← Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset
Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset
Inside the $630M Bentley Residences: How Gil Dezer Is Changing Luxury Real Estate
00:35:48
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- [00:00]
A
We're going to talk today about this massive Mount foundation pour that you have going on. So we're talking 2300 trucks, probably the second largest mat pour in the United States of America. Definitely number one in Florida.
- [00:13]
B
So yeah, number two in the United States. I think the only thing that beat us was a stadium. It kind of got me a little concerned. I said, why is my building have as much concrete as a stadium? What we're doing is we're filling a hole full of concrete. So it doesn't. It's not that much fun. But to make that hole, to get to that point, the engineering involved, the amount of steel involved, these guys are out there sweating their faces off all day in the heat. Those are the real workers. Took us a solid year to get to where we are. We did 300 pilings. We went down 200ft on each pile. And then from there they had to excavate the top 40ft. So what you see in there is a 40 foot hole. And then the 40 foot hole, they're filling it up with rebar. And then once that rebar is done, then we line up the concrete trucks and start pumping concrete in the ground.
- [00:56]
A
What's up everybody? I'm here at the Bentley Residences sales center in Sunny Isles, Florida. I got Gil Desert from Desert Development. He's a repeat offender. This is the second time you've been on the show in less than a year. But honestly, you're doing so many amazing things and every time I turn around you're doing something disruptive. So we're going to talk today about this massive Mount foundation poor that you have going on. So I mean, I'm looking at this. There's over 2200 of steel that is going to be reinforced in this thing. We're talking 2300 trucks. This is probably the second largest mat pour in the United States of America. Definitely number one in Florida.
- [01:34]
B
So biggest one in the, in the state of Florida and yeah, number two in the United States. I think the only thing that beat us was a stadium.
- [01:40]
A
Really? Which one?
- [01:41]
B
I don't remember. They told me the name of it. I didn't pay attention but. But it kind of got me a little concerned. I said, why is my building have as much concrete as a stadium? Right.
- [01:49]
A
Well, I saw it out, you know, out there that, you know, there's, there's a TV and it looks like there's a live feed from everybody out there. I'm looking at it. It's just, it looks like this big old massive meteor hole.
- [01:59]
B
I mean in, in reality what we're doing is we're filling a hole full of concrete. So it does, it's not that much fun. But the, to, to make that hole, to get to that point, the engineering involved, the amount of steel involved. What you see them right now, they're placing the steel. You have to see 10 guys carrying a bar and placing. They're almost like a dance. When you watch them on, on the, on the screen, they're going to be.
- [02:20]
A
They'Re going to be jacked out of their mind.
- [02:22]
B
Can you imagine how heavy that. So heavy, dude. Yeah. And these guys are out there sweating their faces off all day in the heat and everything else. And so those are the real workers. Yeah, man.
- [02:30]
A
I mean it's not, it's not cold in Florida.
- [02:32]
B
No, no, no.
- [02:33]
A
I mean you got a little bit of a breeze off, you know, the Atlantic here, but it's still a good 85 degrees out there right now.
- [02:39]
B
Yeah, but, but it took us, it took us a solid year to get to where we are. We had to, we, we did. I think the number is 300 pilings. We went down 200ft on each pile. And then from there they had to excavate the top 40ft. So what you see in there is, is a 40 foot hole which you see on the video. And then the 40 foot hole, they're filling it up with bar, with, with rebar. And then once all that rebar, they do like three levels of rebar. And then once that rebar is done, then we line up the concrete trucks and start pumping concrete.
- [03:06]
A
This is time to roll. It's crazy because when you see these big beautiful buildings that you guys build, right it. You just kind of look at the end product, like, wow, that's pretty impressive. But when you see it from the ground floor up, you know, it starts to bring in like you mentioned, you know, the, the workers out there, the blue collar guys, the tradesmen. There's so many different people that are involved in this project.
- [03:27]
B
Oh yeah.
- [03:28]
A
You know, talk about that a little bit because there's a ton of third tier trades. I mean the FDOT had to get involved. Oh yeah, Law enforcement, everything.
- [03:38]
B
To do a poor. Like this is a massive coordination like you said, F. Because we're shutting it down streets. But even getting to this point, the engineering that went into it and it's, it's a, it's a whole system. So the piling then goes into the pile cap, etc. So everything was planned, engineered and executed on, on time. But it was A. It was a very impressive thing. We had to remove, like I said, 40ft of dirt in this entire hole and then, and then chip out the piles and remove those and then, and then now put place of steel and, and fill it with concrete. And that's, that's just the foundation. That's not even the tower yet.
- [04:11]
A
I know, right.
- [04:11]
B
So. Yeah, so there was a lot, a lot going into the foundation. Like I said, it took us a, a year and about $48 million. Yeah. To dig a hole, you have to dig a hole. Right. I call it the Emperor's New clothes phase of the, of construction because we're spending all this money and you don't get to see anything.
- [04:27]
A
You don't see.
- [04:27]
B
Right. You don't see anything. So. And you know, people are asking, hey, when are you starting construction? I'm like, well, we started a year ago. I know you can't see anything, but, you know, we started a year. We started paying a year ago.
- [04:37]
A
Hey, when the ground breaks, that's when it starts.
- [04:39]
B
Right. How long?
- [04:40]
A
Once the map pour, I mean, that map pour is going to take a good 30 to 36 continuous hours.
- [04:45]
B
Yes. We start on Friday night. We're finishing on Sunday morning. Sunday noon.
- [04:49]
A
Unbelievable, man.
- [04:51]
B
Yeah, yeah, unbelievable. Sunday we're there, we're gonna write our names in the concrete.
- [04:54]
A
You're gonna do that?
- [04:55]
B
Of course I do it. Every one of my buildings. Yes.
- [04:57]
A
That's really cool.
- [04:57]
B
Not that anybody ever sees it. You need a complete catastrophe in order to see that writing on the concrete.
- [05:02]
A
Yeah. You never want to see it. Right. You'll never know. But it's still there, right? It's. It's commemorated into the, into the foundation.
- [05:09]
B
Maybe, maybe in 10,000 years from now when they find these buildings underwater. Oh, my gosh.
- [05:13]
A
10, 000 years, huh? You think it's gonna take that long?
- [05:17]
B
Or longer? Or longer?
- [05:18]
A
I hope so. Everybody talks about. That's a separate conversation.
- [05:20]
B
But.
- [05:21]
A
But it is scary being here in Florida. You know, sometimes you worry about all that kind of stuff.
- [05:25]
B
Well, 10, 000 years, we're not worried about anything.
- [05:27]
A
No, I'm not worried about anything.
- [05:29]
B
Not.
- [05:29]
A
Don't worry about anything past, like, probably 200. Right.
- [05:32]
B
One of those, one of those movies that always, like, you know, stuck in my. In my head was Planet of the Apes. When you see them. When you see them riding the horses on the beach and they show up to the Statue of Liberty's head, you know, and you start, you know, it makes you realize, okay, sands shift. The world shifts. Thousands of years from now, who knows what's going to happen?
- [05:49]
A
Thank God I won't be here, right?
- [05:50]
B
Exactly.
- [05:50]
A
I want to be scrambling for that shit. Have a hard enough time keeping my schedule straight, much less, you know, moving around because everything's underwater.
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B
Right.
- [05:58]
A
You know, these projects that are so beautiful and, and take so long, I mean, you've built, you know, you and your family have built this amazing company. It's amazing what kind of struggles happen when you're building a project. Adversity because the audience really connects to people going through shit and getting through them to, to get to the end product. Right, Right.
- [06:20]
B
Well, I tell everybody my job as a developer is I am a problem solver. And that's what it is. This building, any kind of construction is just a series of problems that you need to solve on the hourly. From the physical construction, from the legal part of it, from the zoning part of it, from every single aspect of the construction you need. There's issues pop up every five seconds. And, and if you don't have the, this. It takes a big, big, you know, wherewithal in the stomach to, to handle some of these things, especially when change orders come in and oops, this got up and, and you got to fix it and it costs extra money. But, you know, that's. The building is not for the faint heart. You know, it's. You got to really be committed to this and you got to really find the. You got to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel at all points, because if you can't, that's when it starts getting gloomy.
- [07:11]
A
That's a great point.
- [07:12]
B
And so, but, but it's, you know, we sit here and we solve problems. When you're running a bad job, you're putting out fires, but when you're running a good job, you're solving problems before they happen.
- [07:24]
A
I like.
- [07:24]
B
And so that's really what we, we've gotten. I was, I started out, my career is putting out fires. And I learned, hey, if we know this is going happen, let's work it in advance to not let it happen. Yeah. And so that's, you know, I mean, I've built now 12 buildings, so I kind of know what I'm doing by now. So, yeah, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's construction at the same time is not brain surgery. You know, we've been doing it since the pyramids.
- [07:46]
A
Yeah.
- [07:46]
B
So we happened to change the game a little bit by adding car elevators and whatnot just because we got bored of building simple buildings. But, but you know, it's, it's, it's not impossible. You just gotta, it's a very localized thing. I believe that to be a developer you have to be on the job. You can't be, you know, up in 30,000ft in the stratosphere unless you have good people working for you. I guess, I mean, you know, because there are other, bigger companies that do it. But I like to be hands on on the job. I tell all my people, let me know what's going on so I can't scream at you later on, you know.
- [08:16]
A
Good.
- [08:16]
B
Yeah. And that's it. If you know every issue, every change, everything. You know, I remember one of my projects, I came in and I specifically sat there for hours choosing faucets and the wrong faucets came in. And you know, it's just like, what are we, what are we doing here? You know, that was on many, many years ago. So I learned, you know, the, the different types of, of ways of controlling the, a freight train that's out of control, which is what construction is. But you got to just keep it on, on the tracks and keep it on the course and. Well, that's what we do.
- [08:43]
A
What I will say is, because I was here about an hour early, right, And I was able to get a coffee in the lounge area. And to your point, you are involved, you are infused in the minute to minute because I saw you couple different times go through the lounge, talk to some of your people here. And I think it's always really nice to see because a lot of times, you know, presidents and CEOs and people that are running the organization will kind of hide in their. Yeah, I don't want to say ivory tower, but they'll hide in their room and let everybody else. But you take a lot of ownership of what you're building here.
- [09:13]
B
Yeah, this, these, each one of these buildings are my babies, you know, and so I know every square inch of it because I, I designed it, I looked at it on the plans and, and I, and, and because they're my babies and because they're, they're so important to me, I go, I, we throw everything at it. You know, we do throw everything we can at it. And just to be successful and it's proof is in the pudding.
- [09:32]
A
You know, let's take the map pour, because that's what we're here to talk about. And all the, all the great stuff going on with it. When you have a job this freaking big that is, I mean, like I said earlier, you're gonna have 2300 trucks running, running through here in 30 to 36 hours. There's a lot of different things that are going on. What are some of the things that kind of keep you up in thinking about like, man, if this goes wrong, like, how do we get in front of it or what. Are there certain things that you worry about in a job this big?
- [09:59]
B
Well, the mat specifically is. There's not a lot that can go wrong. You know, you just.
- [10:04]
A
That's good news.
- [10:04]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, even if a few trucks break down on the way, you still have concrete coming in. There's not a lot that can go wrong because it's continuous pour that. You know, every concrete truck that they pour, they take a cylinder and they test the actual strength of the concrete, really. So. And they know where that concrete fell within. So they. So if the concrete doesn't come up, the strength or whatever, those are the risks, if you will. But when you're doing like, you know, 22,000 yards or whatever. We're doing 20,000 yards. If one yard doesn't come up to strength, it's gonna be fine. You know, it's a, it's a massive, you know, cake that we're, we're putting there. So. So on that respect. But, you know, we're, I'm always looking, what's the next step? You know, we're already planning on the verticals now. So the minute we were done and that stuff dries, we're already having meetings on how we're starting to go vertical and how, how we're going to blow through. Right now my concerns are just on schedule. I mean, and it's a concern that, you know, doesn't necessarily exist because we haven't started going vertical yet. But the vertical schedule is what dictates your delivery date. And so we are pushing the logistics in order to, in order to beat the schedule, basically.
- [11:10]
A
Interesting.
- [11:11]
B
The, the we're, we're, we're technically on our, on our four year schedule. We're technically one week ahead of schedule right now.
- [11:17]
A
Well, good job.
- [11:18]
B
I mean, okay, but you know, we'll eat that one week up with one hurricane or whatever else. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not banging on our chest yet. But, but it's better to start off ahead of schedule than a little bit behind and trying to make up the whole time.
- [11:27]
A
Well, we got lucky this year. We didn't have anything.
- [11:29]
B
Yeah. So far, you know. So far, you know.
- [11:32]
A
Yeah, they got hit hard, man.
- [11:33]
B
So, so we'll see what happens. I mean, you know, they got hit, really. And right now is the best time for me to get a hurricane because I got nothing to blame off the job.
- [11:40]
A
Right.
- [11:40]
B
It's usually when you're halfway up and you got drywall up and windows not in and this and that. You don't want rain. You don't know that, so. And that's where the risk comes in. But of course, we have insurance and all that fun stuff. So, you know, it's, it's, it's part of the business.
- [11:54]
A
Absolutely is, man. That's why, you know, you said it takes a, you know, what was your words? You got.
- [11:59]
B
Not for the faint heart.
- [12:00]
A
Not for the faint heart. You got to have a strong guy. You got an ironclad guy.
- [12:04]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- [12:05]
A
How when you, when you look at a mat pour this size, how long does it take that to dry?
- [12:10]
B
No. Well, the most interesting part about concrete, not only does it dry fast, it gets really hot, so it'll dry. So concrete works that I think 70 or 80% of the strength comes up within 24 hours, and then the rest of the strength comes in the next 60 to 90 days.
- [12:30]
A
Okay.
- [12:30]
B
So as it dries out, as the concrete itself dries the liquids out of it, and that's how it hardens, and it gets really, really hot. You can cook an egg on it as it dries. It's very interesting. And, and that's. So that's. You're going to see, like, almost steam coming out of the thing when it's really done.
- [12:45]
A
Interesting.
- [12:46]
B
Yeah. And, and, and then, and then it cooks in about. And like we said, in, in 24 hours, we can start going vertical because we don't need it to be totally, you know, baked for the first level. It's not like we're putting too much pressure, you know?
- [12:58]
A
Right.
- [12:58]
B
And by the time we're on the seventh level, it's already, you know, it's already done. Yeah, yeah.
- [13:02]
A
It's fully baked now. How, how long in between? Will you really only wait 24 hours before you start going vertical?
- [13:08]
B
We're planning on, on Monday starting a vertical.
- [13:10]
A
That's awesome.
- [13:10]
B
Yeah.
- [13:11]
A
Okay.
- [13:11]
B
Yeah.
- [13:12]
A
Not wasting any time.
- [13:13]
B
We finished pouring Sunday noon, and then everybody get the afternoon off, and then Monday back at work. That's it, man.
- [13:19]
A
You know, I, I, I, I look at your business, right? And as cool as it is to see the finished product, you know, in America and I think just society wide, and we have this massive issue with delayed gratification.
- [13:33]
B
Yeah.
- [13:33]
A
It dude, talk about delay gratification. It's going to take you as long to build this building as it took me to build my platform.
- [13:41]
B
Worse. Worse. We conceived this building in. Meaning the idea of it in. Well, that's a longer story, but. No, but when we said go was 2022. Geez. Yeah. When we said go and built a sales office. And so we were two years drawing the building, getting it permitted, selling the units, all that simultaneous action and everything. What's nice is it all comes together, you know.
- [14:13]
A
Yeah.
- [14:13]
B
Here we are, we're selling. I don't know if I can announce it yet, but it's going to be put on a PR newswire today. So you're actually here to scoop something. Oh, when is this, when is this podcast released?
- [14:23]
A
It'll be. It'll be out probably in a week or two.
- [14:26]
B
Okay, good. So I can tell you. Yeah, you can tell. We, we just closed yesterday, signed all the papers for our construction loan.
- [14:32]
A
Congrats.
- [14:32]
B
We got a 630 million dollar construction loan from Madison Capital Realty. And. Yeah, and so, so like I'm saying, sales, converged, foundation conversion, land, the construction loan, everything happens as. As it was supposed to be, converging all at the same time. And so, and, and it's just, it's awesome, you know, and we planned for all this. Everything was set on schedules and everything is hitting the schedule the way we had it.
- [14:55]
A
So it's perfect that, that number. 630 million. I would imagine for most people watching and listening, that number buckles them.
- [15:02]
B
It buckles me too.
- [15:03]
A
Okay, that's my question. Yeah.
- [15:04]
B
It's the largest loan I've ever had. Wow. Yeah. Up until now, we. The largest loan we did was 325 million on our, on our money. And before that was 215 million on Porsche. So costs have gone up, but values have gone up, you know. Right. I sold armani for, for 1300 bucks a foot back then, and now we're selling this for double. Wow.
- [15:23]
A
So 2600.
- [15:24]
B
Yeah, that's what we're getting here. 2600. 700. Yeah. And selling too fast, you know, I mean, relatively fast for what the market is, you know, so. So it's working. It's all working. The product is excellent is what it is.
- [15:36]
A
Yeah.
- [15:36]
B
You know, if you really look around, you know, when I was a kid, I saw a commercial for a guy who used to sell men's clothes. Sims and Sims. Sims clothing. And his tagline was. And an educated consumer is my best customer. And I believe that an educated Consumer, a guy who's been around sees everything. And we send them out, go see this guy, go see that project, go see that. They come running back here. Because an educated consumer, once you educate yourself on the market, then you realize what we have on offers nobody else can have.
- [16:07]
A
It's amazing.
- [16:08]
B
Yeah, it really is. It's really amazing. And, but we do that. It was by design. You know, we said, you know, every condo is the same four walls and maybe a window to the ocean. Same regurgitated over and over again.
- [16:19]
A
Yeah.
- [16:19]
B
Apart from the fact that, you know, you have resales of that same shit going over. And I built a lot of that too. I mean, we built beautiful apartments, nice regular condos, but they're just apartments, just regular apartments. I said I wanted to really re. Change the game completely change the game. And so what we did here with Bentley, with the balconies, swimming pools on the balconies and that wind protection on the balcony.
- [16:41]
A
Yes.
- [16:41]
B
Even on a nasty day like today, we should go out there and you should film how you can light a, light a candle there.
- [16:46]
A
That's wild.
- [16:47]
B
It is wild. So we changed the game of what is condo product.
- [16:50]
A
Yeah.
- [16:51]
B
And, and, and we, that's why we built a full scale apartment here. So people can see other developers show you a kitchen and a bath. Because they're fleecing you, you know, they're, they're showing you, oh, this is what the kitchen looks like. Not even to scale of what the real kitchen is in your unit. You know, it shows just the appliances. Okay, I can see appliances at Brandsmart. I don't need to come to yourself.
- [17:08]
A
Exactly.
- [17:09]
B
You know, so that's where we built a full scale unit so you can see the room sizes. You can actually experience what it is. And, and that's, you know, because we're not, we're proud of what we're building, we're not afraid of what we're building.
- [17:21]
A
You're not trying to hide anything.
- [17:22]
B
Everybody, the other guy show a kitchen and bathroom and they sell you a little two bedroom apartment where you have to, you know, turn around to change your mind, you know, so you have to walk outside just to change your mind. So I mean, that's, that's where, that's where we, we believe in what we're selling. We try. We definitely don't make fun of the customer because a customer at this level is obviously somebody who's well healed, earned, earned his millions, not a stupid person. Right. And then that's why you just show them the best of the best and there's always room at the top of the market, and that's where. That's, that's who our customers are.
- [17:52]
A
Yeah, I was just. You. You rejog my memory. Because, you know, I think you came on the show in maybe April, and we talked a little bit about the Bentley Residences, and we talked about the, the pools being on everybody's balcony. And you didn't compromise the, the ceiling height for the units below. That's right. I think those, those little small details are what makes the quality the, the wind resistance on the balcony. Because, I mean, listen, you can go out there on a balcony and, and right here on the Atlantic and get very windy and you can't even hear the person next to you.
- [18:26]
B
Right.
- [18:26]
A
So, I mean, those are, those are big enhancements, in my opinion.
- [18:30]
B
Yeah. And it was also feedback we got from customers. I mean, we, we have, we have people at one of my other buildings that say, listen, I can't buy outdoor furniture with cushions anymore because the cushions go flying off the. Every time the wind blows. And then people were saying, the balcony is so great, but we can't even enjoy a meal out there because the tablecloth blows off or the plates blow off or, you know, etc. Yeah. So we wanted to create an outdoor living room. An outdoor living space. I had a very well known developer. I don't know, I can't mention his name, but he came in and he saw this. He goes, wow, this is a Florida room. And I said, you're right, I should call this a Florida room. Wow. Yeah, because it's a Florida room, like in a single family home. It's an outdoor but indoor, like a Florida room.
- [19:09]
A
So that's wild to me. It's like that type. Type of planning and engineering for something like that is not a small thing.
- [19:18]
B
No, it was a massive thing. It was a major thing. And expensive, too. I mean, not just the engineer. I'm putting an additional layer of skin on the outside of the building just to block wind for, Just for, for the fun of it, if you will.
- [19:30]
A
Are you talking about stucco? Is that what you're talking about? Oh, oh, glass.
- [19:34]
B
Not just glass. I went crazy on the glass. I'm doing this faceted diamond glass because the Bentley said, hey, we should do triangle glass, and trying to keep them with the diamonds. And. And I'm like, if you really want to do it, let's facet the glass. So I had to go spend. We spent $350,000 creating a mock up of this faceted glass and then blowing all Kinds of stuff at it. So it passes hurricane proof.
- [19:56]
A
350 G's for the mockup.
- [19:57]
B
For the mock up.
- [19:58]
A
Wow.
- [19:58]
B
Just to pass. Oops, sorry. Just to pass the hurricane test. So I know I could put it in the building. Yes, sir. Because it's never been done before. And so we did, we did all these kinds of things. And the glass itself, on a typical building, this glass would be about 24 million. I'm spending 42. Yes. I'm spending like $18 million more because it's. Wow. You know, and, but I'm making a while. It's not double, but it's almost double, you know, but it's. Wow. It's going to be an iconic, iconic building from, from everywhere.
- [20:26]
A
But I mean everything you do though is like, I spend the extra money. Yeah.
- [20:31]
B
The other guy doesn't. That's like.
- [20:32]
A
I mean, you're putting cars in elevators.
- [20:34]
B
Yeah.
- [20:35]
A
You know, and, and putting them into the residence. Right. And that's going to be here as well.
- [20:40]
B
Right.
- [20:40]
A
The desert.
- [20:41]
B
And we're doing four and better than that. We, we have. Otis is building the elevators for us. Otis, the big elevator. Oh. They didn't want to talk to us when we were doing Porsche because they wanted proof of concept, but Porsche was proof of concept, so now they're all about it. And by having them build the elevator, I'll now be able to build these elevators worldwide. That's the, that's the, the good part.
- [21:00]
A
So game over now. And it's gonna. You have up to four cars that you can put in the residence.
- [21:06]
B
Four cars on the oceanfront units, three cars on the Intracoast.
- [21:09]
A
It's insane.
- [21:09]
B
And simply because that was the biggest complaint we got at Porsche Design was we gave two cars per unit, which is, well, more than required parking. And still people needed more space. Unbelievable. Everybody wanted more space.
- [21:20]
A
That's crazy to me.
- [21:21]
B
As a matter of fact, we just sold. We have man caves at the bottom of Porsche that we sold them for two and a half, $3 million, you know, at the time.
- [21:27]
A
Yeah.
- [21:28]
B
An owner is selling to another owner in the building for four and a half million dollars. A man cave.
- [21:32]
A
Really?
- [21:32]
B
Yes, a man cave. A man cave, which is a parking for six cars is going for about 75 of what the unit's worth.
- [21:40]
A
That's insane.
- [21:41]
B
Imagine that.
- [21:41]
A
That's crazy to me.
- [21:42]
B
No plumbing, no kitchens, no walls, no nothing. Just to park your car. Yeah.
- [21:47]
A
You know, it's, it's, it's crazy because I remember when we did our other show and you know, tick Tock was going wild, man. About what about the fumes? What about this? Like, everybody is a damn critic, right?
- [22:00]
B
You know, but, but they don't bother to ask the question. Right, right.
- [22:03]
A
But it's okay to ask a question. But when you, when you're doing things like this, I'm sure when you disrupt, you know, and do things differently, you're always going to have that level of the other eyeballs, the critical aspect of that. But, but dude, like I think that all that stuff is super necessary in order to do something special that you're doing.
- [22:25]
B
I don't want to, I don't want to upset your viewers here. But what I. Please. Well, what I learned is the less intelligent people are afraid of change.
- [22:35]
A
Oh, dude.
- [22:36]
B
And, and, and if you send, if you show them something new that they can't quite comprehend, then all they'll do is just. They say it, talk bad about it, etc, and, and, and it's, and it's, and it's always, it's, it's a type of person who does that. Because if you talk to an intelligent person, they'll ask you three or four questions and then see it for themselves. But if the others who just. What about fumes, guys? You think the fucking fire department is gonna let me put up a car with fumes? I mean, answer your own question. You know, I mean, it was actually.
- [23:04]
A
One of them was like, well, what about the fumes? What about the fire risk? I'm like, yeah, it went through an inspection.
- [23:09]
B
The car never starts thinking about. Watch the video, you'll see that the car never starts. Yeah, our whole magic is you pull in, you shut the car, you do absolutely nothing. It's automated. A little dolly comes up, picks up the car, pulls it in the elevator brings you up, spits you back out on your own garage. That's it. It's so simple as can possibly be. You do nothing in the car. As a matter of fact, if you stick your hand out the window while this thing, it'll, it'll, it goes to what's called a recall and the elevator will jump back down to the lobby and spit you out. Really? If you break any of the rules. Because there's a, there's a training, a 20 minute training that says keep your hands and feet in the vehicle. Right?
- [23:44]
A
Yeah.
- [23:44]
B
That's all you have to do, really. You have to do nothing. The, the system is designed to take the car without a passenger. So you don't, so you are just sitting there, you know, it's, it's an automated Parking system. We've adapted it to allow a passenger in the car, but you don't have to have the passenger in the car. So everybody says, oh, what happens if I'm leaving to work at 9 o'? Clock? Right. These are simple things. It's like, it's a, I mean, that's a guy who doesn't think past the word boo, you know. Yeah, we do have people who leave at 9 o' clock and they tell the car concierge guy downstairs, hey, have my car downstairs for me by 9 o'. Clock. He doesn't need to push buttons, the guy can. And he has four cars downstairs, engines running, air conditioning going, people waiting to go to work.
- [24:23]
A
There's always systems, guys.
- [24:24]
B
I mean, there's always a solution. It's a simple solution. You know, you say, well, we have to think about in advance what the problems are, what's going to be. So when we did the Porsche building, we said, okay, well this whole system is great, great, great. And the biggest problem that would happen is the car comes downstairs without a person in it, no key in the car, we can't move it off the system. Right. Stupid things. That's the kind of stuff that will jam up a system.
- [24:51]
A
Yeah.
- [24:52]
B
So what do we do? We put a key track system where you have to. The, the valet guy has a thumbprint so it knows and we have a set. The secondary key of every single car in the building is in our key track.
- [25:03]
A
That's incredible.
- [25:03]
B
So there's a solution to everything. I mean, if the guy doesn't have a second key, we'll go figure out how to make him one. Yeah, you know, but we have a secondary key and you can't just pull it out. We have a thumbprint so you know which key is taken out when, etc. Etc. But if you send the car down by itself without the key inside and the valet can't move it, we're not stuck. We have a three minute delay, go get the key, pull it out, etc.
- [25:23]
A
How long does it take for like let's say when the residences are done, you know, from someone to get their vehicle, you know, out to the bottom. How long is that going to take?
- [25:31]
B
So, so the, the pickup of the car and the drop off of the car is about 30 seconds. And then the ride itself, the door opening is about 10 seconds, door closing, 10 seconds. The ride itself is at Porsche is 800ft per minute. @ Bentley is going to be a thousand feet per minute. So the ride itself from the ground to the top is about 30, 40 seconds.
- [25:51]
A
That's hauling ass.
- [25:52]
B
Yeah, it's. It's ear popping. Yeah. I mean, even at 800ft per minute, my ears pop, you know, but a thousand feet, your ears pop, you know, really, really fast. So. And, and we're putting super huge motors on these on the car elevators that can lift the elevators fast. And we're just doing it because, you know, it's a car company, so they want, they want these things to perform.
- [26:12]
A
Well, hell yeah.
- [26:13]
B
It doesn't need to go that fast. But we say, hey, power.
- [26:16]
A
Well, you want to crank them out. Yeah. People trying to leave and you know, and.
- [26:18]
B
Right.
- [26:19]
A
And get to where they're going to go.
- [26:20]
B
Yeah. So. But it's a thousand feet per minute. See, the ride up is, is, is about 30, 40 seconds on the right.
- [26:26]
A
Up to the very top floor. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, yeah, it's like you can see it for 30 seconds. You could be all. Yeah, that's wild. To me.
- [26:32]
B
The whole thing is two minutes to door to door. Damn. Into the out. Yeah.
- [26:36]
A
Takes me almost that long to get from my.
- [26:37]
B
Yeah. I mean, driveway in a house is the same as driveway in a house. Yeah.
- [26:42]
A
Yeah.
- [26:42]
B
You drive up your driveway in the house, it takes you the same, same time.
- [26:45]
A
But yours is much cooler.
- [26:46]
B
Right. You know, and we have a full signal in, in the shaft. So you have, you can send text messages and calls and everything else like that.
- [26:52]
A
So that's really cool, man.
- [26:53]
B
Yeah, we make sure that. Because, you know, I learned an elevator guy once told me, he goes, you know what? You ever notice when you go to an elevator, there's mirrors always by the buttons. Did you notice that? Yes, yes. Pretty much almost every elevator you go to. Why? Because when people are looking at themselves in the mirror, they don't realize how long they're waiting for the elevator. Interesting. Yes. So same thing. If you're on your phone and you're sending a text, oh, I'm home.
- [27:15]
A
That's so cool.
- [27:16]
B
Right?
- [27:17]
A
You know, I want to, I want to go back because we're talking about elevator again. But you know, Otis is in on this one. And, and, and it allows you now to build the desert vator worldwide.
- [27:26]
B
What are I. I had. What's your vision? So do you understand how this whole desert. Why I'm doing it? No, no, your, your audience doesn't understand. Okay. So let's go back to Real Estate 101. Okay. Every site you buy in real estate has what's called an far a floor area ratio, which means you buy this piece of land, let's call it a thousand square feet. And if your floor area ratio is three, that means you can build 3,000 square feet on your thousand square feet. So that would be if you did a zero lot line, it's a three story building. If you go back to a 50% lot line, that's a six story building. And. Etc. Etc. So, so that's how in every property you buy, there's property rights that are called far. Some people call it gfa, gross floor area. There's different words for it, but floor area ratio of far. That's what we're working here in Florida. These buildings and sunny isles have a huge far. We're almost at six almost. But, and, but far counts to your sellable square footage.
- [28:24]
A
Okay.
- [28:24]
B
Of how many square feet you can build. And sellable square footage is defined by the interior square footage that's under air, you know, inside the unit. So what is not sellable square footage are balconies and garage. Garage. They force you to build a garage. Every developer in town is forced to build 1.7 spaces per unit. So they'll round it up to two maybe. And, and you're going to build a 200 unit project. You need, you need your 400 spaces plus some for employees. You need like 450 spaces. Some of this is the code. We are building. Well, more than what's required. But by placing it adjacent to the unit and not building the entire pedestal the way every developer does, we're saving money there. And I'm placing it next to the unit. So I'm selling it as part of the unit.
- [29:12]
A
Wow.
- [29:12]
B
That's, that's our claim to fame here. You know, I'm selling the garage that everybody gives away for free. And how am I selling it? Because I'm spending $85 million on this cool elevator. So if you don't want to pay for a garage, this might not be for you, you know, and a lot of people say, oh, I'm not paying for the garage next door. You effectively are. Is just blended into your, into your price. Yeah, of course, you know, and, and that's, that's the other side here. We're selling in the garage when I say we're. So it's $2,700 a foot. That's the net interior. So that yields an apartment of like, call it eight and a half, nine million bucks. So that nine million bucks, when you include the whole 6,000 square feet of what you're getting, comes down to like 1500 bucks a foot in which case we're the cheapest thing in town. If you see the value, if you like having cars in your living room, if you like having a balcony with an outdoor swimming pool, then. And you see the value of the entire 6,000 square feet that you're buying, I'm the cheapest guy in town. And that's where an educated consumer is my best customer. And so they're saying, oh well, I'm buying garage here, but I'm not buying there. Yeah, but it's your space and you don't have anybody driving your car. You know, any sweaty valleys getting in your car in the summer and you have the car right there and your outside balcony. So my far on this site is 600000 square feet. That's what I'm allowed to build and sell. But I'm actually selling 1.2 million because I have, I have 300000 square feet of garage and another 300000 square feet of balconies. And so that's where we're, that's where we're, we're doing a blended sale. If you want to do the math based on net interior and to compare me to the guy next door, that's fine. If you want to do the math based on what you're getting, that's even better. But that's what, and we tell people because they go to my competitors who are at $2500 a foot and we're at $2700 a foot. And I'm saying, look, you're paying, yes, you're paying an extra $200 a square foot, maybe an extra 10% on the apartment, but you're getting 100% more, getting the balcony, you're getting the outside. So it's a no brainer. I mean the only reason not to buy here is if you don't have the money. Yeah, you know, that's the only reason. If you, if you buy at any one of my competitors, you got to get your head checked straight. Straight up really. There's no reason for it. And so, and the competitors have, the main difference that they have from us is we're a car branded building. People might not resonate where, where they might resonate with a hotel brand. But at the same time I have those hotel managers running my buildings. I mean at Porsche we have Ritz Carlson guys running the buildings. We have restaurants in the buildings that are not open to the public. Here at Bentley we have Todd English. Yes. Who's our celebrity chef? James Beard. Three times James Beard Award Winning chef just in the building, not open to the public.
- [31:49]
A
I think we're going to do something with him, too.
- [31:51]
B
He's cool.
- [31:51]
A
Yeah. I've heard he's awesome.
- [31:53]
B
And not just that his food is phenomenal. Yeah. Phenomenal.
- [31:57]
A
That's awesome, man.
- [31:58]
B
You know, you don't really realize, like, there's a difference between chefs until he sits there and cooks for us. It's really. Next level.
- [32:04]
A
Game changing.
- [32:05]
B
Next level.
- [32:06]
A
Mm.
- [32:06]
B
I'm so proud of having him in the building. It's gonna be the greatest thing we ever did. Really. It's. It's gonna. This is gonna be the only restaurant where your friends are gonna be dying to come and visit you to go to. Just go in the restaurant.
- [32:16]
A
That's so bad. Yes, man.
- [32:17]
B
Yeah.
- [32:18]
A
When you look at the overall value of everything here, like you said, when you break everything down and package it.
- [32:23]
B
Yes.
- [32:23]
A
You are the cheapest game in town.
- [32:25]
B
We are. And we threw everything at it.
- [32:26]
A
That's just insane.
- [32:27]
B
I mean, I got outdoor showers, saunas in the bathroom. Heated floors in the. In the bathroom.
- [32:31]
A
Every unit has a sauna.
- [32:32]
B
Every unit has a sauna. I have heated floors. I have safes. Money safes. Not gun safes, but money. But why is that important? Because you can't put it in after the fact. You have to tie it to the floor. Okay. And you can't tie it to these post tension cable floors. So I have a hookup on the floor to. To put a safe in there. And we're delivering with the safes, you know, so we threw everything at it. You know, anything you need. I also live in my own condos, so I know what's necessary. I know what the biggest issues are. And so. And we know how to counteract it, man. Biggest, biggest, biggest issue today is Amazon package delivery. That's the biggest issue today in these condos.
- [33:11]
A
Yeah.
- [33:11]
B
And we're working on a robot.
- [33:14]
A
You're working on a robot?
- [33:15]
B
On a robot. Holy. There's no reason it shouldn't be a robot.
- [33:18]
A
So you do robot. Take it up to the unit? Is that what you're suggesting?
- [33:22]
B
There's all different kinds of robots today. There's not the humanoids. Yeah. Type. But there's these. There's things on little carts with the payload that program. You can take it here and it goes.
- [33:31]
A
Dude, there's. I mean, even at bowling aisles, they have that. They carry the food around, right?
- [33:36]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easy to program you. It goes into the elevator. It rfs the. The floor. It goes out. The biggest issue Is there's somebody. The same thing about the key in the car, you need somebody there to collect it, because the robot won't just drop it on your floor.
- [33:51]
A
Yeah.
- [33:51]
B
It's just wrong, right?
- [33:53]
A
Yeah, but. But that's the thing, though. It's. It's. It's a fun challenge to figure out what the solution is.
- [33:57]
B
The solution is they hit. And then the robot comes up, you know, when they're home. Yes. Yes. Yeah. You got an email. You got a. You got a package. Press the button. Robot will be there in 10 minutes.
- [34:05]
A
That's the solution.
- [34:06]
B
That's the solution. So we're working on that.
- [34:08]
A
It's even.
- [34:09]
B
I think it's bigger than. Than just my buildings. I said to these guys, I'll get you 100 buildings to buy this shit if we can make this work. So we're. We're working on it right now.
- [34:17]
A
That's pretty cool, man.
- [34:18]
B
And. And at the pricing, it saves a body. Yeah. Today, a body costs 35, $40,000 a year, you know, maybe more. And especially over here, security guy who's moving your packages, you know, that's what it is. Okay. Yeah. Save it. Wow. Save that body. Your maintenance will. Will decrease, man.
- [34:35]
A
This has been awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about the project.
- [34:40]
B
My pleasure.
- [34:40]
A
Everything you got going on here, everybody, definitely check out Desert Development. Check out everything he's done. The Bentley residence is here in Sunny Isles. The most prolific building, the most luxurious saunas, safes, swimming pools on every balcony. Truly amazing value. And, yeah, check it. Check them out. Because, you know, if you're looking to buy here in Sunny Isles, this might be the place. And you probably already almost sold out, though, right?
- [35:10]
B
Well, we still have. We still have a majority of the units left. Not majority. I mean, we still have a great, great group of units left. I mean, we're. We're 55 sold now, so we.
- [35:17]
A
It's amazing.
- [35:18]
B
45 to go and 33 years to go. So we'll be sold out by the time you deliver for sure.
- [35:23]
A
Absolutely. Well, thank you again for coming on, Gil. It's always a pleasure talking to you. I'm glad we got to do this one in person and got to shake your hand and. And see what you got going on here. So, guys, share this episode with someone that is out here in Sunny Owls, Miami Beach, Florida. Have them come check out the Bentley Residences, and if you're in the market, come by here. Until next time, stay determined.