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Building Dreams with Ralph Zucker · None of Your Business Podcast

0:00
I wanted to take a job as a 10th grade Rebbe.
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I was learning in yeshiva in the Lakewood and I was offered a job
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and those days was impossible. There were very few yeshiva's
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and I was offered a good job. And I went to tell my rosheshiva
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and he looks at me and he says you can't be a Rebbe.
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He felt so bad for those kids. None of your.
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Business Oshi. None of your business, Michael.
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It's the None of Your Business podcast hosted by Michael
0:31
Anoshi. Welcome back everybody to
0:36
another amazing episode of the None of Your Business Podcast.
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Please don't forget to like, subscribe, comment.
0:41
Thank you, Prime Source for helping us sponsor this amazing
0:44
journey of ours. Today we are joined by an
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amazing individual, Ralph Zucker, who bought this amazing
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building, the Bell Works and turned it into a community.
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And we're going to learn more about this project, his
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background, and let's get right into it.
1:00
Here we go. You know what just popped into
1:03
my head? I'm like thinking, how do I
1:04
introduce such a person? I'm like, guys, I'm excited for
1:07
this one because we are here with the one and only, the
1:10
venerable Mr. Ralph Zucker. Thank you so much for joining us
1:15
today. We really appreciate it.
1:16
Thank you for having me. Ralph, I you know, I have to
1:19
tell you, I don't know you personally, but when I looked at
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the roster of who's coming to the Design and Architect show
1:24
and I saw your name on the panel, I got excited.
1:26
I said, you know, this is a guy I've heard of and I know he had
1:29
something to do with this building.
1:31
So let's start with that. What where are we right now?
1:33
We're in the Bellworks building. So much happens in this place.
1:35
Yeah, we're actually in the concourse level of Bellworks,
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what I like to call the world's largest walkout basement.
1:44
And you can see we have a theater, we've got event space,
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we've got comfort space. Few kitchens, one of them a
1:50
kosher kitchen. What made you buy this?
1:51
Building well. That's a good question because I
1:57
just bought a couple of tchotchkes.
2:01
You you bought a building. But I actually.
2:04
You bought the Bell Works. Building.
2:05
I paid less for the building than you paid for this tell.
2:08
Us a little bit more about that because I'd like to find the
2:11
same deal, OK. So, well, it's a long story, but
2:14
in, in a, in a nutshell, we created enough value on the land
2:18
outside the building. If you drive in, you'll see
2:20
there's over 200 homes that were built and and sold.
2:25
And those created more than the value to pay for the entire
2:29
building. So we actually bought the
2:31
building for -0 although it then took quite a few $100 million to
2:37
redevelop it. But we walked in and we want to
2:39
do something like this. The key is you really have to
2:42
steal it. You can't buy it.
2:44
Your story Matters. Let's Talk is the slogan for our
2:48
newest sponsor, the Serenity Center, which is a clinic for
2:51
therapy and many other types of services that people need for
2:55
mental health challenges. And I have to tell you that I
2:57
did not want them to be a sponsor of ours until I tested
3:01
them myself. And I sat down as a session paid
3:05
by my insurance with the leader, Mordechai Weinberger, This
3:09
person who has a radio show, he has live Zoom conferences with
3:13
hundreds of thousands of people tuning in every single week.
3:16
The reason why they do is because he is amazing.
3:20
I sat with him for over an hour, and I got the most out of it.
3:23
And let me tell you, I did a lot of talking, he did a lot of
3:26
listening. And I learned that the Serenity
3:29
Center is a clinic that provides a service for therapy that's led
3:33
and supervised by Mordecai Weinberger.
3:36
And I see why they're so successful.
3:39
And it's just something that, you know, we need to mention
3:41
more of. And I want the community of
3:43
Rockland County and even beyond to know that if you need
3:45
therapy, don't wait and push it off because it might be too
3:48
expensive or you may not be aware of the perfect therapist.
3:52
Go to Serenity Center, try them out.
3:55
Insurance will most likely cover most if not all the charges and
3:59
you will get top level service. Sounds like a no brainer to me.
4:03
Like Mar a Lago. So Trump did.
4:04
He bought it for pennies on the dollar and then he turned it
4:07
into a into a monster. So when you bought this
4:09
building, what was your plan? What was your vision?
4:12
What was your intent of buying this building?
4:14
OK. So if you, so I have AI have a
4:16
background in residential development, started with
4:18
residential development and got into something that's known as
4:22
new urbanism. So a lot of development,
4:25
especially in suburbia when you're outside of a city, it's
4:28
what you call suburban sprawl. You're all over the place.
4:30
There's a cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac and you know, Mynamec
4:34
St. after Mynamec St. and everything is separated.
4:37
Your shopping is separated from your, from your home and your
4:40
office is separated from that. And it so having everything all
4:43
over the place really, you know, you, you end up pretty much
4:46
designing cities for cars rather than for people because you
4:52
need, you need the vehicle to get anywhere outside of a city.
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And new Urbanism is an idea of more of a walkable community.
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We've done a lot of transit oriented developments where we
5:02
actually, we have a project called Westfront station.
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We built a train station and built a community around it.
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The tracks were there. We didn't build the, where's
5:09
this in North Jersey, Bergen County?
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It's in a it's in a, it's in a municipality called Woodridge,
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Wood Dash Ridge, New Jersey. There's about 1500 homes.
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They are homes, apartments, there's some shops.
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And that was a parking lot of a of a factory.
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Was this building your biggest project?
5:32
It might be a toss up between the two, but this is definitely.
5:35
What's the other one? Second, Westwood station is
5:37
pretty big as well, but this is this is probably bigger.
5:41
We also now have Bellwork Chicagoland, which is almost as
5:43
big, 1.6 million square feet. This is 2,000,000 square feet.
5:47
Wow. But so when you get into the,
5:51
the whole concept of new urbanism is very much a human
5:53
scale environment, creating spaces for people and not so
5:58
much for their cars or the fire truck or the garbage truck,
6:00
everything else they're you need them, They're a tool.
6:03
But you know, a lot of places you'll go and you look at the,
6:06
you look at the community and it looks like, oh, the main target
6:09
of this development is the three car garage.
6:11
That's the front face. There's a little door there for
6:13
the people. Well, it's returned to sanity
6:17
and going back and saying, no, it's really all about the
6:19
people. I don't need this huge front
6:21
lawn. I want to bring the front porch
6:22
closer to the street so when people walk by, they can
6:25
interact. People feel better in spaces
6:28
that have you could, you know, you have a Vista.
6:30
You can see there's a lot of science behind it.
6:33
So we got into that. We've done some communities like
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that. Actually, there's a project in
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in in Lakewood, a active adult project called Pine River
6:40
Village, Pine River Village that's designed that way with
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rear alleys and pedestrian streets and not all the homes
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even open up to A to a driveable St.
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And it's really quaint, really great and held up in value quite
6:51
a bit since we introduced it. So that was already in my head,
6:55
that type of thinking. Westmont Station also was a
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trans oriented walkable community.
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And then I walked into this building a broker brought me and
7:04
I had 0 experience in office. I had done at that point in my
7:07
life about 15 to 20,000 square feet of office, which was our
7:10
office that we had and that was it.
7:12
So sunrise, it's good not to know what you don't know.
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So that helped me 'cause I was so, so fresh, I was able to look
7:20
at everything with with fresh eyes.
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And I walked in here and I said, you know, this has the right
7:26
scale. And I didn't know at the time,
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you know, that Eros Saranan, one of the greatest architects of
7:31
all time, had designed it. And he was a master at scale and
7:35
communication. He designed this building to be
7:38
a collaborative to to cause cross pollination, to bring at
7:42
the time the greatest scientific center in the world.
7:45
This was the Googleplex. Before there was Google, this
7:47
was Bell Labs. This is where 678000 scientists
7:51
worked daily. Some of them there was a
7:55
scientist who just walked around backwards all day thinking and
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created the world that we live in today.
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So he designed this space to foster connectivity.
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So when I walked in without knowing all that, it hit me.
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And I said, you know, if we could just take this and bring
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all these uses back together, retail and office and
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residential and hospitality and and health, Wellness and fitness
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and everything else, it could be amazing.
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And what you see upstairs is what went into my head at that
8:24
moment. It took a lot of blood, sweat
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and tears and years and should I say see out there to smile.
8:30
A lot of help from from God to to, to make it happen.
8:33
A lot of good people working alongside demand a lot of
8:36
challenges along the way. Wow.
8:38
You know, I've been in this building maybe a dozen times
8:42
over my life, and I've been here, particularly in the last
8:45
couple of years, about five times.
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Every time I come here, I see something new that I didn't see
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before. You know, one time I came here
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and this place is like a shopping mall and there's all
8:55
kinds of stores, all kinds of venues.
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But there's also like things happening, like activities,
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people playing basketball. There's a a fear going on a
9:02
little bit down the like wherever you turn, it's
9:04
something entirely different. Like you've created an
9:07
atmosphere where there's so many things happening all at once.
9:10
It's it's fascinating. And this is for people who dare
9:14
to dream. That's what this seems to me
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like, like this is a very big task to go into something like
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this. Like is this still a work in in,
9:21
in process? Are you looking to like monetize
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and are you going to make millions of dollars one day?
9:26
Are you, is this more of a project for you because you're
9:28
passionate about it or, or do you see a goldmine here?
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Well, I, I think it's both. I'm a mercenary.
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No, I, I, I do this for a living, you know, and you don't
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go into a project like this. I mean, it's too monumental.
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It's you know, to, to do it and not expect to make a, a
9:45
significant profit. And thank God it's been, you
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know, it had it, it had its UPS, it had its ups and downs.
9:52
But now we're 98% leased on the office side, where I think we're
9:55
pretty almost full on the retail side.
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The event space is, as you see, non stopping used.
10:01
So you know, it's, it's, you know, it's been, it's been a
10:04
home run. What's dominating the building
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here, like is the office space, the retail space, the venues,
10:13
you know, entertainment. What's kind of really the
10:15
biggest pull? For this bill, so we have 1.2
10:18
million square feet of office and that's the bread and butter.
10:23
That's what that's what pays the bills.
10:26
You know, the retail is here, although the retailers pay rent
10:30
or they pay a percentage rent, but they're really here to
10:35
create the place. It's called placemaking.
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They're here to make this an interesting place to work.
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We, I may have mentioned, we call this a, a, a, a, a metro
10:45
berb, a metropolis in suburbia. Well, you have to have
10:49
restaurants and you have to have shops and you, you know, you can
10:54
get your hair done. You can get your your dog's hair
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done. You can get, you can, you can,
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you can. You can get ballet classes.
11:01
You can get Krav Magan Karate classes.
11:04
And then go back to your office. What?
11:05
And then go back to your office. Yes, but or or spend the entire
11:08
day here. Spend the entire day.
11:10
Here, come in here on a Sunday when the offices are pretty much
11:13
closed and the place is full. Yeah.
11:14
Mom, I've been here and. And, and, and it's full.
11:17
You know, we're actually happy that we just opened a kosher
11:19
restaurant here, which I was a goal of mine.
11:22
Congratulations. On that.
11:23
Lunch. Yeah.
11:23
The Big Stop is known and we're very happy with it.
11:26
And it we also it we look for something that, you know, our
11:30
area doesn't need more steak houses, you know, good ones, but
11:33
we have a a good a Yal Shani created Israeli street food,
11:37
really, really high end. But you don't have to, you know,
11:40
take out a mortgage to to go to go for lunch.
11:43
And that happened by because I just heard about this recently,
11:45
this restaurant. It was something we've been
11:46
looking for years and somebody connected us with the with the
11:50
y'all's team and they came down and they, they liked the space
11:54
and, you know, we. We Are you invested in this
11:56
restaurant? I am, yes.
11:57
Yes. Are you invested in a lot of the
11:59
stores here and a lot or you that separate?
12:01
No, that, that's pretty much the only way.
12:03
Well, well, we do own the bar here as well, one of the bars at
12:06
Barbella. After COVID, retailers were slow
12:10
to come back and we needed some life in the building.
12:12
We owned a liquor license, so we just number the bar.
12:16
You mentioned something that was new to me when I learned it, and
12:18
I, and I want our listeners to learn about this as well, is
12:21
that when you own a retail space that the tenants give you
12:24
commissions as part or percentages, How does that work?
12:27
Sometimes, you know, you could collect rent in in many ways,
12:30
one of the ways is just per square foot or per the space and
12:34
sometimes retailers will pay you a percentage based rent.
12:38
So of the revenue of the revenue they'll take a certain base to
12:42
cover their expenses. Anything above that, you know,
12:44
it's, we've had tenants that, you know, we're on a percentage
12:48
rent and came to us after a while and said, you know, we
12:51
really want to go on a fixed rent 'cause they're doing so
12:53
well. And we, and we've done that.
12:55
You know, I, I think something that highlights this is during
12:58
COVID, so we were about half full on our retail and then the
13:04
building shut down. You couldn't go anywhere.
13:07
So officers can work from home, but what's the coffee shop gonna
13:10
do? So we put all that we offered
13:12
every one of our retailers, we said don't pay us any rent.
13:16
We put them on percentage rent. If you sell a cup of coffee, you
13:19
owe us $0.10. If you don't sell us a cup of
13:21
coffee, you owe us nothing. And we gave them two years
13:24
because we knew and you asked me what's the most important.
13:27
So what's most important financially is the office.
13:30
But the it's all an ecosystem. You need the lifeblood, you need
13:35
that pedestrian St. that we created, you know, we called it
13:38
on the block at Bellworks. You need that so that it's not
13:41
just another boring office place.
13:43
Suburbia is full of half empty buildings where people, why
13:47
would I, especially after COVID, why would I want to go to the
13:50
office? I can work at home and get more
13:52
stuff done. A lot of people say I come to
13:54
the office to collaborate the Ida to, to communicate and then
13:57
I go home and I get my work done.
13:59
So we, we our, our lease, we were at 70% about pre COVID on
14:05
the office. Post COVID, we filled up and our
14:11
rental rates in some cases almost doubled and at least run
14:14
up by a third because we became if you want to have people
14:18
coming into the office, if you really want them to be motivated
14:21
to show up, this is the place. What's the coolest thing you
14:24
have here? Not the most lucrative, the most
14:26
money. What's just like something
14:28
you're proud of? Like, you know, an interesting
14:29
thing here that's really cool that people may not may not know
14:32
about. Well, we're building a
14:34
pickleball court. Good for you.
14:36
Very smart. I love it, by the way, on behalf
14:39
of all the pickleball players, and it's becoming very popular
14:41
more and more. You're doing the right thing.
14:43
We appreciate that. But I'll tell you, you know,
14:46
it's, it's hard to say. It's hard to say.
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There's so many little things that are, that are rewarding.
14:54
But you know, we're sitting here, so I'm looking at Bell
14:56
Theatre. So just give you an idea of how
14:59
things evolve. So we had a, a, a group called
15:02
Axelrod Ballet School and they came here and they, they, we
15:08
gave them free space for six months, pop up space.
15:12
And today they've evolved into a full school paying rent and they
15:17
brought close to $1,000,000 in, in, in their own funds to
15:22
rehabilitate our theater. We thought it was great, but now
15:25
it's like world class. We have a 300 seat theater here.
15:28
There's been PBS film shows here and, and, and, and Grammy
15:32
award-winning singers and who knows what and Off Broadway
15:37
shows. So that's, it's more the
15:39
evolution of saying to somebody, you go upstairs, there's a
15:41
florist. The florist started with a
15:43
little cart today. They're like, we need more
15:45
space. I'm sorry we don't have more
15:46
space. They're they're doing, they're
15:47
doing well. So I think we're most proud of
15:49
the ability to have an ecosystem where people could grow.
15:53
We have companies here that started where we had a cured
15:55
machine. And I would bring Bagelash in
15:57
the morning from Lakewood and give it out for free to the few
15:59
people that showed up in a vacant 2,000,000 square foot
16:02
vacant building. And I'm not going to mention the
16:05
name of the company, but there's a guy who started and on a on a
16:09
couch and got the free coffee and he sold his company for 10s
16:12
of millions of dollars. And today he's a good friend and
16:15
an investor of ours. And we let him grow slowly as as
16:19
he filled up. So those are the things.
16:20
That I have to ask you, somebody like yourself, when you came
16:25
into this building and you know, word got out, Ralph Zucker's
16:28
going to be purchasing this building.
16:30
I guarantee you there was a lot of those haters out there,
16:33
naysayers really. He's going to buy this building.
16:36
You know, what is he crazy? Sounds to me like you're the
16:40
kind of guy that's OK with taking risk and you've taken
16:43
risk before and it must have paid off for you because you
16:46
jumped into something like this, that this is a huge, huge
16:49
project. Million things can go wrong.
16:52
But I mean, this place is being successful.
16:54
It's booming. So you're proving everybody
16:57
wrong and we're all happy for it, but where do you get this
17:00
risk taking business from? Like most people don't have it
17:03
in them. Like, how do you you weren't
17:05
nervous walking into something like this?
17:06
I was, I was, I was very nervous.
17:10
And yeah, we're, I'm in the business of, you know, we, we do
17:12
take risks. It doesn't always pan out.
17:16
I say that, you know, our, our type of real estate development
17:19
is like prospecting for oil. You got to keep drilling.
17:22
You're not going to hit a gusher every time you drill.
17:25
And some drills are going to some, some wells are going to
17:27
come up dry and you're going to lose money.
17:30
You got to keep drilling. You know, I remember talking to
17:34
Sam Halpern many, many years ago.
17:38
Oliver shot him a blessed memory.
17:39
And he, he, I wanted to buy property from him and he, he
17:43
wouldn't sell it to me. And I remember I was sitting
17:47
there and I was disappointed. And he looks at me and he says,
17:50
and it also because I had a property next door and he looks
17:53
at me. He says young, young man.
17:55
He says, young man, those days he was still able to say it.
17:59
He says, young man, the real estate is like is like riding
18:02
the horse. Sometimes the horse she goes,
18:06
sometimes the horse she stops, sometimes the horse, she sits
18:09
down. Sometimes the horse rolls over.
18:11
Young men never get off the horse.
18:14
And that's really how real estate is.
18:17
You have to, you know, this. Yeah, people, I mean, we write
18:21
about it on our website. We, I I always say that I could
18:23
hear people's eyes. People would pat me on the
18:25
shoulder and say, hey, good luck.
18:27
And then I could hear their eyes rolling in, in the behind my
18:29
back, rolling their head. And actually, the New York Times
18:32
wrote an article where they said the day we closed on the
18:36
building or the next day, there's an article in the New
18:39
York Times. And they said that quoted an
18:41
expert in the field that we would never lease even one
18:44
square foot in this in this building.
18:47
So it's been very satisfying to prove the naysayers wrong.
18:52
But it's been a real journey and a challenge.
18:55
And don't think that, you know, there aren't nights that you sit
18:57
there and you say, what am I going to do?
18:59
You know, I must say that I've been blessed with also some
19:03
great partners along the way and not going to mention names, but
19:07
I think that that's been a key and, and a supportive family.
19:10
You know, my wife who lets me take risks and my family and you
19:14
know, there's been ebbs and flows, but I'm, I'm one thing I
19:17
am proud of is that in our house, whether you know, there
19:20
was a, there was a crash of 2007, 2008 and everything became
19:24
negative value, You know, either way, our, our home didn't,
19:29
wasn't rocky, because that's I think that helped me absorb
19:32
those risks because it wasn't all about the money.
19:35
I'm I'm. Curious about your younger self.
19:36
Where where'd you grow up? How did you get into this?
19:38
Can you can you give us a little bit of an insight?
19:40
How'd you get started in Ralph like?
19:44
I was born in Baltimore, MD. My father passed away when I was
19:47
very young. My mother remarried an Israeli
19:52
by Mayor Wunder. We moved to is it by the way, we
19:55
just named a grandson. He just passed away a few months
20:00
ago and my this morning was my grandson's bris named me after
20:03
him. So that's satisfying.
20:06
And we we moved to Israel. I lived there until I came back
20:12
to go to Yeshiva Long Beach. I went to Lakewood.
20:16
I got started in the business when I needed a place to live
20:19
and what? Does that mean?
20:21
I I needed a place to live and my wife said we don't want to
20:24
throw those days. Rent was expensive.
20:26
It was like $250 a month, you know, And why should we?
20:29
Don't age yourself a lot. Right.
20:31
It's fine. And maybe $300.
20:34
Whatever it was. Whatever it was, you know till
20:36
you got and and we looked. So we bought it.
20:38
We bought a house for $67,000 and borrowed the some of the
20:46
down payment and but it was a teeny little shack.
20:49
It wasn't really a house. It was actually the garage at
20:52
one point. It had been the carriage House
20:55
of the house in front of it. This little 45 by 150 lot on
20:59
11th St. in Lakewood, NJ. And when I bought it and all my
21:02
friends were like, oh, you're on the other side of Route 9.
21:05
That's nobody lives there, you know, And it was like really
21:08
like a little bit crazy, but I fixed up with my own hands a lot
21:13
of it. I mean I had some people helping
21:15
me in this, but I, you know, put in insulation, put in the
21:18
sheetrock threaded pipe, brought the gas line in really worked a
21:21
lot of my and I I realized that I had an ability to think it's 3
21:25
dimension to see something not flat, but understand what it
21:30
might be. I don't now I know what that
21:32
means. It was, I just realized that I
21:34
had a certain, you know, I, I was able, so not that I went,
21:39
wanted to go into the development business.
21:41
But then, you know, my, myself and another friend, we decided,
21:45
well, we should sell our homes and buy something else.
21:47
And we bought a piece of property for $100,000 that
21:52
turned into 33 townhomes or semi attached homes.
21:58
And I sold out early because I, I needed to pay back the people
22:01
that I'd borrowed the money from to buy that land.
22:04
But I, I just got into it. So it was having a needing a
22:07
place to live, understanding the, you know, also it's helped
22:11
me a lot is the ability to communicate when you want to
22:14
sell a vision to somebody, you know, I, I had to sell homes.
22:18
And so I worked in every aspect. I worked in construction.
22:22
I hired myself out as AGC. You know, I, I, I, I had a
22:26
kitchen design shop. I really, one thing I know about
22:28
this Business Today, I don't deal with that stuff.
22:32
Thank God have people to do it, but I understand every asset.
22:36
The thing I know what it means to drive in a nail into a piece
22:38
of sheetrock. I understand and I and that
22:40
gives me an ability to really understand what I'm what I'm
22:43
doing. So that's really how I got into
22:46
it and. Ralph, there's a famous line
22:48
that people say everybody loves the view, but nobody loves the
22:52
climb. You know, it's very easy to
22:54
judge someone in a position when they're successful and to say,
22:57
wow, how did that person do it? It's impossible.
23:00
They don't understand that there's a process took a long
23:03
time. It didn't happen overnight.
23:05
There was sleepless nights, there was pain, there was
23:08
suffering. No, there's, I always say it on
23:11
the podcast, there's a guy that he talks about people, you know,
23:14
and asks them people that are successful.
23:16
Like have you ever been broke before in your life?
23:19
And 10 out of 10 times, they always answer, yeah, of course.
23:21
Absolutely. There you go. 11 out of 11, here
23:24
we are. So tell us a little bit about
23:26
that because I think people look at you and and others that are
23:29
successful and they use it as motivation for themselves that
23:32
they want to as well make it in life one day.
23:35
And they're seeing their lives right now that it's hard, it's
23:38
difficult, they're failing and the heck, I'm never going to get
23:40
there. But no, no, no, no, that you're
23:42
on your path to getting there. You're supposed to fail.
23:44
You're supposed to fall down, you're supposed.
23:46
This is part of the process. Tell people what that was like
23:48
when you were broke and when you didn't have a whole lot and what
23:52
the struggle was like and what you told yourself during that
23:54
time to keep going. Well, I can go back to a couple
23:57
economic cycles ago when the FDICI don't remember the exact
24:00
years, but the FDIC sort of shut down.
24:02
I'd just gotten into real estate.
24:04
I had made on made some money on this first project that I sold.
24:08
I went ahead and I was, well, I'm a, I'm a real estate mogul,
24:12
you know, I made the few $100,000 and then I learned that
24:16
I have to pay 50% of it in taxes, which I really didn't
24:19
understand why. So it shriveled down to not
24:22
much. And then I put it into a
24:24
building and, you know, a small building and I thought I'd
24:27
collect rent and little by little people stop paying rent
24:30
and who knows what. And I found myself very much
24:34
struggling. I, you know, I had a, a, a
24:36
broken boiler. I needed to fix it.
24:37
I hadn't understood the reserve, you know, for that and things
24:40
like that. So I found myself really,
24:42
really, really struggling. I, I, I took over, like I said,
24:46
took over a, a cabinet shop from a tenant who didn't pay rent.
24:50
And all of a sudden now he was working for me and I was in the
24:53
kitchen cabinet business. And but what you don't realize
24:57
isn't how God runs the world is that, you know, and, and during
25:01
that time, I actually took a job as AGCI wanted to understand
25:05
construction better. I literally, I came up sometimes
25:08
at night. I had worked a, a, a, what it
25:11
called a air, what it called a, a jackhammer, a jackhammer.
25:15
And I, and I, and I, I did the, I, I, I would cut the, the holes
25:19
in the, in the concrete floor for the plumbing to, to save
25:21
money with the Hilti diamond, diamond, diamond diamond, you
25:26
know, sharpened blade and stuff like that.
25:28
And I literally worked hands on in, in, in construction and for
25:32
next to nothing, but had to pay, had to pay the bills.
25:37
I remember that the, those days, Lakewood Hayter, you know, was
25:42
cracking down and people weren't paying tuition.
25:44
I had kids in school and I was a little bit behind and I
25:49
remember, you know, getting a, getting a letter saying, you
25:52
know, I, I knew there's a letter coming out that, that if, if you
25:56
haven't paid, paid your bills, your kids are not going to be
25:58
let on the bus. And inside that letter was the
26:00
bus pass. But they knew that when I had, I
26:02
gave them and I always give them.
26:03
So somebody there, Rabbi Manus knew me and he knew I was good
26:09
for it. And it would, it would, but that
26:11
was a tough time. We, we, you know, I had, I was
26:13
in the middle of a project, you know, all of a sudden everything
26:16
was worth nothing. You know, the land was land was,
26:20
was, was negative. And I had to pay architects,
26:24
engineers and lawyers that have been working and I had to pay
26:27
them and went to all of them. So I'll pay you every penny, but
26:30
it's going to take time and we work with everybody.
26:34
So that was one time. And then because I was in the
26:36
cabinet business, somebody, a revy of mine said, Oh, you know,
26:41
you know, Ruby Schrone bought a building in Tuckerton, NJ and
26:45
they need cabinets go down. So I went down.
26:47
I met Avi Schroe, now a good friend of mine, and we were
26:50
looking around and the, the, the, the, they had bought this
26:54
dilapidated apartment complex that needed to be gut rehab.
26:58
And he says to, and he, he said to him, you need a lot more than
27:02
kitchens. You need to, you need to, you
27:03
need to rehab this whole thing. He says, absolutely, you know,
27:06
anybody could do it. I said, I can do it.
27:08
This is, this is what I just did.
27:10
It just worked for somebody else rehabbing an, an apartment
27:12
complex. I do it with my own hands.
27:13
I, I can do it. So fine, we, we made a deal and
27:18
a few days later a $10,000 check retainer came in, it came in the
27:21
mail and I was able to pay my tuition for, for the hater, you
27:24
know, so I, I know what it's like to really, really be down
27:27
and out in 2007 when the whole real estate market collapsed
27:34
again, we owned then thousands of lots and land and everything
27:38
and that had been worth fortunes.
27:40
And all of a sudden it was worth nothing.
27:41
And again, I was blessed with with the good partners and
27:44
everything and we we worked our way through it.
27:46
But tough times. You were walking around at that
27:48
time, 2007. You were in the dumps.
27:51
Like what were you? Were you feeling ashamed?
27:54
Were you feeling, were you feeling bad or were you still
27:56
feeling positive? I'll get through it.
27:57
I bought. What were you telling yourself?
27:59
2000 end of 2000 and seven 2008 is when I went the contractor on
28:02
this building. Wow, so you rebounded?
28:04
Quit one way to get over something.
28:06
I was like, you made a lavish purchase.
28:08
They say when people are down and they're depressed, they
28:10
make. Big purchases.
28:11
I wasn't depressed and I wasn't down.
28:13
Wow so Fast forward now to this point, Berkasham, things are
28:17
better. Things are you know, you're not
28:19
having to wait to send a $10,000 check for for tuition.
28:22
What's what's your life? Let us in a little bit.
28:24
What's your life like right now? Are you a big spender?
28:28
Do you? Do you like to take?
28:30
Travel. Or do you travel?
28:32
What do you time for me to go? Time for none of your business,
28:35
it sounds like. What do you like to do outside
28:37
of work? If you're not working right now,
28:39
you're going on vacation. What are some of your guilty
28:41
pleasures? What are some of those fun
28:42
things that you like to do? I'd love to go to Ushalayim,
28:45
Brazil. We, we bought a house there and
28:47
we really like. So, you know, I mean, a lot of
28:52
my friends are buying stuff in Florida and here and there and
28:54
everything. And I'm like, if I have, if I
28:56
have two weeks off, I'm, I'm going to shark.
28:58
That's it, you know, that's, you know, so, and I grew up there
29:02
for to a large extent. So it's in my heart, I guess
29:06
that's a, you could call it a in a way, guilty pleasure.
29:12
You know, just getting there today is even more challenging
29:15
than ever. What do I, what do I like to do?
29:20
I mean family, you know, friends, you know, embarrassed
29:27
to say I spent too much time working.
29:29
These type of things really take.
29:30
Over like the rest of your life. And what's that one thing that
29:33
people will be surprised to learn about you?
29:35
Something that you know, people may not know, but it's true.
29:40
Secretly you juggle. You're very talented to tell me
29:42
some tell us something about that was gonna be that might
29:45
surprise people. I, I wanted to take a job as a
29:47
10th grade rebbie. I was learning in yeshiva in the
29:51
Lakewood and I was offered a job in those days was impossible.
29:56
There were very few yeshivas and I was offered a job, a good job
30:00
as a 10th grade rebbie in in Farakaway.
30:03
And I went to tell my Rosheshiva Roshala, it's like Pharaoh shock
30:07
that I was so proud that I, I got that.
30:11
I, I, I went to the Sahara by Freyfeld.
30:13
And he, he, you know, I, I, I, I and he looks at me and he says
30:18
you can't be a Rebbe. It's not for you.
30:21
He felt so bad for those kids. You can't, you can't.
30:25
I was like shocked. I was like, yeah, when these
30:27
your own life is yes, but not for you.
30:30
You can't. This is not for you.
30:32
You, you know, he, he really pushed me very much to go into
30:36
business. Wow.
30:38
OK, I have to tell you, if I was young starting off, I would want
30:41
to follow you all day just to learn from you.
30:44
Do you have, do you have anyone that's done that in your life
30:46
that has been like a protege, someone that you know?
30:49
Yeah, I have, I have, I have. I have people who work with me
30:52
that have come in as interns and little bit.
30:54
Little and grew from there. Yeah, absolutely.
30:57
Giving them that opportunity. Yeah, yeah, quite a few.
30:59
I'm very, that's something I'm I'm very proud of.
31:01
A lot of a lot of people have. We've grown together, you know?
31:05
Yeah, yeah. I was literally talking to a
31:08
young kid. He's in his early 20s, and he
31:10
just started a new job and in the property management field
31:14
and in construction and rehab as well.
31:16
And he just started this job a few months ago.
31:18
And he told me that right now, you know, his boss who convinced
31:22
him to come work there. He's like very out of touch,
31:25
doesn't really communicate with him, barely sees him.
31:27
He doesn't feel like he's learning, like he's getting that
31:30
training. And I said, well, that's a big
31:31
red flag. I said it's a big problem.
31:34
I said you'd rather go summer where they're not even paying
31:36
you, but they're willing to teach you because you're young.
31:39
You want to build a craft for yourself.
31:40
You want to master something. You got to learn.
31:42
You have an opportunity to get an education.
31:44
You know, you have a lot to offer.
31:46
You've been through a lot. You have a tremendous amount of
31:47
experiences and there'd be a lot of people that would line up
31:50
that would that would want to learn from you.
31:52
So, you know, do you have something like that?
31:54
Do you have people that are well, you're too busy.
31:56
You still you're still doing your own.
31:57
Thing from time to time we've done internships and some of the
32:00
people work for me today started out as interns and you know,
32:05
from time to time, like, for example, PCs will call me down
32:07
and say, can you give a class on real estate development?
32:09
I love doing that and sharing some of that stuff where Rutgers
32:13
and I used to go to Rutgers actually to teach a class.
32:16
I stopped because of, you know, it's, it's not really a great
32:20
environment today for, for us. So I was pretty upset about that
32:23
and I, I let them know that until things, few of us did that
32:27
and we pulled out of things to go there.
32:29
So I love giving that over. There's no, no question about
32:31
it. It is a challenge sometimes to
32:33
find the time, but the people who work with me, I'm mostly I'm
32:37
very hands on until I feel that they, they have got it and then
32:43
I, I, I. And you know how to let them go
32:45
And and and I. Tried.
32:46
Alright, no, it's not always so easy, but I, I, we.
32:48
Have an We have an interview tomorrow with a 13 year old boy.
32:52
Yes, we do. Who started his own car washing
32:54
business and he wakes up every morning at 5:30 and he starts
32:57
his business at 6:30 and it goes throughout the day.
33:00
What would be your advice for someone like that starting off a
33:03
business young? He literally, he left school.
33:05
He's not in school anymore. He's running a legitimate
33:07
business. He's half in school.
33:08
He is half in school getting his education.
33:09
Yeah. Oh OK.
33:10
But he is running his business from the time he has two vans, 4
33:13
workers. What would be your message for
33:15
someone like that? Don't let don't let your
33:18
business consume your life. You're still a kid, thirteen
33:21
years old. Work hard, but you know, learn,
33:25
have fun. You know, you got to know more
33:27
than just how to wash a car. Running a business is, is great.
33:30
It's definitely, it's a great experience.
33:34
And I, I, I definitely don't, not one of those have subscribed
33:37
that everybody has to be, you know, not everybody's cut out to
33:41
be in yeshiva all day. Every, every, you know, Kanoko
33:43
now or pidarko. Every kid has got their
33:47
requirements and everything. And my own kids, some of them
33:51
learning, some of them working, You know, that's the way that's
33:54
the way it should be. But you know, if you're going to
33:58
be obsessive compulsive at such a young age, just about making
34:01
money, it's, it's got its own challenges.
34:04
So don't don't forget that you're still a 13 year old kid.
34:08
Yeah. All right.
34:08
Final question. I'll ask one final and might be.
34:11
I don't want to. I don't want this.
34:12
I feel bad. I see him looking at his watch
34:14
and he's like a page is going to come beating us up any minute
34:17
over. Here.
34:17
All right, all right, fine. My last.
34:19
One question, I get one question, then you get one
34:20
question. How about?
34:21
That love it. I love each one of us.
34:23
One more question. OK, here's my question.
34:25
You've done a lot. You've accomplished a lot when
34:28
you're gone in 50 years from now.
34:31
OK, do the math. 60 years, OK. 70 years, Something after 120.
34:35
Yeah. OK, go ahead.
34:37
And not for things, you know, personal not, not for how much
34:42
seductive you've given or how much mitzvahs you've done.
34:44
Let's leave that aside. Put a pin in that.
34:45
But what other accomplishments have you done that you would
34:48
want people to remember you for? Would it be this building and
34:51
what you've accomplished and what you still plan on
34:53
accomplishing? Something like anything that you
34:56
would feel like. If people know that this is what
34:58
I accomplished, I I feel proud. Well, I feel proud that we've
35:02
brought a lot of integrity to everything that we do.
35:06
You know, it both in terms of financially, you know, every
35:11
industry has its, you know, challenges and, and, and
35:16
temptations. And I, I, I, I, I, I think we
35:19
run a very moral shop and with a lot of integrity and, you know,
35:27
that's actually saved us sometimes from, from disaster.
35:32
So that's good. And what we see we're, we're in
35:34
areas just too corrupt to work and we, we won't work in that.
35:36
We won't work in that city or town or neighborhood or whatever
35:39
it is. And I, I, I, I'm proud of the
35:42
fact that, you know, when we came here, let's take a lot of
35:47
communities. So take W front station.
35:49
Take, take Bellworks here, take Bellworks Chicagoland, pretty
35:53
much anywhere we've gone, our reputation has been, we want
35:58
more. It's not like, oh, you came here
36:00
and you totally destroyed us. You've made this worse and that
36:05
worse and everything you just milked is dry.
36:07
But people actually come back and say we want more of what
36:10
you've done. A project outside of Chicago is
36:13
in a, a, a village called the Village of Hoffman Estates.
36:16
It's a suburb of Chicago. They came here and they said, we
36:20
need you to come to us to do for us what you've done here.
36:25
So it took us five years to convince Holmdel Township to
36:31
allow us to do what we want to do because nobody had done it.
36:34
And frankly, they didn't trust us that much that we actually
36:37
meant we're going to do what we said we're going to do.
36:40
Nobody believed it. Not their fault.
36:43
I'm a developer, right? Today when we walk into
36:46
municipality and we say this is what we're going to do, they
36:50
have a lot of trust. I'm proud of the fact that
36:52
people will hand us literally the key to the city, the key to
36:55
the village, the key to the town.
36:56
They say thank you for what you've done, and there's not one
36:59
instance that that's not correct.
37:01
So I think that legacy as a developer, you're saying leave
37:04
beside everything else. That's very, very proud of that.
37:06
I love it. That's amazing.
37:08
Only one. Only one.
37:09
Michael. OK, I I really want to know who
37:12
your mentor was in life and who you looked up to and a path that
37:15
you followed or. You're talking in business.
37:19
No. Matter.
37:21
That's a very, very tough question.
37:24
I, I I. There's really no easy answer to
37:34
that because I've I've been very, very blessed to have a lot
37:38
of really good people. And I'll leave family outside,
37:40
leave family inside. But you know, I, you know, I was
37:44
very, very close to Marashiva Bitsic Federstock out of a
37:48
Sholom, very close to her Matisel Salomon.
37:50
I travelled the world with her Matisel Salomon.
37:53
What does that mean? Russia here.
37:55
There we were. We, you know, I, I spent days
38:00
and nights with him and different community things back
38:02
in the day and learned a lot from him.
38:05
And, and I think that's, so, you know, those are the rabbinic of
38:08
David Schistel. I learned with him of, of Rusa
38:11
for many years. So there's a lot of people that,
38:14
that in terms of, you know, you know, on, on the not just the
38:19
religious learning scale, but also in what's important in life
38:23
and what's, you know, on the other hand, you know, I must say
38:29
that, you know, I having a partnership with someone like
38:31
Ruby Schrone, who's a, a, a Prince of a person and, and,
38:36
and, and has a certain, very, very just clear common sense in
38:42
what he does in a sense of direction and, and ability to
38:45
cut to the chase. Watching that and seeing that
38:48
and learning, learning, you know, how to how to, how to
38:51
navigate a lot of things was also important.
38:53
So if I was going to pick one mentor in business that really
38:57
affected me a lot. It it, you know, but there have
38:59
been been a lot of other people, so.
39:02
That's great. That's great.
39:03
I appreciate. Do you have any questions for
39:04
us? Yeah.
39:06
How do you guys say so excited about everything you do?
39:09
You sound like you really care and you really want to hear the
39:12
answers and everything. That's a that's a pretty, that's
39:14
a pretty good. We're passionate.
39:15
For life, we really enjoy everything that we do I.
39:18
Think we have different answers for this question.
39:20
You can give your answer. I would say my answer is that
39:22
people give me energy and I believe that the God rests
39:25
within each of us. So the energy just comes out
39:28
when you speak to people. And I always tell people, just
39:30
get out of your house, go meet people, go to a shul just to
39:33
meet people and, you know, get out there and, and get energized
39:36
with the people that are around you.
39:37
So you've brought a tremendous amount of energy to this
39:40
conversation and our podcast. And it was an honor sitting with
39:44
you today and I really appreciate the.
39:45
Time thank you very much I'll I'll leave you with one thought
39:47
that that that I love to you know people look at us and they
39:51
say look what you've done and I I really see you know we we look
39:54
at ourselves very much that we thank God are blessed to be able
39:58
to create whether it's a residential community or a
40:01
building like felt works or. Anything else, we create the
40:04
canvas, a place for people to paint the picture of their daily
40:08
life. But it's the people that fill in
40:11
the painting and paint the picture.
40:12
So we're happy to be to facilitate that, but it's really
40:15
all about the people. Absolutely beautiful.
40:17
Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
40:18
I. Have to tell you, on a side
40:19
note, I was in Shahrid Sadiq and Sharika said, I'm sorry, yeah, I
40:23
lived in Sharika said in the late 90s.
40:25
And I had the honor of walking with Shlomazalm and Arabach to
40:28
Shoah for two weeks until he passed away.
40:31
And that was my memory back then.
40:32
But you lived there back then as well in the 90s.
40:34
No, no, no. It was earlier.
40:36
Six years. 06 years. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.
40:39
And I know I only got one question, but my other question
40:42
is can we hang out in Israel? Sure, that would be amazing,
40:44
absolutely, to spend time with you.
40:45
Over there. All right.
40:46
Thank you very much, guys. It really is.
40:47
I enjoyed it. I didn't think I would enjoy it,
40:49
but thank you very much. Thank you so much.