what is a real-estate developer doing at
TEDx I know you were thinking that and
that’s good because I’m thinking it too
boundless beyond the status quo
something amazing something
collaborative when it’s applied to my
discipline it can produce amazing
this is timber sky timber sky is has
been described as the finest dark skies
compliant master plan in the United
States it’s in Flagstaff Arizona which
was the first international dark skies
community the first place where those
standards began to spread across the
world the preservation of the dark skies
when we started working in Flagstaff I
didn’t know anything about dark skies
but in listening to the community and
meeting astronomers and observatories we
began to create a development that was
sensitive to how we could preserve for
not only this generation but generations
to come the very important preservation
of the dark skies in many ways it’s just
a standard development but we worked
closely with the finest dark skies
lighting folks in the country that
happened to reside in Flagstaff to
create lighting design standards that
are now becoming the model for the
Department of Defense for all
development that’s around military
sensitive areas this is uptown Plaza
this isn’t what it looked like in 1955
in 1955 del Webb had just built this
beautiful red brick central Phoenix
retail location but in the ensuing years
it had fallen on hard times and years of
stucco right it’s Phoenix when in doubt
stucco and that’s exactly what happened
and some amazing things from the 50s
were covered up we didn’t even know they
were there anymore as we began to look
around they had covered everything up
they had put layers of stucco on green
awnings red tile roof and Boston Market
that’s hard we transformed it to this we
pulled off three different layers of
stucco we began to find tenants that had
a vision for an area that was surrounded
by four historic neighborhoods all of
whom came together and all of whom we
listened to in order to create something
that’s very special that’s the original
sign from 1955 we went and found the
designer of the sign he was 83 years old
I said I want to use your sign would you
make it for me he said I’m 83 we took
his design and we built it and we
established a whole program of adaptive
reuse and with many many things little
details that you wouldn’t even know
unless you were there and the only all
neon sign package that’s been approved
in the City of Phoenix in the last 25
years this is the 444 building before
that it was a Fred gwee redesign fred
was one of the really important
mid-century architects it’s right next
to a Ralph haver building these two
office buildings had fallen on hard
times and we’re probably going to be
destroyed until we got together with
another group bought both of the
building is and we’re converting them
into an arrived hotel and preserving two
mid-century important buildings and
putting them into the national historic
trust forever so they will always remain
important mid-century assets this isn’t
a story about all the cool stuff we do
because in reality almost all of these
could have not happened in fact that
really is my story you see I’m a real
estate developer it’s consistently in
almost every survey one of the top three
most hated professions with lawyers and
bankers which is incredibly sad because
the people who are supposed to represent
justice and the people who bring capital
and the people who build place have the
chance to do the most in too many times
we don’t I wasn’t as bad as the rest of
my industry but I wasn’t somebody who
was listening to dark skies advocates
wasn’t listening to preservationist
something changed in my life
it’s not really something at someone
it’s not really someone at someone’s and
I’d like to introduce you to a few of
them tonight
this changed for me as a real estate
developer and somebody who because of
risk makes me right and there’s a whole
industry around getting votes and
getting things approved and a whole
antagony between the people who fight
those things and the people who bring it
and it’s just a broken broken world but
I met some people that helped me see the
world differently this is Alvin Alvin
came to live with us when he was four
years old he came from an undocumented
home and into out of a very difficult
background and through a whole series of
circumstances he came to live in her
house he used to ride his big wheel
around our house and he had all of his
possessions in a little bag and he would
pull it everywhere he went all over our
house I remember asking somebody who was
an advocate in the undocumented
community why did he do that well
because there’s so much disruption he
keeps everything closed and I thought
well that shouldn’t be you know Alvin
and I never had a conversation about
affordable housing we never had a
conversation about the inequity between
the rich and the poor we never had a
conversation about any of those things
we didn’t need to because he began to
teach me to see things in a way that I
wasn’t seeing them to get past my own
boundaries miss coral Evans you’re gonna
hear a lot about coral Evans in the
years to come I think she is a force of
nature she is the mayor of Flagstaff
Arizona when I met her many years ago
she was an african-american community
organizer and I was an over-50 white
real estate developer that’s as far
apart as you can get on the spectrum and
one day I asked coral would you take me
on a tour of the South Side coral grew
up on the south side she’s third
generation the first generation in the
south side of Flagstaff where
african-american Lumberjacks and all the
racism and all the other things that
they faced and so she took me on a tour
the south side and we walked around she
introduced me to people and she showed
me things that mattered and she told me
stories and one of the stories she told
me was
Cades ago the people on the north side
of the tracks it’s always the people on
the north side of the tracks made
decisions about where to route the Rio
de flag and they routed it down through
the south side so that whole area became
a floodplain and took the floodplain off
the north side and moved at the south
side well that was great for them but so
bad for these people because to this day
those people still live in a flood plain
which means generationally poor people
can’t get to their equity because they
live in a floodplain and they can’t fix
their homes because they’d have to do
too much to do something about it that’s
a justice issue and she taught me stuff
about that and she’s now one of my
closest friends which is weird right you
can’t be friends with an elected
official that’s what the boundary rules
are that’s not what boundless rules are
this is John Graham John Graham is an
environmentalist he’s an activist he’s
where I joke he’s where development
projects in northern Arizona go to die
John opposed a huge project that was
well funded and lawyered up and on every
front ready to go and he opposed him
anyone and coral introduced me to him
and he was totally dubious you’re a
real-estate developer there can be
nothing good in you but he gave me the
grace to build a friendship and a
relationship with him and he began to
introduce me to his friends and so he’d
take me to the Friends of the real
meeting or the Grand Canyon trust
meeting or the Sierra Club meeting and
he would introduce me and he always
introduced me this way this is my friend
Walter he’s a developer but he listens
and I’m not sure I was listening at that
time but he was showing me grace and I
was learning to listen it was John that
introduced me to Chris Liu Gong Byul who
was the civilian director of the Naval
Observatory in Flagstaff who’s also the
world’s leading authority on dark skies
lighting and I said Chris write the
standards for timber sky and he did and
so we have an amazing design because
somebody took the time to listen you see
I’m in an industry that has huge
boundaries we don’t have to listen we
have lawyers we have power we elect
people and so all those boundaries get
built and we
rolling through life not doing anything
boundless but those people began to help
me see a different world a different
opportunity you know that doesn’t just
apply to my industry of development it
applies to everything we have never been
more polarized we have never been at a
place where we vilify more and we simply
point out people that are different draw
a line and have nothing to do with them
it’s very seldom that I get to speak to
an audience like this that is at least
most of the time I walk in places where
people are angry I have to go through a
process I have to listen and it takes
years our developments take a lot long a
lot more time to get there we had to get
past our boundaries if we were really
gonna do something boundless and I guess
that would be my challenge to all of us
here I see the great things that we’re
producing now which only happened
because we were listening to
constituencies that weren’t in my
foursome at the club that was funny and
you didn’t even laugh I was good I began
to meet people that were outside of that
and it changed the way I thought I know
in a room like this there’s some of you
here who have gone to a meeting in a
City Hall and opposed a development but
I would ask you did you ever go and meet
with that developer did you ever go and
pursue him did you ever go wait outside
his house and say listen no you’re gonna
listen to me well it wouldn’t listen
he’s got look no no no you never know
let me ask you some questions how many
enemies did you talk to this week well
Walter they’re enemies why would I talk
to them that’s the whole point how many
people totally different than you are in
your life how many people of the
Opposition are in your world that you’re
listening to if you have a relationship
with that you’re trying to find
something good about them do you seek
out places to listen I was forced to go
into places to listen to hear people I
would never hear before I didn’t know
there was a thing preserve
prairie dogs but I met those folks and
we preserve the prairie dogs I didn’t
know they were there but I sought out
those people to listen to where are you
building boundaries in my world age and
success build boundaries every single
day two weeks ago I had a meeting in
flagstaff we have a student housing
project it’s transit oriented it’s dense
it’s the right thing for climate change
it’s the right thing for moving and
multimodal it’s the right right thing
but there are people that oppose and
there were people in the meeting and
they’re attacking me hard and they’re
attacking me personally and the meeting
ended and everybody dispersed my little
cadre of folks and their little cadre
and my people left and I was standing
there and I was 20 yards from the exit
of City Hall and 12 feet to the group of
people that didn’t want to talk to me 20
yards to safety and freedom 10 feet to
opponents who weren’t kind i walked
those 10 feet after an hour and a half
they thought maybe they might have
coffee with me we didn’t change the
world but we started a conversation that
can be true for all of us we’ll never
get to boundless until we get past our boundaries thank you
TEDx I know you were thinking that and
that’s good because I’m thinking it too
boundless beyond the status quo
something amazing something
collaborative when it’s applied to my
discipline it can produce amazing
this is timber sky timber sky is has
been described as the finest dark skies
compliant master plan in the United
States it’s in Flagstaff Arizona which
was the first international dark skies
community the first place where those
standards began to spread across the
world the preservation of the dark skies
when we started working in Flagstaff I
didn’t know anything about dark skies
but in listening to the community and
meeting astronomers and observatories we
began to create a development that was
sensitive to how we could preserve for
not only this generation but generations
to come the very important preservation
of the dark skies in many ways it’s just
a standard development but we worked
closely with the finest dark skies
lighting folks in the country that
happened to reside in Flagstaff to
create lighting design standards that
are now becoming the model for the
Department of Defense for all
development that’s around military
sensitive areas this is uptown Plaza
this isn’t what it looked like in 1955
in 1955 del Webb had just built this
beautiful red brick central Phoenix
retail location but in the ensuing years
it had fallen on hard times and years of
stucco right it’s Phoenix when in doubt
stucco and that’s exactly what happened
and some amazing things from the 50s
were covered up we didn’t even know they
were there anymore as we began to look
around they had covered everything up
they had put layers of stucco on green
awnings red tile roof and Boston Market
that’s hard we transformed it to this we
pulled off three different layers of
stucco we began to find tenants that had
a vision for an area that was surrounded
by four historic neighborhoods all of
whom came together and all of whom we
listened to in order to create something
that’s very special that’s the original
sign from 1955 we went and found the
designer of the sign he was 83 years old
I said I want to use your sign would you
make it for me he said I’m 83 we took
his design and we built it and we
established a whole program of adaptive
reuse and with many many things little
details that you wouldn’t even know
unless you were there and the only all
neon sign package that’s been approved
in the City of Phoenix in the last 25
years this is the 444 building before
that it was a Fred gwee redesign fred
was one of the really important
mid-century architects it’s right next
to a Ralph haver building these two
office buildings had fallen on hard
times and we’re probably going to be
destroyed until we got together with
another group bought both of the
building is and we’re converting them
into an arrived hotel and preserving two
mid-century important buildings and
putting them into the national historic
trust forever so they will always remain
important mid-century assets this isn’t
a story about all the cool stuff we do
because in reality almost all of these
could have not happened in fact that
really is my story you see I’m a real
estate developer it’s consistently in
almost every survey one of the top three
most hated professions with lawyers and
bankers which is incredibly sad because
the people who are supposed to represent
justice and the people who bring capital
and the people who build place have the
chance to do the most in too many times
we don’t I wasn’t as bad as the rest of
my industry but I wasn’t somebody who
was listening to dark skies advocates
wasn’t listening to preservationist
something changed in my life
it’s not really something at someone
it’s not really someone at someone’s and
I’d like to introduce you to a few of
them tonight
this changed for me as a real estate
developer and somebody who because of
risk makes me right and there’s a whole
industry around getting votes and
getting things approved and a whole
antagony between the people who fight
those things and the people who bring it
and it’s just a broken broken world but
I met some people that helped me see the
world differently this is Alvin Alvin
came to live with us when he was four
years old he came from an undocumented
home and into out of a very difficult
background and through a whole series of
circumstances he came to live in her
house he used to ride his big wheel
around our house and he had all of his
possessions in a little bag and he would
pull it everywhere he went all over our
house I remember asking somebody who was
an advocate in the undocumented
community why did he do that well
because there’s so much disruption he
keeps everything closed and I thought
well that shouldn’t be you know Alvin
and I never had a conversation about
affordable housing we never had a
conversation about the inequity between
the rich and the poor we never had a
conversation about any of those things
we didn’t need to because he began to
teach me to see things in a way that I
wasn’t seeing them to get past my own
boundaries miss coral Evans you’re gonna
hear a lot about coral Evans in the
years to come I think she is a force of
nature she is the mayor of Flagstaff
Arizona when I met her many years ago
she was an african-american community
organizer and I was an over-50 white
real estate developer that’s as far
apart as you can get on the spectrum and
one day I asked coral would you take me
on a tour of the South Side coral grew
up on the south side she’s third
generation the first generation in the
south side of Flagstaff where
african-american Lumberjacks and all the
racism and all the other things that
they faced and so she took me on a tour
the south side and we walked around she
introduced me to people and she showed
me things that mattered and she told me
stories and one of the stories she told
me was
Cades ago the people on the north side
of the tracks it’s always the people on
the north side of the tracks made
decisions about where to route the Rio
de flag and they routed it down through
the south side so that whole area became
a floodplain and took the floodplain off
the north side and moved at the south
side well that was great for them but so
bad for these people because to this day
those people still live in a flood plain
which means generationally poor people
can’t get to their equity because they
live in a floodplain and they can’t fix
their homes because they’d have to do
too much to do something about it that’s
a justice issue and she taught me stuff
about that and she’s now one of my
closest friends which is weird right you
can’t be friends with an elected
official that’s what the boundary rules
are that’s not what boundless rules are
this is John Graham John Graham is an
environmentalist he’s an activist he’s
where I joke he’s where development
projects in northern Arizona go to die
John opposed a huge project that was
well funded and lawyered up and on every
front ready to go and he opposed him
anyone and coral introduced me to him
and he was totally dubious you’re a
real-estate developer there can be
nothing good in you but he gave me the
grace to build a friendship and a
relationship with him and he began to
introduce me to his friends and so he’d
take me to the Friends of the real
meeting or the Grand Canyon trust
meeting or the Sierra Club meeting and
he would introduce me and he always
introduced me this way this is my friend
Walter he’s a developer but he listens
and I’m not sure I was listening at that
time but he was showing me grace and I
was learning to listen it was John that
introduced me to Chris Liu Gong Byul who
was the civilian director of the Naval
Observatory in Flagstaff who’s also the
world’s leading authority on dark skies
lighting and I said Chris write the
standards for timber sky and he did and
so we have an amazing design because
somebody took the time to listen you see
I’m in an industry that has huge
boundaries we don’t have to listen we
have lawyers we have power we elect
people and so all those boundaries get
built and we
rolling through life not doing anything
boundless but those people began to help
me see a different world a different
opportunity you know that doesn’t just
apply to my industry of development it
applies to everything we have never been
more polarized we have never been at a
place where we vilify more and we simply
point out people that are different draw
a line and have nothing to do with them
it’s very seldom that I get to speak to
an audience like this that is at least
most of the time I walk in places where
people are angry I have to go through a
process I have to listen and it takes
years our developments take a lot long a
lot more time to get there we had to get
past our boundaries if we were really
gonna do something boundless and I guess
that would be my challenge to all of us
here I see the great things that we’re
producing now which only happened
because we were listening to
constituencies that weren’t in my
foursome at the club that was funny and
you didn’t even laugh I was good I began
to meet people that were outside of that
and it changed the way I thought I know
in a room like this there’s some of you
here who have gone to a meeting in a
City Hall and opposed a development but
I would ask you did you ever go and meet
with that developer did you ever go and
pursue him did you ever go wait outside
his house and say listen no you’re gonna
listen to me well it wouldn’t listen
he’s got look no no no you never know
let me ask you some questions how many
enemies did you talk to this week well
Walter they’re enemies why would I talk
to them that’s the whole point how many
people totally different than you are in
your life how many people of the
Opposition are in your world that you’re
listening to if you have a relationship
with that you’re trying to find
something good about them do you seek
out places to listen I was forced to go
into places to listen to hear people I
would never hear before I didn’t know
there was a thing preserve
prairie dogs but I met those folks and
we preserve the prairie dogs I didn’t
know they were there but I sought out
those people to listen to where are you
building boundaries in my world age and
success build boundaries every single
day two weeks ago I had a meeting in
flagstaff we have a student housing
project it’s transit oriented it’s dense
it’s the right thing for climate change
it’s the right thing for moving and
multimodal it’s the right right thing
but there are people that oppose and
there were people in the meeting and
they’re attacking me hard and they’re
attacking me personally and the meeting
ended and everybody dispersed my little
cadre of folks and their little cadre
and my people left and I was standing
there and I was 20 yards from the exit
of City Hall and 12 feet to the group of
people that didn’t want to talk to me 20
yards to safety and freedom 10 feet to
opponents who weren’t kind i walked
those 10 feet after an hour and a half
they thought maybe they might have
coffee with me we didn’t change the
world but we started a conversation that
can be true for all of us we’ll never
get to boundless until we get past our boundaries thank you
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