Introduction: Innovation. Leadership. Problem solving. From the field to the front office, the construction industry is evolving and the people driving that change are the ones we are here to talk to. Through candid conversations and real -world insights, we dive into the tools, the trends, and the tough decisions shaping the built world around us. This isn’t just about buildings. It’s about the people who build them. This is the Construction Collective.
Sean Suttle: All right, welcome to the Construction Collective. Innovators, leaders, and solutions driving the industry. Today, we’re going to be talking about location layout and the big picture, site strategy, location and commercial construction. And today, I welcome our first two guests here on our second episode, Andy English, owner and President of PlanIt Studios, a design firm that specializes in landscape, architecture, environmental graphic design, signage design, and signage management. And Matt Gregory, Executive Managing director of NAI, Ohio Equities, a full service commercial real estate company, representing clients for leasing and sales on both the buying and selling side and property management. So that was my quick introduction, we’ll see how close I was. So Andy, tell us a bit about yourself and PlanIt Studios.
Andy English: So there’s actually two owners, Pete Williams and myself. I actually started PlanIt Studios in 2006, you know, because I had always had the urge to be my own owner and that. And I started out in the landscape architecture end of things and very relevant to sort of the podcast today about site design because that was one of my big things. And then my partner Pete and I, we had a history working for a big multi -dimensional firm, architecture firm. He went out on his own, a similar project brought us back together. And that’s where the environmental graphic part of our firm came from. But I’ve been sort of focused in on more on the private side of site planning, landscape architecture, that sort of thing. And that’s been sort of what has always been a consistent, even though we’ve kind of gotten into other things in our firm.
Sean Suttle: Right, and I think we met in 2000, I want to say 2013, 2014, through Ed Rainaldi, who has probably made a million introductions of a million different people. And we worked on a project at Allied Mineral, and you did the landscape architecture piece to that, and we continued our relationship. And I always joke, ’cause I say the same thing about our company, and our Marketing Director, Rachel, hates it. We’re sort of a mutt when we work in all these different industries, and we’re like, well, what do you specialize in? Well, retail, restaurant, hospitality, and I think you have made the same comment before. It’s like, Well, what do you do? Are you a landscape architect, it’s like, no, we’re, we’re way more.
Andy English: Well, our, you know, our values, you know, because we’re kind of the same thing. We’re a mutt, you know, it’s like, well, what do you do? It’s like, well, we’re a landscape,
Sean Suttle: whatever pays the bills.
Andy English: Right, Right, And it’s, and that’s sort of how we evolve. But our, but our mission statement has really said, you know, it’s, it’s, um, making and enhancing the user experience in complex environments. So, you know, whether that’s a hospital environment, whether it’s a multi -family, it’s that sort of thing. It’s all about the user experience. And that’s really what we’ve had focused in is like, at the end of the day, every project is going to have a user. So it’s like, how do we make that user’s environment better through landscaping, through site design, signage, environmental graphics, all those things.
Sean Suttle: And how long has PlanIt been in business?
Andy English: I started PlanIt in 2006, Pete and I kind of came together in 2012 and then, so I would say probably 2006 and weathered, you know, two economic downturns, a pandemic. So, you know.
Sean Suttle: What’s next?
Andy English: Yeah, right. Exactly.
Sean Suttle: All right. And sitting next to me, Matt Gregory, Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself and NAI.
Matt Gregory: Sure, absolutely. So NAI was actually founded in, or Ohio Equities rather, was founded in 1971 by George Sandy Simpson. Now we’re a second generation family owned company, his son Michael is running the company. We originally started as a subsidiary of the Ohio company, which was actually the investment arm of the Wolf family who owned the dispatch and WBNS. But we’ve been wholly owned now since I think 2012 as well. We bought out the Wolf family. I’ve been with the firm since 2002. I actually interned there during my senior year at Ohio State. So I’m celebrating my 23rd year.
Sean Suttle: Congratulations. That’s awesome.
Matt Gregory: Thank you. In January of 23, I took over as Managing Director of the brokerage side of the office and I oversee 26 license agents. Instead of calling ourselves a mutt, we like to say we’re cross-disciplinary.
Sean Suttle: There you go. – So that’s a, Matt is much more sophisticated than Andy and I, so We’ll make a note of that.
Matt Gregory: Well, you let me go second so…. What that means is we specialize in all of the different industries within commercial real estate. So office, industrial, retail, multifamily, land, investment, and then we also do property management as well. And like you said, so our marketing person always says, who is our target audience? And I just say yes.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, exactly.
Matt Gregory: In Columbus though, I think that a lot of the companies like ourselves really fit the middle market because that’s what most of the businesses are here in Columbus.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, and you’ve seen the same downturns as Andy and I with the economic downturns, the pandemic, and I’m sure that was, a lot of lessons learned in interesting times through all of it.
Matt Gregory: For sure. I mean, the economic downturn, the Great Recession in 2008, one thing we couldn’t say then is we didn’t know how long it was going to last or going to come back. You know, no one was hiring, no banks were lending, no one was doing real estate. People wouldn’t take real estate if you gave it to them. But I always told everyone through COVID that things were different because the market fundamentals were still there. We knew it was going to come back. I mean, I was bullish. I know it’s a little bit of insensitive at the time to say that, you know, not to worry about the economy or real estate, but at least in Columbus, Ohio, I knew that we were going to get back on our feet sooner rather than later.
Sean Suttle: Well, that’s a great segue to my first question here for you, Matt, is what does the market look like right now in central Ohio, and what would you say is, give us sort of the immediate outlook and sort of your long -term outlook of what you’re seeing, and then we could all sort of chime in and say what we’re seeing.
Matt Gregory: Sure, when I talk about market fundamentals, the first thing people point to as interest rates. Interest rates are high from a 10 -year, 15 -year history, but they still relatively are low from a 100 -year history standpoint. So just about adjusting expectations. But what I sell to people is even though interest rates are high, money is still readily available, right? If the project makes sense, if it’s underwritten properly, banks are still willing to loan. But then on the flip side, construction costs, as you know, you know, more than anyone, you know, are higher than they’ve ever been in Columbus’s history. But, if there’s one saving grace that came out of COVID is that construction did, I don’t want to say cooled down in every sector, but there was not a lot of new projects started for about a three year time period, which actually helped things from, um, from a supply standpoint. You know, there’s a lack of supply, which doesn’t help the cons, it doesn’t help the business that’s growing, that’s looking for it, obviously, but from a real estate perspective, it helped balance out the equilibrium, I guess, between buyers and sellers or tenants and landlords. So that’s helped. I would say we’re at an equilibrium right now, which when you’re at a equilibrium is when deals actually start happening again.
Sean Suttle: Yeah. And I think, you know, we, same thing, we’ve, you know, banks, it’s not like the Great Recession. That’s why I keep telling people, and I don’t know a lot about economics, or finance, but I know during that great recession, everybody was scared about money. You couldn’t get loans. You couldn’t get lines of credit. That’s not the situation we’re in now, where banks are liquid. They are willing to loan, but to people who have great balance sheets, right? And those folks who have great balance sheets are sort of protecting a little bit because we’ve been told just like for the past four years, recession is coming, recession is coming, recession is coming, interest rates are dropping, interest rates are dropping, well, they haven’t dropped yet. So I think people are just being good stewards of their money and waiting for that interest rate drop. And I think as soon as that happens, the floodgates are going to open.
Andy English: So question for you, like, do you remember back, like coming out of COVID, how everything was so backlogged, like, you know, 18 months to get a component or whatever. Has that caught up?
Sean Suttle: Yeah, I think it has caught up. We see it in a few different industries a lot of times on the HVAC equipment or electrical gear. Electrical gear is still, some of the bigger gear, the 1600 amp stuff can be a 52 -week lead time. – Wow. – So it’s still pretty far out there.
Matt Gregory: Is that shorter or longer than one year.
Sean Suttle: Just about, just about, if my math, like I said, I’m not good at accounting or finance, so.. But, you know, those industries are having the same problems that we’re having in terms of labor and filling positions. So, you know, it’s, it’s all compounding, like you’re waiting for some of those bigger pieces of equipment.
Andy English: Well, it’s kind of interesting how you, how you were saying about interest rates because, you know, doing all the site planning and being on the upfront of, you know, projects. I thought for certain it would be, I thought for certain it would be, you know, people would just shut things down, but, you know, we haven’t seen it. In fact, we’ve actually seen an increase, which has been pretty interesting.
Sean Suttle: We’ve seen some bigger projects get put on hold but it’s directly related to some of the uncertainty around tariffs and specific industries like automotive and manufacturing. I think those folks are sort of waiting for a little more guidance to see how we’re going to navigate that. So what are you seeing in terms of what developers and owners are prioritizing right now when they’re looking for sites and commercial development.
Matt Gregory: Yeah, I mean, it’s all about meeting the market where it’s at. And I would say on the office, industrial and retail side, it’s mostly build-to-suits. There’s not a lot of speculative development happening. The only spec development that’s happening is in mixed use, because that’s what banks really are clamoring for right now. And then multi -family, multi -family is the sector. And education, I think education and hospitals are the only ones that are outperforming ODOT.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, that’s interesting. What about, I’m going to sort of ask about Intel a little bit and some of the manufacturing or industrial type sites. Have you seen that sort of level out? Is there still a big need for that? Is that, does Anduril have, is that going to drive some of that? Or is that sort of cooled off a bit.
Matt Gregory: Yeah, I think that what you’re talking about is like the secondary users that need to co -locate around those big developments. And it, from an industrial manufacturing standpoint, those are the users that we see that want to co -locate around it. Obviously residential, like so multifamily, single family and retail need to follow where those big developments happen. But office really has been lagging behind because, you know, office space is more of a commodity to a certain degree. I mean, I specialize in office myself, so I don’t want to give it a bad name, but people can, from an office standpoint, Easton isn’t too far away. The existing office product in New Albany isn’t too far away, but industrial needs to be built near Rickenbacker, near Lockborn, near New Albany, near from a logistical standpoint and from a supplier standpoint. They need to be right in that backyard because time does matter.
Sean Suttle: And do you see with everyone going back to the office, and I’ve always been a, you know, we never left during COVID. We stayed in the office because we had guys in the field. So my thought around that was, if I have guys in the field, we’re going to be in the office. So we’ve never really been away. Now we have more of a hybrid, you know, which I think a lot of, a lot of companies, if you’re not doing a hybrid, you’re just way behind the times, right? And it’s, and, you know, as owners, how do you manage that? But do you see, do you anticipate more office space being built or coming online or, you know, with more people back to the office, is it going to drive that market a little bit?
Matt Gregory: Yeah, for sure. We’ve really seen a boomerang from that standpoint. We all knew we’d get here eventually, we just didn’t know how long it would take. I think almost every major employer has announced to return to the office standpoint. It’s just about whatever that hybrid schedule is, you know, the traffic is definitely much busier on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday than it is Monday, Friday. Yeah. I don’t know whenever I’m sitting in traffic, if I think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, um, it’s, it’s a good thing. Um, so the, the interesting thing in office, different from the other sectors is peep off the office is all about the recruitment and retention of employees. It’s not so much about, you know, how many widgets are you going to be able to sell or how many things are you going to be able to ship? So from a logistical standpoint, it’s not as important about your location. You have to be close to your workforce and you want to be, but now it’s all about being close to the amenities. You know, how close is that hotel or the restaurant?
Sean Suttle: Do you have a golf simulator in your office?
Matt Gregory: Right, that’s almost becoming oversaturated. But the thing that’s holding back office, so as far as new office development, I don’t, outside of build -a suits or in mixed use environments, I don’t see spec office coming back anytime soon. And the reason for it is the lease rates haven’t caught up to how much the construction costs are for the new bill. Columbus has, I’ve been in the market a little over 20 years and just within the last five, just really within, since COVID started, have we seen tenants contributing to their build out? Historically, the landlord that won was the one willing to pay for 100 % of the build out, and they’re just not able to cover the cost of the build outs anymore. So tenants have to contribute. And there’s actually a lack of class A and even B plus second generation space that’s moving ready. All the space that’s on the market is shell space or, you know, space that hasn’t been touched in 30 years. So it’s an expensive build out.
Sean Suttle: Yeah. I mean, you know, we just bought our building five years ago and we’re sort of already looking to upgrade, you know, do we move, you know, I always sort of a romantic vision is I’d love to have my business in Worthington. But then you look at building a space, you did the study for us Andy on one property. It’s like, man, the cost of the property, the cost of the building, the cost of the build-out. And then you’re like, okay, well, do you just lease a place? And then you start looking at that cost and you’re like, well, that’s going to be super expensive too to build it out, because like you said, Matt, the landlords aren’t offering the TI, the allowances that they used to, and it’s, you know, to build out a 5 ,000 square foot space, you know, might be 400 bucks a square foot. I mean, it’s crazy.
Matt Gregory: I actually like to clarify, they’re actually covering a way more than they use, or they’re covering, they’re offering a higher amount than they ever have, it’s just the percentage of the overall build -out. – It’s less.
Sean Suttle: All right, So talking about all this build out and getting projects going, I want to sort of flip it to the client side. And Andy, how early in the process are you typically brought in? And what do you wish developers understood or briefed clients on about site planning?
Andy English: Yeah, so I think when people hear landscape architect, They focus in on the landscape and I usually get well, you know my my flowers aren’t doing well in my backyard can you come over and it’s like it’s not what we do. And I think it’s probably our profession And we’ve done a lot better job of telling people what landscape architects do And I just basically say hey a landscape architects environment is anything outside of the building walls, you know yhat’s sort of our our palette. We always say we like to get involved, you know, right out of the right out of the shoot now we’re a little bit different because all of our landscape architects on staff had a stint in design-build. So we kind of understand the functional aspect of an ultimately what’s going to drive you know, the construction costs and our part in it. But way back to when I got started I did a lot of site planning work. You’ve got to understand zoning and the importance of zoning and also working with civil engineers and that sort of thing. So understanding and getting involved in that really pretty much right up front, we have a lot of clients, we have clients that have been with us since day one and they still utilize it. And typically it’s like, hey, I’m looking at this site, it’s in North Carolina, it’s in Florida, whatever, hey, what do you take in? And the interesting thing is you don’t have to, it used to be, you have to go to the site to look at it, but now with all of the technology you have and stuff on the auditors, we can get all the information and then Municipality’s been done a really good job of putting zoning online. And so we can get a lot of information.
Sean Suttle: And just to add a little bit of context to what he’s talking about, sometimes a client will say, “Hey, I want to build this building and there’s this piece of land for sale. I’m going to buy the land” and they buy it and then they come to us and they go, “Hey, we bought this piece of land. We want to put a 12,000 square foot building on it.” And Andy is going to look at the, the piece of property or the land and go, yeah, you can’t, you can’t put a 12,000 square foot building on this. I think you can only put 8,000 square feet because of the setbacks, because of the utilities, and there’s no, you know, there might not be any water or sanitary or sewage to the site, and then you’ve got those tap and capacity fees, which, so a lot of times, a client from our perspective will put the cart before the horse, and say, hey, I’ve bought this piece of property, I want to put 12,000 square feet in my budget, it’s a million dollars, and we’re like, yeah, you’ve got 500,000 in tap and capacity fees, another $300,000 in design fees. So now you’re at $800,000 just before we even put a shovel in the ground.
Andy English: Yeah. And then they’re like, well, I can’t afford that. Right. Right. But, you know, zoning for us basically allows us to figure out what’s the box that we have to do all of the, you know, things that they want to do. And, you know, like, for example, there’s a zoning code that, you know, you look at landscape and it’s like, Hey, you got a 50 foot buffer, just landscape. And oh, by the way, you got a pack it full of, of, you know, that’s going to add cost to it. So we’re sort of like, the sooner we can get into it, the sooner, you know, we, you know, we understand the code, the sooner we can advise the client. But the other thing is, is this, by doing the site planning and looking at what ultimately they want to do, I always call it “expanding the gray area”. And the gray areas, the gray area within zoning, you know, and getting it approved, because all the things that you find out, you kind of say, well, what if we look at this? What if we look at this? What if we look at this in terms of getting it approved?
Sean Suttle: Is that because a lot of times, and Matt, you could probably speak to this too, is that because the folks who are in zoning or who are in those positions just are black and white and say the code says this and therefore we must do this?
Andy English: Well, I, you know, again, it’s– –
Sean Suttle: And You’re sort of coaching them through the process.
Andy English: Yeah, it also comes down to interpretation. You know, that’s their zoning code. They should know it inside now, but a lot of times we get into the thing. It’s like, well, I don’t interpret it that way. So again, that’s the gray area that we’re trying to expand on, you know, on any project. It’s getting them, sometimes getting them to understand their own zoning code. And that’s really where, but it’s also working with the zoning staff, it’s not an adversarial thing by any means, but it’s just like getting in and sitting down with them and saying, Hey, here’s the project. I think the sooner you get them involved, the sooner they understand what you’re trying to achieve. I find the most, you know, most planning planning staff really want you to do it. But again, we’ve also run into municipalities where they use their zoning code as a hammer. I say it’s a tool, not a hammer. And that’s where just kind of finding that, you know, that, that sort of middle ground to make projects.
Matt Gregory: Yeah, I always say it. We’re not looking just for a yes /no from the zoning. It’s more of like a “how”, you know, show us the steps if we need to ask for a very interconditional use, how we do it. And then as far as the code goes, you know, has the code been looked at in the last few decades? How old is it? You know, what’s changing with the times? Is it a safety issue? Is it a, you know, a proximity issue? What can be done to kind of help evolve the code?
Sean Suttle: And I’ve had the same experience. I think most zoning commissions do want the projects to move forward. And a lot of times, you know, it’s like, Hey, we can’t do this because if we do, it’ll kill the project. Is there any other way around it? And a lot of times those concessions, you know, will be made. And Matt, do you, do you sort of coach your clients on the same stuff we’re talking about? Like, Hey, I want, you know, that’s the land I want. And you’re like, Yeah, it’s not going to work.
Matt Gregory: Yeah. So it’s interesting. We actually had a client in town yesterday and we were looking at land sites and we both said over lunch like it’s so much better to get out and drive them when you can because you learn about what else is nearby right you can do a lot of studying I agree it’s a lot better today than it was 10 or 20 years ago as far as online investigation but there’s something about just getting a feel for what’s nearby what’s around and what trends are around but as far as studying the area yeah I mean you really want to have all of the special, you want to assemble a team of experts from early on as you can. You never know what someone’s gonna know as far as, you could drive by and there’s an empty piece of land next door and they’ve approved something on that land next door, but just by driving it, you wouldn’t know that, so it’s what you know, who you know, studying it beyond, just more than what you can see with your own two eyes.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, a lot of things to consider when you’re building a new project. So I’m gonna lob these questions out and you guys could fight over who wants to answer them. So what are a few of the top things you would tell, what are a few of the top things you wish clients knew when it came to leasing or building a new space? And we sort of touched on that a little bit.
Matt Gregory: Well, just that there’s a lot more costs and time involved than you would ever think, right? And it’s not good to cut corners, you know, it’s not you, we want to go in eyes wide open. So you want to know absolutely everything that it’s going to cost with the contingency from the beginning. And, you know, a deal, you know, from beginning to end, it’s not taking 12 to 14 months anymore, it’s taking, you know, 18 to 24 months minimum, right?
Sean Suttle: And I think we tell our clients the same thing is like, Hey, get us involved early and often, like let us when you start getting these plans developed when it’s the napkin sketch, let us price it. And that way you could wrap your head around what the cost is and you could say, Hey, great, that’s sort of what I had in mind, or, Oh my gosh, that’s crazy, okay. Well, realistically, if we cut some of these things, we can maybe get down into this price range. Does that work? And if the answer is no, then you can move on to something else and you’ve saved all that time and money.
Andy English: We used to, early on, a lot of companies used to do what they called site investigation reports, which was basically a manual like this. And we would produce them for them, but they would have like early on, we did work for Advanced Auto Parts, McDonald’s, things like that. And they would have like a, you had to answer all of these questions, you know, right down to, you know, you know, what’s going to happen to food prep area. And it was amazing that the deals that would be killed it, if like Advanced Auto they couldn’t get their signage the way that they wanted their signage it beautiful site perfect site they would kill the deal and it just it’s interesting and and I think that’s also another part is understanding the client and what makes them tick of and what they’re looking for because the more you get to know that and I would also say the team too, ’cause a lot of times we’ll get, the team gets shifted like, hey, you’re working with another civil, you’re into doing that kind of thing. If you have a team that’s all working together and they understand each other, now we’re working on all these cylinders.
Sean Suttle: That’s when it becomes super fun, right? Because that’s when you start, you’re very collaborative in that process. And any of those issues that come up, somebody’s like, I mean, how many meetings have you sat in for these projects where you’re like, oh man, this thing is toast. Like, we’re not gonna be able to get around this issue. And then somebody will go, what if we, and you’re like, well, wait a second. Yeah, I think we can do that. Then you figure out the problem. That’s what makes that– – Yeah, and it’s also– – Team process fun.
Andy English: Using past experiences too. It’s like, hey, do you remember we did that site and this is how we overcame that, let’s move it for us. Like, yeah, so if you have a team that’s like working together, you know, everything from, you know, the person finding the site all the way to the, you know, the person, you know, putting a hammer on, on the wall, it’s like that just in, and it’s also a huge cost savings for the, for the client. Yeah. You know, if they’re bringing back the same team and things like that,
Sean Suttle: and that sort of brings, you know, you know, what I, what I see is one of the biggest issues is folks don’t want to and the amount of time it takes to plan a projec, and we see it, we’re the last person to touch it usually. And it’s like 16 weeks, what do you mean it’s gonna take 16 weeks to build? It’s like, well, it’s 5,000 square feet, and I’ve got a hood and three electrical panels and fire alarm and sprinkler, like 16 weeks, these should be going, oh my goodness, that’s amazing.
Matt Gregory: And from their perspective, what I always tell everyone else that’s at our table is that for them, they’re handcuffed from making more money in their business, right? They have a need for a reason and it’s holding them back from doing that. The other thing I was gonna mention when you were talking about some of the corporations that have very specific guidelines, I actually prefer that than the opposite because I’ve been, I’ve sat in so many rooms where early on they asked me my opinion about something and I tell them the reasons why this site does not make sense and their eyes are on, we gotta do this and they push through that and then someone else from their team comes along in the process, you know, nine months down the road and they’re like, wait a second, this doesn’t have the right signage. And you’re like, yeah, we talked about that early on and then it Kiboshes the deal. So a waste of time is even worse than not putting in the time.
Sean Suttle: I won’t mention the client, but they’re a very well -known brand. Orange is in their branding everywhere. We were doing a project in Cleveland and their zoning or signage, it could only be red. – Right. everything was red. And they were like, well, no, our sign is orange. It has to be orange, just our marketing. And they were like, no, it has to be red here. And all that time to put the pricing together, get the subcontractors lined up ready to go, it ended up killing the deal. So, yeah.
Andy English: And that’s always been a, you know, and that’s also another piece that always gets kind of overlooked, but we always bring this because we have the signage aspect of what we do. We’re already looking at the signage, like when we’re looking at the site, like, hey, you’re not going to get your signage on that, but here’s how we can forget it. And then also, like laying out the landscape on it. If the landscape’s, you know, if the zoning code requires heavy landscape buffer, and I want my sign there, it’s like, okay, how are we going to do that? So we’re getting that right out of the beginning instead of waiting until it’s like, Hey, we just planted a bunch of trees and I can’t see my sign now. It’s like, well, these are all things. I always say it’s pencil on paper. I would rather make decisions with pencils on paper ’cause it’s less expensive to make changes than it is when it’s actually going into the ground.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, and I think the best clients understand that and they take that time upfront to make sure all that, all those questions are answered, the plan is in place. You have your signage permits, you know, if you’re dealing with a jurisdiction that requires heavy landscape and you understand what those costs are and you get it all dialed in. So, yeah.
Matt Gregory: Someone mentioned it’s all about the experience of the client too. You know, some clients are doing 10 deals a year and some are doing one every five to 10 years. And when that happens, they don’t have the prior experience. So you really have to hold their hand.
Sean Suttle: Yeah. What makes a general contractor a great partner from your experience.
Matt Gregory: From my experience, one that’s a dealmaker, one that isn’t coming to it just to, you know, with shock value or, you know, scaring people right out of the gate, it’s more of, hey, we’ve got this, we understand, you have to understand the needs of the client, but then you’re laying out a process that, that makes it work for everyone. Right.
Andy English: Well, and Sean, just haven’t worked with you. I mean, you, you know, I’ve worked with general contractors that are about the bottom line, but I think you’re, you’re in the world of, um, number one, I want to understand my client. Number two, I want this to be a repeat client. I don’t want it to be a one-time deal. And I think that’s, that comes through in, in everything that, you know, I’ve worked with you on and in the projects.
Sean Suttle: Thank you, Andy. Continue. Keep going. Go ahead. Continue on.
Matt Gregory: Rachel, put down the cue cards.
Andy English: Okay, look, right.
Sean Suttle: Where’s the applause for that thing?
Andy English: No, I always believe it’s like, you get everybody together and it’s frustrating when a client says, hey, we’re gonna use this other person or hey, you’re too, you know, too, because again, I keep going back to the team. The team is going to make you, and if we’re really good at what we do, we’re gonna see repeat clients.
Sean Suttle: I just had, I just had someone in my office ask me the other day and we’re constantly doing this, right? Like, Hey, here’s the drawings. Can you get us a price? And we give them a price and they’re like, Oh, that’s too much. We can’t do it. And it’s, my answer is always like, Well, where do you need to be? What can we do to make this project happen? I’m a capitalist just like anyone else, right, but I don’t need to hit a home run on every single project. So I want to see the project move forward. And if it’s something we can do with value engineering or thinking outside of the box, we want to see that project happen, right? Our job. And I think a lot of the times it’s “what’s the easy way out. Here’s our price. Take or leave it go.” We want to say, Hey, look, we, And this is part of building the relationship, Andy. Like, I love building projects, one in my backyard. I love working with our clients. I love, you know, I’m like a kid. When we get into a blank space and it’s like, oh my gosh, I don’t know if we can do this. Yeah, let’s do it, let’s find a way. And then you see the space come to life and the client happy, they’re in there operating. Hopefully their business is a success. To me, that’s the real joy in what we do is finding a way to, to work through that. And so, you know, it’s like, that’s to, to, to, to our employees. That’s why we do it, right? You’re gonna, um, I always, I think by doing that, um, like you said, it just, we’re, we’re about to repeat business. We’re about, Hey, work with Hanlin Rainaldi they’re a great firm to work with. Right.
Matt Gregory: One other thing I was going to add when it comes to the budget, sometimes it’s important to challenge the budget, you know, like where do they get that number from? They just think that they know what they want. I mean, obviously everyone wants to be price conscious, but you know, have they talked to their banker? Have they talked to their CFO? You know, you want to get us a lot of, there is something to be said about value engineering, but you also want to deliver a project that’s going to help them achieve their goals and their objectives. So sometimes stretching the budget is more important. –
Sean Suttle: Yeah, I mean, those value engineering ideas, when we go through that exercise, we bring them all to the table and we bring them to the table with, Hey, we just want you to see everything that’s available, but we’re only gonna recommend one, seven and 14 because the rest of them, you’re gonna lose your design intent, you’re gonna lose some functionality, you’re gonna be calling me back in six months saying there’s not enough HVAC.
Andy English: Yeah. Well, and that’s a you know, you talk about building the budget early on because there’s nothing more to say with designers. You know, you do all this stuff that you have built in and you find out, you know, you go through that value engineering and, it just destroys the design, you know, or any kind of connectivity it had with everything. It’s like it just blows up because they’re ultimately trying to get to a dollar amount. And it’s like, well, we’ve just blown up all the, everything that made this project really great. So let’s do that. Let’s work on that more in the front end. So when as we’re going kind of through it, we get, you ultimately get what you want.
Sean Suttle: And yeah, there’s easy. There’s, you know, there’s low hanging fruit in that. Like, do you need the 5,000 square feet? Can you operate on 3,000 square feet? Can we put the underground plumbing in so when you’re ready to, you know, you’re cash flowing and you’re ready to, to make those additions, it’s easier to do. So like there’s a lot of forward thinking that you can do, and pre-planning that you can do, to make those projects happen. So you guys have talked about it a little bit, but this is, I’ll ask you both. What are some of the current trends in site design for commercial spaces, sustainability, pedestrian flow, outdoor gathering, areas, and sub -question? How do you balance aesthetics with function and budget?
Andy English: Well, I think the trend is, and we hit it on a little bit, whether it’s in the workplace, it’s like, okay, I’m coming in here nine hours a day, five days a week, sometimes on the weekend. What do you have that’s going to make this, I mean—
Sean Suttle: We have a bevy machine in our office. It has, you could either get sparkling water or still water with different flavors. I just want to throw that out there. –
Andy English: So it’s based on culture. I mean, you want to build a good culture and a lot of those things like we’re talking about our office, you know, put in a pool table, you know, that type of thing. So, and that– –
Sean Suttle: Which is essentially a community gathering space where people can gather and just sort of hang out and talk about—
Andy English: But then we, then you go to the outside and it’s like, okay, what do we have on the outside? And our condo, like our This is part of a condominium and we’re already talking about like, all right, how do we take the outside? How do we, you know, provide things for not just our employees, but everybody in the condo. But then you look at multifamily, multifamily is, you know, you’ve got, it’s not just the pool in the clubhouse anymore with the, with the weight room. It’s now all of those, you know, rock climbing walls, all those dog parks.
Sean Suttle: Yeah. Do you think looking at where we were in the past to where we are today, like it’s just constantly changing. Like where, like how do you, like, I mean, I could think back to offices five, six years ago and to what offices are now, to what they’re going to be three years from now. Do you think, I mean, we talk about is there a need for office space? But really, maybe I’m solving a business problem here. Maybe it’s, you’re just constantly changing the office because of the, the retainage issue and what the expectations are.
Matt Gregory: Well, I mean, people talk about COVID changes and COVID change that. But what exactly about it? You know, and during COVID people started traveling way more, right? And people were going to Airbnb’s and hotels and boutique hotels and coffee shops. And it’s really that hospitality type experience. So we’ve seen into the office world, people adopting more of a hospitality type feel. So anyone that’s redesigning offices, the private offices are going smaller. So rather than being 12 by 14, maybe they’re 8 by 10 or 9 by 11, but they increase the size of the communal area, more lounges, more outdoor terraces, you know, more of the ping pong or pool table type. You’re seeing all these phone booths so you can go in and take a call and the lobbies look more like hotels and coffee shops than they ever have.
Sean Suttle: Do you think, I mean, I mean that, do you think that trend is here to stay?
Andy English: I do, absolutely, yeah. – Yeah, without a doubt.
Matt Gregory: The water cooler, sorry, the water cooler talk is really the number one experience, both from a cultural standpoint, but also from a collaboration standpoint, and you wanna get people out of their desks and meeting in those areas.
Andy English: Yeah, when we developed our office, I mean, Sean, you basically built it out. I mean, our thing was– – That’s exactly what you did. – We have a restaurant space, we have a high top space, we have a typical conference room, So we we kind of created like however you want to work. You can work and it’s been really successful.
Sean Suttle: Yeah All right, so we’ve talked about common hurdles.
Matt Gregory: I can throw out one more thing if you want Yeah, absolutely with the with trends and this is less about the space itself and more about where people are choosing to locate mixed use you’ve heard me say it a few times already, one reason mixed use is so popular is because it gets easier to finance. If you have residential, the bank underwrites the residential as if it’s full the day that the project’s completed. Whereas with office and retail, there’s going to be an absorption schedule that could take 12 to 24 months before, maybe even longer before it’s full. And more and more office and retailers want to go next to hotel. And so hotels are becoming incorporated into part of mixed use. But as part of that mixed use, and this is where your world comes in, there has to be outdoor amenity areas, you know, walking paths and ponds and splash pads and, you know, area where a band can play, farmers market can go.
Sean Suttle: I think it’s like, these are things that I want, that I didn’t even know I wanted. Right. And it’s because, so we just got a project in, and it’s a residential development, these beautiful 2,500 square foot homes with three car garages, but they’re ranches, right, single story, no basement. They have a huge clubhouse, 16,000 square feet, golf simulators, a craft room, a little bar lounge area, a TV sitting area.
Andy English: Where was this stuff when I—
Sean Suttle: Well, so that’s what I’m talking about. This is the comment of like, I didn’t even know I wanted these things, right? And it’s as talking to the developer on it, and it’s for Gen Xers, right? And so I went home and we just did some renovations on our house and I’m like, we’re staying here forever. Like we literally just got done with them. And we got this project and I was talking to my wife about it and then they have a dog park and walking trails and it’s on a golf course and she’s like, that’s amazing. I go, I love it. I like, I love everything about it. And I’m like, do I want to move there? Because it’s also, it’s got four bedrooms. It’s the big open floor plan, so like for kids visiting or grandkids in the future, it’s plenty big enough. And then, you know, they have an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, take the dog to the dog park. I’m like, it just, it’s awesome. So it’s constantly changing.
Andy English: On a commercial, I would just down Blue Ash. And I don’t know if you guys know Mad Tree Brewing, but Blue Ash, they, Mad Tree and Blue Ash basically, they fund it at Blue Ash, the city. It’s amazing. Not only is the, the inside neat, but, but the outside, they built like all these outdoor spaces and place for kids.
Sean Suttle: Is that what they call the Columbus way?
Matt Gregory: It’s kind of like Crooked Can and yeah,
Andy English: oh, Crooked Can’s another great space. I mean, I’ll drive all the way from Worthington to, to Hilliard to just kind of,
Sean Suttle: I also have plug for Sexton’s Pizza. I don’t know if I’m wanting to say that, but that’s a fantastic place. Yeah. Yeah. And Bakes by Lo is out there.
Andy English (joking): And we’re sponsored by. Yeah. Right.
Matt Gregory: The Columbus way is one reason why Columbus has thrived over the last 20 years because of things like what you said, public -private partnership.
Sean Suttle: Right. And it’s not going anywhere.
Andy English: But how do municipalities, like you look at Worthington, you guys are active in, you know, Worthington. It’s like, how does Worthington create a Crooked Can space?
Sean Suttle: Yeah. The views and opinions expressed for the city of Worthington are not necessarily those of Hanlin Rainaldi Construction, but by us privately. Yeah, I don’t know, I think it’s, I think Worthington, what I’ll say about Worthington is there’s just a lot of opportunity. I think it’s a blank slate sort of, and I’m very hopeful with the current leadership in Worthington and with our comprehensive plan that we really have a shot moving forward to do something special. And I think Matt, you know, Matt is, um, you know, I was introduced to Matt through Betsy, um, and, you know, Northeast Ohio guy, Brown’s fan, unfortunately. Andy’s a Steelers fan, by the way. Oh, okay. Yeah. Sorry. It’s all right, Andy.
Andy English: Maybe someday you’ll get a suitable one. Yeah.
Matt Gregory: What’s that? Um, but Matt, um, one of the great things about Matt is he is involved, um, just from from a volunteer standpoint with everything in Worthington. And I’m sure other organizations outside of Worthington, but in Andy too with Perry Township, like you guys are such great advocates for our community. And I don’t know if you want to speak a little bit about about that or like what drives you to be so active and to give so much of your time.
Matt Gregory: Sure, I just like to see everyone and everything, including municipalities, achieve their full potential. And Worthington, like you said, has untapped potential. I think it’s about having a balanced ecosystem. When people start individually selecting, we want this and this, but not this and this, if that’s not where the market demands are, you’re not going to have success. So you have to listen to the market demands, blend it with what you have available, and provide ultimately what both the residents want and meet the market where it’s at, it’s all about that ecosystem.
Andy English: Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s just, I started with Worthington Hills Civic Association and then it was, you know, somebody said, Hey, you should run for Perry -Township trustee.
Sean Suttle: And that’s the problem. – That’s how they get you. –
Andy English: Yeah, and then, you know, so I’ll be running for my fourth, fifth term, I don’t know, which I don’t know where I’m at on the thing, but it’s been fun, it’s fun, you know, kind of dealing it, but again, it comes from the design standpoint of just problem-solving. Now you’re problem-solving community and government is all about providing.
Sean Suttle: I’m a big fan of the Stoics and I love the obstacle is the way and I think I would say when a problem arises, people typically will say, Oh man, this really stinks. Whereas maybe that’s how we get along so well is the mindset is, oh, great, a problem. No, is anybody hurt? No, great, let’s find a way to fix it.
Andy English:So you mind me stealing a question?
Sean Suttle: No, no, go ahead.
Andy English: So what do you see in reuse of sites? You know, like the one I’ll give you was the, what was the Wing joint over at Crosswoods and then Sheets came in. I mean, obviously Sheets. – Oh, yeah. – But, you know, what do you see in reuse sites?
Matt Gregory: Yeah, I mean, it’s a complicated, Especially in this area like Worthington, where you’re landlocked, you have to have adaptive reuse or urban infill, like people call it too, even an urban infill in a suburban area. It’s all about, does the existing structure, is there any functional use left of it, or is it obsolete, functional obsolescence? And Sheets is a whole nother story. We don’t necessarily have to get into that, but office buildings are the ones people ask me about all the time. A lot of office is being converted to residential. That’s more downtown than it is in the suburbs. In the suburbs, we’re seeing class C office space torn down and then something rebuilt. This is where more comes into, you get with the engineers and the architects and the contractors and you find out, is it more cost effective to tear it down and start over or is there a functional reuse left of that space? What I have seen in my career is are the buildings that are 100 years old are the ones that are built to stand the test of time and have high ceilings and a lot of large windows and they’re cool. They are actually a draw.
Sean Suttle: Have some character.
Matt Gregory: Yeah, have character, but a lot of the buildings that were built 40, 50, 60 years ago, they were built in a time like the gas crisis. And so they have low ceilings or the overhangs or they just weren’t from a lead certification standpoint. There’s no way to convert. – It’s not functioning. – So it’s about having that feasibility study, I guess, early on. But yeah, I think there’s some cool projects, and that’s back to the whole win -win or public -private partnership. A reuse project is really a passion project a lot of times. It might actually cost more, but if that’s what the residents want to see and the city has the money to put forward for it, maybe the city can donate the, or provide grant money or the incentive money to make it work.
Sean Suttle: I just think some of those there, I agree with you, like there’s some of those buildings that you see where you’re like, there’s no way I’m tearing that down, but that doesn’t apply to every single building in that city or municipality, you know, we’re doing a project in Hamilton, Ohio, which is an old bank and, you know, the, the Ohio Historical Society is involved in it and it has been a labor of love, but man, it is going to be so cool. like some of the, you know, cleaning we did of the outside architecture and brick and the way it’s popped and clean. It reminds you of Grand Central station, you know, from one of the 70s to what it is now. It’s just, you’re like, that’s awesome, but you can’t look at every building that way to your point with the feasibility studies. So yeah. You got any other questions? You want to hijack my podcast even more? Are you good? Good? Is it my turn? – I’m good, go ahead. – Look, so we’ve been in here. You guys have been awesome, thank you so much. There’s so many, we can continue this conversation for hours, but I’m going to do a closing lightning round, which is I’m trying to figure out ways to close out the podcast and, you know, other than keep it classy San Diego or keep it classy Columbus. So I’m going to ask you both, this is sort of lightning round. favorite recent project and why?
Andy English: Probably we’re currently working on Huntington Plaza downtown. It was one of my first projects when I was a young landscape architect at MBBJ, did that, and then 20 years later, 25 years later, I get a call from an architect saying, hey, I got this and I was like, oh, interesting, I get another stab at – Yeah, that’s cool. – So it’s been really fun. – Cool.
Matt Gregory: I’m gonna give you two. So I have one downtown, which is the merchant building. – Okay. – A new tower that’s being built in the North Market parking lot. – So cool. – It’s transformational for the city skyline. Mixed use project. And then locally here in our backyard in Worthington is the project called the Worthington Gateway that I was working on. Pretty much the first mixed use project in Worthington in over 10 years and only the second one in the last 20 years. So, and It’s been a wild success.
Sean Suttle: Yeah. Big fan of sweat house over there in ways into contrast therapy. Also fan of Teriyaki Madness over there. Lions Cub cookies. Big fan of that. I might spend hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s why I have to go to contrast therapy. I was sitting in the sauna because I’m eating Lions Cub and Teriyaki Madness. OK. Um, most common misconception about your role.
Andy English: I think I hit it on it earlier. It’s like landscape architect, it’s like, hey, my flowers aren’t good. Can you come over to my house? I’ve never called you for landscape architecture. I’ve called you for, hey, Andy, will this building fit on this site? And what are—Andy English: And I appreciate that about you, Sean.
Matt Gregory: In the commercial real estate brokerage world, it’s when people think they can only call us in once they have an exact directive. We like to be a part of the project early on and advise from all angles. It’s okay, we’re ready to move forward with this, you know, we want to help with the big picture.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, it’s that early and often, like, hey, we’re thinking about moving our office when three years from now, right? What do we look at?
Matt Gregory: Yeah, helping with renewals too. That’s one thing that from a lot of office tenants don’t realize that they can get representation on renewals. You know, they might be working at 75 % chance, renew 25 % look for new space, and they’ll go all the way down that path of renewal. And it’s like, we really should be doing both of those concurrently.
Sean Suttle: Yeah. And that goes back to so many people not understanding like I’ll get calls from clients I just had one and say hey, we want to put a bakery in this space And I’m like well, what are you getting any TI money? “What’s TI money?” Can we put up a hood? Can we go through the roof? There’s a resident above you got to put a hood So they going to let you go out the sidewall for your for your hood. “Well I don’t know maybe” well before you sign that lease we should have these answers One thing you’d change in the industry if you had a magic wand. I’m going to answer this one too if you guys don’t hit on it I would change the time that it takes to go through To get a permit to get approval for a civil project as you know a lot of times on the on the civil side It takes a lot of time and not saying that the project isn’t that the process isn’t complicated ’cause there’s 18 different departments that have to review it. And this is a part of getting involved in local and civic government that I probably need to take more ownership of is, hey guys, if we all sit down with this set of drawings in a room for 35 minutes to an hour, everybody, we could probably hash out all the issues, Do all the revisions meet again in a week and get approval instead of three months four months Yeah, six months eight months. Yeah, good point.
Matt Gregory: Yeah, I was just gonna say how long everything takes in general That is one of the biggest ones But you know, I remember early on in my career week. I heard so many times we can’t do this We can’t do that and then COVID everyone’s like, oh all of a sudden with a blink of an eye Yeah, we can do that everyone can work from home, right? And so I think that change is is possible if everyone wants to make it happen. But time kills all deals is what we say all the time. So it benefits everyone to get a seat at the table and get it figured out. –
Sean Suttle: I think that is a good thing about COVID. And I also think, and maybe you guys feel the same way. Like I sort of feel the same way with the AI stuff now. Like it’s so, it’s moving so fast. And like you are forced to adapt right now. And if you don’t, I mean, I’m like, I was telling my wife, I was like, I don’t know if I have it in me, man. I’m getting to be that age, like, do I? And I’m into it now. I mean, even preparing for a podcast or emails, like, and to see the way the younger folks think around AI, I’m not even thinking that way. So it’s forcing me to really be outside of my comfort zone.
Andy English: AI can be a whole other podcast in terms of how you use an AI in your current – Next
Sean Suttle: Yes, NEXT PODCAST AI, okay. All right, last question, and then we’ll get you guys out of here. Favorite movie or TV show?
Andy English: So, it’s probably a mini series right now. I’m watching The Chosen, which has been really good. It’s on season five, so I’ve been doing that. – What’s that about, was I haven’t heard about The Chosen? – The Chosen, yeah. – It’s just, it’s more on the religious end of things, but it’s how all the disciples of Jesus Christ was, you know, where they were picked and everything like that. Is this on Hulu, Apple? It’s on Prime, it started out. I was like, I was just flipping through Netflix. It started out on Netflix, you know, started watching it. It was, you know, really good. And I just kind of continued with it. And it’s like every year they come out with a new season.
Sean Suttle: So yeah, that’s your current favorite. Yeah, current. Okay.
Matt Gregory: So my, I’m going to bring the conversation full circle. My favorite movie. It’s very cross disciplinary. Okay. Forrest Gump. Oh, so – Okay. – A forest gump. So it’s a comedy, it’s an action, it’s a romance, it has all of it all in it.
Sean Suttle: Plus when that movie came out, it was so different than anything ever. Like it was like Pulp Fiction or something, like you were just blown away by it. – Yeah, very much so. – All right, I think everyone who knows me, my favorite movie is Goodfellas, growing up in Northeast Ohio, Youngstown, a lot of mobsters. One of the, at the of Goodfellas when he’s just a regular schlep in the witness protection program. He comes out to pick up his newspaper. It’s the Youngstown Vindicator, which is an homage to Youngstown. – Yeah, I didn’t pick that up in that. – Yeah, I didn’t either. – Yeah, and then my favorite TV show is Seinfeld. I don’t know if it’ll ever be a better series.
Andy English: I gotta go MASH, MASH. I could literally watch every episode of MASH, And I probably have seen it two or three time, but it’s awesome.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, so I grew up That’s what I grew up watching like that was my dad watched MASH and that was like probably my first series that I ever watched and then you know growing up like Thursday night was the night It was Cosby Show, Cheers, Nightcourt like there was so many great sitcom.
Andy English: So I think mine was Duke’s of Hazzard, It was Love Boat, Dukes of Hazard – Fantasy Island on Friday night.
Sean Suttle: The hell was going on in your house?
Matt Gregory: I remember TGIF.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, yeah, that was great. Well guys, Andy, Matt, thank you so much for your time and the conversation. I always love talking to you guys about anything and when this thing, when I start getting some deals with this podcast and making some real money, I’ll remember
Andy English: Yeah, just that, you know, when you bring back the original.
Sean Suttle: Yeah, yeah, we’ll bring you back for episode 500 here. Yeah, there you go. All right, so Construction Collective signing off, episode 2, thanks for listening, guys.