Bert Matthews on Constructing a Real Estate Empire

Today, we sit down with Bert Matthews, president of The Mathews Company and a leading figure in Nashville's commercial real estate scene. With decades of experience and a legacy of success, Bert shares his journey from his early days in the family business to transforming Nashville’s skyline. Dive deep into the strategies that have propelled his career, the lessons learned from major projects like the Trolley Barns at Rolling Mill Hill, and his invaluable advice for those aspiring to make their mark in the commercial real estate industry. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, Bert’s insights on leadership, development, and success are not to be missed.

Bert oversees development, acquisitions, financing, institutional and investor relations, and supervision of all real estate marketing activities. He is also Principal & Executive Vice President of Colliers International, where he provides services to clients of the Nashville office. His forty-plus years of experience in commercial real estate services have seen him represent clients as a developer and broker.

Bert received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before graduating from Harvard Business School. He previously served as Chairman for the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, Global Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, Vice Chairman of the Nashville Airport Authority, and Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. He currently serves on the Board of ThinkTennessee.

https://www.themathewscompany.com/

Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com

Key Takeaways:

• Commercial real estate development has played a major role in transforming Nashville over the past few decades, especially increasing residential units downtown.

• Economic downturns are challenging but can make developers more resilient if they navigate difficulties successfully.

• Smaller, neighborhood-focused projects face hurdles in securing financing from conservative lenders but may be viable with the right partners and equity.

• Studying how other cities developed, like comparing Nashville to Atlanta, can provide insights into a city's long-term growth potential.

• Developers have a responsibility to consider how projects will impact the surrounding community and environment over generations.

• Starting in commercial real estate requires finding ways to cover living expenses while gaining experience and determining the right niche or specialization.

About Your Host:

Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.

Episode Transcript:

0:00

Are you looking to take the next step toward investing in commercial real estate but don't know where to go? Series central offers a comprehensive education and coaching platform designed to help you get started. Our online courses cover a wide range of topics, from the fundamentals to advanced strategies, ensuring you have the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in this competitive industry. As a member, you'll gain access to our exclusive online community and monthly group coaching calls, providing you with valuable networking opportunities and personalized guidance from experienced professionals. Whether you're a beginner or looking to take your career to the next level, cre Central has the resources you need, visit www dot cre central.com. To learn more. Welcome back to the commercial real estate investor podcast live from the Cabo group studios. And today I am very honored and excited because I've got the one and only Bert Matthews. In the studio here with me in Nashville. He's the CEO of the Matthews company. He's also the principal and Executive Vice President of Colliers International, very similar trajectories to what I would like to find in my career. Because I started off as a broker got into development, you kind of had a bit of a different approach, right and

1:14

able to do it all, which is just so incredibly lucky for me,

1:18

that's what I love about this industry is there's so much opportunity in every aspect of it, in

1:22

that you know, real estate like everything, it's amazing all the different ways that you can make a living. Right. All you have to do is be creative, thoughtful, hard work and, and go at it, but 100 different ways.

1:37

Well, that's exactly right. And I think one thing that that you and really your your family because y'all have been doing this for generations is been community centric, right? You've always put Nashville first and a lot of your developments and you've done some pretty amazing things here in Nashville that I definitely want to talk about today. So one of the trolley barns. Yep, we'll get to that here in a bit. The Stallman building. Yep. Which I think is pretty incredible. Because that was the first time multifamily units had been delivered into downtown Nashville. And

2:02

we were the first one in a decade. There was one that was right before us. But before that it was actually the zoning didn't allow residents in downtown Nashville. I

2:14

feel like a lot of people don't know that. That that's why there's actually not I mean, Memphis used to have more residential units downtown the Nashville did up until a few years ago.

2:22

Oh, without a doubt, there's the GOP fierce deep who was the planning commissioner or playing director who had an idea said no parking, and no, and no residential. And that's how we'll build a dense core. You wouldn't necessarily right, but at least he had a philosophy about

2:41

That's right. Hey, if you're gonna be wrong, you might as well go all in on it, right? It's funny to think about now these days, there are so many cities that subscribe to that philosophy of No, let's let's keep downtown for work. Everybody else lives out the suburbs. And you completely cut off this amazing walkability, you know, neighborhood community oriented kind of cityscape that we used to have,

3:04

you know, it's really the Nashville Downtown Partnership really has helped shape the way that we look at our city for that reason. And it they have done just an incredible job, encouraging residents to move there. And it's made all the difference in the world. I

3:21

don't think there's any program like the Nashville Downtown Partnership across United States. What they do is phenomenal. Can you kind of explain what NDP does? Yes.

3:29

So the Nashville Downtown Partnership is, the way it got started out is you there's a bill and all the owners in a particular neighborhood have to tax themselves. And that tax, which is 15 cents roughly, goes to fund all the operations of the Downtown Partnership. And it's more than a million dollars a year. But it's all clean and safe. It's on advocacy. It's on advertising, and recruiting people to come downtown. And it's just been transformative. I

4:07

mean, they keep Broadway moving, right. That's the biggest thing I know, they do all sorts of attracting other people. But considering the amount of tourists that are down on Broadway every weekend, they keep it remarkably clean. They

4:20

do and that's, you know that that was really the whole idea at that long ago. Nashville downtown did not feel clean and safe. And so they took those as those two priorities to make it happen. And they're still doing that. And it is. It's what allowed our downtown to be able to, to do what it's become today. Yeah,

4:46

I think it's I think it's pretty phenomenal. So take us back before the Matthews company. It was boy that was 1980 graduated from Harvard.

4:54

Yet small school outside of Boston tiny little school. Yeah, yeah.

4:57

So So what did you do? Come right back to Nashville. So

5:01

I will. Let's see, I graduated from business school in 1980, came back and worked for my father for a couple of years. A friend of mine was running for Congress got elected. He asked me to be his first Chief of Staff, Jim Cooper. Oh, excellent. Yeah. And so I went to my father and I said, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. So I'm gonna go to Washington, DC, and work for Jim for a couple of years. And my father said, Well, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Why do you get to leave and not have to stay? So I did that for a couple of years came back here, my brother and I both in 1984. And we've been doing it ever since. That's hilarious.

5:46

So your dad was already in construction and end development. My

5:50

grandfather was in construction. My father got into construction and development, and my brother, and he did construction and did the real estate side of things.

6:05

So did you think that you'd be kind of getting into the family business, because there's this huge dichotomy, I did not think that I was going to do that at all. And here we are. Today, I'm in real estate. So

6:15

I would tell you that whether it was a square peg in a round hole, or whatever, my parents just pounded me into doing that. But what's really interesting is in 1992 8992, we saw a real estate depression that I've never seen in my entire life. And my father was in his 50s, and said, I've never seen anything like that. And it was at that time that I had the chance to choose whether I stayed in the business. And I decided to and I've loved it ever since.

6:55

Yeah, it's it's definitely not easy working at a family company. So I'm sure you have a number of war stories you could share with us about

7:05

that. So my grandfather was so hard on my father, that my father made it easy on my brother and I, that's nice. And I've got a lot of confidence in my brother. So he and our partners up until a couple of years ago. And he's really great in that regard. That's

7:25

wonderful. So you take over the Matthews company in the 90s.

7:29

Yeah, so started doing that. Because the real estate market was so bad, many of the companies that really got started, we became a service provider. We leased properties, managed properties and tried to hold on to whatever else we could, but we were a service provider for a long time. And then gradually got back into the development business in 1987. We had $100 million of real estate under development. And in 1989, we had zero. Wow. Yeah.

8:10

And that was all because of the recession. Yep. Did were those properties that y'all gave back to the bank? Was it something you're dying? We were

8:20

some our partners took on some we kept some we worked out with with banks over time. But, you know, you really learn, you know, when things are going great. It's a lot of fun. But that doesn't mean you're learning anything. That's right. So you know, you learn who your friends are, you learn how to trust when things are really tough. In a room, you really figure out who's running for the door and who's gonna sit there beside you. That's

9:00

right. I mean, it's money is a weird thing, right? People, their personalities completely change when money's on the line. And, you know, I've got friends that will stay there and in the foxhole with me and we'll fight this out till the end. And I've got others that I've seen just turn tail and run.

9:15

I've got two guys that I was really one fortunate when the deal ended up working just great. But I was in a deal about 20 years ago with Richard Liebling and Charles Robert bone to famous rash failures now back then, not so much. And we had a really difficult issue we had to grapple with. Three of us stayed in the room, three of us worked it out. Three of us made it happen. We sold the property three or four years later, did really well for ourselves and our investors. But those guys were in the room with us as we were working through some tough times and Yeah, so I'll buy them a beer anytime.

10:02

Yeah. It's great having friends like that. So what lessons did you take away from that recession, you know, 87 to 92. Ish. That helped you get through 2008.

10:13

Probably the best one was, that won't kill you.

10:17

It's a pretty good one.

10:19

You know, as embarrassing, as awful, as difficult as hard as those kinds of things can be it really 234 years down the road, you know, things, the market comes back, I can eat is a philosophy, that taller. It's really about how far in advance you can see. So when things are going great, you can run a 10 year pro forma, and it just makes a

10:56

lot of sense. And we're exiting at forecasts. Yeah.

10:59

So when things are difficult, like in 2008, and nine, your vision shorten from 10 years to two years to one year to six months? Because you're trying to figure out what's really going to happen? And you really don't know. So during these difficult times, like right now, what are interest rates going to do? How do they make a difference? How do we figure out what's going to happen? Your clarity is much shorter today than it was two years ago when interest rates were 2%. And money didn't cost anything? What

11:40

do you think is possibly more beneficial as a commercial real estate investor to be a little more short sighted or to be longer sighted?

11:47

So it depends on where you are in Nashville, Tennessee. My bet is Nashville, Tennessee, looking out five years, 10 years, 20 years, I can't imagine a better place to be. There are ways that we could screw it up, and we've got it are very special in unique place. But, man, what a great place to invest in to try to figure out what's going on and to make a difference with with what you've got. So I think right now, no matter the clarity or the timeframe, I'm bet Nashville long term.

12:31

I couldn't agree more with you. I mean, one thing that I've been thinking about here this week that I would love to do, just go through the exercise is take a map of Atlanta from the 1980s compare it to Nashville, and then look at Atlanta today and see the potential growth of Nashville because everybody always says Nashville is the next Atlanta been saying that for years. And most of its been slang in terms of our traffic, which, you know, Yeah, unfortunately, that's not wrong. But it really puts into perspective, the potential growth the city could have, because you'll kind of map there's a lot of green space in Nashville, a lot.

13:05

So let me tell you this. So this is not a thought that's original to me, Chief Operating Officer at Highwoods was given a talk to Urban Land Institute. And he said, Look, here's my sense of how things cities grow. He said, back in the 70s and 80s, when I was getting out of college. The hot cities were Dallas, Atlanta and Washington DC. They at that time, we're all about 2 million people live in there. Today the hot cities are Nashville, Austin, Raleigh, Charlotte, all about 2 million people. And the thought is, is that those cities are ones where people want, they can understand it, they get the amenities of a really NFL city, if you will. And they can, in that 2 million people, they can get around, they know people they can figure it out. And like us, we attracted more college graduates, I think, than virtually any other city in the country. Because people want to be here and that is just going to take things going your idea about Atlanta and how the growth happened. You know, you can see it happening right now in Nashville as we go.

14:35

That's a really interesting take. I hadn't thought about that. But it's it's almost like that 18 hour city is the sweet spot to be, you know, a supernova, right like Nashville is and to be fair, that doesn't mean that Atlanta is not growing like it used to. It's just not the star child of every

14:50

end its base is so big that a 2% growth is you know, an 8% growth in Nashville or whatever

14:59

right That makes a big that's a that's a huge, huge difference. Yeah. Okay, so So take us to the early 2000s. And how did you come across the Stallman? Like, how did that project come on your radar.

15:12

So let me tell a story first, and then I'll get there. But the Stallman building was designed by a hero of mine. His name is James Edwin Ruffin carpenter. And James Carpenter was the first formally educated architect in the state of Tennessee, was educated Lakota bizarre and in Paris, came back and started building office buildings around the South Jacksonville, mobiel. And Nashville, all have big buildings like that, that he designed. Wow. And when he finished with the Hermitage hotel that he did right after the Stallman, he moved to New York City. And basically, he and one other guy started doing apartment buildings in New York City, along Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue. So all those buildings on the Upper East Side and around in New York, are done by the guy that did the storm and build in the Hermitage hotel and grew up in Columbia, Tennessee, not bad for a country bought from Tennessee. Just amazing. And he was. So the the thing is he was sued in 1927 in New York, by the New York zoning or planning commission, because he was taking these beautiful homes, tearing him down and build an apartment buildings on him. Can you I mean, just That's wild. It's just wild. And so people wanted to live on Park Avenue, you know, there were only probably four or five houses in a block. Well, after he got finished with it, there were three or four buildings on a block going nine storeys. And if you walk down Park Avenue, you can see replicas of the Stallman build and kind of how he designed them. That's there. So he is he then went and did the Lincoln build, and about the same time they were building the Empire State Building. Depression comes, life is really hard. And he ends up dying at his desk on a Sunday from a heart attack. Just working away.

17:44

Doesn't sound like the worst way to go for somebody that loves their job.

17:49

But isn't that incredible? So the

17:52

it's really interesting to think about how unsophisticated zoning and codes laws were back in the day to where the city has no other repercussions, but to sue you for building a tower.

18:01

And and he may I'm sure that he was doing. It probably wasn't exactly what they were what. Or the thing that I found forever is that people just they, they know what they see, but not what it can be. Right. And so when we're in New York, you love walking down Park Avenue. It's this place. That is exactly what you think of in New York. And yet, you know, 100 years ago, it was horse drawn carriages and homes for the ultra wealthy. Isn't that just amazing? It's crazy. All right, so So a delay. So the Stallman building was owned by the city. One more Stallman building story. So it's kind of an atrium in the middle of it. And when we were looking at the build and trying to figure out what to do, I came across an ad in the newspaper. And what that ad said is, you know, come have your office in the Stallman building. It's 10 degrees cooler here than it is outside. And the reason was, you could open your outside window, the two transoms and the wind on the atrium, and it would act like a chimney and but I'm thinking keratin 95 degrees outside in the summer, no air conditioning, it's 10 degrees cooler, and you got 500 People sitting side by side. It's like,

19:44

oh, I wouldn't be able to work that office. Well, and you had to

19:50

right? Because it was it was it used to be a bank right. There was a bank in there. At one point

19:56

there was a bank in there at one point it was the Stallman building for the storm. One family that done the Nashville banner. Very wealthy family. The head of it used to be Mr. Stallman was the head of the Vanderbilt board of trust during the racial riots of the 60s. He's the one that you know, should help shut down, you know, throw people. It's just anyway.

20:25

So you've got a bunch of journalists in there smoking cigarettes, typing away on typewriters, it sweating and 85 degrees, right. That's Wow,

20:33

what a mess. Yeah, what about so the city went out for a bid? That bid was to come up with what said the city on the Stallman building, they came up with a plan, they said, has to be 20%. affordable for five years. And you tell us what it's worth. So we bid to turn it into a new apartment building. And some, I don't know, we just did it.

21:10

How radical of a plan was that though, at the time to turn that into an appointment?

21:16

If I'm not mistaken mth a bill Purcell was mayor, they may have said they wanted it residential. But our our original plan was to turn it one particular way, you know, where you were gonna walk around in the atrium and the units were gonna go from the atrium out, took it to the historic folks and said, No, you're not. You're gonna have them all around the, you know, you're gonna follow the existing corridor in the build. And so we had units that all of a sudden went from, you know, front door on the atrium. Everybody has a window to most everybody's kind of wind up at a bunch of units are sitting around the atrium.

22:10

That's so interesting. In that cool to think about? Yeah, yeah, I love that. So when when you deliver the stohlman, what other what other residential buildings were there downtown at the time, because I'm sure there was some historic that had been. So

22:26

Tony had done the buildings and the Veridian. Know, the Verdean was much lighter. It's it's a building where the Andrews is in the bottom of it. Okay. But it was a building that was built 10 years before, brand new modern building. Mark Deutschmann had done a couple of condominiums at the corner of Church. And third, there are a couple of condominiums that are that are still there. He was working on one on church tree. So there were a few scattered here and there. We did the lofts at 160 above the L Spaghetti Factory back then. That was 32 units. And we were really using that as a test case to before we before we did the Stahlman building.

23:28

I mean, that makes sense. Because you've got 30 units to how many units at this moment. 180 or something like that. I mean, that's a lot of units to be delivering into, for all intents and purposes, what's considered a new market.

23:38

Right? Well, so I didn't really think of it that way. Okay, the way that I thought of it, well, first of all, Nashville Downtown Partnership had just done a study of residential projects, or residential densities in other state cities. And we had fewer people live in downtown the KNOX wall. And I'm going like, come on, you know, I mean, not the right place, but Right, but there's no comparison. So I figured that 1% of the population of Nashville at that time was, you know, I forget a bunny, right? It's 20 30,000 people. So I thought, you know, 1% of the population would probably be willing to live in a tree house or a cave. So why wouldn't they just come downtown, just like they had in Birmingham and Knoxville and every other city in the south. So we were just behind the times.

24:48

I couldn't agree more appreciate you doing that because I lived in the lofts at 160 for quite some time. I was there. Those were so cool. They were really cool. I mean, I had a buddy that lived there and When I was looking at, you know, finding a new apartment, he said, You've got to check this. I've never seen anything like this in Nashville. And when I walked when I got off the elevator you when you walk into a building right from the street, it doesn't look done anything special. You get on the elevator, you go upstairs and you walk out into this two storey atrium, open air atrium, all breg beautiful. I mean, that alone sold it. And then I walked into the unit and had two storey loft. I was like, yeah, come on, you're not going to not sign a lease here. This is cool. So

25:30

save tuck design those okay did a really magnificent job. I mean, out really, really, really great.

25:40

I had never seen anything like that in Nashville at the time. It was really cool to see. If you're joining us live. You're welcome to jump in and ask them questions if you got anything for Bert. But we're going to continue this on so Stallman then let's talk about trolley bars. Because that is one of those MDH a projects that I mean, honestly completely transformed. What became South Broadway, right? That wasn't really I know, it was rolling mill hill. But South Broadway then started to kind of branch off of that. And you're doing a bunch of work over there today. But what did what rolling mill Hill look like back in the day?

26:13

So rolling mill Hill had been through?

26:21

Let's, yeah,

26:23

three different three different bids. So there was a bid that a developer out of Baltimore brought to it, they were going to do everything that was on top of the hill, they were going to do everything that is the trolley barns, and then the land that right Hitler's working on today. So it was all of them. And we were a partner with that guy, and we went MDA change that we need a few tweaks. And he said, well, the guys that are bidding on you said you were gonna come for a few tweaks. And so you're out of here? No way. Okay. Well, you know, they're laying, they could figure it out another group bid on it, they weren't able to bring it to fruition. And so what Phil Ryan came up with, and I give him a lot of credit for this is he said, Okay, MDH A is going to be the developer. And we're going to take each parcel and sell it off to different developers, or lease it to developers. And that way, we can make sure we know what's happening. Each step of the way, kind of like master planning it Yeah. And so it was the city's land. They knew what they wanted. And this was a way for them to control the development, as opposed to put, you know, what would be a $400 million project on one developer. And that's what they did a really smart thing. When we got the trolley barn to as another bid situation, we were lucky to do it. And it was a project I worked on in 2009 and 10 and 11. Back when there wasn't anything going on, so there's nothing over there. Yeah, there was nothing there and great financial center. And that was pretty much it. Yeah. Well, you had that. And you had the great financial crisis at the same time, so there was no money. No, you know, in the trolley barns you know, had Metro SWAT practicing in there. I mean, they were just they were a mess. So we were lucky to to win that bid and get started. The other. Louis Levine, who's now passed away, but was kind of the first and lead tenant into that. He had the Center for Nonprofit Management city brought the Entrepreneur Center, then they leased that direct to them. I remember talking to max or saw, and I thought the bigger build and were Pinewood socialists today was, I thought it would be a great restaurant. And I must have taken 1015 20 Restaurant tours up there and said, Look at this view, look at what this is going to be this is going to be incredible. And all of them said no. And I took Max and Benjamin up there and they said, Oh, this is perfect. We've got this idea of this bowling alley and 24 hours or an 18 hour space and all that Listen, I went okay, cool. Yeah, you guys got it. Yeah. So worked out. Yeah, it's it's

30:07

so neat how that project turned out now, because you've got the Entrepreneur Center, you've got pilot social, you've got a handful of other offices. And of course, the Greenway is right there. And so looking at it today, like we Yeah, it's a no brainer, but back then. It was, I mean, Max and bed, really, there

30:25

was nothing up there. Now, there was literally nothing up there. But, you know, it had a great view great buildings. And people had the confidence of walking in and saying, I can see myself, you know, in a building like this. Right.

30:45

So you've been around for a lot of change in Nashville. I mean, the last 10 years alone have been insane. What neighborhoods are you most excited about today?

30:58

Well, so I would tell you that things have really, you know, they were growing. But they've the last decade, they just the, you know, the curve went like that. I mean, it's truly amazing. When it just took off.

31:23

You know, I? I don't know. I'm amazed at what has happened on Dickerson road. I mean, it's my favorite road. And you've done a remarkable job. But my goodness.

31:38

I mean, it was one of those ones where back in 2018. I was same thing I was begging developers to buy over here, because back then I was just a broker. And I was like, you look at the skyline in the Skylines right there. Come on, you've got some of the best interstate connectivity in the city. Everybody's like, Yeah, but it's just not there yet. But they're building $500,000 houses right there. It's not there yet. It's too early. And then of course, it was too early until it was too late.

32:08

You know, lower broad was like that, right? I mean, I live downtown with a good friend of mine. From 1976. I went away to graduate school and came back and live for a couple of years. But lower broad was frightening. I mean, it was truly was crime ridden. Yeah, it was just, it was

32:36

nasty. No bachelorette parties will be gonna

32:39

know if they will. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was just, it was pretty rough. But, you know, like you saw Dickerson road, and how it came to be the same as true for for lower broad. You know, Bill Boehner, who was Mayor before, Phil Bredesen spent a week on lower Broadway as a homeless person, as a way to attract attention.

33:09

What a stunt. Yeah, he was a very interesting character.

33:12

He character is a perfect way.

33:17

Yeah. Have you? Have you ever gone out and studied other markets and use that to help influence projects that you're developing? I mean, I know you probably have, but like, what markets would you be looking at? So

33:28

my father really did that more than I did. And as a kid being able to, to follow along, I really value my time at Uli Urban Land Institute, I think that it's phenomenal, is really great. And so I really use that as the crucible to learn from but I can remember my father, taking us to Larimer square in Denver 40 years ago, saying this is what Second Avenue and Broadway are going to be like. And 40 years later, he was writing.

34:09

It's crazy. I mean, that's, that's how I kind of used to look at Austin. You know, I used to go to Austin. Three, four or five times a year. This is probably 567 years ago now. And I would look at it I'm like, South Congress. That's Dickerson pike. We're 1520 years behind. It could be there. And I think I think it helps a lot as you're trying to visualize these things because it's it's like when when that guy broke the four minute mile Yeah, and all of a sudden everybody started breaking the four minute mile and you just kind of see that it's possible and then of course everybody can start doing it. So

34:38

here here is one thing you just remind me I'm you're keeping track of time and I'm not I'm just telling stories, but I do want to talk about the real estate folks responsibility to the community they're creating. Let's do I think that's the most important thing. So I really think that there are a couple of kind of rules that I've kind of kept in my head. One of them is you want a city where you, your children, or grandchildren will come back to live. So if you can create an environment where people want to be, were not the tourists that are coming in. But really the people that are the residents in your community that they enjoy it. So like, you think of 12 south, I think a pieces of Germantown, you think of Dickerson road and the food is going on five points, you create these environments that we want to live, you know, the people that live here wanted to do. So I think that's, that's a really interesting rule. The other thing is that we, as developers have a responsibility for creating a built environment that's going to last for a long period of time, you in are so lucky to be here to do buildings, or, you know, renovate or build buildings, there are going to be around for 100 years. Think about the Stallman 1907 hits when it was open, we renovated it in 2012. It's got another 100 year life, that part of the built environment is incredibly important. So all this, you know, as we're building things, you got to make a living. But you got to build it in a way that is important about building the community, the city that we're going to have, it's why this transit vote is absolutely critical, crucial. We've got to build the infrastructure that we need, there just you know, real estate guys need to be involved in their community making a difference. Because that's the responsibility that comes with bringing folks here, build in their homes, build in their offices, where they're going to shop, you've got a we've got a huge responsibility to be able to do that correctly.

37:20

I completely agree. I mean, it's it's one of those things that you don't realize the impact. If you're not in commercial real estate development, you don't realize the impact that the built environment has on you on a day to day basis. But even the way that buildings like Vancouver, for example, in my opinion, one of the best examples of a skyline design in the world, because they were very intentional about making sure that none of the buildings blocks the mountain views, right. I mean, just the forethought there, to keep the environment around you so that you know that you're still in the mountains is pretty amazing. And I would love to see Nashville have more of that. I do have one thing that I want to ask you to so we did that with the wash. Right? That's a six day carwash we converted into five micro restaurants in a bar in there. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Yeah.

38:06

You want to Uli Ward

38:09

we did? Yeah. Thank you. It was I couldn't believe that in that great, there's a tiny little project that

38:15

knew what they were looking at. Right? That's right, you can

38:19

have an outsized impact with the smaller neighborhood projects. And that's what I'm gonna dedicate my life to, right. It's just doing deals like that. The issue that I have, though, it's a it's a smaller project. But it's, it's too big for me to do on my own right. So we've got to go raise capital, we have to bring in debt. And lenders are typically unbelievably conservative when it comes to deals like that. So we fortunately, I had a partner in that deal that had an incredible relationship with a local bank. So we were able to secure the debt. But we've tried doing two other versions of that, where we went to 150 lenders on one and couldn't get anybody to say, Yes, this device and this was a year and a half, two years ago. Okay. So not recent, this was kind of back when everything was still booming. And, and the thing that blew me away, we had executed otherwise, on all but like two spaces. For one of the for one of these developments that we were doing. The thing that blew me away was the one of the lenders said to us if if this was $1, General, ah, we would give you the financing yesterday. And that broke my heart, because I was like, that's exactly what I don't ever want to build. Yeah. How do you go about how do you reconcile that? Like, how do you go about because I know I'm not the only one that's out there that's dealing with that because banks look at it and go, we want a credit tenant. Or we want you to have such a massive balance sheet. That I mean, I don't know it's just weird. Maybe I'm just in a weird spot right now. No,

39:51

I think that. The other thing that you might think about is you've got such a following. Being able to lower that, just raising more equity, especially now in these financial markets

40:07

come in with like 50% instead of 30. Yeah,

40:10

that's really because we're not seeing. I'm not seeing much debt over 50 or 60%. Today, it's tough to make anything make sense done. But I think that's the only way that you're able to beat those guys or find the partner that's going to grab too much for providing. Yeah.

40:34

Yeah, that's a tough thing. Because you don't want to bring in like a mez debt lender or a predatory equity guy that wants to prep equity, and they really actually just want to take the project. Yeah, exactly. It's a tough balance, man. So if you're getting started in commercial real estate today, what would what would your day to day look like? What would your first moves be? I mean, how would you go about building up the success that you've you've seen so far in your life, so I

40:59

would tell you that it's a matter of covering your overhead. So the earlier that you start, so the micro units that we're doing, people have their life in their car. So they're basically because there's no room for them to have any furniture in us, right? So if you're, so figuring out how you're going to eat day to day, is the first kind of piece and then finding out after that, really what place, you know, turns you on, that you're working on. So what you've found, is because you're a really good broker, you were able to figure out how to, you know, make something happen, you know, that was different. So whether you're an architect, an engineer, a broker, a builder, a banker, you're gonna find how you eat day to day, and then make that next jump, but you got to have enough market experience to be able to really figure it out. So is it you know, renovating a house? Is it you know, what are the different things that you're going to be able to do? It's really a matter of how you're going to begin to step into it. But I think that it's not hard to, to get started in that in that way. I was really lucky. I mean, I'm, you know, my father was in the business before me, I had a great education, I'd work for banks, and, you know, a whole bunch of things so that when I got started, I had a way to begin to climb my way through I just. But there are a lot of those opportunities that are out there. Yeah.

42:59

I mean, give yourself credit, though. You worked a lot and did some amazing things with

43:03

with what your thank you. I mean, I've Thank you. Yeah.

43:07

So I mean, what's what's next, what's next for the Matthews company? What's next for Bert Matthews.

43:16

So I'm figuring out a way to be able to create for the properties that we own a way for them to Jody moody, who worked for me, he's awesome. He's great guy runs really good guys, I spend less and less time there. He can take and run and manage that in a way that he benefits from, and so does our family. So that's, you know, I'm really lucky. My grandfather was 94 years old, and still coming into the office. My father until I got sick was always coming into the office. But I mean, my grandfather played golf all the time. My father loved to travel all the time. So you know, there's real estate is one of those great things and now with Zoom and with this and that, there are just a bunch of ways that you can figure out how to live an incredibly full life.

44:22

I love it. Well, Burt, if anybody listening wants to get a hold of you. They want to learn more about the Matthews company or call yours. Where can they find you?

44:29

Bert be er T dot Matthews, ma T one T and Matthews. He Ws and call your stock calm. Easy enough, Bert,

44:39

thank you so much for coming on.

44:40

Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thank you.

44:43

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