180 - Architect to Developer with Jeff Pastva, FAIA

Coffee Sketch Podcast – Episode 180: Architect to Developer with Jeff Pastva, FAIA

Hosts: Kurt Neiswender & Jamie
Guest: Jeff Pastva, FAIA

Summary:
In this episode, Kurt and Jamie are joined by architect and developer Jeff Pastva, FAIA, for a lively conversation that weaves together sports banter, coffee rituals, and a deep dive into the evolving role of architects in real estate development. Jeff shares his journey from traditional practice to working in development, discusses the value of design thinking beyond design, and encourages architects to explore new business models and opportunities in the built environment.

Show Notes (with Timestamps):

• [0:00] – Banter and technical difficulties; introduction of guest Jeff Pastva.
• [2:20] – Sports talk: football, March Madness, and the ups and downs of fandom.
• [10:45] – Coffee chat: favorite local roasters, K-Cups, and coffee rituals.
• [19:35] – Jeff’s background: growing up near Philly, career path, and AIA involvement.
• [22:35] – Transition from architecture to development: inspiration, Rose Fellowship, and lessons learned.
• [32:40] – The value of design thinking in development, zoning, and feasibility.
• [44:00] – Adaptive reuse, sustainability, and the economics of keeping vs. demolishing buildings.
• [54:50] – The growing trend of architects joining development teams and the benefits for projects.
• [57:30] – Jeff’s call to action: architects should consider acquiring and entitling land, leveraging their skills for new business models.
• [59:45] – Where to find Jeff: LinkedIn is the best place to connect.

Connect with Jeff Pastva:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-pastva-faia-cphc-a39a153/

Listen & Subscribe:
Find Coffee Sketch Podcast on your favorite platform for more conversations at the intersection of design, practice, and creativity.

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Hey, Jamie. How's it going?

Jamie: 0:37

How you doing, Kurt? Are we still in the green room?

Kurt Neiswender: 0:39

Oh, come on. You know, I, I can't ever get it. All right. Yes, there're good now we have, there's lots of, now we have, there's

Jamie: 0:50

lots of buttons,

Kurt Neiswender: 0:51

you know. Yeah. It's the, and if we could just that one extra button,

Jamie: 0:56

one more button where it like pulls the red curtain back to reveal. We have a guest. Well,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:01

that's a, that's a special button. Yeah. We have a guest, our friend Jeff. Jeff Paa, FAIA. Say hello.

Jeff: 1:12

Hello. Show listeners. Perfect. Glad to be here. Thanks. Thanks for having me guys.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:18

Yes, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff's aware that we're, we, we, we don't have any scripts. Keep it casual and it's all full of surprises as, as are the technical difficulties with my button clicking. So, but yeah, thanks for joining us, Jeff.

Jeff: 1:34

It's okay. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:37

The yeah, thanks Jamie. You, you really, really set the tone by calling out my foibles, but what else, what else is a good It's

Jamie: 1:47

okay. Cohost for, yeah. I mean, you know, also this is the banter section of this. No. So

Kurt Neiswender: 1:55

I know we were previously sort of warming up talking about football, the global football. I don't,'cause you know, in America football means something else. But we're talking about, you know, the footy, the soccer, you know, the the beautiful game as Jamie always reminds us. So that's, that was like kind of our ban banter of choice for the day. But Jeff, what about you? What, what do you like talking about? We, you know, we could spend a couple minutes talking about, which is, this is the point where we confuse most of our audience.'cause like, oh, I thought that the title is Coffee Sketch podcast. And somehow they wind up talking about sports a lot. But some, you gotta have different interests. So Jeff, I don't know what, what do you, what do you, what do you feel, you know.

Jeff: 2:52

Yeah, I mean, I'm not as, as much into sport as I, I was I mean, there was, there, there was a period where it was, you know, one fantasy league to the next. And so I was watching everything. I was not much of a gambler, but I was always into fantasy sports, you know basketball, football, baseball, all those things. Now I'm just kind of back into watching it. And it was, helps be an Eagles fan this year. Yeah, win the Super Bowl. So

Jamie: 3:17

the other football I was, I was wondering, I was wondering if we were gonna get that in, in this, in this episode, but,

Kurt Neiswender: 3:25

well, you know, Jamie back around the holidays, Jeff and I actually got to spend some time together in the Detroit area to watch the Eagles.

Jeff: 3:34

We did

Kurt Neiswender: 3:35

play, play a playoff game, and little did I know, you know, at that time the, the lions were still in it. So at the time I was, you know, having to tow the. The, the Michigan line, you know, the, the Detroit Lions. But then I had to pivot to root for the, the Eagles'cause I just couldn't muster the energy to root for Kansas City. So, and Jamie and I have talked about that. We had a little, you know, a day we had a, we had a moment, you know, talk about playoff football.

Jamie: 4:08

Yeah. Typically we try and have like a, like a, like a side coffee wager. Like who's gonna send somebody like a care package. Mm-hmm. Like if they win, Kurt doesn't usually remember that he needs to send package.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:24

Like,

Jamie: 4:24

after

Kurt Neiswender: 4:25

my o like after,

Jamie: 4:28

after,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:29

yeah. The O I'm in, I'm in arrears as they call it. Yeah.

Jamie: 4:33

Like we just did March Madness. Oh, I got, and I'll, we did a men's and a women's bracket. And Kurt, I'm gonna say he is just, you know. Gets a little excited in that first round, look at it. Upsets doesn't sort of play the strategy game, so

Kurt Neiswender: 4:48

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jeff, did you do any brackets?

Jeff: 4:52

You know what, not, not this year. I mean, I guess if there's, you know, this is more of the death of, of college basketball to me was, you know, for, for those former Big East fans out there when they, when they killed the Big East, that was when I really stopped watching college basketball. Unfortunately. It was just, you know, it felt like the beginning of the end with a lot of, you know, the, the realignment and I just, I think that there's probably fans out there of like the Pact PAC 10, PAC 12, or whatever, like that iteration was that when you see that become just gobbled up by the Big 10, you know, I, it's hard, I would think it'd be hard to be a US A USC fan, like now that you're just like part of one big, like super conference and there's all, the history has just totally gone entire. You know, power six conference is gone. Right?

Kurt Neiswender: 5:44

Yeah.

Jeff: 5:45

So I, you know, I, I really am disappointed with the way that college sports has gone. And I think with the NIL stuff now, you know, it's some point, it was seemed as a boon to find a way to like pay college players. But now that money has gotten into it, it's become even, you know, more confusing, less rules, more wild west. And I guess it brings parody when, like, you know, you can bid on the highest player, but it's like all below board. You don't know why someone's going and answering the transfer portal. Maybe there's a rhyme and a reason if, if you were paying attention, but to me it's, it's put me off to some of the college football in particular.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:25

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I had a conver a similar conversation over the weekend with a, a friend and he, he's a state Michigan State fan, you know? Mm-hmm. And I'm a Trojan USC Trojan and. We, we, we, you know, we're in the off season of college football, right? And so then we both said to each other, well, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna kind of gripe about it now, but then come September we're gonna be back on the bandwagon. I mean, I'm not saying Jeff's gonna go down that road, but, you know, for, for me, it, it probably will wind up, you know, I'll get sucked back into the energy of college football and, but I'm, I totally feel your, your point of view in that it's, it is, it's not quite, it de definitely has not panned out the way I thought it would pan out, especially with n in regard to NIL and, and I don't know, Jamie, I'm sure he's, you've also, you've got thoughts. Oh

Jamie: 7:23

yeah, I got thoughts. I always have thoughts, but I, I will, I will interject though, is that I love both of you talking about tradition and like pain and affiliation with like a school or you know, a team or an alignment or you know, league. All the things that I understand as well. Like, so Jeff, I'm a 49 ERs fan. Like,'cause I grew up in California and when I was a little kid, part partly, and so carried that with me. And there was, and there was, and there was sort of, there's like, you know, there's some rough years in there and then there's like, then there's some good years and then there's some like little bits of disappointment, you know. But I, I, I just share that because of the Eagles, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I get it. I'm not, it's not a Cowboys Eagles thing. It's more of like a Niners Eagles thing for, for us now. So I'm gonna remember that. But I just say that sort of in, that's kind of why I like soccer so much is that there's, you ha you have a club, you know, that you just, you love and there are years where it's just. Utter shit. And then, but you can't, like, you can't switch. Like you, you gotta stay with who you're with and you gotta stay with them. And you know, we were talking a little bit about it in the green room is like, then you have thing, a thing like rexi, where not only like in the US could you imagine if a team was in a league and they were so bad that they got dropped to the league below and then if they were bad again, they got dropped to the league below that and, and so on.'cause that's what happens in England. And, and so Rexi is the story of literally this past weekend of the team climbing itself out of the cellar and, and moving up not just the table in a league, but also all the way out of the league into the next league. So there's promotion and relegation and so they've been promoted three times in a row, which is, I. Historic. So that's why I love soccer so much. Unfortunately in the US we don't have promotion relegation, so folks haven't fully experienced that yet. But it, you know, I mean, maybe in a long game, you know, we, we will maybe see that. So there's talk of it

Kurt Neiswender: 9:36

like, for, you mean MLS

Jamie: 9:39

Well, so MLS now has a competitor. Oh. Like, so there's an, there's, because soccer has gotten, and there's markets that MLS just hasn't gotten to, but there's a need for it. Those markets had a lower division club, but now have people with money and capital and a stadium. That's a possibility. So they're like, well, why can't we just like make a better league? You know? And then in making a better league, can we promote, can we kind of help create like a pipeline of other teams kind of in our region that aren't ready to play us yet, but maybe they can play together? Then they're a league below us. So that's what USL is, Kurt. Oh yeah. And so USL is positioning itself now where USL is gonna actually have promotion and relegation.

Kurt Neiswender: 10:30

Oh yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. Well, we have our Flint, Flint bucks, our in USL League two, and they do pretty well. Sorry, Jeff, we're, we've gone off, we've already, just on the tangent, but anyway, so let's, let's, let's refocus, Jamie, let's, let's get back into coming back in core, the core tenets, core tenets of the podcast. Sorry, Jeff. We have, we have a little too much fun coffee. Let's, we have guest guest. Jeff, you go first. I know you're a coffee drinker, but what is the go-to regular on tap at the moment?

Jeff: 11:16

So, I mean, in the past, I, I, I don't know how brands carry, but Philadelphia has a local brand called Elixir.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:25

Ooh.

Jeff: 11:25

I think there are, you know, there's, there's a couple of local Philly roasters. I think that the most famous one at this point is LA Alone.'cause it, it, it started local, but I think it started at least, at least kind of up and down the East Coast. And it was acquired by Lake Chobani. So it started to get, it got a lot of corporate investment, but it was one of those that started only in Philly. So I do, I, I drink Laal Loma often, but Elixir is another local brand that a lot of the local coffee shops that are, you know, l Elixir has its own. A coffee shop, but then they sell their, you know, their bags to a lot of the other ones. So that's generally what I drink. I don't know what the, I don't see the bag, you know, I just know I generally can taste that it's elixir when they serve it, but I don't know what Oh, yeah. What the origin is. You know, I, it is been a little while since I've kind of been on that kick of like pour overs and like specific single origin and you know, where it's coming from. Just, it's just like a, a quick thing. Right. It's hard to Oh yeah. It's hard to wait. It is very hard to, to, for the patients of a five or six minute pour over unless I got nothing else to do.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:30

Well, I know. Well, Jamie and I both know you have young humans that you're raising, so, yeah.

Jeff: 12:38

Yes.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:39

Time is, time is of the essence, right?

Jeff: 12:43

Well, at home I've got, my wife actually is, has been, I. Not lamb basketing, but like, you know, we used, I used to drink almost like all way, you know, like French press. Like that was like, that was my Saturday in front of Sunday morning routine since we got a Keurig, you know, it's probably it, it's probably sacrilege. But at, at home, you know, I've drank, you know, nice coffee all week. It's just easy for me to pop in a pure egg. And I found that Pete's coffee Dickinson Roast is the one that I, I think is like a pretty good Cape Pod.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:18

So that's cool. And yeah, those, those, see, that's good.

Jamie: 13:21

No, that's good because we, yeah.'cause we, we've learned on the podcast that Kurt even has one K-Cup that like, if he sees it like it is, like, it's like liquid death. Like he's like, he's gonna just completely stay away from it. So we do appreciate when one, you know, kind of curates their whole experience and explains, you know, which ones they're using, you know? No judge, this is a, this is a no coffee judgment zone.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:48

Well, I thought you were gonna tease me about my, my, my tendencies toward gas station.

Jamie: 13:55

No, that's a different conversation. We're not even talking about being on the road, so. Yeah. Right, right. Okay.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:02

Yeah. Good. Good call Jeff. Yeah, but

Jeff: 14:04

I'll say, I mean, I, I don't think I'm gonna smile, but I won't, I won't drink bad coffee. I'll just, like, even if I need to fix, like, I won't take the caffeine just'cause I need it. Like, I won't uhoh, I just won't do it.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:15

There goes the bus, Jamie.

Jamie: 14:18

Yeah. No, that's, that's, that bust just, just rolled right back over us. No, you, I think it's just

Kurt Neiswender: 14:24

me, right? Like,

Jamie: 14:26

well, I mean, I, I'm on the road quite a bit. I'm, you know, and I, you know, the standards kind of drop, you know,'cause it's like, there's just need, well

Kurt Neiswender: 14:33

you have Buckys, we don't have Buckys up here in Michigan. I do have Bucky.

Jamie: 14:39

We, we do sort of route our trips to make sure we we're near one. Well that's, that.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:44

This is why we bring friends like Jeff on, right?'cause he, he's, he is maintaining the standard. It's like, you know, you know, I'm not gonna, I, I won't cave. Right? You know. So,

Jamie: 14:58

but he is also bringing the reality of the little people, and, and there's the, during the week and then there's the weekend and sort of, you know, reassessing, you know, one's life choices related to coffee and That's okay. It's, it's totally okay. We get it. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 15:12

Jamie, what about you then? What do you, what, what's in the, the, the cup today?

Jamie: 15:17

So today I'm gonna go local also after my little, you know, return to Little City in Austin. I, I got a different one kind of went through that, that Virgo one that I was telling you about that had kind of the interesting kind of notes on it. And so this is a Brazilian one. It, I wrote it down'cause I can't, you know, you know me with pronunciations, it's terrible. Situ Doro, that's not bad. I almost, I almost got it. But what I liked about it was I. It's, it like purposely like said the word sweet a bunch of times, and I'm not, I'm, you know, I don't do, I don't do the sweet coffee, so I'm like, you know, I love Little City Coffee. I like, you know, normally Brazilian coffee to me is sort of a nice medium roast, and so I was like, why would they keep saying sweet? I was buy it and try it and see if it's any good. And yeah, I, I actually can say that it has like a little bit of a jasmine kind of flavor in the background. But I like it. Is it sweet? You know, or is it Oh, sweet. Yeah. But, but I also take my coffee black, so I mean, it's not like I'm adding stuff to it anyway, so. Fair. Yeah. We,

Kurt Neiswender: 16:25

we well that's, that's cool. You know, little city, I, I'm a fan I guess, but I'm in the, I'm the one in the o. To deliver coffee. So I, it'll probably be a while since I see some little city from Jamie,

Jamie: 16:40

I might send one part of the, you know, we have like our whole demilitarized zone for coffee for Curt, and so sometimes we reach across the border and, and send them a bag.

Kurt Neiswender: 16:51

Oh, well thanks. So I'm, I'm, and I'm also, you know, into some local stuff, a new, newer one for us on the pot that Jamie's heard a little bit about. But they're called fireside roasters, which is, they're technically just outside city limits of Flint, but we still kind of embrace them in the, in the Flint area. And they actually had a, a, a roast that is of Guatemalan origin. And since I am partly of Guatemalan origin, I had to, I just had to buy it. And so, and I've already got stuff on deck, but I won't, I don't, I won't talk about what's coming up next.'cause it, I haven't tasted it yet, so I, I don't wanna, although I'll tell you the name. It's called Dark Matter, kind of excited.

Jamie: 17:42

Hmm.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:43

So stay tuned for that one.

Jamie: 17:46

Yeah, that's like the new Pro Jam album, so that's good. We we'll hear about that.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:51

Is that literally the name or are you just making fun?

Jamie: 17:53

Yes.

Jeff: 17:54

Cool. Pro Jam. Ugh. Mm-hmm. All right.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:58

That's, that's all. Let's all get our Gen X. I dunno, Jeff, you're a Gen X too, right? You're like on the edge, right? A little cusp.

Jeff: 18:06

I, I mean, I guess, I guess depending on who you ask, but I, I am Xen or whatever you want to, whatever. That kind of, wow. Yeah. I, I, I think my most accounts, I'm a millennial, but I think that if you look at people you know, who are 10 years younger than me, I feel. Disconnected from them 10, 10 years away from them.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:27

Sounds good. Yeah. Well that's why I was just trying to pick up off your sentiment of the Pearl Jam, you know, seeing where it's going. Well,

Jeff: 18:37

yeah, I, I, I think that there's certain, sure, like you're an artist, you wanna be able to continue to create music. There are very few artists that I think I could name that after their seminal period, they produce something that was really worthy of listening to. So it's just, it's a, i, I don't want people to tell people to hang up their, their boots, but, you know, I don't know. There's something about it that it is very difficult to accept new music, you know, 30 years later. You know, and feel like it's gonna have the same, you know, effect maybe on a new generation. But, I dunno, it's tough. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:12

No. Yeah. Yeah. We've had, we've had these kinds of conversations. And yeah, they're, they're all, all to, to be determined. Right. Sort of let it, let it ride. So Jamie's given me little, little taps on the shoulder. I have a sketch, so let me drop the sketch. I want flash. It's a bit of a surprise sketch. It is one of Jamie's,

Jamie: 19:36

but, and, and I, and I do wanna say is that, you know, normally too is by now we have given our guests the opportunity to kind of more fully introduce themselves. Sure, sure. I think because we did the, our extra long banter and Yeah. Sorry about, it's been a, it's been a minute since we've had a guest on the show. So we, we will just, you know yeah. You know, note that, to note to self. But no, I, I mean, thank you Jeff for, for joining us. We had, we have talked about having you on for a little while and so timing worked out, so we kind of accelerated everything really quickly. But you know, now we've got. I'm in Austin, Kurt's in Flint, and then you're in Philly. And you know, we've, we've all known each other for, gosh, like at least 10 years now. And so I was just gonna say is like, can you kind of, you know, give a bit of your origin story and kind of and then we can kind of connect the dots and talk a little bit more architecture.

Jeff: 20:35

Yeah. I guess it's always a tough, you know, depending on the audience I guess this is, you know, mostly architects, but you know, there's the origin of like, from school on or from, from, you know, YF on. What's kind of the

Jamie: 20:49

well, I, I, you know, I, I'd say it's like, I, I mean, so are you native, native Philly or are you, like, is it like as close to being native Philly as you can be?

Jeff: 20:59

Yeah. I, you know, grew up in the, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, so, you know, but I've always, I would say other than. The four years, well, five years I was at Syracuse, you know, in New York. I've been in Pennsylvania and outside Philadelphia or inside Philadelphia my whole life. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, so that, that's a little bit of,

Jamie: 21:20

I say neither Kurt nor I can relate to that. Because we've we, we kind of grew up in places and that we have affinities for, but we've certainly moved around a lot, you know, not just for school. And, and then find ourselves now living in places that, you know, for all intents and purposes, we didn't really have any family ties to. You know, Kurt's, Kurt's wife's family is, is, is, you know, from, from Flint and, and Michigan. But you know, ourselves, not necessarily so, so

Kurt Neiswender: 21:48

well, so Jeff, why don't you tell us what you do now, and I'm sure we'll probably unpack a little bit of, I mean, obviously, well not obviously, but for the listeners. We all know each other from our various a i a involvement, our American Institute of com architects committee involvement, and primarily the Young Architects Forum, which Jeff alluded to as the YAF. And so we, we've served on the a i a and, and, you know, sort of grew that relationship I guess over 10 years now at least. And, but now I, I know I know a little bit about what you've been up to lately, but I don't know if Jamie does, and I know our listeners don't. So why don't you talk about,'cause this, this might be a good segue to what, you know, maybe we talk about the sketch a little bit and I know we wanted to let you get back to your life without dragging this conversation all too long. So but yeah, you know, as an architect and a fellow of the American Institute of Architects I know you are. Practicing a little bit let's say outside, not just outside of architecture, but within, in the development world too, right, Jeff? Is that? Yeah. So what

Jeff: 23:06

maybe, maybe I'll tell start from that story. Right. And so, you know, I, there were a couple years that I, you know, I, I've always been very invested in architecture. I've always enjoyed being an architect. But there was a period now going probably back eight years where I started looking around and said like, what, what else can I do? What else do I want to do? And I think that there was in, in Philadelphia, I think a lot of people are, and I know Kurt is familiar with the, with the firm Onion Flats, who has, now they've modified, you know, they have some founders, you know, who are retiring and, and looking for other things. But for years they were a model of how, you know, architect led development can happen, you know, in Philadelphia, but also nationwide. But there were still not a lot of those types of. Of of architects who, who jumped over to the other side and, and I was, and they were like, they were full in, right? They were doing their own development, but also building their own projects. Right. So it was kind of this like, very unique thing and it was great that it was happening in Philly. So like I kind of had a front seat to that sometimes. They were constantly getting attention from our, our inquire critic Inga Saffron, who I think is, is kind of at this point still hanging on as one of the few architectural critics in the country. Right. So it's, it still feels great to have kind of that perspective and and opinion locally where again, I think you might Yeah, you probably can

Jamie: 24:29

count them on like one

Jeff: 24:30

hand now. So so yeah, exactly. And so I got like, I was kind of following their trajectory for, for years and I'm like, you know, how do I get into that? That was kind of, there's always that, that thought in my head, how do I get into that? And but I never, but they were always a small shop. It was always hard to like. You know, just get into the, you know, if I want to work for them, it's like, you know, they had a four person team for years. It was very difficult to actually work for them. And so in 2016, the ener, the, the Rose Fellowship, which is been since been sunset, which is kind of a shame, but the Rose Fellowship, which, you know, had a, a couple decade run at outta the enterprise, was bringing a fellowship to Philly for the first time. And so for years it was like, they would, you would kind of apply if you were, if you're, you know, accepted and they kind of ship you it to where you know they had a need. Right. So I was never, I never felt I was in a position where that was like what I wanted to do, where I could just go where I was sent. But when it was coming to Philly, it's like, let me, let me take a hand at this. I think this is interesting. And I kind of went all in, like really started thinking like, how do I put my whole self into this application?'cause it was a very intensive application process. You had to get references. Portfolio. It felt very much like, almost like applying to like, I mean, it was a fellowship, so I mean, it was, it was more, but it was more than just a job interview. It was like, it felt like a, a highly competitive process. And kind of, from what I was told, it was like 150 applications. I was selected as a finalist. And I think there were like 20 finalists or so for like all the open positions across the country, and they chose like eight of us. That would've been like, for the Philly one specifically, and it was kind of this eye-opening experience. I didn't, I thought that one, I was like, at some level, too old. I mean, again, if you're familiar with the Rose Fellowship, a lot of the people that were doing it were like fresh outta school. Most of'em had grad school experience at that point in time. I had been working for 10 years. You know, I, I felt like I was much older than a lot of the other applicants that I actually thought that was a disadvantage at some point, but. One of our other friends, Larry Fei, was someone that I confided with, and he was like, why the hell not, why wouldn't you go for this? He convinced me that like I could do it. I talked to Wayne Mortenson, he put me in touch with Wayne, who was a former Rose fellow, and Wayne thought it was a, you know, I don't remember if he remembers that conversation, but I, I remember it that, you know, he, he kind of like also said, Hey, you sound like the right person. Why don't you go for it? And again, I I, so getting selected as a finalist, you know, kind of validated, like, Hey, this is like a unique thing. And the the goal would've been to place architects in community development corporation, like offices that traditionally didn't have design as part of their kind of, you know, talent or their, or their roster, right? Mm-hmm. So only developers, only finance people, they always struggled with necessarily, how do we, how do we scale up? And so it was always a great fit for the places that they went. So great experience. It was cool. Like, I had like a, a finalist summit, got to meet all the other fellows, got to meet all like the top brass of enterprise. So like Katie Swenson, you know, who was at the time, you know, now she's the, the mass principal. But like I, she was like one of the leads and one of the like the most famous fellows from the beginning. So we got to meet all these great people and I'm like, you know, and when I didn't, I didn't, ultimately I wasn't selected. I think it went to someone who was very qualified, who's still in Philadelphia. But it was like, I had this taste. I'm like, this is really what I wanna do. It's more than just architecture, but having an architecture design background was the thing that would've prepped me to get into this space. And from there on it was kind of like, well, how do I find this same thing? What do I do? And started looking, it was, it's very difficult to, to find those opportunities again, particularly with like. All the other fringe things that would come with it, right? It was like, and the Enterprise Road Village came with a, you know, an alumni network. There was a lot of other benefits that would've been, hey, if you graduated from here, you went through it, you'd have this kind of like lifelong friendships you would've made. It's what? It's not just a job. So it was, couldn't really find anything. Ended up leaving, went to a place as, as Kurt knows, a firm called Bright Common, which was doing a lot of passive house work. And it was one of the kind of the top firms in, in Philly and, and really in the region doing passive house in Philadelphia. And I said, you know, this may not be what I was specifically looking for, but I was looking for the next challenge about how do I apply everything I've done. And it happened to be we were doing a lot of affordable housing. We were doing passive house. It was like this combination of a lot of great interest and skill sets that I had. And they wanted to scale their business up from doing single family to, you know, mid, not missing middle necessarily, but like we were doing a lot of infill lots. Like we, we wanted to do like the, the 15 to 20 to 25 unit building. Mm-hmm. But the, you know, the principal was only doing like a lot of s you know single family duplexes, but he wanted to bring in someone more experienced to do, you know, larger, scale it up. And there was always this team that, like Jeremy Avelina was the principal and still is the principal, but he like had a design background design, build background himself. And there was this like hint that maybe we would get into it. Never, it was just always difficult as a small firm. It, so then I think that when, when the pandemic hit it was a challenge for everybody, but I kind of found myself in a position where I really needed something stable from a, from a career standpoint. And while I always worked in kind of small firm, almost my whole career was in small firms. I just realized how much like hand to you know, mouth that, you know, some of this stuff can be. And I said, well, let me, let me look for something what I think might be a little more stable. Can weather some of these storms have more growth opportunities. Because even though I felt very connected to, you know, firm leadership there, there wasn't really a lot of that, those advancement opportunities of like, what's the next step if I keep growing and, you know, whether it's salary or not. Like I wanted, you know, I wanted more. And so I started looking around. This was kind of where I didn't find anything else that I felt was really interesting in traditional architecture practice and a develop a developer was looking for someone who had a lot of ca experience and had an interest in development. But mostly like the, the construction side of things. And I had done a lot of ca in my life. It was like a slog when I was going through it, but I felt like once I got on the other side and realized that, hey, I really understand how these buildings go together because I was on site so much, it's because I had to form these relationship with contractors. I had to really understand, you know, like breakthrough that, like the headbutting, like the traditional, oh, like architect, contractor, you know, experience. I feel I found a way to break bread with them and like build relationships. So like, it was never a finger point. I never pointed fingers at the, at the GC in all my years of, of doing ca as an architect. Now things have gotten a little, a little more challenging when I'm on the other side. But, but as the architect, like I felt like these are the people that I need to make fast friends with and I felt they actually ended up having my back. A lot of scenarios, like we both know that maybe something was like missed. But we would find a way to cover it up so the owner at that time wouldn't figure it out. Right. Like it would say, we both got an egg on our face. Let's try to resolve this without, you know, blaming each other. And I, and well, without

Jamie: 32:24

jeopardizing the whole project

Jeff: 32:25

right. At that point. Yeah. You

Jamie: 32:26

know, you're, you're, you're like, we still gotta finish. Like we still, we still gotta get to the end.

Jeff: 32:31

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and I don't want you saying, oh, the, you, the architect's drawings were like missing something and I'm not going to say, Hey, you guys like, screwed this up. So we, we'd find a way to make it work. So I, I feel like I had a couple of these like skills that I developed along the way that, you know, when, when the opportunity came along for, I would be kind of in the field managing GCs from the owner side, you know, it's like, I think I can do this. Right? It, it wasn't just like, fake it, so you make it, I actually had this experience, even if it wasn't, you know, on paper, yes, I've done exactly the thing you've asked for. I've, I've done almost all the things in some capacity, then I think I can figure this out. And so. That kind of brings me to where I'm today. So the last four years I've been with, you know, a real estate firm. And I still feel very connected to, to architecture because I am in, in many respects, like I'll, a lot of our legacy projects I was taking through, but like the new ones, I'm the one doing all the entitlements, right? I'm the one going and making sure we, you know, do zoning and I'm doing the, the zoning analysis and the building code analysis feasibility studies, like a lot of that front end stuff that I would've been doing and always wanted to do even further ahead. As an architect, we always talk about how do we get further upstream? How do we get in that room? Well, I'm there now, you know, I'm there when we go look at sites and they ask my opinion. I'm there when they say, how many units can this support? I know we do a lot, I do a lot of work in Philly, so like I know the zoning code really well and it's because like I can kind of look at stuff, I can look at a piece of ground and, and, and like actually somewhat estimate quickly without even looking at the code. This is how much I think we could do. So that's still very interesting to me. It's less about design, but it's more about how do we make these projects pencil, how do we like, you know, figure out like the early puzzle and less about the design. But that's, that's kind of where my space is, maybe has always been, but I

Jamie: 34:25

enjoy it. But it's, it's, it's still design thinking, you know? I mean, that's the whole thing. I think that, you know, Kurt and I have spent a little bit of time of late you know, kind of circling back, you know, both of us have taught. Have you ever taught by any chance or, you know, a studio? Not any class.

Jeff: 34:41

Not officially. Not, not, no. I've not taught in, in your, I mean, I think I've done, I've tried to do a lot of portfolio reviews while that's not teaching. Like, I was brought in by a professor sometimes to do like that as almost like a, you know, a, a a, a workshop. So I've done some, like, somewhat instruction, but not a, a full, let me teach a class, let me grade it, let me write a curriculum, that kind of stuff. Right.

Jamie: 35:03

Well, that's not the fun part. The fun part is it, but it is, is, well the reason why I say is I think, you know, you, you know, you describing your own trajectory and, and kind of those realizations along the way of the skills that you're, that you're bringing to the table now, that you even, you know, to some degree you, you knew that you had from the beginning, but you kind of honed them and, and they developed in kind of different ways. That's a lot of what I, both of us have found ourselves when we're in a teaching role, talking to students.'cause you're, you're, you're dealing with a pool of people who are all pursuing, quote unquote the same education, but, you know, every single one of them is gonna end up in a different spot, you know, career wise. And, and a lot of, lot, you know, hopefully, and fortunately in architecture, but a lot using that sort of design thinking that we all go through that training that. It really does allow itself to problem solve, like the way you're talking about it. Even in the job that I'm in now, I, I find that some of our, some of our best and highest, highest and best use of my time is that early discussion, you know, with a property owner, our or, or city or, you know, thinking strategically about what's the best use for this site and, and how do we get there from here? Like what, what are the dots we still have to connect and, and then what are the gaps? And it, it sounds like some of that is, is the work that you're doing, you know, kind of, you know, now, which to me is still design thinking. Mm-hmm. You know, there's, even if you're not drawing kind of, you know, quote unquote drawing stuff I, I still think that there's, there's a lot, a lot that you're still bringing to the table, you know, kinda in that same through mind.

Kurt Neiswender: 36:47

Yeah. I mean, I, I was gonna say the same thing. I mean, these, these are the, your examples of your trajectory, as Jamie said. Or what lately I've been trying to impress upon my students since I'm currently teaching and practicing and trying to sort of navigate, you know, the, the foot in both worlds. But trying to explain to the, use my real world examples and explain to students how there are so many more potential avenues in practice to go through. And I think your, your pathway is a good example of how you have evolved through the quote unquote traditional practice, which is the design and, you know, design and construction documents, you know, the, the design side versus the construction side. And then you've, you know, moved over to the construction development side. And so yeah, but I think the general, though, the, the key, like Jamie said again, is the. The visualization, you know, you even Jeff, you said it like, like looking at a lot and knowing enough about the zoning to be able to say, oh, well I think this lot could bear X, Y, z, you know, type of building. And, and lemme flash the sketch. I know.'cause I know we're getting tight on time,

Jamie: 38:10

but as, as he's pulling up the sketch, I just wanna say one more thing, Jeff. The thing that I, I really appreciate the way you sort of describe, you know, something that you almost got as being sort of the moment that you needed to do the things you're doing now. Like, I think that's just brilliant. I think it's just brilliant and it's, and and even just as you were describing it, and I didn't know that, I knew bits of that story, but I didn't know that whole story and it makes so much more sense to me now. Kind of knowing what you're doing. And I think the other part of it is that I love is that. You know, you like so many friends and colleagues when, when describing like them searching for their place in architecture, quote unquote, is all of us or at least the like, I've found myself in like an affinity group of some, you know, some nebulous sort where we all kind of have done that deep dive on firms or practices or architects that we encounter and are like. Keep finding ourself following and because there's an interest there in kind of what they're doing or how they're working. And it doesn't all kind of add up to us at first. Like we're like, like this is interesting to me, but I don't get it. You know, I need to, I need to figure out some more or talk to some more people or read a little bit more. And then as you, you know, find yourself keeping going back to those same, you know, those same kind of case studies almost, you know, it, it kind of propels you forward in, you know, both your own career, but then getting closer to what that thing you that interested you to begin with, you know, in those architects and in those firms. And I think that that's just it. Kurt and I have talked about it as the maturing designer. And that maturing doesn't mean age, it just means like there's a ma there's literally a maturation process. Like, and it takes a little while. Sometimes it's faster or it has spits and spurts. But I, I love that kind of about the way you kind of described that trajectory. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 40:22

and so let me, let me just tee up a little bit of why I thought of the, you know, recent sketches that Jamie has done this, this could be app applicable, but this, you know, so you, we, on this show, Jamie, Jamie and I talk about what, about what he does lately with, with the historic office in Texas. Is, is this sort of imaginating imagination or visualization of potential futures for sites. In a lot of cases for Jamie, right? They're like existing, existing buildings that may need something additional. And I know Jamie could probably give us the background on like this sketch, but this, this, I imagine is kind of like this sort of ruminating in, in Jeff's brain is like any one of us could kind of do this too. But you know, you, you look at a corner or a site or condition and you go, okay, well this site could, could bear this particular project and, and, and activate, you know, the, the space and, and so I thought it, this could fit in with the conversation a little bit. I know it's a bit of a surprise for you two. So, so I, I, you know, it maybe Jamie, you give us a quick like what it, what form and then Jeff can. Add to it.

Jamie: 41:47

Well, and I'll just say, I'll preface this, Jeff, is that when he says, like, when he said to us earlier, I've got a surprise for you. I was worried it was gonna be the lightning round.'cause he has done that before where it's just like, it's like a Petula style where like, like pops on the screen and then Kurt, Kurt says, tell me about how you feel about this drawing. It's like a, almost like a Rorschach test, you know, where it's like, here's this drawing and tell me what you feel about it, and then we move on to the next one. And it's like, it just seems like a blur. So I'm glad, I'm glad it's not,

Kurt Neiswender: 42:18

I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna torture Jeff with that. Yeah, that would be a bit, a bit too much into the deep end of the pool. But yeah, no, we just have the one sketch. I thought it would be a nice segue to a visual, but I mean, I think it builds on Jeff's story about. The, the visualization, the design thinking, the, the solving, you know, and, and then our, again, you know, the vi the, the, the tool of the sketch as a way to, to convey that kind of information. So, you know, Jamie, what is this partly existing or I assume it's kind of like a part existing, part new sort of thing. Yeah,

Jamie: 43:00

it's a, it's a, it's a unique site. It's one of those ones where the building that you see, the, the, the. Two story porch on the front. Clearly a historic building just'cause, you know, form and function. The, the porch actually isn't there anymore. So this is me sort of already, you know, going back and figuring out, yes, there was this kind of pole mounted porch on this particular building. And, and it kind of needed it kind of as a new entry element.'cause it was sort of not there was no cover for pedestrians, so there was a lot of design thinking and sort of, and just practicality of why that was needed. But I think what you're sort of alluding to with the site is there's these sort of interesting forms that are clearly from a different, you know, time period than the other building. And some of this is existing, and this is sometimes it's, you know, a lot of the work we do is we're, we're balancing both what's there and sort of what the current scope of work is. And, you know, knowing that a, a particular project doesn't have the budget to do. Like the full on new investment you know, and sort of re pure redevelopment of a site. Sometimes it's how can you take what's there and adapt it for a better function. And I'm, I'm curious from the work that you're doing, Jeff, are all yours more on the, a clean slate kind of tabular Rossa site? Or do you deal with sort of existing structures and, and how, how does that evaluation go kind of in your, you know, or would go in kind of your, you know, current role?

Jeff: 44:36

Yeah, I mean, it, not, not, not every side I deal with is a, is a, you know, a raw piece of land, right? Some of them are existing buildings. Now I say some of the ones that we've, I've acquired re we've acquired recently, like our, our tear downs. You know, there, there's something that is just a single, like one, was this like a, like a poultry. You know, slaughterhouse, you know, that's not really easy to retrofit that into any other use. Right? So, you know, it's, it's past its use. It's a post-industrial corridor, you know, this thing, there's just no other use. But to tear it down, it's also in disrepair, right? So maybe that hurts your heart a little bit, Jamie, but there are, there are certain buildings that just don't have the same reuse capacity as, as others. And, but I, I would say that generally speaking though, like, you know, it's, it's not off the table that we'll look at sites that have buildings and, and see how can we reuse these. And I think that's something, you know, it's common to see warehouse conversions. I think that was, you know, still happening. It was seemed to be more in vogue, you know, the last 15 to 20 years when, particularly in like, say a a, a city like Philadelphia, there are a dime a dozen, right? You might have just tons of just vacant warehouses, just littered. You know, throughout the, you know kind of expansive, you know, northeast, I don't how well you know Philadelphia, but like, you know, you can find these massive, you know, 500,000 square foot warehouses just that have been sitting there for 50 years. No one's taken'em, but eventually the prices is, is low enough and you can stomach the remediation you have to go through to say, it's, this is worth it. It's right. It's now in the hot neighborhood. And you know, it, to tear it down will be a, not whether it's the travesty or not, but like, there's, there's so much, there's so many bones you can use of this. There's no reason to tear it down. Right.

Jamie: 46:23

And well, it's, it's the, it's the embodied energy discussion, right? And so at some point from a design thinking point of view is. You know, I mean, and I agree. I mean, there are some buildings that, so here's the, here's the, here's the way I would sort of preface, you know, or kind of respond to what you were saying about like, hurting my heart is like, yes it does. You know? But, but it's, it's, sometimes it's more of, if you have a particular project in mind for an area or a site or a client and, and you're looking at several properties for something like that, there are certainly gonna be certain properties where, like, everything lines up on this one, except that the, the floor plates aren't going to, they're, they're not gonna be adaptive to reuse the way we want for our particular function. It's, we're having to do so much gymnastics to make this building work at, in its current state, you know, and it's in a poor state to begin with. You know, there's, there's, you know, all the strikes start lining up on the disadvantage column. I agree like that those, those situations exist. But I think it's, it's, it's interesting. I'm, I'm just sort of curious, is there in anecdotally, you know, how have, how have you seen it now as a design thinker, architect, having that, you know, do you talk about kind of, you know, carbon use and sort of reuse of buildings? Does that enter into your discussions, you know, as a group and then maybe with the people you're working with?

Jeff: 47:52

I mean, the short answer is no, not, not the carbon use. I think it, so you have to kind, this is where even people who on the development side, even those who are, i, I, I wanna say like, you know, part of the cause where like, like they are open to certain things. Like I think that we are open to like reusing things and, and, and doing things in a more sustainable way until the, until the price tag hits. So you kind of have to like, turn it on its head and say, you know, it's cheaper to keep it right. Like find, like what is the best way to reuse this? And if, if it, it is because the structure exists and you're already like, and you can chop 50 bucks a foot off, like building something else new, then that's where things start to work out. And that's where like, you know, if you have, you know, architects or people thinking about that on the inside, I think that there's a benefit to having this thinking in, in other development firms, you know, maybe not holistically, but if you had one architect in every firm, I. I think you could have, make some of these decisions and you can steer the conversation towards this is why we should keep the building. We can run an analysis that says, you know, take the carbon conversation out of it. Even if, even if it is the ultimate goal, right? The, the, the cost of maintaining that structure. And maybe you don't have to do as much, you know, again, remediation because you can, you can encapsulate it versus tear it down and then just dispose of all the stuff, all the asbestos and lead that you just collapsed. Like there are conversations and ways to frame it that actually, you know, are in favor of saving existing buildings that may still achieve the carbon reduction and the embodied energy without having to say those words.

Jamie: 49:39

And, and, and, and that I am all with you on like Absolutely. Is that there's it, I think it's, to me. They're a lot smarter people and than myself, like, need to kind of set their, like, you know, hills that they're gonna die on and windmills that they're gonna tilt. They need to set that aside, you know, and if they wanna achieve those goals, they have to be sneaky about it, you know, for lack of a better term, you know, and realize that, like what you're describing is you can still achieve those goals, but you also have to address all these other issues in a practical sense to really move the needle. And, and I think who better to do that than, like you say, having an architect in the room who's, who's going to go, well we really, you know, this is one that's like, has some historic value there. You know, this would be a, a waste on the carbon, you know, but I gotta figure out how to make the economics of this, you know, I gotta make that other argument. I gotta make a series of other arguments. They've gotta be there. What are those ones that need to come to the fore of the discussion and, you know, and, and not tilt that windmill over there and got everybody all riled up and believing I'm crazy, you know?

Kurt Neiswender: 50:57

Well, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just, it exemplifies the the complexity of, of, of even what might be thought of as one decision, right. To build or not to build or something, you know, pick something and, and, and, and what goes into, you know, there's multiple decisions that actually do evolve or aggregate into the, the whole project. Right. And that's the, the thing, I try to, I try and impress that upon students too. Again, you know, again, going back to the students, even though they're, they're still trying to grasp like, you know, finals week next week, but like, you know what happens in practice, right? And. And what are the, what's the snowball effect of one decision going on down the line to other questions and decisions to be made? And, and I think that's, again, like Jeff said, and we're trying to kind of putting Jeff in the hot seat, but you know, the, having the architect in the room and and on the team I think only makes that conversation easier to have or at least more fruitful.

Jamie: 52:06

Well, I put that sketch back up'cause I think Jeff could appreciate maybe this, this kind of conversation and sort of that, that aha moment from a strategy point of view. Oh, did you say put the sketch back up? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. So like you sort of see the, the pre-engineered metal building, you know, kind of struck, super structure, kind of doubled up on the left side of the image.

Kurt Neiswender: 52:28

Mm-hmm. But

Jamie: 52:29

you can see that it's just the super structure, right? And it's sort of got a cover and then there's sort of some, a little bit of intervention sort of being suggested below it. And but it's sort of stripped to the skeleton and then clearly being kind of altered. What, just the, the, the setup to this was the, the project owner owned the whole site, so, you know, kind of multiple buildings. And they also had a a distinct parking need that they need to house on site. But they didn't need the whole thing for parking, but they didn't have any parking. Parking and so, or didn't have enough. So they also wanted to cover some of their parking and maybe do solar or something like that. So they were, they were thinking, they were entertaining a couple different ideas and so they were like, well, these buildings are old and special. The ones on the right and we can, we can wrap our heads around renovating those. Hey, Jamie, will you help us renovate these and like, help us figure out how to get the program in these buildings and et cetera. But you know, these other buildings are trash. And so I was like, yeah, but wait a second. Did you just say that you need to cover some parking and you have these other things and you've got these big metal buildings over here. You know, can I, can I take a shot at it and start having this sort of discussion, you know, about kind of what the need is and sort of what the balance is. Even though they themselves couldn't wrap their heads around that, they might have more options than they're thinking about.

Jeff: 54:15

Yeah. And that, and that's, that's actually a really good point. And because they had you as an asset, right? That maybe you're doing this for free. Right. I think it's hard to like ask for an architect to be hired to tell them that, but if you have the ability to get those opinions it, it can really go in a different direction. And so, like to that point, yeah. If I was presented with, hey, we, you know, here's a site, I'm in-house. So like, they're not paying me extra to like, opine on certain things. I might give an idea of how they could u reuse the space. And it, it could achieve a goal that maybe I personally had, right? Like, we want to reuse it, we want, we didn't want to tear it down. All that, all that all that other stuff. But again, it wasn't, it wasn't a thought before and it may actually end up creating more value overall by bringing in a designer to ask that question.

Jamie: 55:08

So do you find, do you find that now that you're in this role, in this particular. Company and doing it for a couple years. Do you find that, have you found other colleagues kind of doing a similar thing that you're doing?

Jeff: 55:23

I, yeah. So I mean, there isn't like a cadre that I have, like a, like a some sort of sip private chat with them. But like, I'm seeing more developers bringing on architects. I'm trying to think of a, I don't think there's any examples that you would necessarily know, but I'm, I'm seeing others, you know, larger, even larger developers who have, you know, added architects to their staff. Or they might have in-house, you know, design staff because sometimes they're doing the work themselves. Most often not, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a challenge. There's actually a, a classmate of mine moved to Philly and, and started working for a big, like a bigger corporation. Again, I don't think, you know, any of these firms of Brandywine Realty investment is, is the, the firm, and do they do a lot of stuff in Philly, but they wanted to, I guess because they were doing so much work and they have a lot of, they're more like office owners. They wanted to do a lot of their own fitouts. So instead of hiring a third firm, they were, they brought him in to kind of start an internal thing. But then he got into this thing of like, well, in Pennsylvania you still have to kind of be like a separate entity to sign and seal drawings. So we cut, I you figured it out. But it's like, it's, it's, it's a weird dynamic that like, they're actually trying to do this, but then they can't, they have to still have like a company within the company. But I. But it shows that there are more, there are more firms that I'm seeing that are at least bringing on at least one person that has a design background to kind of head, you know, all their design in construction instead of it being more of a finance person who is like the client lead. And I think that has led I think it's a better project. The architects that I work with, I mean, almost to a t have, you know, unprompted have come up to say, Hey, this process I think has gone better because I get to talk to you and we can talk things out. Because traditionally, if you were talking to someone who, who doesn't understand it as well and only talks about, is this gonna cost more money, you know, it, it ends up being a more difficult conversation. And so yeah, people have, the architects I work with enjoy having me on that, on the team.

Jamie: 57:34

So basically you're, you're looking for members of your sec secret society to join you. Yeah. This is a

Kurt Neiswender: 57:40

call. This is a call. This is the call. This is the call to

Jamie: 57:42

act, call to action folks. Jeff is Jeff, just, we'll, we'll put his, put put his info in the show notes. But no, I, I just, I appreciate you sort of describing it that way too. Is that I think that because my experience with it in sort of seeing colleagues kind of go into a, onto a development team or something like that, or even myself, you know, I've had some developers who at different points kind of said, Hey, have you thought about, you know, coming over? And, and and some of those like felt, you know, for lack of a better word, like where they, like, they were trying to get me on the cheap, you know, like get, you know, kind of get me in house to do like sort of that tenant fit out work kind of stuff that you're describing, which I think is sort of the more common. But I think but I don't think it's, I don't think that that's, you know. The norm necessarily. I think it's, it is maybe more common, but I don't think it, I think there is a trend where the value add that you've described about how your experiences and sort of the way you're approaching the work I think that that's, you know, that's where things are really headed. You know, you know, as a profession. I think that, you know, that sort of, I think you said it very, very early in this conversation, is kind of getting upstream, you know, in that development timeline. Mm-hmm. And, and realizing the architect can be there, you know, and bring lots of skills and a whole different perspective about the problem solving. Not to say that the other problem solving isn't value, there isn't value in it, it's just we naturally just approach all this stuff. A little different. It's just wherever we went to school doesn't matter. It's just sort of, it's ingrained in sort of our, our, our mode of thinking. And I think that it's, I think it's a little bit untapped potential for the profession. And I'm, I'm really excited for you to be hearing about what you're doing and you know, and hopefully we, we get to hear more about it,

Kurt Neiswender: 59:41

I think. And I, and I just want to, I'm gonna give Jeff the last word since we've approached the top of the hour and we've absorbed enough of his time and we appreciate you joining us. And I'll say, I'll, I'll, I'll hand it over to you, Jeff, for the last word. Don't forget to remind our listeners how to find you either on social media or whatever. Communication, you know, bat signals that you wanna to leave out there. And yeah. And, and, and then also if you had anything to add to Jamie's last, last comment there.

Jeff: 1:00:19

Yeah, I know it's, it is the last word. I feel like there's a couple different threads I could go with. I guess I'll say that right now, my, I'm primarily active mostly on LinkedIn, so that you just searching my name, you could find me. Unfortunately, I, I, I really love Twitter at some point, but it's, it just become difficult to to use it anyway. We don't have to go down that path. But I, so, and I, I, I never really took to Instagram the same way. I, I, because a lot of my things that I'm doing now are more word heavy and text heavy. I feel like I don't, I, I'm not creating a lot of, I don't take a lot of photos necessarily that are like Instagram worthy. So I, you know, I think LinkedIn, right? The moment is, is where. You're gonna find my thoughts on stuff. So I'll, I'll, maybe I'll tease this, but I, I do think that when you get into like this idea of like, what's another path or what's another business model, I think that the thing that I think is interesting that whether, you know, you're architects out there that are listening and, and are, have it, want a taste. I think that there are a lot of skills that we have that can lend itself to being in development and like, it's worth taking. You know, it's easy for me to say, like, here, sitting here, I'm not actually doing, putting equity in a lot of these projects, right? I'm still, I'm on the payroll, I'm doing work, I'm doing it well, but I'm not necessarily putting my skin in the game at the moment. But I've thought about it over the years. I would like to take a jump at some point. I've owned real estate, right? So I've never, I've never developed fresh, but I have owned you know, my own, I still have a, a. A, a rental unit. So I still kind of know a little bit about like what it means to do that, but there's this kind of concept that I'm thinking about like if you, you know, especially if you're Kurt, you're in Flint, people in Akron keep on these, in, in markets that if you could buy a lot for$5,000, you know, having patient capital is like the type of thing that allows you the time and space to like experiment. Like it's very difficult to go and buy spend right now. A lot of, like even areas that are still developing in Philadelphia, you might have to spend a hundred thousand dollars to get a piece of not that great land. Right? And the rule of thumb, and, and, and if you're trying to make it a single family house, you'd have to sell that for roughly$500,000. It's 20% of your, of your total hard costs, you know, should be land. And so it's difficult. To jump into like more mature markets. But if there's emerging markets out there that you're willing to take a risk and you could say, Hey, I can sit on this. I can pay the like a hundred dollars a year in, in taxes. I can take like, you know, maybe some, some lean risk, whatever that is, and I think you could decide that, all right, if I have time, expense, spend the time to get it entitled. You as the architect know how to draw a set of plans, get a zoning approval. Maybe you wanna actually go through, through the process to get a zoning variance. If you take on that extra little bit of risk and get that land approved through a zoning variance and there's more value to this thing, well all of a sudden, the thing that you spent$5,000 on and you put your own equity in, you could even sell that set of plans for$25,000. I, I, there aren't enough architects thinking in that realm. I think at the moment it may seem like, Hey, you know, that's not what I do. I want to design. But if you think about how you can get involved in build an environment, things, that's the kind of thing that you could make some quick money if theoretically, right, let's even, even if that's a two year investment, if you made a 300% return in two years, that's great money spent and it's stuff that you didn't have to bring in anybody else necessarily to help you with, right? If you could get the zoning approval and sell a set of, of plans that are already, you know, approved. So that's the kind of thinking that I think that more architects should get into. And I think that there's low risk ways to get involved. That's my little note to maybe end on. Yeah, happy to talk about it more, but I,

Jamie: 1:04:29

I have thoughts about, well, no, I mean, like, it's, it's, it's your, you know, we, we talked about imagining the possibilities. I mean, that's, that's the skill you're, you're bringing to bear, right? Yeah. You're imagining the possibilities for these, you know, emerging markets and bringing those skills to bear to it. But, you know, overlaying it with this sort of development and economic model that, you know, and, and your call to action, more people, more of us have those skills, but we're not necessarily thinking about the problem that way. And I think, I think you're, you're encouraging that in very, very, very eloquently. So Kurt, Kurt is now like telling Danielle, like after the call, Hey, I just talked to my friend Jeff, and I've got this idea.

Jeff: 1:05:13

So one more thing on top of that, right? I know that was a good note to end on, but I'll, I'll, you know, at the risk of like stepping on my own message, but if you also think about like, we, we talk about how we don't want to get do design competitions because we, you know, we don't, you know, we're not getting paid. Well, here's an opportunity that if you buy the piece of land yourself, you are furthering your own idea and selling it, right? So, like, again, you could still be selling just a set of approved documents, but at the end of the day, that is a real project that you did. And you kind of can control your own fate that if you design something great, someone might say, I want that. Mm-hmm. And be able to sell it. And it's, it has, it has value to it.'cause it, it's, it's still tied to the piece of land that you bought, you entitled, you improved. If you're willing to put a little bit of risk into it, I think there could be a big reward on, again, on some of these, you know, emerging markets out there.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:06:09

Wow. Yeah, thanks. I mean, I think we definitely gotta bring you back on at some point, you know, as a, as a repeat.'cause there's so many more things that we could really go down in deeper. So yeah, Jeff, thanks, thanks for joining us and everyone go, go find him on LinkedIn to get more gold to, to, to mine more gold from Jeff, but All right, great. Well thanks for having me guys.

Jeff: 1:06:36

I'll see, see you on the other side.