equity, they get their equity back first. No percentage return. They get their equity back first. And once their equity is all paid back, then you split 50 -50. So you're 50 % going in, you're 50%. But they get all their money back. And here's the thing about investors. Most of time, once they get their money back, they're very...
They're very flexible then once they get their principal back. And then in the meantime, you say, well, I got no fees. How am I going to make a living? Well, you make your living off the development fee, the leasing fees, the management fees. So you're making those fees back. then, then if you get the building leased up and this is what I'm doing here at where we speak right now, is I'll get this thing leased up and stabilized with no more construction going on. Then I can go out on the market and get a better loan.
So I can get a better loan. know, lenders during construction, you know, you've probably experienced this. You lenders are very nervous during construction.
Kevin K (44:35.218)
yeah, that's the riskiest time period.
Monte Anderson (44:38.252)
Yeah. And so they're in, this way, this way people get back, they get back to their percentage when they get it here, when it comes back, you're going to get it when it comes back. Now I got to treat them right. And I got to do my best to get their money back. And that taking me time to build relationships where I can, where I can get this done. And these are also community investors. And I would say, what is a community investor? It's a person that's, it's typically a baby boomer, generally speaking between.
It's worth between three million and $20 million net worth. That's gotta have 100, 200, 300 ,000, 1 ,000 they can put in one of your projects. Maybe there's three or four of them if you need a bigger amount. they're gonna be like around, it's somebody you can have coffee with and talk to. No, they're gonna be...
more empathetic with you, you know, if you're honest with them, you know, always be honest with them. Always telling the bad news and the truth. Always. Don't hold, don't hold back and surely don't hide it. Don't hide. Don't, don't do that. Don't do that. People are, people are, people are forgiving and better when, the truth, when you're, when you have a true, you know,
You have a true relationship that's not full of hidden things and it's just a, it's better. And it always comes out in the end. It always comes out better for you. And they know you're committed.
Kevin K (46:21.263)
Yeah, was gonna say eventually you might be able to hide something for a little bit, but it's gonna come out.
Monte Anderson (46:26.604)
Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to be able to be careful with your numbers. And I've done this. mean, I've, you know, I've been too optimistic on my numbers, you know, I mean, cause I wanted to do the project, you know, and, I have people around me that keep me balanced in that place. said my long time CFO here, he's an old banker back when he he's been with me forever, I always give him proformas and stuff. do. said, look,
Kevin K (46:46.16)
Ha
Monte Anderson (46:56.27)
shoot holes in this, really, just really take my stuff apart. Really look at it, critique it, challenge it. Tell me I can't lease that space for this much, or I can't resell it, or I can't know why I can build a restaurant for $100 a square foot. It's gotta be 150, no matter how you look. Tell me those things. Tell me I can't manage this thing for $5 a square foot. It's gotta be, critique me.
Yeah. Keep me balanced.
Kevin K (47:27.867)
So yeah, I think that's great advice. Always have somebody that you have a relationship enough with that you can ask them to poke holes in what you're doing. So I mean, we've talked about some of the downside, there's also, mean, the reality is we're interested in this and a lot of people are interested in this because there's a ton of enjoyment that comes out of it as well. Some financial, but a lot of it non -financial. I think one of the things just
Monte Anderson (47:37.88)
Yeah.
Kevin K (47:57.243)
For me personally, I'll never be able to shake loose the architect inside me and I just love seeing buildings going up. the incredible reward you have to know that you worked on something and you can see it manifested physically is pretty awesome. So there's all those things and it kind of like we were talking a little bit about earlier, I think one of the things that I remind myself of.
Monte Anderson (48:16.92)
Yeah.
Kevin K (48:26.845)
frequently is that sometimes you just have to make a decision to just go and to just do it. And you can definitely get paralysis analysis here in this always hoping for the perfect timing and the perfect deal. But there's never really any such thing. at some point, you want to do your homework and everything. there comes a point where you just got to pull the trigger and try it and do something, right?
Monte Anderson (48:33.186)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (48:54.402)
Yeah, yeah, I'm very instinct guided by instinct. I mean, I'm very guided by instinct. Now, mean, you've seen me before work on numbers and stuff, you know, I'm constantly running numbers. When I see projects, I can see it with numbers. I see the numbers and the spaces and the sizes and what the rents should be and.
operations that cost and stuff like that. yeah, at some point, there's no way you're going to be able to prove it and you just got to go for it. You just got to. And to your right to see a project go from like you've seen, you know, go out of the ground to see it come up. mean, to watch the framing and, know, from the plumbing, watching the plumbing stick up and the framing. mean, there's, there's something so great about that, especially when you're doing a project that's worthy, you know, worthy project. It's something.
I mean, we were meant to be builders, think, as humans, especially. I mean, we were meant to build and to do good things upon the earth. Hopefully we could do better things than we've done upon the earth, than some of the things we've done, but we were meant to be builders. And there's nothing like it to see.
project. have photos all around my office of projects and things that and it's just so good to see all of that and to also have made a decent living and built some wealth you know and today I have my daughter and my granddaughter both work with me and to have that that legacy or that start of something is
It's like there's no way any amount of money could make me feel as good as looking at some of these projects and just seeing businesses thrive and people have decent places to live. There's something so special about that. Otherwise, I'd just be a broker today, just brokering deals and wouldn't care. I think there's something in us that wants us to be townmakers.
Kevin K (51:00.581)
Mm
Monte Anderson (51:00.704)
It wants us to make our towns better. And maybe it's you're not the developer. Maybe you're just one of the champions, the community champions, or you're just an activist in the community that supports this. It's nice to have people like that. Those are very important people to me. People that cheer me on and don't just criticize me. They're very important, you know, to me. They're just as important as anybody, you know, but that, but there's something so good about that. And then, then you will, if you can, if you can.
If you can commit, here's why committing to your neighborhood or your farm or your place for the rest of your life is so important. Because once you commit to that place like that, you commit. The universe changes around you. It makes things easier. Well, I don't know about easier. It makes things doable. It gives you resources. It gives you things that you wouldn't have had when you make that.
when you don't have that commitment. gives people come to you and they want to sell you a property cheaper or they want to, you know, people will invest with you. People will do things with you when they know that you're a true, you're champion like that. And then you will make money. And I think people and my partners and stuff, they want me to make money. They allow me to make money on these projects. They want me to make money. You know, I have to make them money too, but, and to...
see all the small businesses that I deal with and the people that I've seen in housing that may not have had housing and subcontractors and welders and carpenters and know painters and people that around me help them build their businesses and stuff I'm involved in all of that there's I mean I can't imagine doing anything better I don't know what it would be maybe I could be a missionary or something do better work or something but I don't know this is good stuff well this is just good
Kevin K (52:49.563)
Yeah. Well, you're a missionary of sorts. You're a certain.
Monte Anderson (52:57.312)
It's good stuff, it's good, you and it helps you help people. You help build a better, you hope you do. Not everything I've done is always the best for sure, because I've made a lot of mistakes, but that would be the hope that you are able to leave something decent. By the way, my other granddaughter just graduated from Stephen F. Austin in Texas to be an architect.
Kevin K (53:24.729)
wow. All right.
Monte Anderson (53:25.644)
So that was really cool. she's, you know, I got kids, so there's family trees, you know, starting to be architects and developers and stuff. it's a good.
Kevin K (53:36.625)
I feel like we're starting to brainwash our kids in that regard too. We've got them, you know, all those like HGTV type shows. We got them watching those and they're really enjoying them. And it's fun to watch with them. The latest one that we found, which I guess is not a new show, I guess it's like seven years old, but there was a show called You Can't Turn That Into a House. And it was actually three guys from Kansas City who
Monte Anderson (53:40.994)
Alright.
Monte Anderson (53:46.396)
yeah.
Monte Anderson (54:01.6)
Yes.
Kevin K (54:05.821)
made the show and they take these things like, you know, they'll take a couple of school buses or a grain silo or a horse trailer or whatever, and turn it into like a little house. and it's just like the coolest thing. And they do it on these ridiculous schedules and ridiculous budgets, but that act of creativity is so just, you know, incredible. And I remember actually, I think the first one we saw that it was like this, this stuff kind of reminds me of Monty because.
Monte Anderson (54:20.78)
Yeah.
Kevin K (54:34.489)
you have done some really cool, creative, unique stuff with your projects that are way outside the box on what people would normally look at, especially for your retail stuff.
Monte Anderson (54:44.15)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We use a lot of trailers and stuff like that. love buses and trailers and things. Yeah. Kind of cool. Yeah.
Kevin K (54:49.435)
Yeah.
Kevin K (54:52.977)
So it's fun work and I agree it's fun to share it with others and everything else.
Monte Anderson (55:00.111)
Yeah. We do need to make more money as small middle class developers and stuff. We do need to make more money. So we need to continue to teach each other and help each other. That's another thing about the friends that you and I have. I think we all pay it forward. We're all always trying to help each other, I think. And that's a good thing.
Kevin K (55:21.477)
Yeah. Well, Monty, where can people find you next? Or you mentioned earlier some places you're going to be roaming around to. Where else are you working these days?
Monte Anderson (55:34.934)
Let's see, South Bend, Indiana, Elkhart, Indiana, Denton, Texas, Regina, Canada, Dubuque, let's see, Lafayette, Louisiana, getting ready to start in Orlando, Florida. Of course, Bernice Riedel is working in Buffalo and Jim Cooman in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And then we've done a little bit of work or still doing work in Kansas City or in Grandview.
Missouri with an abandoned golf course down there that you remember. We're still working on that. They got their financing and bought that, the people that were helping. And then you can always reach us at neighborhoodevolution .com and optionsre .com. And we're always here. We do, we only do development, you know, in my farm, in my local area of Southern Dallas County. Southern Dallas County is where I work. And then we...
Kevin K (56:11.867)
Good. Good.
Monte Anderson (56:32.022)
Then we coach and teach and train, help cities create ecosystems all over the country through neighborhood evolution.
Kevin K (56:44.571)
Well, we just ran into Bernice recently. was here in Kansas City giving a keynote speech for a Missouri Main Streets Conference. So that was kind of cool to see. terrific. All right. We'll say hello.
Monte Anderson (56:51.916)
Yeah, and she's right outside my door right now here in Texas. She's riding with me to Lafayette tomorrow. yeah, we're meeting Marcus. Marcus King in Detroit will meet us in Lafayette. So Marcus is coming.
Kevin K (56:59.451)
Good, good. All right, Monty.
cool, good, good. All right, well I'm jealous. Sounds like a fun crew. So. All right, Monty, thanks so much. This was great, very informative and I'm sure we will do it again.
Monte Anderson (57:09.218)
Yeah.
Monte Anderson (57:17.762)
Yeah, thank you, Kevin. See you soon. Bye.
Kevin K (57:19.205)
All right, take care.
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