Building Mass Timber Projects with Tim Gokhman of New Land Enterprises

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Real Talk: Real Estate Discussions with Andrew Kirsh
Episode: Building Mass Timber Projects with Tim Gokhman of New Land Enterprises
Air Date: October 25, 2023
Guest: Tim Gokhman, Managing Director, New Land Enterprises

This episode centers on the innovative use of mass timber in high-rise construction, featuring Tim Gokhman’s experience pioneering the tallest mass timber building in the world, Ascent, in Milwaukee. Andrew and Tim discuss the advantages, challenges, and future of mass timber, covering everything from insurance and capital markets to design, construction, and sustainability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Mass Timber & New Land Enterprises

• New Land Enterprises is a vertically integrated development firm focused on ground-up, market-rate multifamily projects and innovating with new construction technologies.
• In 2018, New Land began exploring tall mass timber projects, leading to the development of Ascent.
• Mass timber is explained as engineered, laminated wood used for structural elements, allowing for tall buildings previously reserved for concrete and steel.

“Mass timber is the evolution of heavy timber buildings... you glue and press it together and you create these structural members that can achieve fire ratings and equivalent to concrete and steel. And that's really what mass timber is.” – Tim Gokhman [04:05]

2. Technical Foundation & Industry Context

• Origins: Glulam (glued laminated timber) has decades of history; CLT (cross-laminated timber), enabling taller construction, was popularized ~25-30 years ago in Austria.
• The U.S. is still catching up to European mass timber innovation.
• Mass timber is most competitive for buildings in the 12–25+ story range, offering comparability or advantages over concrete in speed, aesthetics, and sustainability.

“Where we see the sweet spot for mass timber... is north of [12-18 stories] and up to Ascent is 25 stories.” – Tim Gokhman [06:28]

3. Benefits vs. Challenges

• Advantages:
  • Faster construction (3-4 months faster than concrete for Ascent)
  • Aesthetic appeal (exposed wood; biophilic design)
  • Sustainability (embodied carbon reduction)
  • Labor efficiency
• Main Challenges:
  • Higher insurance premiums due to limited actuarial data
  • Newness complicates lender and insurer perceptions
  • Supply chain risks (e.g., reliance on Austrian timber suppliers)

“Insurance is probably one of the biggest problems in mass timber... Insurance companies want to see failures. We would like to very much not be a part of their data set.” – Tim Gokhman [08:01]

4. Market Appetite & Capitalization

• New Land has mainly used syndication for deals, but is seeing increased institutional and ESG fund interest as decarbonization becomes a priority.
• Mass timber appeals to capital markets as a differentiated, sustainable product.

“Mass timber is a very potent solution [for carbon reduction]... We’ll continue to see more and more interest from institutional equity as this becomes more mainstream.” – Tim Gokhman [10:00]

5. Project Spotlight: Ascent (Milwaukee)

Project Details:

• 25 stories, 284 feet
• 19 stories of exposed mass timber above 6-story concrete podium
• Completed 3-4 months ahead of equivalent concrete timeline

Development Process:

• Required extensive predevelopment and custom approvals due to lack of precedent/code pathways
• Utilized alternative means testing for fire safety; completed extensive scientific testing with the U.S. Forest Service

Financials:

• Roughly 6% cost premium over concrete (location dependent)
• High tenant engagement and perceived superior tenant experience due to biophilic design

“The reactions are visceral in a very positive way… The cool thing about mass timber is that it literally makes people feel a certain way. And this isn’t us marketing—it’s science. It’s called biophilia.” – Tim Gokhman [16:02]

Leasing & Value:

• Ascent is considered a “watermark” asset—premium rents, high retention, faster lease-up
• “Premiums” are realized not just in rent, but in retention, marketing, and cap rate compression

6. Mass Timber Industry Trends & New Land’s Future

• Rapid increase in mass timber adoption (especially in office sector via Hines’ T3 model and major tenants like Google, Microsoft, Adidas, Walmart)
• New Land aims to replicate Ascent’s model in other cities, leveraging lessons learned and digital design advantages

“The demand—it’s a hockey stick. It literally is exponential growth. And it’s not just what you’d expect—Adidas, Estee Lauder, Walmart, everyone’s building with mass timber.” – Tim Gokhman [18:44]

• Success requires beginning from first principles, not simply substituting timber into steel/concrete designs
• Local partnerships are crucial in scaling to new markets (Denver is a priority, plus Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Salt Lake City)

“Great local partners make a huge difference... We do not want to suffer from the hubris of saying, ‘Oh, we're going to go to a new market and figure it out.’” – Tim Gokhman [27:27]

7. Broader Applicability

• Mass timber is easily adaptable to offices and hospitality; multifamily is hardest due to irregular demising walls
• Once proven in multifamily (the most challenging segment), hospitality and office sectors are seen as low-hanging fruit

“If you can make it work in multifamily in Milwaukee, you can make it work in most any other city.” – Tim Gokhman [29:11]
“Frank Sinatra was wrong... If you can make it in Milwaukee, you can make it anywhere.” – Andrew Kirsh, jokingly [30:13]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“The construction industry hasn’t innovated in decades.” – Tim Gokhman [04:05]

“Insurance companies aren’t looking for more buildings being built; they want to see failures. We would very much not like to be part of that data set.” – Tim Gokhman [08:08]

“The reactions [from tenants] are visceral. If you’ve seen the pictures, they just don’t do it justice.” – Tim Gokhman [16:02]

“The most important thing is the team... the engineering is not good enough and the team is not good enough.” – Tim Gokhman [26:45]

“You have to have a team that really knows everything inside and out about every aspect of it to be able to handle that.” – Tim Gokhman [26:09]

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Important Timestamps

• Vertically Integrated Development & Mass Timber Origins: [03:17–05:56]
• Comparative Advantages & Challenges (Economics/Insurance): [06:28–09:21]
• Capitalization Strategies & ESG Trends: [09:51–11:05]
• Ascent Project Approval & Construction Process: [12:04–14:54]
• Tenant Experience and Rent Premiums: [16:02–18:13]
• Market Trends & Replicating Ascent: [18:44–21:02]
• Scaling, Local Partnerships, and Asset Classes: [27:27–29:11]
• The “Milwaukee Not New York” Moment: [30:13]
• Closing Remarks: [31:09–31:21]

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Final Thoughts

Andrew and Tim’s conversation shines a spotlight on the disruptive potential of mass timber as a construction material. The Ascent project serves as a playbook for future high-rise development, demonstrating that when innovative design, sustainability, and market differentiation come together—with the right team—the result can be both profitable and transformative for the industry. With the global building sector increasingly focused on carbon reduction and tenant experience, mass timber looks poised for sharp growth, especially as regulatory, insurance, and supply chain challenges continue to be addressed.

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Transcript

[Andrew Kirsch]

Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate discussions with Andrew Kirsch. In each episode, Andrew interviews industry leaders. We'll hear their real time opinions on today's market, their background and unique career highlights and guidance for newcomers into the industry. You can find this [e-mail] and on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts and more. Now here's the host of Real Talk, Andrew Kirsch.

Episode 36 of Real Talk. As I record today on October 19th, the 10 year treasury is just about 5% look continuous disruption in the capital markets. Yet at the same time there are deals that are closing. Mostly private capital syndication deals, family offices deal. Family office deals closed a multifamily deal in Washington state this week. Suburban office here in Southern California, more multifamily in the Southwest. So deals are getting done. It's just harder to, to transact. And where we had one construction financing of, of apartments in extremely well located area. The construction lender pulled out after months of working on it. So it's, it's definitely a challenging time. Everyone is, is feeling it. We're heading into the last two months of the year and we'll see what lies ahead. This week we have Tim Gockman, managing director of New Land Enterprises. And I was introduced to Tim a couple months ago through ypo. And Tim focuses on mass timber construction. He's got completed one fantastic project of 25 stories in Milwaukee. That's mass timber over a concrete podium. I've seen pictures of it, hadn't seen it live, but it, it really is something to be seen. It's like the building is alive. Tim talks about mass timber, tall timber, the benefits of it, and I think you'll find it rather interesting.

Hello, welcome to another edition of Real Talk. I'm here with Tim Goffman, founder of New Land Enterprises. Tim, how you doing?

[Tim Gockman]

I'm great. How are you doing?

[Andrew Kirsch]

Yeah, so it's good to have you on. You know, I'm trying to think how we met and I, and I feel like it's through YPO where you sent an email to the real estate network and I forgot what specifically the message was but I know what was drawn to me was what your company does in Mass Timber. So just, let's just start off there. And what does New Land Enterprise, what is New Land Enterprises?

[Tim Gockman]

Yeah, so New Land is a fully vertically integrated real estate development firm. So we have in house, property management, asset management and as a, as a developer we have really focused on market rate, ground up, new construction, multifamily have always done a really great job of differentiating and embracing new technologies. And ultimately that led us in 2018 to ask the question, could we build a tall timber building?

[Andrew Kirsch]

So what is tall timber or mass timber? What, what is that for my audience who has not heard that phrase before?

[Tim Gockman]

So mass timber is the evolution of heavy timber buildings. And I think for people who live in coastal cities or port cities, they will have seen heavy timber buildings. And that's the, the older way of building where we would take a 60, 70 year old tree and that would be a column or a beam and oftentimes that would be exposed within the building to go taller. That was, you know, that construction technique was ultimately replaced by concrete and steel and very similar to electric cars. What engineers have figured out is that you can take effectively dimensional lumber in a, you know, slightly more sophisticated way that I'm describing it, but you basically glue and press it together and you create these structural members that can achieve fire ratings and equivalent to concrete and steel. And that's really what mass timber is. It's mass is short for massive timber. And so you're creating large pieces of wood with younger growth forest. And the technology is amazing because it has so many benefits over traditional construction methodology. And frankly, the construction industry hasn't innovated in decades.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so when did the technology first come about?

[Tim Gockman]

Well, so within mass timber there, there are, there are different technologies. So there's glulam, which is typically used for columns and beams. And that's been around for decades. The real advent that has allowed buildings to go taller is CLT cross laminated timber. And the patents go back much farther. But, but really it was popularized about 25, 30 years ago in Austria. They really broke through. And so the Austrians have led in manufacturing and building for a while. It spread to Europe, then spread to Canada and the United States is catching up.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so what are the, I guess, advantages and are there any disadvantages to mass timber as opposed to what? I mean, traditionally if you're building, if you're constructing an apartment building, at what point is a, is a structure going to be steel? How many levels?

[Tim Gockman]

So usually, and we're predominantly a multi family developer that we've also looked at office and hospitality, but usually multifamily, we're comparing against concrete. So once I'm building and there is a middle ground where we use light gauge steel. So we new land calls itself construction technology agnostic. We've built with stick frame, right. Two by fours. We've built with light gauge steel, which allows you to go over 84ft and up to 180ft. We built with concrete. Where we see the sweet spot for mass timber is the industry will say 12 to 18 story range. We see it as north of that and up to ascent is 25 stories. Really our engineering is good for 420ft. So really the economic advantage of mass timber is when you can substitute concrete out because concrete is heavy and concrete is imprecise and it's dirty. And so there's advantage on, there's comparability on economics, there's huge advantage on speed, there's a massive advantage on aesthetics because you can expose the mass timber. It's a beautiful, absolutely stunning built environment. And then a bunch of other benefits like sustainability, reduction in labor force, etc.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so what, what, what is the appetite for mass timber or what are the reactions I guess from we'll start I guess with insurance companies.

[Tim Gockman]

Well, insurance companies are a whole separate animal. Insurance is probably one of the biggest problems in mass timber. And so you know, when you talk about engineering and optimization and what is the kind of evolution of this. Well, mass timber is relatively new and insurance companies build their product on actuarial tables and actuarial tables require data points. So there aren't a lot of data points. And people mistakenly think that the data points that are needed are more buildings being built. No, it's more buildings failing. That's what insurance companies want to see. They want to see failures. So we would like to very much not be a part of their data set. But, but that's one of the biggest challenges with insurance companies. There are ways to solve it. You can do a captive, you can do a bunch of different solutions and people are working on it. But certainly there's just this. Well, we don't know what it is and how it works. And so tall timber will face premiums that are significant from the insurances stream.

[Andrew Kirsch]

So you, your premiums are higher than if you were to go with concrete?

[Tim Gockman]

For the time being, yes. It's specific to tall timber and it's specific to certain configurations of tall timber. So I sit on the woodworks board and it's one of the problems that we're working on right now. It's, it's very much solvable in the Next, I think 2, 3, 4 years.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Uhhuh.

What about other parties within a development? So, so we talked about insurance. What about the capital markets and investors? Both the institutional equity and I actually. Well, let me ask you sort of a broader question first. How do you capitalize your projects? Is it with institutional equity or is it syndication, friends and family and beyond?

[Tim Gockman]

To date, we have mostly done syndication. We're about to start conversations with let's call it institutional equity or sophisticated family offices. And so we'll find out. But what I can tell you is that, you know, we've. We've been hearing about sustainability or ESG for a long time. And to me, it feels like we've been talking about for a long time. We are about to switch Ascent from a construction loan to permit. And it's the first time in the quote deck that I saw an ESG fund and they were competitive. And so I think it's becoming more and more important. I think states like California usually lead the way for the United States. And now you have mandatory embodied carbon reduction. And honestly, to have conversations about decarbonizing the real estate industry, which has a huge carbon footprint, and to only talk about operating carbon and to not talk about embodied carbon is a problem. And so mass timber is a very potent solution in that respect. So I think we'll continue to see more and more interest from private institutional equity as this material becomes more mainstream.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And then what about from lenders?

[Tim Gockman]

We capitalized the scent in 2020, and so it's really hard to say. 2020 was just right. Such chaos. It's really hard to say whether it helped or hurt. What I can tell you is that at this point, having set a world record and having had the acclaim that Ascent has had, we call any major financial institution, chances are they've either already heard of Ascent or. And they're curious about it, or it's a really neat way to start a conversation. It's compelling because it's such a differentiator. Right? Like you've got a sea of buildings that are frankly, pretty similar out there, especially multifamily. All the product is starting to look the same. And so differentiation has so much value.

[Andrew Kirsch]

All right, so let's talk about that project Ascent. So, you know, where is it? How big is it? Just, you know, let's, let's get into.

[Tim Gockman]

This particular project Ascent is Ascent as a mass timber concrete hybrid. It is the tallest mass infrastructure in the world. For now, that record will be broken in very short order.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so how many, how many, how, how tall and how many stories?

[Tim Gockman]

25 stories tall. 284ft. It is 19 stories of mass timber over a six story concrete podium. And then the cores are also concrete. So hence the. Has the mass timber hybrid.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Mm. And so how long? Well, let's start at the, at the entitlement phase. So this is in Milwaukee, right?

[Tim Gockman]

Yep.

[Andrew Kirsch]

How, how, how was it getting approvals to build mass timber versus a traditional high rise apartment building?

[Tim Gockman]

Well, it takes longer because it never been done before in the United States.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Right.

[Tim Gockman]

So there are multiple thresholds. To cross 84ft is one for fire, for fire ratings then in the code, if it's been adopted in Your state, typically 12 stories is one breaking point, 18 stories is the next next. Wisconsin was on 2015 IBC, so there were basically no tall timber provisions, but there is a provision called alternative means and methods. Basically, if you can scientifically show that you can achieve the needed fire resistance that's comparable to concrete and steel, that's a path that the city can, but is not obligated to take. So we started, we asked the city of Milwaukee the question in March of 2018. We broke ground in fall of 2020. A lot of people will say, oh my goodness, that's really, really quick. But the reality is, is now that we've done this testing, right, we're, we're the only team that has done the engineering and built a building taller than 12 stories of exposed mass timber in the United States. So now that we have that science, and we did 14 different char tests with the Forest Lab in the US Forest Service, and that data is publicly available to everybody now. But now that we have that, that, you know, that conversation should be cut in half.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so how that's on the development side and then what about, or excuse me, the pre development side? And how long did it take to build?

[Tim Gockman]

We started realistically October of 2020 and we finished in two phases. We delivered the first half of the building in the middle of July, 2020, 2022 and full occupancy September 1st. Okay. About 23 months, which is three to four months faster than it would have been in concrete. And that's measurable savings.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And how about the cost?

[Tim Gockman]

We think we paid about a 6% premium versus what concrete is. And everyone asked this question, right? Like how does it compare to concrete? And the answer is really complicated because concrete is hyperlocal. So the answer depends on when and where. You ask me, Milwaukee concrete is really, really affordable. California concrete is really, really expensive. And then everything in between and it's, and it's not intuitive where it's expensive and where it's affordable.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Yeah. So talk about the, the tenant side and the types of reactions. Because I've seen the pictures, you've shown me the deck, and it looks outstanding from, from a tenant perspective, what are their Reactions and how much is a comparable unit leasing out for in Milwaukee in your building compared to new construction, you know, similarly located, similar amenities, what's the rent differential?

[Tim Gockman]

So the reactions are visceral in a very positive way. And it's. If you've seen the pictures, they just don't do it justice. And this is literally from every person that has seen the deck and seen the pictures and visited the building. I asked the question all the time, right? Does the deck do a good job? And we have high quality photos, we have great video and people are like, no. Nothing comes close to experiencing the real thing. And so the cool thing about mass timber is that it literally makes people feel a certain way. And this isn't like us marketing it, right? There's a science behind this. It's called biophilia. It's been studied for decades. And it is the study of how natural elements within the built environment make people feel and perform. And the simple answer is better. And this isn't just apartment buildings. This is. Hospitals understand this, institutions understand this. It's a real thing. So the feedback is absolutely incredible. Honestly, I, I go into that building so often and I give so many tours and every time I go into it, it's magical. It really is. If it's exposed in terms of how to compare to other buildings, Milwaukee is a smaller market. There's only one other high rise that was built before us that's new in class A. There's two other high rises going up, sure. But we are definitely the watermark and it's difficult to parse out. Right. How much of that is the mass timber and how much of it is the way that we designed our amenities, which we believe are superior and multiple other things. So in multifamily, I think that that data is the most difficult to extract. How much is there a massive premium first and foremost and then, well, how much? And so we, we've got some data points that are start starting to come in as the building has lived for a year and I think as it continues going, we'll see it. But people think about premiums right away. They think about like, what was the rent premium? There are other premiums, right? There's retention, there's lease up, there's free marketing benefits on refi cap rate, compression on the exit. So it, you really have to be, you have to look at the whole picture when you're thinking about what is the value created with this product.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so what's, so what's next both for your company, mass timber before you Even ask that or answer that, I guess, to provide both me and my audience just sort of an understanding. How many mass timber projects are already in existence and how many do you know is in the pipeline of actively being constructed?

[Tim Gockman]

So there's a really cool chart on the Woodworks website. It might be on Wind, which is their wood innovation network, and it tracks the number of mass timber projects. Right. Now, remember, there's a. There's a difference between mass timber projects and tall timber projects. So the. The kind of household name in real estate development and the gold standard is Heinz. And Heinz pioneered mass timber for office buildings with their T3 concept, starting in Minneapolis and now building it all over the United States, Canada, and now across the world. So the demand, it's a hockey stick. It literally is a hockey stick. It's exponential growth. And it's not just, you know, you're kind of traditional. What you would think, you know, if I tell you, like, Google is interested in it and has built buildings, okay, makes sense. Microsoft makes sense. But Adidas, new headquarters, Estee Lauder, Robin Hood, Walmart built half their campus out of mass timber. So the, the demand is coming from everywhere. And it really is. You know, I compare it to Tesla a lot. It's just a superior product. It's not. It's not a wholesale replacement for concrete and steel. Those materials still very much have a part to play in the construction industry. But mass timber has so many advantages in my mind as an industry. In the next decade or two, it becomes a dominant material when architects and builders are looking at how to build. And so for us, what that means is more Ascents. We've realized that. And this was a happy accident. We didn't actually mean to set a world record when we designed ascent. We started 19 stories and then upsized 21, then to 23, then to 25. And we were simply looking to balance the economics. And so what we ended up doing was we created what we now realize is a product, not just a building. And so because the engineering is so repeatable and there's so much digital design with mass timber, we are now able to take all the lessons learned and much of the design at a cent, and replicate it in other markets very, very quickly. And that's what we're working on now.

[Andrew Kirsch]

So what are some of those lessons that you learned?

[Tim Gockman]

Oh, man, we could spend an hour on that. I'm no kidding, right? It's. You have to switch the mindset going back to EVs, right. Tesla rethought the entire manufacturing supply Chain methods of manufacturing. They built a new plant for production. Right. The legacy automakers are taking battery packs and dropping them into existing frames. With existing UX and existing wiring, it just doesn't work well. And so you really have to start from scratch. And I think a lot of people make the mistake of saying, oh, I have this concrete design or I have the steel design, switch it to mass timber. Doesn't work well. You really have to start from scratch. Now. The problem is, is that there's still real estate deals. So you also need real estate development fundamentals to control. And so I, I always joke that new land was big enough and good enough to try tall timber and small enough and naive enough to try tall timber. And you really like, you have to have that sweet spot. So lessons learned. I mean, the vast majority of it is on construction methodology and optimizing the design. The challenge with mass timber is not is this type of building doable? The big questions are, is it doable economically? Can you make the numbers work? And that's where I think a lot of chips fell our way. I think that any major achievement always has a strong component of luck in it. And so we tried to do the best we could and ended up with really excellent teams, both on the construction side and the design and the architectural side. And so from simple things like water management on site to logistics, to selection of the master manufacturer and so on, literally we could spend an hour on this.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Yeah. So do you still own ascent?

[Tim Gockman]

We do.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And have you refied?

[Tim Gockman]

Just about to pull the trigger on a perm. Okay, so we, we've talked about, you know, this is, this is one of my blind spots. You alluded to institutional capital. It's like, well, do we want to take ascent and put it into a Devco and use it to seed other ascents? And so that's, that's the math we're going through right now. But ascent is, is literally the gene. It has so much data inside of it because we have access control systems that tell us how the building is living and breathing, that it really informs what future ascents will do and frankly, what future of mass timber holds.

[Andrew Kirsch]

But is that beyond just the mass timber or when you're saying of how the building is, is when you use the phrase of how the building is doing or how the building is performing from, from like a systems perspective, is that beyond mass timber and there's other technologies within ascent or you're saying of how the mass timber is literally holding up?

[Tim Gockman]

That's, that's a very astute observation. So it's beyond mass timber.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Right.

[Tim Gockman]

And people ask us, well, is the solution just that it's a mass timber building? No, Ascent is really special because it creates, it's the intersection of biophilic design, which mass timber drives, but also experiential design. And that's a combination of technology and finishes and amenities. And so it's to create a superior product, everything needs to be superior. You can't just say, oh, it's a master, we're building, therefore it's superior. Nope. The amenities have to be superior, the finishes have to be superior, the resident experiences have to be superior. Everything. And so that's where the access control is really helping us is to understand how amenities round out the experience at Ascent.

[Andrew Kirsch]

So I've seen your deck and we're having this conversation. You know, walk me through the, the conversations you're having with investors who are curious to trying to poke holes. I mean, is there anything that I haven't asked you that, that they're really, you know, focusing on and, and, and trying to, I don't know, basically disrupt what, what you think is, is really the next wave and, and, and today's and how, you know, large apartment buildings and other asset class is other buildings, commercial buildings should be built. I mean, what are these questions that they're asking you?

[Tim Gockman]

Yeah, I mean, you know, skipping past the kind of introductory questions of like how does it do in fire safety and etc. That, that have actually been really well thought through. There are real challenges like what do you do with the supply chain?

[Andrew Kirsch]

Right.

[Tim Gockman]

We, the, the timber for Ascent came from Austria. Are you going to keep using Austrian suppliers for the time being? The answer is probably, but we prefer to use North American suppliers. But there's a balance between, you know, quote unquote, buy local and lower that carbon footprint and also have the best in class execution. For the moment, best in class execution is still seems to be in Austria, but the United States is catching real quick. Right. That's one question. And so is there a logistics risk when you're shipping it via containers? Like look at what happened in 2021 in the Suez Canal, right? Yes, there's some additional logistics risk. It doesn't mean it can't be overcome. But back to the team. You have to have a team that really knows everything inside and out about every aspect of it to be able to handle that. Liability insurance is another. It's a relatively new technology. So how do you make sure that the knowledge you have in Milwaukee that you developed with this construction Team, how does that scale to Denver and Seattle and Atlanta and National and et cetera. So there's, you know, there are a ton of questions around it. I feel like we've been working on this for the last five years and so we've been asked these questions so many times. We thought through the solutions, but the most important thing is and where I think a lot of development teams fail, the engineering is not good enough and the team is not good enough.

[Andrew Kirsch]

And so what markets are you looking at for the next ascent?

[Tim Gockman]

Denver is top of mind for us. We've identified a partner that we would really love to work with there and hopefully we're very, very close. It's a mix. It's a combination of there. There are markets that we just really like and are intuitive. Denver, Seattle, I mentioned Atlanta, maybe some markets like Charlotte Rally, maybe Salt Lake. But then there are also markets with really great partners. And I think that great local partners. Right as Sam sells. That said, like all real estate is local. Same thing with Heinz. Really great partners make a huge difference. And we do not want to suffer from the hubris of saying, oh, we're going to go to a new market and figure it out. And so part of the strategy very much relies on finding a family office or a real estate developer that has a good understanding of what the local market wants and needs coupled with our expertise of how do we design and program a world class master for high rise.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Yeah, no, it's interesting. It's this technology has so many benefits like you talked about, from aesthetics to reducing the carbon footprint to the tenant enjoyment and then hopefully, because obviously all investors measure success through economics from either an IRR perspective or cash flow perspective, do you envision new land getting into other asset classes besides multi family with this tech with mass timber?

[Tim Gockman]

Yeah. So the way that I look at it is from a structural standpoint and even from an economic standpoint, I think office is the easiest to figure out. I think hospitality is very intuitive. Right. If you're thinking about premiums, like if you want to charge an extra 100 bucks a night, how many. Right. How many times are you traveling to a city that will have a mass number hotel? And if you want to spring for that experience and pay an extra 50, 100 bucks a night, that's easy to justify. Right. For an office tenant, they have very different economics. For a renter that's cutting that check every single month, that's a little bit of different story. And so from a, from a structural engineering standpoint, because apartments have irregular. Right. Demising walls and spans. And from economic standpoint, we, we chose. I mean, we chose. We chose. It chose us. We, the multifamily industry. And so we did what we know. But now that we see that we can make it work in multifamily in Milwaukee, we feel like a. We can make it work in most any other city for multif family. And certainly we can translate that knowledge to hospitality, to office.

[Andrew Kirsch]

So you're saying Frank Sinatra was wrong when he's saying if you could make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. It really should have been. If you can make it in Milwaukee, you can make it anywhere.

[Tim Gockman]

I think it's industry by industry.

[Andrew Kirsch]

All right, well, Tim, I hope our listeners have learned about mass timber and that if they're looking to partner up with you in any way that they can find you at New Land Enterprises. And I know this is a technology that I'm sure is going to be widespread in the short years to come. No different, like you're saying, in the automotive industry of at least in la, where we see Teslas, like, like they're a Honda. They're all over the place. And so it would be great to see this type of construction technology really, really grow.

[Tim Gockman]

Agreed.

[Andrew Kirsch]

Yeah.

So, Tim, look, thank you for coming on to the show and I'm sure we'll see each other at upcoming YPO events and best of luck.

[Tim Gockman]

I appreciate it. Thanks, Andrew.

[Andrew Kirsch]

All right, Tim, take care, too.

You've been listening to Real Talk, Real Estate discussions with Andrew Kirsch. You can catch prior episodes@skalar kirsch.com and on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments, and for sharing the show with others.