Today's guest is Lauren Campbell, Principal of Lauren Campbell LLC an emerging developer in Tampa, FL. Lauren is currently working on her first ground up development project as well as adaptive re-use and redevelopment opportunities with investment partners. She's worked alongside owners and developers for almost a decade, as an analyst and investment sales specialist, and later as the head of real estate for a local equity firm. She's now using her passion for urban planning and place-making as she works on her own portfolio, focusing efforts on emerging opportunities and creating projects that are anchored in the experiential and the novel. In this interview, you'll hear all about how Lauren leveraged working as a researcher then a broker to eventually realize her dream of becoming a developer. This is a great show that documents the very earliest parts of a broker transitioning to being a developer on a new multifamily project.
Welcome back to the second season of She’s Wild, the Podcast for Women in Land & Development. Today's guest is Lauren Campbell, Principal of Lauren Campbell LLC an emerging developer in Tampa, FL. Lauren is currently working on her first ground up development project as well as adaptive re-use and redevelopment opportunities with investment partners. She's worked alongside owners and developers for almost a decade, as an analyst and investment sales specialist, and later as the head of real estate for a local equity firm. She's now using her passion for urban planning and place-making as she works on her own portfolio, focusing efforts on emerging opportunities and creating projects that are anchored in the experiential and the novel.
In this interview, you'll hear all about how Lauren leveraged working as a researcher then a broker to eventually realize her dream of becoming a developer. This is a great show that documents the very earliest parts of a new multifamily development project.
Memorable Moments:
I'm very interested in placemaking, and urban planning, and creating a sense of place is incredibly important to me. And so historically, I've spent a lot of time researching, reading, understanding, discussing attending events, about placemaking. My background with a liberal arts degree, lets me look at things differently, not better, just differently. I took that knowledge of how to create a sense of place especially on the ground floor, through curation of tenants, through pop ups, through viral social media trends, through offering free Wi Fi and bringing in activities like night markets and holiday events. I always like to say that instead of a return on investment, we want to have a return on experience.
I look different than the people they're used to seeing stand up there and telling them what to do. And I think it was a combination of looking different and speaking differently. Where it clicked in their brains that maybe this was actually different. And I think women have a better ability to use their emotional intelligence, I won't say that I think that women are more emotionally intelligent than men, I just think we're better at using it. And at understanding other people's emotions and needs, and then being proactive about anticipating that.
My goal with our site, is that, of course that the tenants that live there, love it, and that it works for them, but that it also works for the whole neighborhood and that the whole neighborhood adopts it as their own second or third place. And that's really important to me.
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram:https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/
Website: www.nancysurak.com
Connect with Lauren:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencampbellcre/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/commercialre_tampabay/
She’s Wild Sound Production by: Luke Surak, Surak Productions: surakproductions@gmail.com
Nancy Surak00:00
Welcome to She's Wild, the podcast for women in land and development. I'm your host, Nancy Surak. I created this podcast as a way to collect conversations of women in the land and development industry. I've been a land broker on the west coast of Florida for nearly 20 years. And I love to empower other women and to tell them about this amazing industry. But I find often that there just aren't enough women being featured on big stages, whether that's at local conferences, or nationally. So I set out to find these women myself, that are killing it in my business across North America that are changing the communities that they live in every single day, whether they're building condos, multifamily, single family, office, or industrial projects, I hope that you will find this space to be inspirational, motivating, and educational. From time to time, I will feature women who are not only in my business, but also career coaches, and motivational speakers. Welcome back to she's well the podcast for women and land and development. Today's guest is Lauren Campbell out of Tampa, Florida. Lauren, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you here. Because we have a very long history together. You're one of my most favorite people in the business. And I would love for you to go ahead and give an introduction that you're most comfortable with. Tell us a little bit more about who you are how you got into our world commercial real estate. And tell us a little bit more about where you're doing today.
Lauren Campbell01:36
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I don't know. You know, we've been friends a while and I'm super proud of you in this podcast. It's been great following along. And I'm so glad that now I get to talk to you. I am a commercial real estate broker and developer here in the Tampa Bay area. I think that I had a very different and interesting way of getting to this point in my life. And my path here was not at all the straight line that I thought it would be. Um, growing up, I was raised in a household where my mother and my grandmother both were residential brokers on Long Island. My grandmother started that company out of her basement in Brooklyn. She came to this country from Ireland when she was 18 years old. And just had that entrepreneur gene I think and to make money and to make ends meet leading five kids, she leased out her apartment upstairs in her attic and a basement and turned it into a brokerage that my mother inherited and then I grew up at the reception desk up right, so I used to do all of her MLS filings and help her sort the pictures and put the books together. My father was in commercial construction in Manhattan. He was part of the contractors who were renovating Time Square during the mid and late 90s, when it was kind of going from Triple X movie theaters to Disney dog bakeries. And so I grew up in that as well. I had one foot in residential one foot in commercial. But I knew through and through that I was never, under any circumstance going to be a real estate agent ever. That ended up being false. I went to school for architecture thinking at 17 that I wanted to be an architect, I was going to design the most absolutely gorgeous, stunning hospitality, hotels and resorts. And everyone was gonna know my name the same way that everyone knows Frank Lloyd Wright's name. And I got to USF and I started working on my architecture degree. And I got a few years into those courses. And I absolutely hated it. It was just the worst, it was not for me. But I was way too stubborn to admit that to myself, let alone anyone else. And so I persevered for a while. And then the recession hit. And I had friends graduating above me out of architecture, with no jobs and no prospects for jobs and the entire development community talking about how architecture was a dead art and everything was just gonna go through engineers and anyone who was getting an architecture degree was basically going to end up as a fry cook at McDonald's. That didn't sit really well with me because I already didn't want to be there. So I gathered up all of my credits and I walked them over to the art department and I dropped them on the counter and I was like what Can I get for these? And they were like, well, you can get an art history degree. And I was like, Great, I'll take one of those. And so that's what I have. I have my bachelor's in art history with a minor in architectural history. And I thought very, very seriously about going into museum curatorial work. I love people. I love talking. I love history. And I love art. And I love making things and putting things together. And so I thought for sure, that's what I would end up doing. I did not end up doing that, though. Because when I went to graduate school, and I got the price tag for that I laughed. And then I cried. And then I started applying for jobs. And my fiancee at the time. Now my husband sent me a job link on the internet for research coordinator position at a company called CBRE, which I had never heard of, and I thought, What is wrong with this man? I have no background in research or coordinating or anything related to whatever I think this is. And he said, No, you should read it, it actually, it actually sounds like something you can do. And it turned out he was right. Because at the time to graduate with an art history degree, you had to spend time in a museum for at least one year. And I worked in special collections where we cataloged all of the art. Where was it? Where was it going? What condition was it in? Didn't need to go for repairs? Who was who was the artist what your all of this information? And that was my responsibility. And it turned out that this job was basically doing same exact thing for buildings. You just catalog the buildings, what kind of buildings are made? Who's in the building? How old is it? Who bought it? When did they buy it? How much money and I thought this sounds kind of boring, but I could do it. And I went for the interview. And they told me how much money it was. And I was 24 years old. And I was like that sounds great. It's recession. And that's a livable wage. I'll take it. And after about seven interviews, no kidding. They hired me. But not before I walked into my last interview, and a pair of jeans and a T shirt, because I actually had a job at the time. And I had to go to it. And I said, Hey, you should give this job to whoever the other person is in my future boss. Her name was Donna. She was fantastic. She says, I'm sorry, what? And I said, Yeah, well, you know, it's a, it's like a low tiered research position. And this is my seventh interview. I'm assuming you're trying to decide between me and someone else. You should just give it to the other person because I can't keep missing work to come to these interviews. And she's like, oh, yeah, this, this is me offering you the job. But you can't come here and James again. I was like, okay, sorry, man, I took the job. And it was great. Donna was one of the best bosses I ever had. And she went out of her way to make sure that she gave me a path to do the things that I wanted to do. So I think the first real step up that I had was that there was this woman who had no reason other than out of the kindness of her heart to reach out and make helped me make my own path, right. Like she didn't do things for me. She just cleared the way so that I could do them a little easier. And she was absolutely incredible. And she said, I need you to give me two years on this job. You give me two years as my research coordinator, I will make sure that you are in a position where you are well educated enough in this business, to be able to do anything else you want to do if that's to continue in research. Great if it's to go into brokerage or property management. Excellent. I'm here to support you. And she did that. I about 18 months into that job. Donna was offered a position by a competitor Newmark and offered the opportunity to go home which for her was Boston and to run the Northeast Corridor all of NGK F's research for the Northeast Corridor. Obviously, it was incredibly happy for her and I thought it was well deserved and she left but not before she went to our managing broker at CBRE and mentioned that this was the promise she had made me in two years I would be able to make a decision about my path. And I gave that two years to CBRE and I I approached my managing director at the time and I said hey look, I would very much like to be able to go into brokerage The this group over here, the multifamily group, they have a position for me as a junior associate this group over here, it's an office leasing group, they have a position for me, I don't really care, whichever one you think is better, I'm happy to work with you, I'm happy to train my replacement, I'm happy to help you find my replacement. They were not in a position at that time. To offer me that opportunity. They said, they needed me to stay in research. And they wanted me to stay in research. And I think that they valued my work and research. But I did not want to stay there. And so I gave them my resignation. And I think they were a little surprised by that. You don't have a lot of, you know, 26 year olds handing the resignation during the recession when they have a good paying job with great benefits and a career paths. But it was a career path I didn't want it was one that they they wanted me to have. And that's just never been my style. And so I left, and I had some interviews with some other larger groups. And I wasn't really feeling it there either. I felt like maybe the white color brokerage world wasn't really for me, it's not that it's bad, or that it's not for everyone. But for me, personally, it was not getting me where I wanted to go. It was around the same time that I realized that through my classes in architecture, and then through my work at the brokerage, that the real thing I wanted to do as a developer at 17, that's not necessarily a word that you're familiar with, right? You think the architect is in charge of the whole project. And they're, they're the brains of the operation. And they are to a big degree, right. And they're, they're saddled with all the responsibility as well, right. But they're not the ones who control the money. And they're not the ones who control the site. And I learned very, very quickly, that was where I wanted to be, I wanted to be the ones telling the architects what I wanted them to build, not the ones taking, you know, the the the information and then having to go and report back to the boss. And so I made a promise myself that I was going to find a path to get into development. Now, I 26, I'm sure everyone can relate when you're fairly young, but I 26 You really feel like you're not that young. And you feel like wow, I haven't made my first billion like Mark Zuckerberg good at 21 or whatever. And it's like, I'm so far behind, I have this like incessant feeling of always running out of time. And I, I've spoken to so many women in our business. And I feel like that is something many of us feel maybe not all of the time. But at least in parts of our career. It's like, I'm behind, I have so much work to do. And I'm not there yet. And I need to be there like I have this visceral need to be in this other place. And so I, you know, I wasn't married yet. I have a child now. But I didn't have one then. And I thought I need to double down and spend a lot of hours figuring this out. And what I realized was, if I could get into brokerage and be successful as a broker, it would teach me a few things. Number one, it would teach me how the deals are really working. Because as a research coordinator, that's not that's not what my experience was. That's not what you're learning. You know, the facts, you know, your economics really, really well. But you don't understand fully how the deals are put together and why they're put together the way they are. So I knew I needed that. Then I knew that I needed to pay attention, not to the other brokers, but to the owners that I was buying and selling from, and I need to understand why they were selling and why they were buying and how they were looking at it. Because they're the ones that had the control. And so I started to ask to sit in on these meetings. I said, you don't have to pay me this is an extra. I'm not like trying to. I'm not trying to take anything from you. I just want to know whenever you're comfortable. Can I sit in on meetings with you, with your attorney, with your tax accountant, with your bank, with your partners with your whoever, like whoever's working on this deal? I want to watch you and I want to see how you're doing this. I did have some clients that were like, absolutely come on. And I had others that were like, Oh, we just like brokers to be brokers. You just sit right there. We'll make sure you get paid Don't meddle too much. And so I started to be a lot more choosy about who I was working with. And I had that luxury because I was doing deals that were finally large enough where I could make those decisions. You know when you first get started you I don't want to say you take anything, but you have to eat, you have to eat. And, um, you know, so I did that for a while. But once I found myself in that position where I could choose, I started choosing. And I'll tell you this, I had so much feedback from very close friends who I trust and whom I love, who are like, You're nuts. You are wasting, you're wasting your precious resources and time, by getting overly involved in these deals. And you're not like you have the ability to take these other deals more than you're handing deals to other people that you should be doing and closing, you would make more money. But I knew that I needed to do was make enough money to get to the next deal that I wanted to participate in, and the next one and the next one, until I knew enough about how to put those things together that I became an invaluable resource to my owners beyond the brokerage component. And I find and my path required a lot of hard work, but I think like a lot of people's paths, it also requires at least a marginal amount of luck, right? Like you do have to be in the right place. At the right time, excuse me. However, I do believe that if you don't show up, you can't be in that right place at the right time, right. And if you don't ask for what you want, then no one knows how to give you what you want. So I got very, very comfortable asking for things and hearing the word know. And instead of being frustrated or let down about the word now. I, to some degree had to become my own psychologist. But I decided that no was going to teach me a lesson, right? How many noes? Did I need to hear before I heard a yes. But more than that? How can I ask this question better? So I can get the yes. Because no is simple, you asking the wrong question? Right? Or offering the wrong thing? Because everybody has motivators. And you know, as a broker, you learn this very early on. Hi, good afternoon. Would you like to sell your property? No, don't call me again. Right? And we're used to that. But I think if you start as you do that, you start to shift the way you ask these questions, you do a little more research, you figure this out, you figure that out. You go, Hi, good afternoon, I noticed that you live in Wyoming and you own this parcel on the beach in Florida. It seems like you're a permanent resident of Wyoming, you know, you may not be aware of what's happening in the market here and that your property is worth four to five times as much as what you paid for it three years ago. Is it okay? If I send you some information about the economy here locally? And you have five minutes to talk about your property and your plans for it? Oh, all of a sudden they want to talk to you? What do you mean, it's worth five times more? Well, what can I do on that property? We learn that as brokers. But it turns out that's incredibly valuable in other things as well. And so I started to learn to ask the right questions of my clients. And I started to ask them, if I could invest into these fields. So I didn't start out with big asks that I said, you know, I'm getting a commission for brokering this deal for you. I'd like to know if I can leave part of it. And I got a lot of nose because people, some groups, they don't, or they can't depending on their operating agreements and cetera. They can't let you invest where they don't want you to invest. They just want to use their own money in there. It complicates things. But I noticed that the smaller guys, the local guys were like, yeah, come on, let's go. And so I did. And after a while, I met a new friend. And he was from New York, and came down from New York to St. Petersburg and purchased a large swath of properties in St. Petersburg, and really did a great job with placemaking, which is something I'm really passionate about, with my architecture, background and urban planning, and really was creating communities, which is very long winded story. But it's something that's really important to me, because the other thing I believe, is that you need a moral compass, and it doesn't have to match other people. But you have to be true to it. In order to be successful. You cannot. You cannot give up the things that are important to you from a moral perspective for money because it never really works out. Right. Yeah. And so he and I kind of saw eye to eye on how to develop communities and what it meant to be successful at developing communities and sort of working together and I did a bunch of third party brokerage for him. And after a while, he started asking me if I would come in with worked for him. And I would laugh it off. And I would say, Oh, I don't even like working for the brokers that I work for now. I want to work for myself. No, I'm not going to work for you. And he would ask and ask. And finally one day, he said, Will you please come and work with me? And I said, we've been through this. I don't want to work for anyone. He says, You're not listening to me, said, Okay, repeat yourself and said, Would you like to come and work with me? And I said, I'm listening. What does that mean? And he told me, Look, I really like working with you. And if you don't want to work for me, I can respect that. But I think that you have value and you see things a little different than I do. And it's good to be challenged. And I'd like you to come work with me, I'd like to give you my portfolio. And have you oversee leasing and acquisitions and dispositions and property management. And then everything that we buy together going forward, you will have earned equity. And so you'll receive a small commission that will be below market. So that you can eat you'll have a salary, that won't be enormous, but you'll be able to pay your mortgage, and you'll get this earned equity. And he had a turnover rate, generally speaking, that was enticing to me, right, he was not necessarily a long term holder of real estate. And I knew that I would get that equity out of these deals in a matter of years. And I agreed. And that worked out incredibly well for me. And he is still a very close friend. And I still do deals with him. But about 18 months ago, I had a conversation with him, and I let him know, look, I love working with you, I think we have some really great projects that we've done together. There's some great projects I'd still like to continue working with you on. But you only want to be here in St. Petersburg, and I live across the bay in Tampa. And there are some other projects that I'm very, very interested in doing that you just aren't, which is okay. But I know how to do this now. And I took everything I learned from him from sitting in that owners position from representing an owner from the inside out. And I use those skills to find new partners on bigger deals because I wanted to do larger scale projects. And that's what I do now. So that is my very windy way of how I went from an art history degree to development.
Nancy Surak22:40
Okay, so I appreciate just the comprehensive take, because a lot of people skip over some of those small pieces. And it's important to recognize that you were building your career, one brick at a time, one skill set knowledge base, you were like, Okay, I got this now. Yeah, I'm gonna go learn this other piece. And today, you're still doing your own brokerage, but you're also doing the development component on your own. But you mentioned you wanting to do bigger projects and have different partners. I know that you're have a few projects under your belt are underway. Not yet. I don't think not yet out of out of the ground. Right.
Lauren Campbell23:23
So not not yet, but coming soon. So take me through. I know I have one in particular, I don't know if you're comfortable talking about it, but you have a multifamily project. Can we chat about? We can take me through that project? How did you find the property? What made you think that's where I'm going to put my flag? And I'm going to build a project? And then how did you just you know, take me through that deal a little bit as far as how however comfortable you are. So I'm going to start a little left of center, and then bring it back around how I got there because I think the context is really important. I mentioned before that I'm very interested in placemaking. And Urban Planning and creating a sense of place is incredibly important to me. And so historically in my brokerage background, I've spent a lot of time researching, reading, understanding, discussing attending events about placemaking something that I think gets lost in the brokerage world, at least in commercial is this idea of that not everything has to be about a pro forma, right. So and I don't mean this as an affront to anyone with a business degree or a finance degree or real estate degree. I have friends with them. They're fantast Plastic, they're incredibly skilled individuals and very, very intelligent. But my background with a liberal arts degree, lets me look at things differently, not better, just differently, right. And so my lens, my lens on deals is not necessarily as intricate when it comes to the numbers side, I know my numbers, I'm self taught, I learned Excel on YouTube, because I refused to be embarrassed in a meeting and not understand what a waterfall was, or whatever. So I taught all that to myself online. But the idea that there are intangible things about our real estate assets that make them more valuable, is very, very difficult to convince a bank to convince an investor about unless you can look back and prove it through example. And I think that that's what we did in St. Petersburg. And I took that knowledge of how to create a sense of place, especially on the ground floor, through curation of tenants, through pop ups, through viral, you know, social media trends, through offering free Wi Fi and bringing in activities like night markets, and weekend markets, and holiday events. All of that is incredibly important to the value you you make in your real estate, just as important as lease rates, and TI and all this other stuff that we more typically associate with, you know, a return on investment. And so I always like to say that instead of a return on investment, we want to have a return on experience. Because when you think about real estate, as the place where things happen, the stage for the theater of life, you start to look at it differently, right? Instead of looking at it like the completion of construction is the completion of the project, you start to see the completion of the construction as the completion of the set. And now the play can be. And when you look at it that way, you start to look at sights differently, right? So one important thing that I've learned, that works very, very well for me is this idea of a fishbowl. What do you mean official, I will tell you, if you pull up MSA maps, costar maps, GIS and ArcGIS maps, if you look at City websites, or county websites or state websites, or if you read a newspaper article, you will see maps and they will say this neighborhood is delineated like this according to census tract or according to demographics. However, they've decided to split up again, you're talking about things that are numbers that are on a sheet that are finite, and that have strict lines around them. I don't define a neighborhood that way. I define a neighborhood by its walkability. And I don't just mean is it walkable or not walkable? I mean, if I drop you a real human being on the ground, where are the edges? Where are you going to stop? Where are you not going across the street? Where are you going to stop and look at something? Because it's really interesting, it creates a note, where are you going to stop and shop for an hour before moving through the neighborhood? Again, those are the things that are most important to me. And so I started to think about where are these areas and it's not always a circle, right? It could be a rectangle, a square could be an Obong, shape, whatever. But we all can sit down no matter what city you're in. And I would challenge you to think about it this way, no matter what city you are in. Think about if you had a friend who's coming to town, and they're only there for the weekend, they show up Friday night, you're going to take them out, and they're flying out Sunday after brunch, where are you taking them? I guarantee you, those are the most well defined fishbowls in your entire community, almost certainly, because they managed to create a sense of place. They manage to create a reason to be there. Write a catalyst, and then they have nodes around that catalyst so that there's not just one thing that you're doing, there's multiple things a reason to stay. And if you can give people a reason to stay, then you can drop them there and they will spend and spend and spend and they will do it happily and they will repeat it over and over again. And that's really the key to great placemaking and so with that in mind. Okay, we'll come back to answer your question. Now. With that in mind, I started looking around my community and saying, number one, morally speaking, where do I personally feel is off limits for development. And for me Me, personally, I am not interested in our community, we have, like many communities, we have a huge problem with affordable housing, right. So something that I won't do, because I don't think it's necessary is I will not take someone's home from them. I will not buy a property that has existing tenants that are living there in reasonable rent environment and tear that down to put up new high rise, gray apartment brands with where these people are going to be displaced. I can't do that. It's not a judgment on other people of what they will or won't do. But I have to stick to my morals and those are mine. So I scratch those places out and it's okay, can't do that. That doesn't sit with me. Then I come in, and I say, Where? Where are their fish bowls, right? Where are these defined places, that could be something that are hiding in plain sight. Because if you can think of it right away, it's already done, right. But if you have to sit and think a minute, then there's still opportunity there. And there is a there's an area in a ring suburb around downtown Tampa. This ring suburb is called Tampa heights. And that area, the south portion of Tampa heights is one of our great fishbowls. Right, it's got this amazing complex of apartments and retail, and now office, a lot of new construction, but it's all based around the armature works building, which you're very familiar with. But if listeners are from other places, they might want to check it out online. It's literally an old armature works that the city had owned, and was vacant for many, many years. And it was purchased by a group that was local here. And they did an amazing job with renovating and retrofitting it to become a food hall and restaurants with rooftop bar. And it's family focused. And there's lots of outdoor waterfront activity. And it's become kind of this gym and a huge magnet for regional visits, right. But what I don't think it is, and what it was never really meant to be is it's not meant for the neighborhood it sits in. It's meant for Tampa, it's meant for Tampa Bay, it's meant for Central Florida, but not for that neighborhood. And I think to myself sustainably speaking from a rent standpoint, when inevitably, we hit another bottom because we always do just like we always had another top. You know, I want a great collection of tenants and a sustainable model for real estate that focuses on the neighborhood it's in because at the end of the day when no one has any money left, because we're in the middle of a recession or whatever. Those people still live there. They'll still be in their homes, and they still need a cup of coffee or to go to the grocery store or to get a haircut. And where are they going to find that. And so, along the northern portion of the neighborhood is a really great road that has been mistreated. I think for 50 plus years ignore it is really, totally bored. Right. And that's Columbus drive. And Columbus drive historically has been a small business, retail and office Small Business corridor that connects our most historic and storied neighborhoods. You can take Columbus drive from East Tampa and Ybor through underneath the 275 overpass through Tampa heights over the river into West River District into West Shore and out towards the airport. Every one of those neighborhoods that I just mentioned, are some of the most active neighborhoods as far as development is concerned in the city today. And that is because of their proximity to downtown and their proximity to a number of major multi 100 million dollar or billion dollar projects including Water Street and channel district, including gasworks in Ybor and including Midtown in West Shore, right. And that is a connector road. And we treat it like trash. And I know that part of the reason for that is because historically, it became a road that was derelict and the properties were derelict and there was this flight. Right. Every city has the story. But there was a flight away from downtown in the 60s and 70s and 80s and into the 90s. And the return to downtown starts at the core. And so we're only now just starting to grow out and rings again, getting as close to the core as we can afford right so people my age, we'd love to live in sky high apartments. We do not have a million dollars. So we're going to the closest neighborhood we can get to and that includes stamp heights. And so Columbus, really what it means is it needs densification because today, you have things like a single story diner, on my site, a vacant lot, a small industrial building that's less than 10,000 square feet, another vacant lot in alley that is so misused that you can barely tell it's an alley. And it sits in this beautiful historic neighborhood. Across the street is a Family Dollar. And down the block. one more block is a bunch of used car lots and an auto salvage yard. It's not amazing. But it is amazing, right? Like underneath all of that, if you can look at it and see that this area has this incredible underlying zoning. And it's incredible, like on the future land use maps, and I'll talk about that later. But I'm very into Maps and understanding, like my research background really comes into play with this. But like, it's an activity center. What does that mean? It's in a CRA? What does that mean? It's in an opportunity zone, how can that be used to your benefit, and so layering all of these things, and then looking at it as a linear fishbowl and keeping everything to yourself. I saw the vision there immediately. And in fact, it's been years that I've been thinking about this, but I needed a partner who understood it and saw it. And for a while I just didn't have it. I always figured my friend and St. Pete could do it with me. And we get it except for he doesn't like Tampa, he just wants to do it in St. Pete. And there's plenty to do in St. Pete. So he didn't have a reason to jump the bridge. Until recently, when I had the pleasure of meeting my partners who are out of Chicago. And Chicago, as you know, is a much bigger city than Tampa, and this group does multifamily, their general contractors as well as investors. And so we were able to consolidate some of you know, and right size, some of the costs associated with construction. So our numbers worked in the hot hot market that we just exited. And we were able to put this deal under contract and come to an agreement for a 245 unit seven story 11,500 square feet of retail, mixed use apartment building. And my goal is for this to be the first of many projects that I'd like to work on along Columbus, and people are always asking me, you know, aren't you afraid of talking about this too soon, you're not going to be able to get more land over there, someone's going to come a bite out from under you. And my opinion about that is the more the merrier, because I'm going to deliver first and I'm going to deliver a product that is above what the bare minimum is, and I'm gonna set the bar for what you have to deliver. And if everybody who comes behind me does at least as good of a job as what we're going to deliver, I'm going to have a really great asset. And they're going to have a great asset because we're gonna work together to create a community, right? The best communities are not visions of one person. There are multiple people with multiple paint brushes who work together for a common goal and vision. And so that's how I got to that project. I don't know if you want to details of how I did the project. But that's how I figured out I wanted to be at that site.
Nancy Surak38:25
So it was an area that you had crushed on for a while. I remember us having that conversation. Yeah, before you started working with your friend. That's right. We pulled up the maps and you're like, there's this whole area. I mean, you're you're like I'm going to be there one day, which is so exciting to know that you're really bringing that dream and that hope to a reality now. But I do want to talk about some of the specifics. Not so much about getting it under contract, but about getting what you need in terms of entitlements with the city. Like I know that that Yeah. You know, it is a neighborhood. It's an established neighborhood. Yes, there are multi faceted or dimensions of different groups and people in the neighborhood. So talk to me about you know, this is really your I mean, I know you've done stuff with your friends, but this is really the first time that you are front and center. And this is your baby, right?
Lauren Campbell39:21
Oh, yeah.
Nancy Surak39:21
How did you figure out how to pitch it to the neighborhood or how to do it in such a way that you could get them to not come out with pitchforks for our did they?
Lauren Campbell39:33
Um, they didn't for the most part, thankfully. And it was a lot of hard work. But I think there's a lot of passion behind it too. And I think that when you have a real passion about what you're doing, and it's important to you, and you are spending the time and the energy in an honest way. I think people see that and I think that's important because develop versus just like used car salespeople get a really bad rap. And you know what? Some of my friends won't be happy about this. But I think it's, I think that bad rap is not undeserved. Sometimes. There are definitely developers who do incredible jobs, but a lot of them, you know, I mean, I can't fault them, right? This is a job, it's not a charity. Sometimes it was, it was a charity, I could do really cool stuff. But it's a job, it has to make money, it can't lose money, it certainly can't lose my partner's money. And the same goes for other developers. But at the same time, I really believe that it's okay, to make money without taking things from other people. Right, I don't need to have the very last five pennies on the counter, if it means someone else is going to lose their 40 year old business, or they're not going to have a home to sleep in tomorrow, or fill in the blank, right? Like, their kid isn't going to be able to go to school on a school bus, whatever it is, I don't believe in that. And I believe that when you look to start from, from zero, holding hands with the people in the neighborhood that you want to impact, you're much better off and they're much better off, and I'd rather be friendly, friendly with them and be on good footing, and then have an argument then start from a place where we're at war, and then have an argument because everything escalates. When you're already when you already have animosity towards one another. So it's a really good question. Um, it was something I thought about for a long time, and I knew was going to be an important piece of this puzzle. In fact, it might be the most important piece because one thing that I love about this neighborhood is held very involved and incredibly passionate. Most of the neighbors are in this neighborhood. And a lot of them are involved in the Civic Association, which is their neighborhood association. And they're vocal, and they show up at counting at city council meetings, and they say what's on their mind. And I like that, because, you know, when I lived downtown, I started a neighborhood association to the same damn thing. So I mean, I can't fault them for something I was doing as well. And it can be frustrating, right? Because these are people who are not necessarily in real estate as a job. And who don't understand necessarily, what is happening behind the scenes, or what like an allowable use is, or you know, how some of these things work, they just think, well, if I just demand something, I'll get it if I'm loud enough. And that's not true, either. But I will say that they're incredibly intelligent. And they understand that there's a balance. And the good news, actually, is that because this neighborhood has had so much growth, they've had the experience of doing this with developers, and they're starting to become very savvy about it, which made my job easier, because I wanted to work with them. And so what I did was, you know, a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times a developer will start with their architect, or their civil engineer, whatever. And they will start to lay out on the napkin, like how the site's going to kind of sit, and then they'll go and they'll meet with a city council people, one on one, and they'll discuss back and forth, what do you need, oh, I need you to add this amount of affordable housing, because that's my platform, and I'm getting, you know, the votes coming up in six months, and I need to look into my campaign. And then you go to the city person who's in charge of development and Transportation and Public Works and the fire department and you start to like, put this together. And then what they do. And I think they mean well, is they then come with this, like 85% finished vision board, and they presented at a community meeting, they go, you're welcome. Look at this gorgeous thing we're gonna give you and the community goes, we don't want that. That's terrible, that doesn't take into consideration any of our issues. And you're just going to create more traffic, more bodies for the school that's overcrowded, more, whatever. And then these developers go, I don't understand why you don't like it. It's amazing. I decided to start from backwards. I said, we have nothing if we don't have community support. So let's start there. So we did get with our architect and we drafted a very rough draft of what was on one hand allowed by use, or in other words, zoning today allows you to develop this product, and nothing more. This is the biggest and best that we can do. And on the other hand, we think we can get this zoning and if we can accomplish this, then on this hand, it could look like this version two was a lot better because version two, we knew that we could spend because we had the additional income of the additional units, we knew we could spend more time and more money on things that are important to people live there, like aesthetics, and hiding parking, and creating safe pedestrian safety, and creating bicycle safety opportunities and creating additional retail that they want to use. that's meaningful. And that was really important. And so we met with the community first. And it went very well, I think because number one, they saw that we were, we were very honest about our intentions. We were very honest about what we expected from them, and what we thought was going to be expected of us and we beat them to the punch, we gave them affordable housing, we gave them walkability, we gave them pedestrian safety, we gave them expanded sidewalks and coverings and I talked about all the retail we were going to do and my intent behind what that curation looked like. And I really tried my best to paint the most detailed picture that I could. And then I just put a little asterix next to it. And I said, look, it's still has to get through a Comp Plan Amendment, it still has to get through a PD rezoning. And it still has to get through fire transportation, the development for like, the city still has to put their pencils on this. So we think it will look basically 90% This way, it may shift a little. But the intention is this. And the intention is that and they gave their feedback. And I think we earnestly took that feedback and went back to the drawing board and came to them again. And it wasn't until we had their general approval, that we then asked them to draft a letter of support for us. At that point, we finally went and submitted for Comp Plan Amendment and started meeting with counsel and started doing engineering drawings and all this stuff. And it was that part it was the part of the process where we worked with them from the beginning. We can't give them everything they want, right? Like, they want a community pool, like I can't give you that right? Like I can't finance that I can't give you a two acre park in the middle of my building. But you know, they're also reasonable and they want things like full covered sidewalks, I can give you that I want to give you that. I want to give that to my retail tenants, it'll make our lives better. So we found a lot of common ground that didn't need to be a fight, because we just held hands and did it together. And it's going to be that much more amazing. And I know, and I'm happy to have done that. Because my understanding of placemaking and ground floor activation is that I'm making this for them, why wouldn't I want them to tell me what they want to do and what they want to see and what they want to use? And so that's what we did? And I think it's very well.
Nancy Surak48:01
Incredibly smart. Super smart. Yeah. But I have, you know, what might be a really obvious question. Do you think it actually helped? In this particular instance, that you are a woman and you are willing to listen?
Lauren Campbell48:17
Yes. Yes, I do. And I will tell you why. I number one, it's a couple of things. And this is just my thoughts, right? Like, I don't know any of this for sure. Number one, I look different than the people they're used to seeing stand up there and tell them what to do. And I think it was a combination of looking different and speaking differently. Where it clicked in their brains that maybe this was actually different. Right. And I think the second part of that is that women have, at least in my experience, a better ability to use their emotional intelligence. I won't say that I think that women are more emotionally intelligent than men. I just think we're better at using it. And at understanding other people's emotions and needs, and then being proactive about anticipating that and, you know, I believe through and through that, like, in real estate, for example, deals get done. Because people like each other. Like, if I'm gonna sell my building, I'm gonna sell my building. And to some degree, if you're going to pay me three $4 million more than the guy sitting next to you, you can be a jerk all you want and sell it to you. But if we're talking apples to apples, I'm going to pick the guy I like, pick the guy who's nice and sounds like he's not a jerk. And who seems easier to deal with and like, maybe a little more grounded. It's just the nature of how humans are right like we like to they always say like People like to do business with their friends. I don't have to be everyone's friend. But it doesn't take much to be quiet for five minutes. Like, in our industry, we are all guilty of this me included. Like we never shut up. We have big egos which are necessary, like you can't be in this business and not think pretty well of yourself. It's kind of impossible.
Nancy Surak50:23
100% That might be my quote from the show. What I have to say, you have to because otherwise, you'll just get rolled over.
Lauren Campbell50:32
Oh, you need you need the confidence, right? You will you'll be rolled over. But you'll also be just like, you'll collapse in on yourself. Because you have to know that when someone's telling you no, they're just wrong. It's not that it's smarter than me. They're, they're just wrong. It's fine. They'll see later. Rarely, you have to have that confidence. And if you don't have that, why would anyone have any you. But at the same time, you don't have to flaunt it all the time. And so it, you know, I'm not saying it's not hard, it, it is hard, it's hard to shut up. It's hard not to hear someone saying something that's technically incorrect and want to correct them, because they work in a bakery, not real estate. But you have to let these people get stuff out because and you have to hear what they're saying, not just listen to their words, but listen to the intent behind the words and interpret that. And I think that that's very, very difficult for people who are all about the pro forma. Like, I've known so many developers, and so many brokers, who will get in a veritable pissing match with a community member who's like, you can't have you, I don't want you to put these units, these apartment units here. There's already too much traffic, my kids are getting run over by a car. And they're just like, well, you know, this is as of right, and you can't stop me. It's like, you're not hearing her. Right? What you need to say is what you're doing about parking and circulation and curb cuts and how you're actually removing on our project, we're removing 80% of the curb cuts that are there. So we're limiting the amount of traffic in and out of the site more so than what's there now, having a conversation, but But you have to hear that in order to respond correctly. When you have that conversation. They go, Oh, right. I didn't know that. Yeah, I know, well, let's talk about that. Not only that, you're not gonna have to see the cars and the way that we're designing the parking lot, it's going to have, you know, an arm and it's going to announce that someone's coming out. And so like, if you can stop and get out of your own head, and stop feeling like you're dressing yourself in a coat of armor to go to battle with everybody you meet when you're a developer, because we have that too, right? Because it's almost like a vicious circle, like, because we have the bad reputation, we put the armor on, because we know we're gonna get beat. And we don't want to be beat. And so we want to be right, and then we get the bad reputation and just a self fulfilling circle. Wave away flag, like it's not going to kill you, they don't actually want your head, they don't care about much. They just want some, you know, they want to feel like they got a win. And it's not hard, it's not really that expensive to give them some. And in fact, I would even argue it better. If you want to look at it totally selfishly, it benefits you to give it to them, you're going to have an easier time, you won't have to pay your attorney quite as much. And you'll be able to deliver something that they want. And you'll be able to give yourself a sense of peace that the tenants you put in there are going to be successful because of the kinds of things that the community wants.
Nancy Surak53:47
And I think that's that's really kind of what I hear is, if there's one thing I could say that I'm hearing over and over and over again, in this conversation, it's you want to build a project not only that you're super proud of and that you could ultimately make a humongous profit off of, but that you want the community where you're building it to be able to enjoy and use it. Yes. Which and that's my friend lead, I think then more like greenfield development, because sometimes there just isn't enough community, you're creating a community really from nothing. Yeah, which is I'm fitting this into an established community. So I don't want these people to hate what's going to be there because then they won't come. I need them to be engaged, which is a different perspective, which is a really interesting way of looking at it.
Lauren Campbell54:38
I mean, you know, when you go on vacation to a foreign land, what do you try and do you try and learn a couple words in their language, like you're not going to be fluent but you're like, where's the bathroom? Thank you all have a coffee. You want to learn those words? And you want to try and show that you're making an attempt that you know, assimilating yourself. I mean, it's not going to be perfect, and you're going to stick out like a sore thumb, but the intent is there that you're doing your best and you're trying. And it goes, it takes you really, really far. Whereas if you try and go to another country, and you're just like, I'm an American, give me what I want. That's when we get a bad rap overseas, right? It's like, we're pushy, and we're demanding, and we want all these things. And it's not that way here and too. And so it's like, it just seems so much easier to say, Please, and thank you in their language, you don't have to learn all of it. You don't have to become an nationalized citizen. Right? Like, right, you really are just there for a little while. But, you know, at the same time, it's their land, and you're there. And I feel similarly about these communities. The other thing I'll say, is that at least when it comes to urban infill, or semi urban infill development, which is different than greenfield development, is this idea that, you know, these companies, these developers spend 100, hundreds of man hours, multiple people on their teams, third parties, brokers, whatever. Looking across the country, saying, Oh, where do we need to go? Oh, we need to be in Florida. We need to be in Tampa Bay. Okay, we're in Tampa Bay, it has to be Tampa. It has to be close to downtown core. Tampa heights is the place, oh, look, Columbus, this is where we're going. And they zoned in on this site. And after all of these hours, and all of this money spent to find the perfect site, which is based on the surrounding landscape and what's happening, what's the first thing they do, they close on that deal, and they go internal, everything about the site becomes about an inward looking instead of an outward looking and they create a little island. And you think yourself, why did you waste so much time, money and energy and pay so much for this amazing site, to not weave it into the fabric of office. And so I My goal with our site, is that, of course that the tenants that live there, love it, and that it works for them, but that it also works for the whole neighborhood and that the whole neighborhood adopts it as their own second or third place. And that's really important to me.
Nancy Surak57:04
Well, and I think it is unique that you will have retail on the bottom floor. Because much of and I know that that's a driver for you, because that's sort of where you cut your teeth, right. In the in the placemaking side of our business. So much of multifamily developers. I mean, I see it on my land deals, right? They don't want that piece. They don't understand it. They don't know how to leases they don't know. And no slide to It's not rocket science, right? You it's you have to be thougtful.
Lauren Campbell57:37
I'll be the first person to say that exact same phrase.
Nancy Surak57:40
So be thoughtful about what you're building on that ground floor. But they don't even want to deal with it. It's like we don't know it. It's foreign to us. And they will fight neighborhoods. And we'll fight municipalities on any sort of ground floor. And listen, when you're in the infill. It makes sense, right? If you're in a greenfield multifamily say in you don't have the traffic or you don't have the neighborhoods surrounding financially, it could be a loss leader. And often is right. So I understand why they fight it. But I see ground retail getting fought on things that actually make sense a lot more. I'm like, yeah, actually, that makes sense to put it there. But you know, it's part of the storytelling too, like you're, you're part of telling the story of what's going to be in the future? And isn't this going to be great based on your experience, things that you've seen work well in other projects or not work well, and based on your education, you know, as architecture, art history, like? How do people behave in life?
Lauren Campbell58:44
That's right. There's a whole there's a whole subset of architecture called psychogeography. That's really interesting. And it's all about how people behave and spaces and why.
Nancy Surak58:55
Just, which is really interesting, because I know you and I've had this side comment, we will not mention the project. But I know there is a project in our market that you and I both say, I don't like that project.
Lauren Campbell59:08
And oh, the project that shall not be named,
Nancy Surak59:10
We will not name it.
Lauren Campbell59:11
Nancy Surak59:12
We will not. And I frequent the project. But I'm like I don't like it. And it's not that I don't like it. Visually it will some of its visual. It just doesn't make me feel welcome. Like I feel like somebody picked it up from somewhere else and just sort of dropped it where it is today. And it works. But I just don't. For me it just feels so foreign that I'm like this doesn't feel good when I go here. And you know, honestly like when you shop around the holidays, there's a lot of retail like that in our market to where I'm like yeah, whoever designed this exited entry like tight don't make me feel good when I go these places. For I wish to avoid them at all costs? Yes. Because, it's hard as hell to get in and out of.
Lauren Campbell1:00:07
Yes. So it is so important. When you think about how people are getting in, how are you keeping them there? How are you circulating them? Why are they circulating? What is the motivating factors, you know, the place that shall not be named, and I won't name any tenants, but they have a tenant that sits at the front of that project, that in my mind, should have anchored the back of that project, because it is one of those projects, it is one of those tenants, that is a driver for that project. And had they designed it properly. I would have to be I would be, I would know where it is, the signage would be clear. But I would have to walk through other parts of the project to get to my destination, right? It's like it's the big reveal. They don't use shadow. They don't use light. They don't use alley spaces properly. And this is, like we're picking on this one place that we're not writing in. But it's not just I wish that we were picking on it because it was the outlier. But instead, we're picking on it, because it's just a big, shiny, bright example of everything that's wrong with a lot of mixed use projects. And it's that you can't just go through the motions, right? Like, you can't just design you can't cookie cutter stuff, we have to we have to stop doing this. We have to, we have to the way that people utilize space, in a really dense market, like New York City is not how people utilize space in Tampa, which is not how they utilize space in Jackson, Wyoming. Like we we have to start thinking about who's using it? What is the weather? What is the intent? Who are these users? How old? Are they? Are they here all the time? Or part of the time? Is this for tourists? Is it for locals? Like, you know, is it something that's anchored by a single focused user and everything else is ancillary? Or is this supposed to be something that meets daily needs, and we're just not doing it, we are back filling spaces, with anything we can get our hands on that will pay the highest rent. And I'll tell you what that is you want to talk about turnover and retail. Look at any of these projects that are using and I'm in air quotes here can't see me like the highest rents that they're getting in the market. In my, for me, personally, who cares? Who cares if you can get the highest rent, if the concept is unsustainable, if the concept is the last, you know, the last one holding the potato when the music stops. And if it's if it's a deal where the lease is drafted in a way where they can throw the keys back at you when it gets hard, who cares? Take rent that's $5 cheaper, where you know, the owner is going to be in the shop every day, and he's putting his last 20 grand into making it work. And his family depends on the food he brings home. And he's going to be there until the bitter, bitter end. And while you're fighting for your project during a recession, or whatever, he's out there fighting with you, and you're linking arms, and you're an army of people trying to keep something afloat, that is a much, much more desirable tenant to me. And bonus, he's probably a more interesting tenant, because really, who needs another bowl place? I mean, I mean, I do like a good bowl, but I don't know, I just I I feel like you know, as a community, we can get so much more for all these projects, we give things away for no reason we don't have to the things that other cities have that are so nice, we can have those things, we should be demanding them, because the only way those cities got them was by demand. You know, and a lot of developers that come into our community are the same developers that are in those communities. And they're they're giving what they're required to give and not much more. So we just have to set the bar higher, I think. And that's coming from a developer
Nancy Surak1:04:14
We have to encourage projects like yours that are going to be beacons, right? Like it can be done. It can be done. Yeah. And that will be something that we'll both be able to celebrate when you have your grand opening and your tenants are moving in and we'll be able to say, Look, somebody really gave a lot of thought and consideration to what was going to be here one day. Yeah. And we'll be able to celebrate that not only friend, a friend but in the industry as a whole and you'll be one of those people will will be able to say this is how I did it. This is why I did it. And that will catapult you I believe to other really great projects. Because like you said that there are folks in our business that are incredibly financially oriented, it's all about profit. And there's a place for that. But there's also some really good, very thoughtful people like YouTube, you know, that really do want to do this, you know, they want to engage with communities, you know, and build really wonderful things. So with that, I'm going to transition into the final portion of my podcast because we've gone for a while and you know, I love you. So I could talk to you for like three hours, it'd be like Joe Rogan over here. Okay, so you have really outlined, you know, kind of your career, what you're doing in your deals, how you're engaging your people, your your neighborhood, what I'd like to know now is, given your current level of experience, if you heard from someone who was maybe Lauren 15 years ago, and that person, whether it's a woman, I always say for young woman, but it could be romantic. If they came to you and said, watching what you're doing in your career, I heard your podcast, you're really inspiring. I want to do what you're doing. I just want to do it faster, better, quicker, whatever. Do you have advice for me? What would you tell them?
Lauren Campbell1:06:19
Oh, yes. Oh, my gosh, yes. Actually, I can answer this incredibly, honestly, because I did have a conversation with someone who's about 12 years younger than me the other day. So. Um remember, we talked about ego in the beginning? Yeah. lean into it. Lean into your ego. I, I know the thing. And you know, I went faster because I was lucky and found some people that I could lean on an ask the same questions that you're asking me if someone asked me today, you know, I, I asked those questions. And I learned a lot from them. But I would say the biggest thing that shifted for me was the day that I realized that there wasn't anything that I couldn't do that people older than me were doing. Because in this business, there's a ton of gatekeeping. And a lot of it's intentional. And some of it's not intentional. But it's really the nature of the business. You know, you don't want people to hear about your deals, because you don't want them to take it and you don't want people to steal your people. And I really think that the answer is lean into your ego. So I believe this wholeheartedly, every deal, whether you're brokering a deal, whether you're developing a deal, whether you're leasing a deal requires three components. The first is money. The second is story. And the third is ego. You only need one of those, you can borrow the other two, it's great. If you have two or even all three, that's fantastic, then you need less people involved. But if you have one of those things, you can rent or buy the other two, the cheapest and easiest one, if you're already in this business is ego, because we already have it. So lean on it, use your ego, use your competence, and go out there and start. Don't even ask demands the things you want. That's what I learned. What I learned is that if you ask someone for what you want, you're giving them the option to decide if they want to give it to you. But if you tell them what you want, and that you can't help them without having those needs fulfilled. You are far, far more likely to get what you're asking for. That's how I did this. That's how I did these deals, eyes, you know, with my friend and Sankey. I didn't ask him, Hey, can I please have some equity in this deal? I told him, I don't want to work for you. I want to work with people. And this is what I want. When he was ready. What did he do? He called me. And he gave me the offer. And I was in the position of power to decide if I wanted to do that. Or not. Right. And I think that that was the catalyst for me of being like, I need to just say what I want and not ask. And I think that's the advice I would give. If I could only give one piece of advice it's tell and tell everyone, tell your friends tell your mentors tell your colleagues because you never know who knows. Someone you need to meet who is going to like you like say like bring your name up and a roomful of people have a job that they've been looking for a person I mean, I help people find positions all the time not because it's a job of mine, but their you know, people say oh, I want to get into this. Oh, I know someone who's hiring that position right now. I'm going to connect you guys over lunch. You know, I mean, you just have to tell the universe what you want. But, but to do that is really scary. Because we don't like to hear to work now. So practicing getting nose is good, but just keep saying it. And, you know, lean on your ego. And I think you'll get what you're looking for.
Nancy Surak1:10:04
I love that. I think that's great. And I love that you said, practice getting your nose because I say that a lot. I say, You know what? I even have to say it to myself, right? Like, I've been broke over 18 years, 19 years shortly from now, like, getting to know is like the funnest part for me, as it means that I was brave enough to pick up the phone, or drive to somebody's property and be willing to let them tell me no, you're right. And then I'm like, Okay, well, in for me, it's like, I'm like you like, I don't know, like, I know is not okay. Like, no, no, no, like, I need like more.
Lauren Campbell1:10:42
Let me reframe this.
Nancy Surak1:10:43
Let me rephrase that. Let me try to figure out how long can I get them to stay engaged in the conversation? And what can I gain? What What knowledge can I learn? But really practicing that and being okay, like, sometimes I'll be like, you know, what, I'm gonna make the calls that I don't care if I get that deal or not? Yeah, that's an easy way to find muscle.
Lauren Campbell1:11:05
You have to exercise. You know, if everybody's life is their own epic journey, then I would say, you know, and here comes my liberal arts three, like remember that the hero's journey is not about the successes, it's about the learning from the failures along the way, like, how does that hero gets the success. It's not without learning from those failures, and you have to get the nose and you have to be crushed. And you have to be told you're too young for something. And you have to be told that you're inexperienced, and that you're incompetent or that you're not good enough, because your ego, again, in this business that leaves your ego needs to be strengthened. And it needs to be like, You know what, they're wrong. They're wrong. And I'm going to show them they're wrong, and then they'll do it like go show. That's only half of my life is just me being like, Oh, you're wrong. Watch.
Nancy Surak1:11:55
I love that. My entire career has been that.
Lauren Campbell1:11:58
Yeah. Yeah.
Nancy Surak1:12:00
Okay, I can't get into that. There's a back door somewhere.
Lauren Campbell1:12:03
Window and air event. Like, I don't care, right? I mean,
Nancy Surak1:12:09
I mean, with reason, you know, sometimes I'm like, Okay, this is just exhausting, right? I'm gonna go somewhere else where it's not as hard.
Lauren Campbell1:12:15
As you can smell something foul coming from, like, you know what, maybe you don't want to break in there.
Nancy Surak1:12:19
But yeah, yeah. But I do. I do love, you know, really confidence and ego boosting and leaning into if you really, really want something. Yeah. doing whatever it takes to make it happen. You know,
Lauren Campbell1:12:33
I'll I'll add one thing, specifically for the women. Since this is a woman's podcast, I have one specific extra piece of advice for women. And that is, do your best, at least in business, to unlearn the the feminine faux pas that we make. I am guilty of this today. I am 35 years old. And I've been doing this since the day I learned how to type. Deere, John Deere John, I'm so sorry. This email took me so long to get back to you. My apologies. Anyway, to answer your question, no. Stop it. Like stop apologizing. Stop putting smiley faces and exclamation marks. Basically, my rule is that I write an email. I wait one minute, I come back and I read it. And I say if I was a man, would I have done this? I know that sounds sexist and terrible. And I don't mean it that way. But like, men write emails different than women. And they write them in a more powerful way. Not because they're better at being more powerful, but because they just were never taught those little things about how we should be apologetic for taking up space. I get so tired of it.
Nancy Surak1:13:47
I take it out. I take it out too. And I take it in emails when I see it. I'm like, oh, it's like, nails on the chalkboard.
Lauren Campbell1:13:55
It is. I mean, even me like I wear pants. I make it a point. And this is just like, whatever. I make it a point to wear pants in every meeting so that I can spread my knees as wide as they do. I lean back I cross my arms. i i If you interrupt me, I will stop you. I'm not having it. I am tired of the railroading. And I'm not behaving any differently than my peers. I'm not rude about it. I'm not condescending, but I am not here for it. And I don't take it and I will also stand up for other women, usually younger women because I was them too, right? Like I kind of like tucked in my arms and tucked in my knees and didn't say anything. And if someone interrupted me, I just kind of let them because they must be smart. They're not they're not smarter than you.
Nancy Surak1:14:38
Yeah, no. I'm with you. I'm 100% with you. I I hear it. I see it all the time. And I'm like, No, don't don't do that. Don't do that. I've read a book, which which dovetails into my next question. I wish I knew the book was years and years and years and years ago and I don't know the name of it, but it was basically something along the lines of the mistakes women make to get to the corner office or something like that. And this was probably in the 90s. And one of the things I really remembered was don't bring baked goods into the office that you've made on the weekend. And the tykes huge like Baker at the top, I was like, I don't want to keep it in my house, because it'll just make me fat. Right? I want to bake, I enjoy it. It's a great process. For me, it's a stress reliever. And luckily, because I had a husband, I just started sending it with him. Right? And my career, I was like, Okay, well, I don't want to be known as Nancy, the baker, the weekends are bringing my cupcakes, and I'm just gonna send it with my husband, and he kept bringing it to stop. So I would still be able to benefit, right? Or I would give it to neighbors. Instead, I was like, I'm not going to be known as that because there was something in the book that said, like, don't do that. And it stuck with me all these years, which is crazy. Anyway, it'll be up to my next question for you. Not necessarily what book did you read to tell you not to bring bring goods into the office? But is there a book that you've read recently, or, at some point in your career that you absolutely love, and that you think everyone here today should listen to? Or read?
Lauren Campbell1:16:17
Yes, there's a book that I read over the summer. It's called feminist city claiming space and a man made world. And it's really great book. It's written by a woman. And each chapter talks about different parts of the city and the infrastructure that goes into building cities around white male bodies, and how cities are not designed for, but how they could be better designed for and she gives examples for women, for disabled people, for minorities to create safer places, and safer spaces for these for the majority of people who utilize cities, right? Old, older people, mothers with strollers, wheelchairs, all of these young teenage girls, we don't have spaces for these people. And we don't have infrastructure. I'm talking cities. I mean, think about it. The timing on a crosswalk, timing on a crosswalk is, is timed for the light cycle of cars. It's not timed based on who's utilizing the crosswalk. Like for example, if you have an ALS facility on the corner, and it's predominantly older people walking across the street to the grocery store, they have to stop in the median because they can't cross in 20 seconds because they are not able bodied enough to do that. So all of these things that go into making a city that we just take as written gospel, but that are affecting the livability of our cities. And I love this book, and I was not expecting to love it because it starts out the first chapter is a little dry, and I'm like, Oh my God. But I loved the reviews so much that I just kept going. And by chapter two, I was hooked. And it it really is important to me that book because it builds off of the concepts that I know from experience work in creating walkable places, and it like it. When you read it, you're just gonna think like, da, like I've known this the whole time, I felt this I just didn't. I didn't pay attention enough to iterate it out loud. And she does and she does a great job. And I love that she calls these things out. And then she gives cities credit where credit's due when they do make these changes, and she specifically explains how cities can be better at making those changes and creating an infrastructure that works for everyone. So I really, I really love that book.
Nancy Surak1:18:54
Cities and buildings. One thing I always notice that drives my husband crazy, because I'm like, that was designed by a man. It's usually how the conversation goes, I will just point at it. And I'll say a man designed that see through stairwells. When it's like cut underneath or glass.A man designed that no woman who has ever put a dress on or a skirt would have designed that glass stairwell. And Isee them everywhere, everywhere. I have a friend right now putting one in his house. And I'm like, how did your wife I mean, I'm in his house. So I'm going to try to give them a benefit of that, that maybe they just thought was very cool looking. But I'm like, how did you? Clearly you pick that out? Because no woman would have picked that out. I don't think I mean, maybe if you're a woman and you're listening to this, and you would put in a glass stairwell like please let me know because maybe I'm wrong, but I'm like I wouldn't put that in anything ever.
Lauren Campbell1:19:55
Yeah, you know, so true and it changes the whole aviary like, all of that stuff. So important? You know? I talked about psychogeography before. And how important that is to in that all, that's all part of it right? Like, when you when you walk into someone's house, a home you've never been to before? How do you know where to go and where not to go? It's based off of light and shadows and smaller doors versus bigger doors, you know, not to go down the darkened hallway, you know, that's bedrooms? How do you know that's the bedrooms, because it's this innate psychology of small dark spaces versus open light spaces, even, you know, can even improve your health. Give me an example, an ALS facility in England, they created a new als facility, and they placed it next to a public park, because there was all this research that said, oh, when you put older people together with small people like preschoolers and kindergarteners, they both thrive, it's good for both of them. And what they found was that most of the people in the ALS did, generally speaking have better health outcomes. But the people who were the worse off in the ALS showed no, or decreased health outcome. And they of course, were like, why this is so strange to think that they would show the most. Well, most of those people were in wheelchairs, or they were disabled to the point where they didn't stand up a lot, they often sat in chairs, and the windows were typical height of a window. And so they could not see because their eye level was about here, they couldn't see the playground or the kids. So they came in and they retrofitted the building. And they dropped the windows to the floor marked improvement, just because they could see the children and they could see outside and they felt more connected to the world and the environment at large. And it was that little tweak, something that us is able bodied people would have never considered was important. It was really, really important to people that were different than us. And that's the kind of stuff I'm really interested in. And like how can you use that kind of information? That doesn't cost any? I mean, sure, the glass might bust a little more. But generally speaking, those things don't cost a lot of money. It just requires knowledge and forethought. And to stop and think for five minutes and to talk to people who are different than you.
Nancy Surak 1:22:26
Yep, absolutely. Okay, Lauren, final question. As you get through your project, where can listeners keep up with your progress? Are you active on LinkedIn, or you like we do have a website yet on the project? Or is that something that will happen later,
Lauren Campbell1:22:43
it's going to happen later. And I am actually, I haven't even gotten to tell you this yet. So this will be exciting news for you to Nancy, I'm going into 2023, I'm going to be growing my brokerage services arm and actually hiring some people to help me do the retail leasing that comes with some of these projects. So I can focus more of my time on doing more of these projects. And that is going to result in a bigger social media presence and a website. And so I'll update you when I have all that. But you can share my email and my LinkedIn with anyone who wants it. I'm on Instagram, I mostly post pictures of my redheaded seven year old playing hockey. But occasionally, I will post a thing here or there about Tampa Bay and projects and cool stuff that's happening. And I belong to a lot of local, you know, local groups like Uli and Rei. See, so if anyone's local and wants to run into me, I go to a lot of those events. But yeah, I've been a bad girl. I haven't started an Instagram page.
Nancy Surak1:23:51
Like, listen, you gotta do what works for you. That's, I mean, I haven't been very active in recent weeks, just because, you know, preparing for the holidays, getting through the holidays, getting sick, traveling life, you know, and I'm like, I just know, I'm gonna take a break. Yeah. And that's okay. You know, but I always like to ask the question of how can people keep up with you if they're generally really interested and curious, we'll just make sure that when you are ready, I can always go back and update the show notes. So perfect. I will make that happen. I have really enjoyed our conversation. I know it is really, really long today. But you're always bringing so much knowledge and such passion to our conversations. And I absolutely love talking with you. And I'm really, really happy and very grateful that you spent your time with me this morning. And I hope everybody you know, checks Lauren out. And, you know, we all are going to wish you well on your project and I can't wait to see what what comes next.
Lauren Campbell1:24:51
Thank you and thank you for having me. Of course it's always fun talking to you.
Nancy Surak1:24:55
Always. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you for joining us for Another episode of She's Wild the podcast for women in land and development. If you enjoyed today's show, please go out and rate us so that we can be found by other women in our industry. And if you know women who are working in land and development, please share this podcast with them. And if you know a total rock star woman, badass chick who is killing it in land and development anywhere in North America. I want to know who she is. Please reach out to me so that I can feature her on an upcoming episode.