Latest / The Land Development Podcast with Ryan Glick / Why Community Matters More Than the House with Dan Grosswald - TLP171

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Why Community Matters More Than the House with Dan Grosswald - TLP171 · The Land Development Podcast with Ryan Glick

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: You could have the best house in the world if it's out in the middle of nowhere where nobody wants to be, they're not going to buy it.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when we create tradition or Newfield, for instance, we're creating special places that people want to be in the place.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: So they've decided on that place, that location, that place.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then the I think the third thing in that scenario is they're buying the home.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, what's going on, everybody?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Land Development Podcast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Ryan Glick.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited today to be joined by Dan Groswald.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Dan's the division president, Southeast Florida at Matamy Homes.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Dan, thanks for joining me.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for having me.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to be here and share with you what the things that we're doing down here in South Florida.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we have some really unique and interesting things happening.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I'm excited to get into that as well.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think where we'll start today is where I start on all these episodes is really digging into your background and how you got, you know, into home building and development.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a uh kind of an interesting story.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, after I got out of college, I did a few things.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was a manager of a toy store and I was a commodities broker for several years and, you know, made made good money.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And but I was never quite satisfied.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I decided, um, you know, I did some carpentry work after high school, and I decided I really loved uh being out in the field and home building and construction and land development.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided to go back to school and get a degree in construction management in Miami where I grew up.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um, one of my professors hired me out of the classroom to be a uh construction manager on one of his projects.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Within a week I got promoted to be the um senior project manager because the other guy quit and they didn't have anybody else.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Totally didn't know what I was doing, but it was all, you know, from there launch and go and never looked back.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was a perfect fit for me and uh I was able to be, I think, successful and really enjoyed it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you say hired you out of the classroom, was that literally like you stopped school and just did that, or he he met you in the classroom and then hired you to be in that role?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, I continued on and uh got the degree in construction management, but you know, he came up to me after class, hey, we got this opening, you know, on one of my jobs, and I think you'd be a great fit for it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like it was a huge compliment at the time.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, of course I said uh yes and went to work and went to school at night while I was working in home building.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think the power of, you know, you you said yes.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You very easily could have said no and and thought, you know, I just want to stay focused on my studies and just stay here.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think saying yes in that particular spot or maybe throughout your career, saying yes to opportunities, where where has that taken you?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's huge.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've never really been uh fearful of taking risks.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've always tried to be uh calculating and do them, but anything that could advance my career or be interesting or fun or exciting, I jump right into it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not the kind of person to hesitate.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's uh, you know, kind of the one of the key elements to my success is being a risk taker in the appropriate manner, calculated risk, you know, educated risks.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always, and I've always been uh a little ambitious, so I'm very happy to take on a big challenge or hard work or a new idea at at any time, and and that's lend lend it to uh one of the elements of my success.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I noticed that you've been involved with a lot of large development companies and home builders uh throughout your career.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, over that time, you know, speaking of, you know, taking risks and being willing to, you know, step in and take on roles and everything, what do you think you were from your your standpoint and your mindset?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think your mindset has shifted over the years from you know the early days of taking on some of your first projects to where you're at today?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I never really intended to work for a bunch of different companies, a handful of companies.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it has been a blessing because I've had the chance to learn from a lot of great people and different points of view and different methodologies of how to run a business and how to manage things.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Lenar was uh one of my first big jobs, very entrepreneurial and uh gave young people a lot of chances.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I became a division president there.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Toll brothers was the complete opposite, and it's um the way they like to manage their business and the culture.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: They were much more conservative and thoughtful about everything they did and kept tight controls over everything.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: I used to give this analogy that, you know, Lenar told you to go up to the plate and hit a home run.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bob told us to said, just go up there and hit a single and don't do anything else until I tell you, you know.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: But obviously both very successful companies.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And from that, I was able to gather different ideas and practices and principles that fit with the way I like to do things from all of these different places and make me who I am today as a manager and as a home builder.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's an interesting analogy, too, because I think today, I think a lot of the younger people coming into the industry have the mindset of they have to hit home run every time.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like I think what they see online is not the reality of what they're going to going to experience.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they see largely the event of what developers are experiencing after many years of grinding their way through the industry and everything.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you think, or what would you say to people who are what would you say about patience?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like what has patience meant for you and your career?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as a young man, I was not patient.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, after I got my first promotion, I thought, well, my next step is going to be the CEO of the company, and I just need to keep working.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um good I really believe now uh more than ever that like good planning, uh being thoughtful, having a feeling or an idea or an intuition needs to be supported by facts and analysis.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And your judgment informed by the reality of the situation will always lead to a better result or minimizing the risk that you're always going to be taking.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that that is really important.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Something I didn't quite recognize as a young man because it was all go, go, go.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, whatever it takes, leave dead bodies on the side of the road and get things done.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's more like we'll go fast when we need to go fast, we'll plan when we need to plan, and we'll be ready to execute when the time comes, is a better way to go about things to get greater returns and greater rewards out of every project and everything you do.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure most people listening in are familiar with Matamy Homes, um, a very large uh builder.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But in case there is somebody listening in who's not familiar with Matamy Homes, could you talk about uh the company and what types of projects you work on?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's uh one of the largest, if not the largest, home builder in North America.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: We started in Canada.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: A man named Peter Gilgan is our founder and uh chairman of the board now.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um he started from an accounting background and we started, we grew there uh 20 or so years ago.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: We came to the U.S.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: and now we've established ourselves as one of the largest builders in the U.S.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have our own, you know, uh management team, CEO, and it's uh, you know, one of the companies that the Canadian company owns.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all throughout the sunbelts here in the South Florida.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: The company has some core values that I really identify identify with, and it's not just about um building shelter and making money.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we want to leave every place that we go into and build a better place.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: We like to uh Peter likes to give back to the community, and we do that at the division level as well.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we build places, you know.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: We are um building great homes and great places that people want to be.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we're trying to minimize our impact to the environment as well.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you put those three core values together, and that's the kind of communities we build.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: We'll do anything from a smaller community, uh, smaller luxury community with 20 or 30 homes up to these giant master plan communities because we're a private company and very entrepreneurial, taking advantage of opportunities at the right time in the right place to um, you know, do the things that we like to do.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh and I don't know, we didn't really talk about this at the beginning, but you're located in uh southern Florida, is that right?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Southeast Florida.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: We uh do projects from Broward County, the Fort Lauderdale area, all the way up to Port St.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Lucie, who's our northern, and we can, you know, sometimes we look forward into uh Fort Pierce and Vero Beach.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we're kind of centered between Fort Lauderdale and Port St.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Lucie and uh have several, several projects along along that way.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm sure, you know, based on where you're at in your career and you know, all the experience that you've had, you probably could work just about anywhere, you know, around the country and and everything.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about Southeast Florida that uh intrigues you and makes you want to stick around there and work?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was born and raised here, and quite frankly, I've tried to leave a few times, but it's a little like the mafia.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Once you're in, they just you can't get out and they draw you right back when you leave.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it seems like this is my center of gravity.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, my wife likes the malls here, so we that's a good reason to stay.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have our three boys in school and everything, but um I just feel very comfortable here.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the cold weather, even though it's a Canadian company.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't really like the cold weather.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I like the sunshine and the beaches and the ocean.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm just very it's just part of who I am now.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't change it if I wanted to.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the market like down there?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like what uh, you know, with projects and things going on, have uh have things just continued to move along as they have over the last few years?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's slower.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely slower.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's a lot of competition here.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's several private builders that uh we go against, which you know, private builders have a way of competing that publics can't, so we face a lot of that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have all the big companies, you know, Reblinar and D.R.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Horton and Poulty and Toll Brothers, and so we have all the big companies here as well.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So everywhere we go, uh we face competition.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're in we're mostly in the Treasure Coast.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're the second or third largest builder in the Treasure Coast.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um right now, when we started here, we had we were zero, so we're one of the bigger, bigger competitors now.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to take advantage of scale.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think the pay the pace is much lower than it was, say, in uh two or three years ago.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's still a lot of business to be had.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um isn't horrible, but isn't as great as it was, and certainly with the competition and the cost and the interest rates where they are, like all builders were facing lower margins than we were, you know, two or three years ago.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Something we've talked about quite a bit on the show before is the um, I don't know if it's like the resurgence of walkable communities.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like for a while that a lot of communities were being built um more, more spread out.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that necessarily your organization was doing this, but like are you seeing more interest in walkable, more connected communities and a lot of the newer work that you guys are doing?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or is maybe that's something you've always been doing?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're absolutely seeing that as a trend.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And not only is it uh a trend from a market perspective, but I think um a lot of municipalities are looking for ways to reduce traffic and congestion and make things more walkable.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: We have two very large master plan communities in Southeast Florida, one is Newfield and Martin County in Palm City.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's a T and D community, very strict T and D community with a town center.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's 2,000 acres of preserve there that has trails that we set aside when we got the approvals.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And with T and D, it's naturally naturally designed as uh with walkability.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have another very large master plan community called Tradition in Port St.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Lucie.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're relatively close.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that was um more conventionally designed.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: We bought that uh as a distressed asset years ago, and we've had to kind of almost even retrofit it to make it more walkable.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in tradition, we created this 20-mile loop in there that's um that's not quite finished yet.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh kind of a string of pearls where we connect a downtown center to different parks and schools, and this loop, you can ride a bike, and we have a bike share program there, and a lot of people have electric bikes.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have a you know transportation system that follows the trail where you can get on a shuttle.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can come from your community to the downtown and never have to get out of here, uh get into your car as it goes right to your front door of your community.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we have uh really tried to make these things either walkable or or provide methods of transportation transportation like bicycles and shuttles that get people around the community and avoid the use of cars.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see, you know, you had mentioned uh the different types of projects that uh you do around maybe some of the smaller, larger lots, more executive uh communities, and then you have these master plan communities with, you know, hundreds or thousands of homes that are being built.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see a difference in those different communities and the types of amenities that the people who are gonna be living there are looking for?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would assume maybe there's a little bit of difference between those two different types of communities, or maybe they kind of all want the same thing.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think people, well, a T and D community is always going to attract a different type of person, you know, it's not for everybody, but the people that want to be there really want to be there, they're rating fans, and it differentiates you from a more conventional style uh community like tradition.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I think uh by and large, you know, especially the way we do it is we're creating the sense of place and a a place that people want to be, and we try to put different elements together, like uh, you know, interesting parks, uh preserve areas, and everybody loves that stuff.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: It creates a sense of well-being for everybody when there's uh other people you can meet and connect with easily throughout the larger communities.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to it's hard to do them in a small community, you know.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can do a little bit of it, but the large communities give us that economies of scale where we can put things together in tradition.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: We developed a regional park with ball fields and all kinds of stuff there.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Also in tradition, we have the world's largest heart sculpture, which is kind of more of a a downtown feel to it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have a town center, we have another park that we built.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh called Stars and Stripes.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh kind of a dedication to um uh first responders and uh and gold star families and veterans, and also a celestial park.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna be built, it is built, but it's gonna be right next to the school, so it provides education.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we created all this mix of different activities and uh structures that we can uh facilitate later that you just can't do in a smaller community, you just can't do it.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have the economies of scale, and that creates interest and a reason for people to want to live there uh above and beyond a have a nice house.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And people love that, you know, and we feel like it does it it helps increase our volume of traffic and sales.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we hope that it helps us increase our margin, which I think it gives us a premium over other more, you know, just uh you know, 20 or 30 home communities.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's why we do it to create get more traffic, get more sales, get more margin.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, also we feel like it's the right thing to do and creates a better world.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that in those situations, do you think a lot of the homeowners, you know, residents that are moving in, do you think that they place, sometimes place a higher importance on the amenities that will create that community versus even the layout of their home themselves?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think it's still yeah?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're picking a location.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you could have the best house in the world if it's out in the middle of nowhere where nobody wants to be, they're not gonna buy it, right?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when we create tradition or Newfield, for instance, we're creating special places that people want to be in the place.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So they've decided on that place, that location, that place.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then the I think the third thing in that scenario is they're buying the home.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we couldn't have a crappy home either, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Even if the place was great, people are still gonna want a home.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that's kind of a hierarchy of decision making for them is location, place, and then um then the home, getting the home that they want within that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: This episode of the Land Development Podcast is brought to you by First Continental.
• 16:32
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• 16:48
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• 17:28
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• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get back to the show.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: What uh what else besides amenities, you know, separates a you know a great community versus you know just an okay subdivision?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we activate everything with a uh you know social structure as well.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can build a nice park and people will go there, but you know, if you build a baseball park and you don't have a baseball team, you know, there's no reason to go there.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we do a lot of community activation at Newfield, you know, we have a farmer's market there.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: The other interesting thing about Newfield, I should have mentioned it sooner, is we have a uh sustainable farm there.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hundred and seventy acre sustainable farm.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's an agrihood.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have a downtown agrihood, we have a workplace district, we have a uh you know 2,000 acre preserve.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we have all these things there or will be there.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: But we have to activate them.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance, in the farm, we have uh farmers there that do um education about farming.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have farm plots there, all the homeowners, we have a waiting list for the farm plots there where people come in and raise beds or a little plot where they grow stuff and that's all uh tended to.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have a barn where we have social gatherings.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have farm jam, which is a once a month Friday night, we have a band and a band shell in the farm setting.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's food trucks there, and that activates the farm.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then once a month we have uh also a farmers market.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have 700 people come to a farmer's market, and there's all these things happening there that uh energize the infrastructure other that would otherwise be, you know, static.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to do that if you want to create a greater sense of um community and purpose.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it also a lot of people don't know how to get together, you know, when we create this forums where they meet each other and they enjoy their each other's company and they make friends and uh kids make friends, and so that's all through the activation, not just the infrastructure.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so activation is the process of essentially reaching out to the community and getting them involved in the various uh um, you know, I guess organizations or the groups that you have created within the community.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: We activate the infrastructure that we build.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we build when we decide we're gonna do a park or an amenity within the larger master plan, we actually we talk about how this works with people, right?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have a company um called Omvi that manages all our lifestyle.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when we hire a landscape architect to create a, let's say it's the man shell or the park or the farm, we bring in our uh management companies to say, well, this is the things I would do there.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is how the amenities should be built.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Even before we finish the design, we're thinking about how we're gonna activate it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when it comes together, you know, it works really well.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's functional, it's entertaining, it's exciting for the people that visit, and the people activating are able to do the things that they need to do.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to build a band shell that's turned the wrong way and nobody can see the band, right?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or we might at the another thing we did at the farm is we're now having weddings there.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's not designed properly for the wedding, you know, you're not gonna be able to have a wedding there.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we think about how it's gonna be activated in advance, even through the design process before construction ever begins.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something I've always wondered with some of these larger communities where you maybe have to hit a certain critical mass of residents before you can activate some of the different uh amenities or parts of it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: How do you encourage some of those early adopters of the community who are moving in to um to move in and knowing that, hey, these things here that you're really interested in, they're not quite ready yet, but they will be ready here?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you stagger certain things so even the the early comers have things to do and they don't necessarily have to wait for that's a good question.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we do think about that a lot on the larger communities.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance, Newfield has nine different um uh little little uh villages, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the first village we're we're gonna we're gonna do some sort of amenity in each one.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: So in advance, we think about what are all these amenities gonna be.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that we're gonna build uh the first one in Rosette Park.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We know we're gonna build the farm first and the preserves first.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Part of it is a governmental requirement, but we build that to scale.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we also try to you know make sure that what we're building has Has multiple uses.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't build, so Newfield will have 4,200 homes in it.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't build a infrastructure for 4,200 homes on the first day, but I can build a smaller thing like a barn that has multiple functions that can be rearranged or used in different ways that is suitable for the first 200 people, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I know when I move on and I have a thousand people, I'll build a larger scale gathering community and the barn will be repurposed into a different thing that we've thought of in advance, a different type of use that we thought of in advance for smaller events and still more local events.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we think about how the progression of the amenities and the and the um other parts of the community are gonna be as we move forward uh through the life cycle of the community in advance.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a very it's a pretty structured process as far as you kind of think through what's gonna happen at each time, but at the same time being adaptable if things, you know, maybe change throughout.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're building our first clubhouse at at Newfield.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh about 200 people, or 200 families, you know, uh 600 people maybe living there.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um we built uh the first amenity with a gym in it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: The gym is small, and we know that when the community gets bigger, we'll build a bigger gym, and that gym will be turned into a meeting room or a gathering place or, you know, some kind of art center or something.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we've made sure that we can repurpose that space, abandon that gym, and move to the bigger, more centrally located gym.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have to have it now.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the first amenity is full of lots of different things where we may we have four pickleball courts there.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: We know we might want to do a racket center later that has pickleball, tennis, basketball, and all those things.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And those pickleball courts will be maybe a training facility or something different.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we think that through from beginning to end and we make adjustments as we go, of course, as we respond to the environment, um, you know, the market and people's needs as we go forward.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think some people will think through, they'll overthink the development and think that they have to have this big thing from the beginning.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think how you just described that is a really great way to think about how you can, you know, just get started with something that sports the community, but knowing in the future it's going to be something else.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you another little side benefit.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we did the preserves first.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were required to do it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: We could have put like a cattle gate on there with a lock on it and said we did the preserves, but we did we decided to improve the preserves first.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Newfield is in Martin County, very no growth, anti-growth.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing like Newfield's ever been approved for 50 years, literally, uh, in that county.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: By doing the preserves and opening it up to the public, even before the first house was built, we gained so much political capital with the um the council there because they saw what we were doing, giving to the community, keeping the promise of the community from the beginning.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the the council was able to say, see, we approved something, and now everybody in the county has one of the largest parks in the county to go to thanks to Matamy.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that gained us a lot of political capital.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing with the farm.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: We had a small portion of the farm built from the very beginning.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: We had an airstream trailer out there, and we started doing small farmers markets.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the area loved the farmers markets, you know, buying vegetables and flowers and you know, different local artisanal goods.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: That gained us a lot of political capital, a lot of favor from the community that helped us in any of the approvals that we needed going forward.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a huge benefit to certain amenities being built in advance, well beyond, you know, the return uh that we might expect from selling a house.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm glad you talked about that because I had that written down about I was gonna ask you about Martin County because I I'm not super familiar with the area, but when I was doing some research, that was one thing that came up that it was a historically challenging place to do projects.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was curious how you were able to get that project through, and that makes a lot of sense how you talked about that.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: There was a uh the the original owners and name, uh a guy named Knight Kiplinger of the Kiplinger publishing family.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: They did something called the Kiplinger newsletter.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: They their family had owned that property for decades, and they did farming and logging and cattle ranching there.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: He actually got the first approval done.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Took him seven years of uh he would talk to anybody.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: He'd go walk up to your driveway and say, Hey, have you heard about Newfield?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you about it.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: He loves to talk, he's very eloquent and charming.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he went to all kinds of HOE meetings and political meetings and met with commissioners, and he's really the one that had the first uh vision, and we took it over and um executed upon it.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it took him seven years to convince everybody it was a good idea.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing about all this pre-infrastructure to home building is we developed a list of 7,000 people that were interested in living there, and it really helped us launch our marketing by doing some of this stuff in advance.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not everybody bought a house, but it would really create a positive vibe and major interest and followers and helped help a lot in our marketing efforts to launch the community.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, in these larger communities that you're developing that you know take a number of years to get fully built out, how do you keep everybody focused on the initial vision of the project when things are moving moving along or you're in a little lull in the project where things aren't necessarily happening happening with development stuff?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you keep everybody pointed in that direction and on the same vision?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have like created these uh we call them pillars for the community that are guideposts and how we want to develop the community from the very beginning.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we all reference those pillars, but I think uh, you know, leadership is important, not only my leadership, but the people that work with me, our leadership and our belief in the community.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: We all feel like we're doing something important.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we're not doing heart surgery or, you know, curing a virus or something, but we are providing something that's important to people that live there.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big investment for them.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a belief in the community and we have a got these guideposts that we all agreed upon.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh everybody uh has a sense of pride in what they're doing and a belief that is gonna be successful, and every step of the way reinforces that.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think even if things go wrong, we have to change uh, you know, pivot in a different way that we're all uh feel pretty good about what we're doing and and direct it towards where we want to finish.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I also spend a lot of time trying to create bench strength and you know, new leaders in the in the in our division.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: We try to create new leaders for the future and develop people, and I think you know that helps carry things on over the course of time.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like um the the person that's in charge of the community, James Fitzgerald, he was on the acquisition team.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: He did the first performance on it, and he's been riding that community along and like that's his baby, you know, and he believes in that community, so he's the future um, you know, man of me in the community.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we we do that a lot with other people within the division.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you develop new leaders and people uh have common beliefs and and are focused on it, that when things go wrong or they take a lull or maybe a wrong turn and you gotta pivot, that there's strength in that and um culture that we create in the division and in the company that carries long projects on forever.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have over the years, do you have a project that has been your favorite to work on or one that really stands out in your mind?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every new project is my favorite, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I love tradition, I love Newfield, whatever the next new project is gonna be is gonna be my favorite.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I feel like I've done a lot of good projects over my career from the beginning until now.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I worked in Miami and um throughout Lyles a long time ago when I was with Lenar and with uh Toll Brothers, they did several country clubs and golf courses.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I did, you know, a place called Meisner Country Club and Frenchman's Reserve with Arnold Palmer Group and different architects, but yeah, there's a lot of good projects that I've been uh involved with and help help lead and develop and you know create the vision for that uh I'm very proud of.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the latest is my favorite.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, is there anything about traditions or Newfield that uh you want to dig into a little bit deeper?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've talked about both of them, I mean, throughout the conversation, but is there anything else with either of those projects that would be interesting for people listening in to know about?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think I hit on the major thing.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, tradition as a conventional community is uh, you know, a gated bunch of enclaves.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: We try to hit every price point and every lifestyle.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have large active adult communities with big clubhouses and lifestyles, and we have entry-level communities with minimal lifestyle.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: We have more intimate, you know, age-targeted, multi-generational communities.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a diversification strategy and a market strategy where we have all these different price points, so we're getting a maximum amount of um absorption in there by hitting all these different price points, but also protects, you know, if one segment is down and another segment is up, it balances it out.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when everything's great, everything's great, everybody's a genius, and we're all doing really good.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: When things get tough, you know, you want that diversification strategy to protect you and have that um have your absorptions continue on through the the more difficult times.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Tradition is the best-selling master plan community um from South Florida to um Vero Beach.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we're really proud of what we've done there.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we took a bankrupt community, literally bankrupt community that had been fallow for a while, and the market at the we did great timing in buying it, the market turned, and I think we've made it into an even better community than it was going to be with our trail system there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: We call it the T Trail, with our transportation system, we call Tim, tradition in motion, and the lifestyle and engagement we've created.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: We've done a lot of public-private uh partnerships with the city.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like when we build regional park, it's massive, it's 110 acres.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're building the first phase of it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's four baseball fields, a pump track, um, there's uh multi-purpose fields, there's a football field, parking lots, a you know, all the concession stands.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the federal government, we got uh$10 million from the federal government as a grant from a long time ago.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: The county got involved and and gave us uh some money, the city got involved, and Matamy contributed money to it.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: We also, in our public partnership with them, we're building it.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we're saving them GC fees and overhead, and we're just absorbing all that cost, but you know, they're basically getting it for 20% cheaper than if they had gone out and tried to contract it on themselves.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have this overhead, we're using it to the benefit of the community.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody, the county that the federal government, this local government, and Matomy is putting into this to create a park that might not have been built for you know 10 or 15 years.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that, you know, finding ways to work with the city and the county and the governments to get these things to come to fruition and provide uh a real need for the community and make our community better at the same time is something we're uh very proud of.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really that's really cool.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, let's go ahead and shift into the last segment, the lightning round.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: So five questions for you.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh first one, what's your favorite part of the development process?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think creating the vision is my favorite part, you know.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's when everything's great and it's all going to be good.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: No problems.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's all fun, you know, drawing the pretty pictures.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my favorite part.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right, second one.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is the most underrated part of building a great community?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, the the under most underrated part is the planning of it, you know, the thinking it through, getting a lot of opinions, and making a decision on which direction to go.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's ready to shove a shovel in the ground, but good preparation, thoughtful preparation, uh informed decision making, I think is um highly underrated.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, third one.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's an early career lesson you still think about today?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh being patient.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: As a young man, I was very aggressive, and that was good in a lot of ways, but it also can backfire.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I've learned to be a more patient person as I've gotten older, and I think that's to be to a great benefit to me.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right, fourth one.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's one trend in development you're paying close attention to right now?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wellness.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we talk about a place like Newfield or or tradition, but what uh really when we have a preserve and a farm and sustainable development and walkable streets, we're talking about a sense of well-being, physical healthiness, uh, you know, mental healthiness, and also, if you will, spiritual healthiness.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is uh a great attraction to people today.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right, last one.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: What advice would you give to developers just getting started today?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Think about your capital stack.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you got to pay for these things.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one thing we didn't go into a lot of detail is how we finance all these things uh using public-private partnerships, CDDs, community development districts, and things like that.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can, even though we're spending a lot of money in the beginning, we're deferring the cost to later and getting the right uh capital stack to pay for all these great ideas and fun things.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Dan, uh, what's the best way for people tuning in to connect with you and to learn more about Matamy Homes and some of the projects you guys are working on?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm very active on LinkedIn.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm always uh posting and um I respond to people when they contact me on LinkedIn.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: I like to interact with other people.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So hit me up on LinkedIn.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what we say?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sign into my DMs?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to say.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Find me on the internet.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just search, search me up.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: I will uh I will put your LinkedIn on the show notes page for this episode.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: So those of you listening in, if you look down in the description, you'll see a link there to the show notes page.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: On the show notes page will be Dan's LinkedIn uh profile link there so you can connect with him on LinkedIn.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dan, really appreciate you hopping on here and sharing uh sharing some of your knowledge.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know there were a lot of other topics we probably could have spent a lot more time on here digging into.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll have to do this uh another time and dig into some of those other other topics and everything, but really appreciate you hopping on here.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Love to share everything about what we're doing here at Matamine in Southeast Florida about myself.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So anytime, I really enjoyed it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys, that's all for this episode.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not already subscribed, please click that button.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have you back for the next one.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we will talk to you all next week.