well hello everyone my name is Dave
McCormick I moved to 17 years ago I
moved to Petersburg Virginia great okay
well you know it’s 17 years ago if I
would have said that to someone they
look back at me like they smell the fart
okay for 30 years maybe more it’s just
been a total mess down there
we got racial strife high crime terrible
schools biker gangs and tornadoes that
ripped through downtown and just tear
everything apart but so it’s really it’s
really a disaster but I’m really drawn
to places like that I’m drawn to
buildings in places like that in when
you have a really chaotic situation it
really allows us to be really creative
we didn’t you’re not really uh kind of
held back by comp plans or or the market
or really any expectations at all so I I
didn’t come up in the development world
I’m a really a writer and a music
musician by trade and when I moved to
Petersburg I moved there in a camper van
and lived on a lot surrounded by barbed
wire I wish I had pictures of that ain’t
no be doing this one day but but I
bought my first building not long after
that was this crazy old warehouse and
see it in the picture here and I know
what I should pay I know the value of
this thing was and the seller didn’t
either so I called a friend of mine
who’s in real estate real estate up here
in Richmond and asked for some advice on
valuation told him I was investing in
Petersburg and he’s and he responded by
telling me I was a total idiot since
that time we’ve invested 50 million
dollars in that town we’ve created five
hundred apartments for restaurants a
movie studio and a brewery yeah I own a
trapezium brewing if anybody’s
I’m glad that you have that’s great but
we’ve also in that little six block
neighborhood created a hundred jobs more
than a hundred jobs and and in that
little six-block area right around where
I live – behind that barbed wire the
businesses do six million dollars
annually so it’s it’s really amazing so
that’s what I do for a living now I go
to small towns all through Virginia
North Carolina and you know a lot of
these places are bar like Clarksville
Blackstone Bedford Martinsville Vinton
and these are places you know developers
just don’t go and really there’s this
issue with value valuations same problem
I had in Petersburg you know valuation
is is really directly proportional to
this collective bet that we make on the
future and when you’re in a place or in
a building like this and there’s no hope
the value is really zero and when you
have a building layer sometimes it’s a
negative number which is really a
chaotic situation so but uh you know in
developers really you know I realize I’m
I call myself a developer I guess for
lack of a better word but developers
really are not visionary people
ultimately right they just want to make
money we want a sure thing we want to
know what their building is gonna work
out and after all their borrowing money
from banks and banks are really
risk-averse they want to get their money
back and the way developers and banks
figure out if the project’s gonna work
they get what’s called a market study we
go out and see and take a look at the
things that have already been built that
looked like the thing you want to build
and if they work and they and they make
money then you have an opportunity to do
that but in small towns a lot of stuff
doesn’t exist at all and when the market
study says it doesn’t exist there it by
default will not work and so it kills
the project market studies in a way are
kind of a formalization of conventional
wisdom and conventional wisdom kills
these projects faster than the lack of
financing ever
we’ll but doing all this work that I do
in these small towns you know I realized
that the people that live in these
places they want the same quality
experience that people in cool towns do
like Seattle and Austin and Richmond and
and so and and there’s amazing things
going going on there you know you’ve got
these great buildings some of them may
not be in great shape but but amazing
history amazing maybe food culture in
some way or agricultural history and
really amazing super talented people and
so my job is to go into places like this
when we’re looking at maybe a building
or even an entire town sometimes and
look at those things and that those
things are the real asset and my job is
to aggregate that stuff and look at the
maybe of this chaotic situation and
capitalize on that chaos and from that
kind of feeling of nothingness create
something with something this so an
example I was just very recently out in
Amherst County and if you know Amherst
County at all it’s 20 30 miles north of
Lynchburg and two hours west of here and
it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere
really and well you know this place okay
so uh anyway it’s it’s a beautiful
County it’s really amazing but it’s got
some of the lowest property values I’ve
seen it the the the dollar per acre
there’s like super low for the state of
Virginia and really because there’s
nothing going on it’s a place developers
really just don’t go there’s no market
and I was out there on a tour with an
economic development person and we went
by this old flour mill it’s called the
hamner’s milling company it’s super cool
building but it’s just a disaster really
in terms of it’s got massive structural
problems
it’s the paint’s peeling it’s almost you
know this is gonna collapse in places
and there’s a there’s a water wheel on
it that’s out of plumb like 10 degrees
totally rusty it’s cool but I don’t know
what I don’t know it’s worth and there’s
this old man there named Bill he’s
pushing 80 years old and he’s
barely holding it together he runs a
feed and seed company and I don’t think
he makes a dime but I went out there and
looked at it and you know it’s a it’s a
beautiful place got a lot of history but
the question is like what do you do with
this thing you know so I can say well
I’m gonna walk away it’s not worth
anything or we can try to figure it out
it’s been on the market for three years
and no one’s even made an offer so the
value the perception of value is zero
out there so I’m you know own this
Brewing Company have this background now
and kind of looked at it through
specialized and those particular eyes
and and looked at this thing and said
you know it’s really not that far from
the Blue Ridge Trail out there on 151
that’s the home of Devil’s Backbone bull
Rock cider Blue Mountain barrel house in
fact this thing’s like ten minutes south
of Blue Mountain bauhaus we ran on route
29 and so we kind of really looked at it
we looked at the the pastoral landscape
out there and we thought well can we do
something with us can we grow fruit
trees and raise bees and collect wild
yeast from the air can we get that
this is do people do this stuff
so uh and we I wondered you know could
we get that water wheel going can we get
Bill the old man who knows everything
about this mill he can reach into the
dark recesses of places and flick
switches and stuff comes to life it’s
really interesting but he knows how to
get that wheel run and so our question
was could we assemble all these pieces
and parts and really make something
special we decided to do that we’re
gonna announce very soon what we call
trapezium West we’re gonna make wild ale
beers and instead of and we’re gonna get
that waterwheel going again instead of
making flour this time we’re gonna make
electricity and we hope to be I think
will be the first hydropower brewery in
the United States
I’m glad that resonates with you know
sometimes you pitch these ideas and
every says that’s really cool but like
but when they work out it’s really cool
but when you pitch them it just can
confuse people you know you you get the
you get that face I was talking about
with Petersburg and I was I was giving a
but I but I think you know really if
we’re gonna affect change it gets
something going we’ve we’ve got a buck
conventional wisdom we got to pull
people out of their comfort zone if
we’re really gonna do something special
I was giving a talk in the City of Hope
well there was an event where folks who
like me or stakeholders entrepreneurs
were invited to come up and give a talk
and and I and this thing was called
excite Hopewell and it was you could
just throw all these ideas there’s just
out-of-the-box ideas whatever you want
to say there was no ramification just
you know go crazy and and have fun with
it so I decided I said yes decided to do
it and I went I’m a big fan of seaplanes
I’m a budding pilot I do not have my
license but see plans always been really
romantic to me if you remember at the
Vancouver Olympics there was that little
stone statue that they had is the icon
but really all the commentators were
sitting behind at the water and you saw
the sea planes landing and taking off
behind them it just was a really
romantic vision to me so I read this
quarterly magazine called water flying I
may be the only person in the state that
reads this thing but uh but I have
learned reading that that seaplane
pilots really want something want a
really specific set of parameters do
they want water depth that has to kind
of you know be enough to land in they
don’t want saltwater or brackish water
that’ll ruin their metal they want
really neat visual landscape to fly over
and when they land they want to be close
to somewhere cool when they got out of
the plane they also don’t want to be in
congested airspace and then the big
towns you have you know really
restricted airspace it makes it hard to
be comfortable in that that area so I
looked up and down the East Coast and
you know it struck me there’s really
only one
city that fit that bill and it was
hopeful so I guy I decided to make this
pitch that that night and and there I
followed someone who had just pitched
like a yoga studio or something like
that and so I said this out loud in
front of 150 people and the reaction
wasn’t yeah let’s do this thing it was
just like total silence and I scan the
crowd and I could see um you know in a
few phases I saw the fart face but I
knew right then we are onto something
really big thank you very much
[Applause]
McCormick I moved to 17 years ago I
moved to Petersburg Virginia great okay
well you know it’s 17 years ago if I
would have said that to someone they
look back at me like they smell the fart
okay for 30 years maybe more it’s just
been a total mess down there
we got racial strife high crime terrible
schools biker gangs and tornadoes that
ripped through downtown and just tear
everything apart but so it’s really it’s
really a disaster but I’m really drawn
to places like that I’m drawn to
buildings in places like that in when
you have a really chaotic situation it
really allows us to be really creative
we didn’t you’re not really uh kind of
held back by comp plans or or the market
or really any expectations at all so I I
didn’t come up in the development world
I’m a really a writer and a music
musician by trade and when I moved to
Petersburg I moved there in a camper van
and lived on a lot surrounded by barbed
wire I wish I had pictures of that ain’t
no be doing this one day but but I
bought my first building not long after
that was this crazy old warehouse and
see it in the picture here and I know
what I should pay I know the value of
this thing was and the seller didn’t
either so I called a friend of mine
who’s in real estate real estate up here
in Richmond and asked for some advice on
valuation told him I was investing in
Petersburg and he’s and he responded by
telling me I was a total idiot since
that time we’ve invested 50 million
dollars in that town we’ve created five
hundred apartments for restaurants a
movie studio and a brewery yeah I own a
trapezium brewing if anybody’s
I’m glad that you have that’s great but
we’ve also in that little six block
neighborhood created a hundred jobs more
than a hundred jobs and and in that
little six-block area right around where
I live – behind that barbed wire the
businesses do six million dollars
annually so it’s it’s really amazing so
that’s what I do for a living now I go
to small towns all through Virginia
North Carolina and you know a lot of
these places are bar like Clarksville
Blackstone Bedford Martinsville Vinton
and these are places you know developers
just don’t go and really there’s this
issue with value valuations same problem
I had in Petersburg you know valuation
is is really directly proportional to
this collective bet that we make on the
future and when you’re in a place or in
a building like this and there’s no hope
the value is really zero and when you
have a building layer sometimes it’s a
negative number which is really a
chaotic situation so but uh you know in
developers really you know I realize I’m
I call myself a developer I guess for
lack of a better word but developers
really are not visionary people
ultimately right they just want to make
money we want a sure thing we want to
know what their building is gonna work
out and after all their borrowing money
from banks and banks are really
risk-averse they want to get their money
back and the way developers and banks
figure out if the project’s gonna work
they get what’s called a market study we
go out and see and take a look at the
things that have already been built that
looked like the thing you want to build
and if they work and they and they make
money then you have an opportunity to do
that but in small towns a lot of stuff
doesn’t exist at all and when the market
study says it doesn’t exist there it by
default will not work and so it kills
the project market studies in a way are
kind of a formalization of conventional
wisdom and conventional wisdom kills
these projects faster than the lack of
financing ever
we’ll but doing all this work that I do
in these small towns you know I realized
that the people that live in these
places they want the same quality
experience that people in cool towns do
like Seattle and Austin and Richmond and
and so and and there’s amazing things
going going on there you know you’ve got
these great buildings some of them may
not be in great shape but but amazing
history amazing maybe food culture in
some way or agricultural history and
really amazing super talented people and
so my job is to go into places like this
when we’re looking at maybe a building
or even an entire town sometimes and
look at those things and that those
things are the real asset and my job is
to aggregate that stuff and look at the
maybe of this chaotic situation and
capitalize on that chaos and from that
kind of feeling of nothingness create
something with something this so an
example I was just very recently out in
Amherst County and if you know Amherst
County at all it’s 20 30 miles north of
Lynchburg and two hours west of here and
it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere
really and well you know this place okay
so uh anyway it’s it’s a beautiful
County it’s really amazing but it’s got
some of the lowest property values I’ve
seen it the the the dollar per acre
there’s like super low for the state of
Virginia and really because there’s
nothing going on it’s a place developers
really just don’t go there’s no market
and I was out there on a tour with an
economic development person and we went
by this old flour mill it’s called the
hamner’s milling company it’s super cool
building but it’s just a disaster really
in terms of it’s got massive structural
problems
it’s the paint’s peeling it’s almost you
know this is gonna collapse in places
and there’s a there’s a water wheel on
it that’s out of plumb like 10 degrees
totally rusty it’s cool but I don’t know
what I don’t know it’s worth and there’s
this old man there named Bill he’s
pushing 80 years old and he’s
barely holding it together he runs a
feed and seed company and I don’t think
he makes a dime but I went out there and
looked at it and you know it’s a it’s a
beautiful place got a lot of history but
the question is like what do you do with
this thing you know so I can say well
I’m gonna walk away it’s not worth
anything or we can try to figure it out
it’s been on the market for three years
and no one’s even made an offer so the
value the perception of value is zero
out there so I’m you know own this
Brewing Company have this background now
and kind of looked at it through
specialized and those particular eyes
and and looked at this thing and said
you know it’s really not that far from
the Blue Ridge Trail out there on 151
that’s the home of Devil’s Backbone bull
Rock cider Blue Mountain barrel house in
fact this thing’s like ten minutes south
of Blue Mountain bauhaus we ran on route
29 and so we kind of really looked at it
we looked at the the pastoral landscape
out there and we thought well can we do
something with us can we grow fruit
trees and raise bees and collect wild
yeast from the air can we get that
this is do people do this stuff
so uh and we I wondered you know could
we get that water wheel going can we get
Bill the old man who knows everything
about this mill he can reach into the
dark recesses of places and flick
switches and stuff comes to life it’s
really interesting but he knows how to
get that wheel run and so our question
was could we assemble all these pieces
and parts and really make something
special we decided to do that we’re
gonna announce very soon what we call
trapezium West we’re gonna make wild ale
beers and instead of and we’re gonna get
that waterwheel going again instead of
making flour this time we’re gonna make
electricity and we hope to be I think
will be the first hydropower brewery in
the United States
I’m glad that resonates with you know
sometimes you pitch these ideas and
every says that’s really cool but like
but when they work out it’s really cool
but when you pitch them it just can
confuse people you know you you get the
you get that face I was talking about
with Petersburg and I was I was giving a
but I but I think you know really if
we’re gonna affect change it gets
something going we’ve we’ve got a buck
conventional wisdom we got to pull
people out of their comfort zone if
we’re really gonna do something special
I was giving a talk in the City of Hope
well there was an event where folks who
like me or stakeholders entrepreneurs
were invited to come up and give a talk
and and I and this thing was called
excite Hopewell and it was you could
just throw all these ideas there’s just
out-of-the-box ideas whatever you want
to say there was no ramification just
you know go crazy and and have fun with
it so I decided I said yes decided to do
it and I went I’m a big fan of seaplanes
I’m a budding pilot I do not have my
license but see plans always been really
romantic to me if you remember at the
Vancouver Olympics there was that little
stone statue that they had is the icon
but really all the commentators were
sitting behind at the water and you saw
the sea planes landing and taking off
behind them it just was a really
romantic vision to me so I read this
quarterly magazine called water flying I
may be the only person in the state that
reads this thing but uh but I have
learned reading that that seaplane
pilots really want something want a
really specific set of parameters do
they want water depth that has to kind
of you know be enough to land in they
don’t want saltwater or brackish water
that’ll ruin their metal they want
really neat visual landscape to fly over
and when they land they want to be close
to somewhere cool when they got out of
the plane they also don’t want to be in
congested airspace and then the big
towns you have you know really
restricted airspace it makes it hard to
be comfortable in that that area so I
looked up and down the East Coast and
you know it struck me there’s really
only one
city that fit that bill and it was
hopeful so I guy I decided to make this
pitch that that night and and there I
followed someone who had just pitched
like a yoga studio or something like
that and so I said this out loud in
front of 150 people and the reaction
wasn’t yeah let’s do this thing it was
just like total silence and I scan the
crowd and I could see um you know in a
few phases I saw the fart face but I
knew right then we are onto something
really big thank you very much
[Applause]
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