Episode 94 - Solving the Housing Crisis: The Ingenious Co-Living Concept You Need to Know!
Episode #94 | Jake Zikmund and David Booth | Solving the Housing Crisis: The Ingenious Co-Living Concept You Need to Know!
In this episode of The Curious Builder Podcast, host Mark Williams chats with Jacob Zikmund and David Booth from Double Jack Design about the nitty-gritty of creative constraints and the importance of personal connection in building trusted client relationships. They dive into fascinating projects like the NatureLink Resort and innovative co-living designs, while also touching on the rewarding nature of seeing their work come to life and the impact of embracing sustainable practices in the construction industry. Tune in for some laughs about golfing skills and exciting updates on their community-driven developments!
Listen to the full episode:
About Double Jack Design
About David Booth
David’s passion for architecture began with his first Lego set. He has over ten years of professional experience including a variety of commercial project types, and has recently focused on large-scale education work.
David believes the power of architecture is finding simple solutions to complex problems without sacrificing design quality. He understands the importance of listening first and believes the design process should be a fun, interactive experience for all involved.
About Jake Zikmund
Jacob has a passion for seeing the potential in every project and is commonly mistaken for Prince Harry. He believes that design should have a positive community impact as well as be environmentally conscience and site specific.
To Jacob, design is an iterative process that starts with understanding clients’ goals, vision, and project location. He also is a strong proponent of client education. Clients who are new to the process benefit from Jacob’s focus on open communication and ensuring the client is involved and understands each step along the way.
Resources:
Visit Double Jack Design’s Website
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Mark Williams [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Curious Builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Before we get started, we are four weeks away from our first sauna camp in Minnesota. If you've been tuning into the show for a while, you realize that I love wellness. I love celebrating business owners and really want to celebrate their health, their wellness so that they can operate in the businesses that they have, support the families that they work so hard for, as well as their trade partners and their clients. And with that in mind, we are going to have a half day retreat at Lake Minnewasha in Minnesota on January 24th from 1:00 to 5:00. Dr. Mel Krug is going to lead 60 people through somatic breath work in the lodge.
Mark Williams [00:00:35]:
Then we'll go down into the water. You're going to cold dip anywhere from 10 seconds to three minutes. Then you'll go into the sauna and then rinse and repeat. At the end, we're going to have a Mediterranean wood fire grill meal together as a community and that's it. So if this is something that you want to do to kick off 25 center your New Year's resolutions around some new objectives, new communities and challenge yourself, Sauna camp is for you. All the details can be found at curious builder podcast.com we are looking at.
David Booth [00:01:01]:
This as a what if we can rent by the bedroom and not by the unit? And how can we, how can we be able to provide enough money to support our build but also provide lower rents?
Mark Williams [00:01:13]:
So are you the developer, the builder.
David Booth [00:01:16]:
And the architect on this project? Yes. So we are the architect. They're the developer or the contractor will be the property manager. I kind of joke with cooking and cleaning on this one.
Mark Williams [00:01:26]:
That's amazing. Today on the Curious Builder Podcast we had Double Jack Design. We had Jake and David in and it was a great discussion. I really enjoyed kind of hearing their evolution and their path. Some of their cool projects, NatureLink Resort and the Lutzen Resort, the Bridge. That was really interesting topics, but really the second half of the episode is very fascinating. We talk a lot about co living design and so if you're interested to see how we can as developers and as builders and designers create spaces where we can get multiple families living in the same unit to have a higher density at a lower cost. You're really going to like the second half of this podcast.
Mark Williams [00:02:07]:
So without further ado, here's DoubleJack Design. Welcome to the Curious Builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today we are interviewing doublejack Designs. We've got Jacob Zigman and David Booth in the booth. Pun intended.
David Booth [00:02:19]:
Yeah, we're glad to be here. Thanks, Mark.
Mark Williams [00:02:21]:
All right. Thanks for playing the scheduling game. I think we've been trying to get you on for what, six, eight months? A while?
Jacob Zigman [00:02:26]:
Yeah, something like that.
David Booth [00:02:27]:
So better part of the year, but we made it.
Mark Williams [00:02:30]:
Yeah, some of that was on me. Some of it was on you. And anyway, we're here. This will air right before Christmas. Happy holidays. Why don't you tell us a little bit about how you guys got started, some of your history. What actually drew me to you originally was your name. It's just really catchy.
Mark Williams [00:02:42]:
Double Jack Design, I guess. Let's start with the name and how you got into architecture.
David Booth [00:02:45]:
Yeah. So we were founded in 2019, right before the pandemic happened. Our name is Double Jack Design Workshop. That's something that had been in the works for probably since 2011. 12. Jacob Keeper and myself were college students at NDSU, and we were partners quite often, and our thesis and those were separate, but our capstone project was our high rise project. We did that together. Our professor Bacher would always call us Jack.
David Booth [00:03:15]:
And then just because we were always together, we were working on projects together, he would just refer to us simply as Double Jack.
Mark Williams [00:03:20]:
That's awesome.
David Booth [00:03:21]:
And that kind of became the calling card for the company. And our dreams initially started in college and grew to our company and founding that in August of 2019.
Mark Williams [00:03:33]:
Oh, that's amazing. I like that. You guys are pretty young, and it's only. The company's only five years old. Did you work somewhere else or you immediately started your own firm?
David Booth [00:03:42]:
So we were working at different firms right out of college. I was working out of Bismarck, North Dakota. Jake was working out of Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 2012. It wasn't too long after the stock market crashed and we were in the recession in 2008, and so getting a job was difficult, and we both took jobs where we knew we could at least start our careers. A lot of our classmates weren't as fortunate. We were separated right away and. And just kind of evolving. We met in Duluth, and actually there was a job opening that Jake recommended for me, and that's when I moved to Duluth in 2014 to come together and really start having more serious conversations about starting a firm and just being in the same.
Mark Williams [00:04:21]:
Was that commercial architecture at that time?
David Booth [00:04:24]:
Yes and no. So Jake and I both started working for heavily commercial firms, almost 100%. And then when Jake moved to Duluth, and I believe Jake moved to Duluth around 2014. 2015. He was working for a residential firm primarily. And so I. My background is almost 100% residential. And his was primarily res.
David Booth [00:04:43]:
Mine was commercial. Excuse me, his was primarily residential.
Mark Williams [00:04:46]:
Interesting. It's funny, I've interviewed a number of architects now at this point, and they follow a very similar path. And love to get your perspective too on this, David, and we'll hear about your background, how you came into ownership of Double Jack as well. And it's. It seems they work. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of architecture, like the AI training is commercial based. It's not as residential. Is that correct? Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:05:08]:
And then you. Seems like you go to a firm, you get your legs under you, then you might get a side project, a friend, a family member, someone that trusts you and says, hey, we'd love to build this house with you. And they're like, hey, if we're ever going to do this, we should go. And a lot of times they go with a classmate and they're like, hey, we should do this as a partnership. And then so many firms that I've interviewed and know, it seems like it's two of them. That is. That was obviously, I assume, similar to your experience.
David Booth [00:05:33]:
Yeah, very similar.
Mark Williams [00:05:34]:
Why is that? That there's usually two that go together? Because you don't see too many builders as a comparison or interior designers where it's like two go or two go. Why does it seem like they go in pairs?
Jacob Zigman [00:05:45]:
I think part of it is architecture school itself is based on partner projects. Sometimes you find out who you work well with and you run with it.
Mark Williams [00:05:53]:
That's super helpful, actually. Nobody. I've asked that question like seven times and I haven't really got a great answer other than it's fun to be with somebody. But understanding that like even your schooling and your programs and your thesis and some of that stuff was a paired. I love it. I love some of it. Yeah, super interesting. Why don't we go into a quick bio on you, David?
Jacob Zigman [00:06:10]:
Yeah. So right out of school, went to NDSU a year behind these two, actually. So I knew of them, but we didn't really do. They were the older scary kids in school. But eventually moved to Duluth, worked there for about six years at a bigger firm, commercially only, and then came down to Minneapolis, worked for the same firm for another four years. And at that point in time, I had spent a lot of time with both the Jakes and Duluth. We lived there together for five years of overlap probably. And the project workload that you guys were getting at doublejack it was really enticing and I knew I could work with them.
Jacob Zigman [00:06:44]:
And we, after some persuading for a couple years, we worked it out.
Mark Williams [00:06:48]:
That's awesome. What from even your history, one of the things that caught my eye was your bio. David, you knew pretty early on from your first LEGO set that you wanted to be an architect. I only look at that because my middle son Simon is super and I was big into Legos too, and here I am. Turns out if you're legos is a great pathway to being engineers or architecture builders. What was your interest early on? Did you know?
Jacob Zigman [00:07:12]:
I think it was mostly just about creating and finding a pathway to do that. And that could have been building, it could have been engineering, it could have been architecture. But through working, even with my dad growing up, we'd be always building things. We built greenhouses at the cabin and all this hunting stands, whatever. But building was always at the center of it. And figuring out a way to do something that carried that forward was at the forefront.
Mark Williams [00:07:37]:
One of the things that interests me and I didn't build a lot of stuff, I think I was just interested in the design and physically build it. But I was a part of the early on. My dad was a builder, my mom was an interior designer. But I think it's really rewarding to see something materialize quite quickly. Yeah, I mean, you're building a hunting shack or something. I think it's pretty attractive to kids. You know, build a toolbox or, you know, we even talked a little bit about how now they don't do a lot of shop classes anymore, certain schools. And so, you know, hopefully that's going to change at some point from an education department because it does empower people's imagination, creativity to create something that you can be a part of.
Mark Williams [00:08:10]:
I think one of the things when I ask like my framers or people on our team, what is the thing that they, they feel is the most rewarding and you can visually see, you know, so much of what people do for careers. It. I think they gravitate towards the construction world or building world because you can actually see your creation come to life. Would you agree with that?
David Booth [00:08:30]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Excuse me, we, one thing we talked about, I grew up on a farm out in the country and it's the mowing lawn effect. It's. You're able to understand what you have done in a day. And in this industry, actually it's quite difficult to get that same day gratification just with our projects at this point. But when you do get that moment. It makes that project worth worthwhile. And I think that's what ultimately drives designers to be designers.
David Booth [00:08:57]:
Because when you can come up with something or a concept with a team of people and then bring that to reality and see how that benefits other people around you, it's pretty captivating, and it's something that will keep you coming back.
Mark Williams [00:09:09]:
I've never heard that saying before. I like that a lot. I had a lawn mowing business in high school, and I like the idea that you're looking back and you can see the crosshatch or you can see the lines where you've gone. That's a great analogy.
Jacob Zigman [00:09:19]:
More complicated you make it, the better it feels when you're done. We're good at the complicated part.
David Booth [00:09:24]:
We never intend to. Simplicity is key, but it never fails.
Mark Williams [00:09:28]:
Yeah. Where do you find most of your work now? Is it Duluth? Is it metro area? Is it all over? You guys have, I assume, still North Dakota roots and family and relationships there. Obviously, you've been in Minnesota now for well over a decade. Where do you find most of your business leads are coming from, and how do you cultivate them?
David Booth [00:09:48]:
I'd say referrals, folks that know who we are. A big part of our work is rural, and it's a bit challenging because our emphasis is on design, and design first, meaning that we want to be very intentional and thoughtful for our clients and for the projects that we're working on. And I can speak to this. I grew up in a very rural community of 500 people. I never heard the word design until I went to college. I didn't know what that was. We just. We simply did things that were practical and effective.
David Booth [00:10:19]:
But that is design, and you can make that beautiful. And usually that is beautiful on its own. And for our clients in these rural communities. We're working in the Black Hills in South Dakota right now. We've worked for a couple country clubs in rural Wisconsin, in Duluth and up the North Shore in Grand Marais, Two Harbors. We. We're casting a fairly wide net. Unintentionally, I think, our backgrounds and who we are as people and how we grew up is as our strength, actually, in being able to communicate with those types of people where we're not trying to do more than what is necessary, but we also want to bring an elevated experience to their project and really bring that out of them.
David Booth [00:11:00]:
Oftentimes when a client speaks about something that they want, they don't know what they're asking for, what it looks like they think they do. But it is quite the opposite. And so just listening and really trying to understand those needs and then showcasing it in a way that's probably different than what they're used to. And hopefully we can slowly get them to come around. We've been maybe not as successful as we wanted to on some of those experiences, but I think we're getting better at it. We typically do multiple designs where we'll maybe do more of a conservative approach. And then the second option is a little bit more of a what if, and there's a little bit more freedom there to explore because we've already hit the mark, we've already given them what they've asked for, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for creating something that's still hitting what they asked for, just in a different way. And I think that's where we're trying to play in that a little bit.
Mark Williams [00:11:55]:
It's interesting because I don't know if this is true, but you would think, let's say rurally, to your point, there's less exposure to design and therefore there would probably be less emphasis put on higher level design or mainly the connotation that it's going to be expensive. And I think what you were speaking to Jacob is that simplicity can be beautiful. And that is something that I'm thinking like a classic barn or an old white farmhouse with a simple structure from like the early 20s. I know somewhere in the 50s and 60s things got really ugly, but we'll save that for the ugly podcast. And anyway, I guess my question for you is, do you find that it's more challenging to, to get people in rural communities to invest in architecture? Are they. We've talked about on the podcast, there's different forms of drawing, right? We've got architecture, we've got home design, we have draftsmen, and I mean, you have got lumberyards that are just drawing, however they're drawing it. And the person has to figure it out. And none of them are right or none of them are wrong.
Mark Williams [00:12:53]:
They're just different. It's no different than cars. I mean, you can get all kinds of different cars. And I guess where I'm trying to go with this is what do people value? And I love that you can speak to them because you're, let's say, from the country or from a rural setting. So you're probably not going to scare them off with the big city attitude, but maybe you are. But how do you cross those bridge because you want to elevate the experience without driving them away as clients.
Jacob Zigman [00:13:15]:
Right. I think the interesting part is Jake and I have this inverse effect on. You grew up in the country, now you live in St. Paul. And I grew up in Champlin, Minnesota, just north of the cities in the suburbs. And now I'm north of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, in a little tiny town of less than a thousand people. I think having that mix between the two of us and just being able to relate to people on that level, whether we're talking to somebody who wants to build a $30 million building in the cities or a 3,000 square foot addition to their pole barn or whatever.
Mark Williams [00:13:48]:
I think you're right, David, that at the end of the day, if we can relate to people and then what we're designing or building or anything is actually secondary because if they feel comfortable, then they'll allow you to do what you do. Is that accurate?
David Booth [00:14:01]:
Yeah, I would say so. My first job inside indoors was an architecture company after college. I grew up working construction on a farm most of my life. And so the joke is I've been the dumb end of a shovel for a couple decades and it's nice to switch to the other side. And I think being able to communicate that specifically on some of our projects now with subcontractors, with contractors, it. I just, I've never had an issue with being able to communicate with those folks because it's in big part it's just how I grew up and who I've been surrounded by most of my life.
Mark Williams [00:14:34]:
So what I want to shift here is talk a little bit about. Why don't we talk a little bit about Nature Link Resort and a little bit about Lutzen. But then I'd like to spend pretty much the second half hour talking about co living design adus. So we'll save maybe half of it for that because that's a big topic and you're really passionate about it. But let's talk a little bit about NatureLink Resort. For those that aren't familiar with it, why don't you tell us a little bit about it? It's really on your website. It's really cool looking.
David Booth [00:14:58]:
Yeah, this was probably our capstone project. As a company, as professionals, as us hanging our own shingle, really taking that risk. We were set up with NatureLink, I believe in 2020 when we first initially met with them. They're a group of four, the ownership team, very younger group and with just really great goals of trying to essentially disconnect people from their phones, distractions, integrate them back into nature and create a really positive experience for them. And they are doing that in ways of micro cabins, a large venue, so there could be weddings, etc. They've done this once before. So this was their second approach, this was their second project and they were looking for an architecture company that had a design goals a little bit more modern than the traditional Minnesota cabin experience. And so they wanted to elevate that that experience for people coming to the North Nisswa, Baxter Brainerd area and delivering something maybe a little more atypical that you would see.
David Booth [00:16:02]:
And we thought we were a great pair for that. We, our design goals were lockstep with NatureLink and it was a little bit of a grind from a project perspective because we met that spring and we started designing in the summer and they wanted to start construction in the fall.
Mark Williams [00:16:20]:
Yeah, that's a big project.
David Booth [00:16:21]:
And there this in totality we had about. We had four separate contracts with them from a project perspective. So we. There was three existing cabins that had the same footprint that we renovated entirely. There were the micro cabin as we call it. It's about a 500 square foot slab on grade cabin, more modernized, meant for a couple. There was the 15,000 square foot venue and then there was a renovation that updated their. A larger building into a hotel and kind of their common space for guests and that touch point where you check in and everything.
David Booth [00:16:55]:
So we had about four projects. So from August to about that following February, we.
Jacob Zigman [00:17:01]:
Yeah, that was your life.
David Booth [00:17:03]:
Yeah, it was. It was pre children for me. So it was great because it was pretty much locked in my room for 10 to 12, 14 hours a day for six plus months.
Mark Williams [00:17:15]:
Going back a little bit there. How did you land that job? I assume they would have interviewed other people too. Can you remember like how did they end up? Because it sounds like a huge. I don't know what your scope of work was or project base was before this, but that's a huge project, right?
David Booth [00:17:29]:
Yeah, a huge project. And I would say for probably an untested firm such as ourselves, I think to a certain extent we were in the right place at the right time. But it was also a testament of our relationships. So one of the owners mentor confidants is a former contractor who's now retired for Gardiner Builders. And they highly recommended us to be the architect on the project. And that was great because we have a pretty strong relationship with Gardiner to this day and specifically with that contractor too. We've designed a few Gardener Builders homes personally, so there was a strong relationship there. That recommendation I think is what landed us that job? Ultimately, yeah.
Mark Williams [00:18:15]:
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Mark Williams [00:18:57]:
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Mark Williams [00:19:52]:
I'm thinking about two or three homes in particular where they were like a level uppers like for me 2015, I think it was my first million dollar home and at the time I was like whoa, a million dollars. Which is still, still a lot of money. But now it's ironic I can't build anything even close. At that time that was like really nice. Now it's I know I can't build a house.
Jacob Zigman [00:20:12]:
Micro cabin.
Mark Williams [00:20:12]:
Yeah, micro cabin. So the costs have just exploded in the last 10 years but and then a couple years ago this really cool metal house that was really contemporary. Obviously in Minnesota it's very traditional. So any of the cottage homes, no problem. Can do those in my sleep and I enjoy them, they're beautiful. But as an artist and someone who helps build stuff, it's like, after a while, I want to scratch the itch. I'd love to do like, personally, I'd love to do like a glass and metal concrete house. My wife's.
Mark Williams [00:20:34]:
Yep, not going to happen. I'm like, shoot, I guess I got to wait for a client. And so anyway, it happened. And anyway, I can relate to. Yeah, it wasn't. Not that we couldn't do it, but it's also like them trusting you to do it. And sometimes I think in the industry, whether you're a builder, designer, architect, honestly, it doesn't matter what you do for career. You need someone to believe in you as the person.
Mark Williams [00:20:54]:
And going back to the relationship thing that you were saying, David, that once you make them feel comfortable, then they give you the keys to the car and you're like, okay, let's do this. And then you prove to yourself, too. I actually think it's a great move if you are someone trusting somebody else, because guess what, you were working 12 to 14 hours. Another firm would not have worked that hard and been at that position. And I've been hired before because I was the youngest. I've been hired before because I was the hungriest. And so don't think that's not an advantage. Sometimes I think people think you have to be a bear.
Mark Williams [00:21:22]:
A wolf can get plenty to eat, too.
David Booth [00:21:25]:
Yeah, absolutely. That was. And we knew based off our prior experience, too. I worked at alliance, which is in Loring park area in Minneapolis. And the large. We were working on projects that were, you know, 2,300 million. And it was. The scale was almost larger than you could really comprehend in the sense of what you're working on.
David Booth [00:21:43]:
And you were working with a lot of architects, designers, engineers. And so we were very confident that we could complete this project. But it was more so intimidating as you are representing the firm now that you own.
Mark Williams [00:21:56]:
Right.
David Booth [00:21:56]:
And then how do you.
Jacob Zigman [00:21:57]:
It's a lot. It's a mind shift for sure.
David Booth [00:21:58]:
Communicating that confidence to a client that's paying you with when, you know, when you lose the robe of your former employers and the work that you've done in the past. Because although that's great, it really doesn't matter anymore because it's. What have you done lately? And that was the hardest thing, especially when we did not have a portfolio before that. To a certain extent, it was difficult. And for us, that was a great project because we were able to share that with.
Mark Williams [00:22:27]:
Have you gotten a lot of work because of that?
David Booth [00:22:29]:
Yeah, that has been a major driver in our work that has been A cornerstone piece of this is what we can do. This is what we have done. And we even like to push the boundaries a little bit further from that with other clients too. And so that's usually a number one project that people will bring up to us, say, hey, I saw you do this. It's local, relatively. People travel to the Brainer Nistwa area quite often. And so it's a high visibility project for us specifically locally. And so being able to leverage that.
Mark Williams [00:22:57]:
Has been what percentage of your work would be, let's say in a three state area versus beyond that, beyond the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Do you have much work outside of that?
Jacob Zigman [00:23:07]:
Not yet. That's part of the goal though, long term is to expand. And I would love to do work on the coast or anywhere really.
Mark Williams [00:23:15]:
That's one of the things that envy design. Whereas a builder, you know, it's hard. Yeah, I can't really do that. There are some builders that are breaking that mold. Essentially. They'd be almost like a client rep or client liaison. So maybe you have a. Minnesota does have really strong architects and architecture culture here.
Mark Williams [00:23:30]:
A lot of architects that I brought on, they might have 30, 40% of their work is outstate. And I've heard of builders that sort of. Maybe there's a relationship. I can get it like, hey, if you have a client that you build a home for, they trust you, they trust your team. They want to build in Arizona or they want to build in Florida. I could see how that would work. You basically partner with a local builder. They would be the project management and really bring in all the people and.
Mark Williams [00:23:53]:
And then you would essentially gc it. So it is possible. It's just not really. It's a unique, very unique situation.
David Booth [00:23:58]:
Right. Yeah. I would say as designers we have a lot more flexibility. Design competitions too. We can just go design nice Atlantic cabin over the weekend, right?
Mark Williams [00:24:08]:
Yeah. That's cool. Tell us a little bit about Lutzen Resort. I saw on your website that really cool. Was it a red bridge? Red covered bridge?
David Booth [00:24:14]:
Yeah, the iconic red covered bridge. Unfortunately, the floods I believe of 2021 or 2022 took it out. There was a mass rain and it took out. There's multiple bridges, but the lower bridge over the creek was more of the popular one. A lot of folks would take wedding pictures there and commemorate their summers. There was a very family oriented, very landmark north shore and they haven't rebuilt.
Mark Williams [00:24:40]:
It after four years. So we know that Lutzen burned down what, two years ago or a year.
Jacob Zigman [00:24:45]:
And a half Nine months ago.
Mark Williams [00:24:48]:
Oh, not only. Okay, only nine months ago.
Jacob Zigman [00:24:50]:
Was it like last March?
David Booth [00:24:53]:
I believe so. I think it was. Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:24:55]:
Okay. So. But anyway, I'm a little surprised. Has the bridge been rebuilt?
David Booth [00:24:59]:
No, the intention was to. So we did full construction documents on the red covered bridge that was in progress to start construction. And then actually of the spring of this year and 24. Yes.
Mark Williams [00:25:13]:
So at the time that. At the time that Luton burned down, that's when you were supposed to start it.
David Booth [00:25:18]:
Relatively.
Jacob Zigman [00:25:19]:
Yeah.
David Booth [00:25:20]:
Yeah.
Jacob Zigman [00:25:20]:
There's a lot of history with that project as well. And it was part of a much larger master plan that owner had. It's just unfortunate what happened and what's.
Mark Williams [00:25:30]:
The status of the whole thing now I know there's all kinds of. Whether it's rumors or real, there's all kinds of stories. And for those outside the state, look it up. Those that are in the state know it's a complicated. You would know more. And I'm just curious what. Where's this. What's happening there now?
Jacob Zigman [00:25:44]:
So I'll let you take this one.
David Booth [00:25:46]:
As it stands, from what we know, we are no longer. We've been working on that project. We've been working on the master planning up until I believe, November of 2023. So about this time last year. And then our work stopped and the fire happened, I believe that following winter February of this year. And we're not quite sure what the current status is. What without under. We do know that it's probably likely not going to be going forward with the entire lodge being burned down.
David Booth [00:26:18]:
It was a tough loss for us. We were really excited about that project. We had been working with the owner for quite some time. That was actually a catalyst project for. To bring David on as an owner for the firm as well, which was great. There was quite a bit of work there. We were working with the county from a complexity standpoint, too. It was very interesting.
David Booth [00:26:34]:
We were near Lake Superior. We were also near Trout Stream. So we were working with the dnr. We had some correspondence with the Army Corps of Engineers. There's just a lot of different entities involved on that project. Obviously, Cook county was a big part of that as well, too. So it was. It was a great project.
David Booth [00:26:51]:
And it was just sad to see that resort was burned down. Edwin Lundy's architecture no more.
Jacob Zigman [00:26:56]:
And yeah, that's one of those buildings that you literally can't replace. So it's a big loss.
Mark Williams [00:27:02]:
It'll be interesting to see if and when it gets rebuilt what it looks like. Yeah, yeah. Do they. Yeah. Anyway, I know obviously a lot of people post about it, talk about it. Anyway, we'll leave it there. Let's talk a little bit about your co Living design on your website. You've got a couple of blogs and I couldn't tell if you guys have some amazing rendering capabilities.
Mark Williams [00:27:22]:
And as I look the seventh time I'm like wait, that's not real. But it took a while because now the stuff is getting just so good, the renderings. I couldn't tell if that was an article you wrote about it or if that's work that you are envisioning. Tell us a little bit about a what Co Living is. What co Living design is. I can figured out based on the name but I'd love to hear about the design principle because it's very intriguing.
David Booth [00:27:41]:
First I think we should take credit for the renderings that we didn't do.
Jacob Zigman [00:27:46]:
I would love to tell Jake Williams to stop listening right now.
David Booth [00:27:49]:
If you're. Yeah, Jake, just turn off.
Jacob Zigman [00:27:51]:
Jake Williams owns Gnomon. It's a graphic company here in the Twin Cities. And he was my college roommate. So we're all intermingled here. But yeah, he does excellent work. So shout out to him.
Mark Williams [00:28:02]:
Yeah. So those people are rendered. Yeah, it's incredible.
Jacob Zigman [00:28:06]:
Everything.
David Booth [00:28:06]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's. He's been a great asset, a great resource, a great friend, great business partner. We've bounced ideas off of him. Everything from design to just understanding how to communicate effectively strategically even marketing down to the most finite details. And so Jake, he is not a part of our company.
Mark Williams [00:28:26]:
He good have to be Triple J, Triple Jack design. My goodness. Too many Jakes. I agree with you.
Jacob Zigman [00:28:32]:
Yeah, yeah.
David Booth [00:28:34]:
So yeah, shout out to Noman, that's his company, he does great work. If you're interested in that level of renderings and videography, hit him up. But from a co living perspective we. It came about in multiple different ways. It would be great if this was a story that was came from the soul and it was something that we were always envisioning that could be effective. But I guess the reality is we have a housing shortage. The cost of construction across the country.
Mark Williams [00:29:04]:
It's not just Minnesota.
David Booth [00:29:05]:
Yeah, yeah. The cost of construction is high. It does not pencil out to build new apartments under about 12 to 14 units. It just doesn't. You can't do it without a subsidy of some sort. And so you can't really build apartments smaller than they are today. 400 square foot unit apartments are going for 11, 12, $1300 in St. Paul plus parking plus, you know, utilities, etc.
David Booth [00:29:30]:
So we can't build smaller apartments. And it's very. It's becoming harder to build them at a more affordable rate. And so one thing we looked at is how can we provide housing to young people, specifically people who are struggling with student loans, who don't have a family, who want a family. How can we provide a situation for them to better themselves and to provide them the ability to succeed in the future? Because a lot of folks are coming out of college with heavy debt and then they're paying 13, 1400 dollars a month for rent. There's no way they're going to get out of that unless they have some family help or something. And so part of what Double Jack does, as we always try to be creative with our design solutions, what makes I think us unique is we're also very lockstep with grow, which is a development company. And I'm part, part of that as well, and Alex is too.
David Booth [00:30:25]:
And so we're looking at the pro forma of how can we cash flow these projects successfully to where we can still provide good architecture. Because without disrespecting too many developers out there, a lot of the multifamily projects that are being built are not.
Mark Williams [00:30:44]:
They're ugly.
David Booth [00:30:45]:
Are not good.
Mark Williams [00:30:45]:
Yeah.
Jacob Zigman [00:30:46]:
Thank you.
Mark Williams [00:30:46]:
No, they're ugly.
David Booth [00:30:47]:
We said we wouldn't swear on this podcast.
Mark Williams [00:30:49]:
Ugly is ugly. Swear word. I think it might be.
David Booth [00:30:51]:
Should be.
Mark Williams [00:30:52]:
Yeah.
David Booth [00:30:53]:
And so that was a really big challenge for us. And so to answer your question, where does co living come from? Co living is a solution that we've are continuously manipulating, but it adding more density without with actually while decreasing rents. And to explain that St. Paul has a occupancy of six people per unit. A lot of cities are around four or less. If you build a triplex in St. Paul, you can do six bedrooms per unit. So you could do 18 bedrooms theoretically per kitchen per kitchen without needing a variance or a conditional use permit.
David Booth [00:31:30]:
And that's quite a bit of bedrooms.
Mark Williams [00:31:32]:
Yep.
David Booth [00:31:33]:
And so we're looking at this as a what if we can rent by the bedroom and not by the unit? And how can we be able to provide enough money to support our build but also provide lower rents?
Mark Williams [00:31:46]:
So are you the developer, the builder.
David Booth [00:31:48]:
And the architect on this project? Yes. So we are the architect or the developer or the contractor will be the property manager. I kind of joke we're cooking and cleaning on this one.
Mark Williams [00:31:58]:
That's amazing what that does.
David Booth [00:32:00]:
It gives us incredible insight on cost per square foot, cost for everything. Costs down to interest rates on loans. Understanding how developers think, why they make the decisions that they do. Understanding that design usually is paid from a construction loan and not at the front end of a project. What does that mean your fees might be deferred potentially. There's just so many things that go into it that have opened our eyes to be better architects, better designers, and be more sensitive to the pro forma, to the budget. But then also still being able to provide that value of what a good space looks like, how it feels, the materials behind it, being able to communicate that in words that a contractor or developer may understand, not just because it's beautiful, but because it may last 50 years. Or hey, if we actually look at going to a passive house level of building envelope, our utilities will actually be zero.
David Booth [00:32:56]:
And what does our solar look like after year five and are there rebates that can support this? All of those things have been a learning and education piece for us on this project.
Mark Williams [00:33:09]:
How, where, what stage is this project at?
Jacob Zigman [00:33:11]:
We just came from the site right now.
Mark Williams [00:33:14]:
Oh, really?
Jacob Zigman [00:33:15]:
Yeah, they're putting pure foundations and rock are complete now.
Mark Williams [00:33:18]:
Okay. So this thing is financed, this is approved, this is in construction.
David Booth [00:33:22]:
Yeah. Steel will come on site hopefully next week, potentially the following.
Mark Williams [00:33:26]:
And what, how many units?
David Booth [00:33:29]:
So traditionally speaking, this is where this project has been fun and complicated because we have been seeking a lot of grant funding for this, but we've also been communicating with the city. So depending on who we're talking to, some of these answers change a little bit.
Mark Williams [00:33:43]:
Sure.
David Booth [00:33:44]:
And not in the sense of we're trying to be sleazy or mis manipulated.
Mark Williams [00:33:47]:
It could be three units, but if each unit has three bedrooms, it's actually nine.
Jacob Zigman [00:33:51]:
So it's a complicated question.
Mark Williams [00:33:53]:
Yeah.
David Booth [00:33:53]:
So it's a duplex by city perspective. From a zoning perspective, it's two units, but each unit has six bedroom bathroom, primary suite.
Mark Williams [00:34:02]:
And from a co living standpoint, how do, how does this. Is there other places in the world that utilize this on a regular basis? I'm guessing like Denmark or would be. Is it Denmark? Really?
David Booth [00:34:13]:
Yeah, the Scandinavian countries. I think I've been doing it since the 80s, even before. It's pretty common. But specifically in the United States, it's very common on the east coast, west coast. Think Miami, California, New York. We I think have just much more availability to land and to other accessories that we avoid going to that level of density.
Mark Williams [00:34:33]:
And traditionally, who do you think the buyer is? Is this going to be empty nesters? Is this going to be college? Is this going to Be individual piece individual. Is this going to be young families? And then once you have one or two children, you have to transition out. And then my last question is this. Are they renting or buying this? Because if this is an onboarding path to ownership, like, this would be amazing. Can you imagine? I can see there's so many. Hopefully, I'm guessing the answers to all of them. But let's say you are single and you are in one of these and then you start. It's.
Mark Williams [00:35:01]:
I'm sure you have to fight the connotation of a dorm room or like some of those things. Right.
Jacob Zigman [00:35:05]:
That's the hard part.
Mark Williams [00:35:05]:
But if you're. And I don't know how the ownership, if they're renting versus owning. Because if you're owning and you can take some advantage of the tax laws that allows you to then invest and buy. That's the whole point, is to get people into home ownership.
Jacob Zigman [00:35:18]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:35:18]:
One of the huge, big. I don't know if that's yours specifically, but I'm trying to think of like, how do we get more people into a home because costs are so expensive.
David Booth [00:35:27]:
Yeah, absolutely. The ethos. One of the main ethos behind Grow the development company is to intentionally be a transitional space so that we can better the lives of these tenants and that they can move forward with theirs and that they can save while they're here, that they can put that towards starting a family, buying a home, etc. And so our rents are intentionally going to be low, are intentionally going to be affordable around that 50% AMI level or below.
Mark Williams [00:35:53]:
And I'm not familiar with that term. What does that mean?
David Booth [00:35:55]:
Average medium income.
Mark Williams [00:35:57]:
Okay.
David Booth [00:35:57]:
And so that's. I think In Minnesota, the 50% AMI I'd have to look, but I think it's around $1,000 or more. And so we're. We're intentionally less than that. We want to set low rents so that we can provide that level of affordability to people to save money and to buy a home at some point. And to answer your, I guess, your previous question, this currently is set up to rent. We actually just came from a meeting yesterday to talk about is this a model that we can do where we can condo it out or provide the opportunity for someone to buy this and so that they can actually get equity in this and provide that sooner than later. And so the model that we're looking at right now, because in the Midwest there aren't a lot of examples.
David Booth [00:36:40]:
And when we actually went to finance this, we didn't have any comps. For this project in the state. And so it was a bit tough.
Mark Williams [00:36:47]:
Walk us through that. How did you get the comps you.
David Booth [00:36:49]:
Have to go golfing with bankers. We had a lot of good personal relationships and connections. We also were able to come into this project with almost a million dollars in grant funding that we could use as equity. So the banks weren't on the hook.
Jacob Zigman [00:37:04]:
Less risky.
Mark Williams [00:37:05]:
How does the man. There's so many questions here. We're gonna spend the entire time talking about this. Talk to me about the grants. Like what grants are available for something like this. Because I could see for a number of reasons. There's so many good reasons to do this. A the density.
Mark Williams [00:37:17]:
Let's say you're a developer and you want you can do kind of a small apartment. This looks like it sounds like you figured out a way to cash flow it. Do you already have people that are already basically signed up to lease these spaces or how do you do that?
David Booth [00:37:31]:
Not yet. But with the help of Jake Williams.
Jacob Zigman [00:37:34]:
Yeah. And Nomen and those renderings the visual side of things. Because it's not built yet obviously we'll lean heavily on the graphics and show people exactly what these are going to feel.
Mark Williams [00:37:42]:
The fact that you have like cool design, clean design. It seems like this thing and especially your rent target that from a dollar standpoint you think these were things that would go like hotcakes.
David Booth [00:37:51]:
Yeah. A typical. So if you were to rent this you'd get a bedroom, a bathroom and a walk in closet that's all yours. Is going to be locked. No one has access to it.
Mark Williams [00:38:00]:
Yep.
David Booth [00:38:00]:
And then you're going to share a large kitchen living space. The kitchen has a 15 and a half foot by Four Foot Island. Multiple refrigerators. It's quite a big space. Higher ceilings and that your rent will be 875 and that includes everything. Internet, utilities. There's no hidden.
Mark Williams [00:38:14]:
That's amazing. Yeah. Especially with the designs. I can imagine a lot of people especially I assume it's going to probably gravitate towards young single people right away. Professional.
Jacob Zigman [00:38:24]:
That's what we're thinking.
Mark Williams [00:38:25]:
And then you have a proof of concept. Now you've got the photos. You've got back to your nature link resort thing. You've got photos of proof of concept. Now this thing can expand all over.
David Booth [00:38:33]:
The place where this is essentially a model that can. That is very scalable. And we. We looked at something I joke previously about being the dumb end of a shovel. We're also not from a family of money and so we didn't have we just didn't have a big bank account to go and buy the best piece of property or the best location. And so we looked at great locations with really challenging sites. And you know, a lot of this is commonly referred to as missing middle. These urban infill lots that have sat vacant for years but for a reason.
David Booth [00:39:05]:
They're just not.
Jacob Zigman [00:39:06]:
There's a reason for that and that's.
Mark Williams [00:39:07]:
Where you're willing to a. You're, it's basically without absence of money and but if you have presence of time you can get a good deal. But deal is I'm sure if you put a value on your hours, it wouldn't be that great of a deal because you have to put a lot of sweat equity into this. I'm very curious about the grants. Tell me more about how you were aware of which grants and which ones help. And I assume it's are the local and federal or state and federal that are basically trying to redevelop difficult areas or troubled areas. Is that.
David Booth [00:39:36]:
Yeah. So in, in Minnesota and Ramsey county we won a few different grants. One through the lcda, one through Ramsey county and then one through the city of St. Paul. And a few of those were. Right now we're actually going after, we just went after two more for our next project. But what they rely heavily on at a high level is a walkable community, an urban infill lot, public transportation, affordability and sustainability. Those are our cornerstones for going after these grants.
David Booth [00:40:04]:
So we're essentially saying we're going to develop a land that has sat vacant forever. It's near a high transit corridor, so it's either near the light rail or a bus system. We're going to provide on site bike storage so that people, people can bike and don't have to drive. And we're looking at car share programs as well. We're an all electric building and we're hitting Department of Energy standards. So we're, our goal is to be net zero or better on these projects. And I'd like to take or David and I would like to take this to more of a passive house level on our next one if we can.
Mark Williams [00:40:34]:
So you've got solar already figured out?
Jacob Zigman [00:40:36]:
Yeah.
David Booth [00:40:36]:
Yes, we will have solar on this one.
Mark Williams [00:40:38]:
Yeah. And then like EVs Tesla power batteries span panels like how far are you going with this?
David Booth [00:40:44]:
So we have solar panels. So the little mod is our current project in the west seventh community of St. Paul that will have full solar because we're affordable. We, we apply for a program through Excel, we can only produce up to 100, 120% max of our energy usage through this program. But what that does is it gives us some substantial tax rates that are. I believe it's 75 or 85% of our solar panels are covered up front. And so our actual cost to purchase these solar panels after the factor are pretty negligible. And then what they'll produce after year one and two.
David Booth [00:41:15]:
Year two, I think it was year one or two, they'll pay for themselves. We're being very creative, and a lot of this at a high level, there's all these moving parts, right? There's the grants, there's solar programs through Excel, There's. And there's all these different programs. And if we. There's a. There's usually a certain metric that aligns with all of them. And if you can be below that, they all make sense. And it's understanding what all of those things are and aligning your design goals to those before you start the project.
Mark Williams [00:41:43]:
See, I think that's really smart. We had, actually, it's funny, earlier this morning, I had Christopher Strom on, and we were talking about ADUs in Minneapolis. And at the time, I didn't realize. I have a jaded view on government sometimes, but I was actually encouraged. He was talking about the planning commission, actually had reached out to him as an architect to say, hey, we're going to basically publish these guidelines. And they were reaching out to architects that were doing work in Minneapolis to talk about ADUs and that kind of stuff. And where I'm going with this is he ended up being at the front edge of this ADU boom over the last decade, it seems, and I think across the country, we're seeing it everywhere. And.
Mark Williams [00:42:18]:
And you. You could take this niche, if you will. And even though he was telling me it only represents 20% of his work, he's. That's what everyone knows him for, which is ironic. I feel like what you're telling me right now is that a couple years from now, you guys have already figured this out. You. Because you're going through it literally right now. You're.
Mark Williams [00:42:34]:
Whatever money you've invested or put in this is your education to essentially leverage yourselves as an expert. And by the time someone else catches up to you, you're going to be three, four years ahead. So you will be. Unless there's other people doing this, you'll be the de facto experts, at least locally. Here.
Jacob Zigman [00:42:48]:
Locally, yeah.
Mark Williams [00:42:49]:
Yeah. And so that's really attractive, looking at it from. As an entrepreneur like that is really well done and it's not without a ton of effort, I'm sure, but it's, I'm really excited for you and really to see what happens in the building community, like, I'm really intrigued. I've written down like five things I want to look into now or people I want to introduce you to that might help you on your journey because I, I, I think this is really needed.
Mark Williams [00:43:20]:
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David Booth [00:44:19]:
David and I have. We'll call each other and complain about any projects as any designer or architect or interior designer doesn't for this specific project. Some of the great conversations we have had about co living is the ability to possibly adapt it to other needs, senior living or generational living, where there there are families that need. We have a housing shortage. We also have a family housing shortage where they're just there's not enough bedrooms for a family. And this could fit that need as well. And so we're starting here with we know with what, what can work, what can hit our pro forma. But we're at walls.
David Booth [00:44:55]:
We're also hoping to adapt this and grow this to other models that could possibly work.
Mark Williams [00:45:00]:
Now there's three of you in your company, is that right? Yeah. Yes. And that includes the development and grow and it ends up being a lot. Right. So let's say this thing explodes or starts ramping up. Is this something that you can either empower like a blueprint and give other developers the same tools. Because a lot of what you're figuring out the perform is the magic. Right? I can build, I could build whatever you're building because I know how to build.
Mark Williams [00:45:24]:
But all the numbers and the grants, there's a lot of other moving pieces and like building is like one of seven things by the sounds of it.
Jacob Zigman [00:45:30]:
Yeah, that's I was going to bring up a couple minutes ago. We were talking, I think you have Jake and I here. But one of the bigger pieces of the company as well is Alex and he's our CFO for doublejack. And Jake and Alex have grow together. So without Alex doing that sort of magical behind the scenes piece, it empowers us to have the design and sparks the thoughts for that. But if it's not going to work, there's no point in putting it on paper.
Mark Williams [00:45:54]:
Well, to your point, your earlier comment, Jacob, about penciling out. I'm right now I'm designing a spec home for a lot I have in cottage wood. I'm really excited about it. We're going to design it around a philosophy and we'll talk about it. We won't take this whole podcast about that. But my point is like in the I haven't done a spec home in about 12 years and one of the reasons I haven't is I get pretty excited about the design and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But I fall in love with the design and pencil out. Be darned.
Mark Williams [00:46:19]:
I want to build this because I love it. And then if someone doesn't else love it, you're now stuck with a house that's too expensive. Now we'll see. I'm going to have to put some, I'm going to have to put some blinders on this horse, which is myself to try to keep me in the lane. But it's hard because you.
Jacob Zigman [00:46:32]:
Are you going to do another one coming up here back home?
Mark Williams [00:46:35]:
This will be my first one in 10 years. You mean like another one after that? We'll see. I guess I got to sell this one first. The plan. Ideally the plan for me would be to do one every year and a half or like continually have one until it sells and then do it again. And I'll talk more about on future podcasts. I'm sure the architectural world, this won't be rocket science, but I'm going to build the house based on a philosophy and so I'm really excited.
David Booth [00:46:55]:
Rather than saying what is the philosophy?
Mark Williams [00:46:57]:
We're creating it. So I'm working with a brand partner to develop what it is.
Jacob Zigman [00:47:00]:
You're getting us excited now.
Mark Williams [00:47:02]:
Yeah. And we can talk about if you want. This is your podcast. So this isn't about me. Yeah. This Nordic design and it's really embracing. I don't do well. I don't do well predicting what I think somebody will like.
Mark Williams [00:47:13]:
I do a much better job of. Let's say a building house for you guys is like, what do you like? What are you passionate about? And then I can really dump jet fuel on it and make it go great. That's a bad analogy. I'm thinking of loots and burning down right now.
David Booth [00:47:26]:
No, this is very cohesive. It all started.
Mark Williams [00:47:28]:
Yeah, it all started there. But my point is. But I need a touchstone. So in some ways I'm my own touchstone. So I have a family of. So when I was struggling, do I build a two story. Do I build a main level? If you don't know who your buyer is, if you don't know, it's really hard.
Mark Williams [00:47:40]:
And I've.
Mark Williams [00:47:41]:
And I. You get paralyzed.
David Booth [00:47:42]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:47:42]:
But when I work for a client.
David Booth [00:47:43]:
It'S easy because it's them constraints sometimes are the biggest blessing we can have.
Mark Williams [00:47:48]:
A hundred percent, whether it's land budget, unfortunately is a constraint that does help a lot because it just is a.
Jacob Zigman [00:47:55]:
Wipe ton of things off the table right away.
Mark Williams [00:47:57]:
Yeah. And so I thought that one of my favorite quotes lately. We can talk about quotes here. But it's boundaries create freedom. And I think it's a little inverse of what you were just saying, that those boundaries then allow you to be free within those spaces.
Jacob Zigman [00:48:08]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:48:08]:
If you. It's. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. It's our human nature. If you tell someone they can do anything, they're paralyzed, you give them like a mission. They're like, okay, I'm doing that.
Mark Williams [00:48:16]:
And the leadership roles that we take, or entrepreneurs in general take, having a clear vision is really important. I read something recently. I think it was Rockefeller, but he had just said a lot of business owners, after they're successful, try to boil the ocean. And this idea that you want to do everything right. Good luck. You boil. Boil a pot of water, but you don't boil in the ocean. Although give global warming enough time, maybe we'll get there.
Mark Williams [00:48:37]:
But anyway, that's a side. Side topic. Anyway, where I was going with that is I look back at places where I've stumbled in my business and a lot of times I get a great idea. Oh, that's a great idea. Oh, that's great. And then you veer off. And just given my personality, the hard part is that's also where creativity comes.
Jacob Zigman [00:48:53]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:48:53]:
And I love creativity, so I love to go and play in Neverland and not come back just because I'm there. But then if it takes away from your core business, it's not penciling out.
David Booth [00:49:03]:
Yeah, no. I think the guardrails are really important. And what has made, I think us successful or in just on the little mod has been our ability to have the creative freedom to do something that is unique specifically to that site without a guidelines of a personal preference. It was really the one time where we were just able to clean slate it and say, what does this site need? What really warrants this design? Without. I traveled to France, so I would like some. Something involved here. But the challenge to your point, Mark, how do you hit your budget when you fall in love with something? That's where Alex really shown through because he is a, at the end of the day, he's all about the numbers and that pro forma and he created that. That's his design.
David Booth [00:49:53]:
And so David's been there a few times where you have to have a little bit of an honest conversation and maybe you're not, maybe you're not talking, maybe you're shouting, but that's all part of it though. That's all part of the process.
Mark Williams [00:50:06]:
Yeah, that's funny. I think, I think you have to. I think the first step is recognizing what your weakness is. I think for me, I'm just as you're talking, I'm thinking about, okay, what guidelines or who can I give the keys to keep myself in check. I already know who it's going to be. It's going to be my controller. We'll set a budget as a team and then, you know, he's going to have to be, you know, the one that I'm going to have to. I'm going to funny because I'm obviously the owner of the company, but I'm going to have to, I'm gonna have to empower him to say no to me.
Mark Williams [00:50:32]:
And then obviously I have a veto if I really want it. But I'm gonna have to honor the commitment that I'm giving him. The veto button, it's hide this key so I can't find it, so I can't unlock door number two.
David Booth [00:50:41]:
I think sometimes being an owner of your own company, there's more rules that you have to follow. Like I think sometimes entrepreneurs, there's this idea that if you become the owner, all of a sudden you can do whatever you want. You can do what you want. And you always answer to somebody. At the end of the day, it does not matter what you do. So that's, I think, been something my.
Jacob Zigman [00:51:02]:
Wife and I are finishing. We built. We built our house this last two years, probably. We've been working on it. She's been my controller the whole. Because I would have put the most expensive things you could find in there, just because that's what I think is worth it. And her nurse brain is very like black and white. No, we were concrete floors.
Jacob Zigman [00:51:23]:
That's what you get.
Mark Williams [00:51:24]:
You're lucky that it's that most of us that are married and if we're going to build something, our spouse really runs most of it anyway. I joke because when I remodeled our house four or five years ago now, I think I said something like I wanted something my way. And I said, trying to think, to appeal with logic that no husband ever won with that one. But anyway, I said, people pay me for my opinion. And she goes, I'm not paying you.
Jacob Zigman [00:51:48]:
I tried that one too.
Mark Williams [00:51:48]:
Did you try that one? Did her. Was her response the same? Yeah, I'm not paying you.
Jacob Zigman [00:51:52]:
How much are you getting paid again?
Mark Williams [00:51:53]:
Yeah, exactly. Yep. No. So that was actually my daughter and my kids. I actually were in the podcast yesterday with the kids, and my daughter was interviewing my sons and they were just talking. I just wanted to film it and get some. Some fun, curious kid talk and. But on the way there, I asked the kids what they wanted to.
Mark Williams [00:52:10]:
If they had any business ideas or what they would do, because we're going to talk about business. And my daughter was like, I would like to go, I would like to maybe be a builder, but there's just not very many women builders. And that was actually my Q and A that came out today in the middle of November here. And it was. I hadn't realized I was doing this, but I look back at all the people I've interviewed, I bet you half are women in between. Interior designers, builders in general. And I didn't realize if it's a conscious decision, if I just want more. I do want more women in construction instruction.
Mark Williams [00:52:38]:
But where I'm going with this is like, women relate to women very well. And I feel like they're. They're more intuitive in general than men are at baseline. Not that men can't be intuitive, obviously, but like speaking about our wives here, we are the professionals in our field, but our wives are the ones that are dictating this. But I just feel it seems there's more. I don't know. Do you feel like as a percent of architects that you see out there, how many women do you see in architecture? I'd be curious to know what the percentage is in architecture from your point of view and what the percentage is as builders. Because like I would say women dominate interior design.
Mark Williams [00:53:09]:
It's probably nine out of ten, if not more. Nine and a half out of ten building. If I was just a. I'd say what, one out of ten? Two out of ten maybe.
David Booth [00:53:18]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:53:18]:
What, what do you think architecture is?
Jacob Zigman [00:53:20]:
I think it's a, it's higher than that for architecture. Yeah, I would say than the one or two, but I do think it's still skewed.
Mark Williams [00:53:26]:
And do you think it's changing? When you were in architecture school, did you see like what were your class percentages?
Jacob Zigman [00:53:31]:
I think my class was actually like probably six to four men.
Mark Williams [00:53:35]:
Okay, that's. It's getting better.
Jacob Zigman [00:53:37]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:53:37]:
I'm just curious like what field?
Jacob Zigman [00:53:39]:
Yeah. And I don't know how that translates into the actual field because then you're. It doesn't make that big of a difference when you still have 60 year old architects in the field and how.
Mark Williams [00:53:47]:
Many find the path to ownership too? You know, that's.
David Booth [00:53:49]:
I think it's a unique time from an ownership perspective where we're seeing an older generation slowly or more quickly start to phase out and there's a younger generation coming in. There's a big gap of 40 to 50 year old architects. There's a lot of ownership that are towards the end of their 60s or mid-60s. And then I think there's a lot of 40 year old architects right now. So I think it'd be curious to see what that ownership looks like amongst men, women moving forward in the next 10, 15 years, just knowing there's just a big gap. I've worked for a few different firms in a few different states and it was always a struggle to find a seasoned architect that was like 15 to 20 years in their career that you could actually relate to or that was even in the office. It was like an owner that was on the go, constantly moving or just an intern that was sitting next to you and that there was very little middle ground there.
Mark Williams [00:54:40]:
I mean you and I think it's an architecture and building. Honestly, no industry is going to be unaffected by AI. It'll be really interesting to see how they navigate, meaning the older generation navigates the massive surge of technology and not that they can't learn. I we had James McNeil JMAD on recently and they do a ton of modeling. They've got the Oculus Rift and they have all their clients walking through a 3D model right in there. So they've adopted it early. But part of that was Rob Hull. We had him on a couple episodes ago.
Mark Williams [00:55:10]:
He was talking about. He was actually identified right out of college. They went and hired. Kudos to them. They hired him because they wanted to train somebody that was innovative and new. Going back to the comment, like, youth was actually the advantage. So that was what it was. Kudos to Jim for figuring that out.
Mark Williams [00:55:26]:
I'm curious. I think as an entrepreneur, that's. Again, we talked about it's easier for an architect, let's say, to design in Florida or other places, versus a builder. It'd be curious to see how long, what the average age of, let's say, a builder before they retire to the average age of an architect. Because I would assume that you could draw or create or draw draft. Yeah. And you could limit. If you got tired.
Mark Williams [00:55:47]:
You're just like, yeah, I'm just going to work a couple days a week. And if you could. Is that. Does that seem like they last longer than other industries or.
Mark Williams [00:55:53]:
Not really.
David Booth [00:55:53]:
I think the joke is that architects die at their desk.
Mark Williams [00:55:57]:
Yeah. Oh, wow. So you're not always an architect because you could always draw or create if you needed to. Wanted to.
David Booth [00:56:03]:
Yeah. I think that just goes on for quite some time. It's not uncommon for a former president or owner to basically lose their ownership and then become an employee. They're a firm that they started or that they were principal at, and then they just show up two to three times a week and.
Jacob Zigman [00:56:20]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:56:21]:
Yeah.
Jacob Zigman [00:56:22]:
I think of a few, like, distinct people that stick out as through my career at bigger firms that they just come in and. And those are the days where you need to track them down and ask them all the list of questions that you have for them because they're like this huge wealth of knowledge on everything.
Mark Williams [00:56:37]:
That'd be cool. It reminds me again of school. The storyteller on Friday comes in and tells a story. It'd be like this is this genius savant in the architecture field. These guys coming in Friday. Everyone gather around. She's coming in and let's listen to everything she's got to say.
David Booth [00:56:49]:
Yeah. And for us, this ties in a little bit the origin story just so much. When we were in college, technology was very quickly changing as it is now with AI and renderings were becoming easier to do, quicker to do, and more integrated with the Technology. And when we were in our first five years in our working careers, that was starting to get integrated with, like, how we drew details. So in the same program that you drew a door detail in, you could also produce a marketing image to sell a project. And that was interesting because before that, I don't think that ever really existed in one. One package. One package.
David Booth [00:57:25]:
And that really changed how we worked and our efficiencies. And that's really what put the idea of, hey, we should. We could do this, like, on our own. Because even before that, a lot of this was done in three or four separate programs, and you were tracking three or four different models, and it was just very hard to be efficient because you were also. We were usually stuck doing the renderings, but then you're also stuck doing the details. So it's like, how can you put those into one package?
Mark Williams [00:57:49]:
Well, when you're done. When you are anticipating this project being done.
David Booth [00:57:53]:
Summer for the little month.
Mark Williams [00:57:56]:
Yeah.
David Booth [00:57:57]:
Yeah, I would say June, July of 2025.
Mark Williams [00:58:00]:
Yeah. I'd love to come see it when it gets further along and love to give it some press and do whatever we can to promote it, because I think it's worthy of that. Have you guys been in contact with Housing First Minnesota at all? And some of the stuff that they're doing for just promoting home ownership and things like that, we have not.
David Booth [00:58:15]:
Yeah, that might be something to look into.
Mark Williams [00:58:17]:
Yeah, I can put you in touch with them, too, as we wind down here. Maybe just give me a favorite quote or a favorite book or something on a personal nature. When you're not working, what do you like to do?
Jacob Zigman [00:58:29]:
I feel like I've been working on my house for so long. I don't. My wife would correct me right now. I do love to golf.
Mark Williams [00:58:34]:
Yeah.
Jacob Zigman [00:58:34]:
I will find myself on the golf.
Mark Williams [00:58:35]:
That's like courting a banker by the sounds of it.
Jacob Zigman [00:58:37]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that. And we have our house out in the middle of the woods on 20 acres. I feel pretty lucky.
Mark Williams [00:58:43]:
Or.
Jacob Zigman [00:58:44]:
Yeah. Just living in the woods now.
Mark Williams [00:58:45]:
That sounds great. How are you, Jacob?
David Booth [00:58:48]:
My. My wife is due on Thanksgiving, so I might be a father of a daughter after this podcast.
Mark Williams [00:58:53]:
Is this first one or.
David Booth [00:58:54]:
This will be number two.
Mark Williams [00:58:55]:
Number two. Awesome.
David Booth [00:58:56]:
So we're looking at growing our family, and we're looking at growing more development work and just becoming more involved in our community and. And I will golf with David in the summer, but I can't hold a candle to his game.
Jacob Zigman [00:59:08]:
Yeah, that's because he golfs once A summer?
Mark Williams [00:59:10]:
Yeah, yeah. I golf once every three years. Have me along. Thanks very much. We'll have everything in the show notes and stay tuned to, I assume your Instagram feed or website for updates on the, what you call it? The Mod Dwell.
David Booth [00:59:22]:
Little Mod.
Mark Williams [00:59:22]:
Little Mod. It's a good name. Little Mod. All right, Curious Builder signing out. Thanks for tuning in.
Jacob Zigman [00:59:27]:
Thank you.
David Booth [00:59:27]:
Thanks, Mark.
Mark Williams [00:59:28]:
We're excited to announce that the Curious Builder Collectives are going into three other states. For those not familiar with what the collective is, it lives between what the contractor coalition is and a builder 20 group. What we do in each state is we have a group of 25 to 30 builders that get in a room and you break up into groups of nine. You spend 45 minutes talking about a set topic, whether it's branding, marketing, contracts, whatever that set topic is for that day. And then you talk for 45 minutes. You get up, you mix up the groups and you do it again and you're out of there. You'll be out in under three hours. We're going to be going to Phoenix, Arizona.
Mark Williams [01:00:03]:
Brad Levitt is going to be leading a curious collective in Phoenix, Arizona. We are going to San Antonio. We've got David and Angela Penske from Penske Homes leading a group down there. And we have Brad Robinson and Vince Longo in Atlanta, Georgia also leading a collective as well as obviously me in Minnesota as well for our second annual collective. So if you're interested in collaborating with other builders, if you really want to dive deep on your business in a person to person relationship, ask a lot of questions. The collectives are for you. We also have in Minnesota Interior Design Collective as well as the Architect Collective. Check out the events page at the curious builder podcast.com thanks for tuning in to Curious Builder Podcast.
Mark Williams [01:00:43]:
If you like this episode, do us.
Mark Williams [01:00:45]:
A favor, share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth and with your help we can continue to help other Curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends like and review online. And thanks again for tuning in.
Mark Williams [01:01:01]:
Sat.
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