Approaching Real Estate as a Local Entrepreneur

Kansas City has nurtured a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem over the past several decades, and local business is a major driver for adaptive reuse of historic buildings throughout our legacy neighborhoods. For small local businesses, real estate is a means to an end, rather than the end itself, and many small businesses lease, rather than own, the real estate they occupy. In this discussion, Chris Goode of Ruby Jean’s Juicery will discuss the opportunities, hurdles, benefits, and challenges of approaching real estate development and ownership as an entrepreneur.   This presentation will address both aspiring entrepreneurs and the ecosystem that supports them to explore opportunities to further promote local ownership of KC:

• Entrepreneurial Advocacy.  How can local small businesses advocate for themselves to own their own space? What are the benefits and challenges of owning your own building? Would you recommend leasing first, then buying? If someone wants to open up a retail/restaurant or similar storefront, what are different ways of approaching the development process?

• Regulations & Process.  Are there any major regulatory or procedural hurdles that small businesses face when it comes to renovating and opening a storefront? How can the public sector be a better partner to entrepreneurs? What resources are working well now?

• Finance.  How can aspiring entrepreneurs access funding to pursue ownership stake in their space? How can lenders support joint ownership models and wealth building for small businesses?

Join us for insight into what works and doesn’t work for implementing urban infill development in Kansas City. We will highlight real projects in neighborhoods like Manheim Park, Squire Park, Center City, and more. This presentation will be led by Sean Flandermeyer and his team at Elevate Design + Build.

Monday, October 28th

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave,

Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 5:45 Presentation Begins  

Enhancing Our Communities through Authentic Minority Representation

Join us for a genuine insight into the real estate industry with Shawnna Murrell, a passionate local developer and entrepreneur leading ULI's REDI program.

Reimagining KC’s first public works building into the 2000 Vine Campus

About the Project

Kansas City’s first public works buildings, abandoned for decades in the historic 18th & Vine Jazz District, is now home to 2000 Vine—A venue, art gallery and workspace expanding the cultural corridor of Kansas City’s most famous street.

Venue

With abundant flexible space in the heart of the Jazz District, the possibilities for the community to gather are endless.

Art Gallery

2000 Vine is the official home of the Warren Harvey Art Gallery. Visit us on First Friday’s to immerse yourself in fresh art or visit the online store to purchase.

Workspace

2000 Vine is home to the following businesses: BLC Firm, Phronesis, The Prospect KC and Vine Street Brewing Co.

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 5:45 Meeting Begins

Join us in July for a special presentation by Jim Heid, author of “Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders, and Great Communities”.

Jim is an infill developer and strategic real estate adviser who has dedicated his career to a simple mission: “to demonstrate real estate development is a constructive endeavor that can positively shape the urban, rural and human environment.” Known for his practical but aspirational approach, Jim founded CRAFT DnA to create more inspired alternatives for working and living. CRAFT focuses on incremental development and intentional place-building in smaller communities that are facing demographic shifts and growth because of their high quality-of-life. Before CRAFT, Jim founded UrbanGreen© a strategic consultancy to government agencies, real estate companies, and legacy landowners seeking more sustainable and resilient approaches to real estate development. His two most recent projects; River House - a 12 unit infill cottage court; and CraftWork  a 4,500 adaptive reuse into a ‘club-working’ concept have been widely recognized for their high level of design and creativity in a highly challenging development context.

Building Small provides the What, Why and How of small scale, incremental development.  An inspiring and educational call-to-action, the 250-page toolkit champions fine grained, evolutionary development as a way to support more resilient local economies, foster more authentic places, heal and grow disinvested neighborhoods, and provide a democratic form of community building that spans age, economic means and the rural to urban transect.  Graphically accessible and organized to serve as a long term reference – Building Small presents an insightful view at what is possible along with the tools needed to make it happen.

Learn More About Jim's Work Here

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 6:00 Meeting Begins

If you’ve ever wanted to take a short walk to get a snack, tea, beer, or coffee in your neighborhood, this meeting is for you. This month, Lee Berman will lead a conversation about small-scale storefront buildings, why it’s so challenging to save them, and what we can do to change that.

The urban core and small towns are sprinkled with legacy storefront buildings – these are generally small-scale, one- to three-story buildings situated on corners in neighborhoods and along commercial corridors. Once the anchors of historic downtowns, streetcar stops, and neighborhood gathering places, they are the remnants of a time when people walked and when local businesses were the norm rather than the exception.

In some areas of our metro storefront buildings are being activated once again. Yet so many more remain empty, and eventually become blighted and are demolished. This meeting creates space to explore why these buildings remain vacant, and what we can do about it:

• How does inflation and high interest rates impact attempts to renovate these spaces?

• How do local regulations impact preservation, from zoning to fire and building codes?

• What can public policy makers and leaders do to empower locals to implement their plans of reusing vacant storefronts?

• What strategies should we be pursuing to make these buildings work?

• How can philanthropy, CDFIs, and creative funding sources come into play?

• Is it even possible to build these anew, let alone preserve legacy storefront buildings?

We call on all locals who love storefront buildings to join us in this important discussion, as well as policymakers and civic leaders interested in how we can proactively bring these buildings back to life!

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 6:00 Meeting Begins

Join us this month as we discuss Step 11 of the "12-Steps to Incremental Development", a collection of facilitated conversations spanning a 12-month period. This program was created by Neighborhood Evolution, and is intended to help train and build capacity for locals to reinvest in their own neighborhoods through deep dives into various aspects of real estate development. You do not need to have attended previous meetings to participate. 

Step 12: "Help Others" & a note from Abby

I founded this initiative 6 years ago following a one-day workshop hosted by the Incremental Development Alliance in 2018. This workshop was incredibly well-attended, in fact it was overbooked, and the attendees were noticeably different in makeup than I had seen in other real estate networking groups — many of which are merely focused on ‘getting rich quick’ and making deals. As many practicing small-scale developers know well, small-scale development is a long-term commitment that can really only be implemented successfully by people that intimately know their place and have a strong village around them.

Attendees in 2018 came from all kinds of backgrounds, not just demographically but also professionally. There were neighborhood leaders, government officials, lenders, civic leaders, planners, and designers. We had both amateurs and seasoned developers. This meetup group remains a non-RSVP, open meeting for anyone who would like to attend — regardless of your level of experience or knowledge. I am pretty proud to acknowledge that we have maintained such a varied group of attendees over the years.

Each person who attends our meetings likely has a different “why” that is not rooted in simply making as much money as possible. Like I mentioned, small-scale and incremental development is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s risky, it’s hard, and it requires a lot of effort. People do fail. There are many easier ways to make money. Some of us are driven by a genuine love for our neighborhoods; some of us are driven by historic preservation and our love of legacy architecture; some of us are driven by the desire to cultivate local ownership and autonomy for how our neighborhoods are changed over time; some of us want to push back against extractive investors, and formulate proactive strategies to address blight and stagnation; some of us want to create affordable/attainable housing; some of us want to create spaces for small businesses; some of us are not developers (yet), but want to understand what’s not working with real estate and how we can support local doers.

This initiative is an advocacy group, as much as it is a networking group. So this month, I want us to take an opportunity for each of us to share our “why” with one another. What draws you to a group like this? And how can this group best support our “whys”?

Thank you all for your dedication to this cause!

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 6:00 Meeting Begins

Join us this month as we discuss Step 11 of the "12-Steps to Incremental Development", a collection of facilitated conversations spanning a 12-month period. This program was created by Neighborhood Evolution, and is intended to help train and build capacity for locals to reinvest in their own neighborhoods through deep dives into various aspects of real estate development. You do not need to have attended previous meetings to participate. 

Step 11: "Managing your project efficiently"

Managing real estate takes a village. From tenancy to the leasing, bookkeeping, and maintenance, there are many aspects of a project that require attention after the building is built or renovated. There are many pieces to consider: Will you hire a third-party management company or do-it-yourself? How should you structure your bank accounts for operations? Do you have an insurance agent who has access to a lot of different insurance companies? Do you need a real estate license? How do you plan for emergencies (“fire, flood, or blood”). Do you have a list of important numbers (contractors, security companies, policy/fire, insurance, utility companies)? How are you tracking expenses?

Meeting Leader Butch Rigby has developed real estate in and around the Kansas City area for over 30 years. He redeveloped his first property in 1980 during the time that he was a full time student at UMKC. After Law School, Butch went to Hollywood to work in the film industry crewing motion pictures. Butch Rigby has married his passion for films and old buildings, and is a local expert on how to gradually grow a successful small-scale real estate development business that supports other small, local businesses.

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 6:00 Meeting Begins

Join us this month as we discuss Step 10 of the "12-Steps to Incremental Development", a collection of facilitated conversations spanning a 12-month period. This program was created by Neighborhood Evolution, and is intended to help train and build capacity for locals to reinvest in their own neighborhoods through deep dives into various aspects of real estate development. You do not need to have attended previous meetings to participate. Step 10 is called "Moving into your project" and our guest speaker is Charlie Russell. We will focus on the topic of what happens after construction has been completed. Architect and small-scale developer Charlie Russell will share his experience becoming his own tenant — moving into his own project — and lead a discussion about how to be thinking about occupancy for many project types. Charlie Russell is an architect and  developer based in Kansas City, with a presence in the Midwest and Texas. His work focuses on creating authentic experiences with thoughtful architecture. Driven by what hands will touch, his projects are infused with a rich materiality, skillfully detailed and cleverly programmed for each client. Charlie’s development work is targeted towards infill neighborhoods. He seeks out smaller and often more complicated sites that offer a chance to add value through design.

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 6:00 Meeting Begins

Join us this month as we discuss Step 9 of the "12-Steps to Incremental Development", a collection of facilitated conversations spanning a 12-month period. This program was created by Neighborhood Evolution, and is intended to help train and build capacity for locals to reinvest in their own neighborhoods through deep dives into various aspects of real estate development. You do not need to have attended previous meetings to participate.

Step 9 is called "Set Up a Construction Management Team" and our guest speaker is Audrey Navarro.

Construction is about the organization of time, money, people, and materials. This means being able to manage a schedule, budget contracts, coordinate schedules and communication, and keep track of materials. There are many questions to ask yourself at this stage: Do you know much about buildings and construction? What kind of labor or management tasks do you need help with? Are there projects like yours around town? Is the project renovation or new construction? Will you be your own general contractor, or will you hire a company? Who will manage the job site? What contractors or tradespeople do you know already? Establish a baseline understanding of your skills to understand what you need to learn or outsource.

PH Coffee 2200 Lexington Ave, Kansas City, MO 64124

5:30 Doors Open | 6:00 Meeting Begins

Join us this month as we discuss Step 8 of the "12-Steps to Incremental Development", a collection of facilitated conversations spanning a 12-month period. This program was created by Neighborhood Evolution, and is intended to help train and build capacity for locals to reinvest in their own neighborhoods through deep dives into various aspects of real estate development. You do not need to have attended previous meetings to participate.

Step 8 is called "Decide What Is Best for Your Place" and our guest speaker is Kevin Klinkenberg.

Whether you are renovating an existing building or constructing a new building, working in residential or commercial real estate, how do you decide what is truly best for your project and place? Step 7 was all about creating a team to work with as you progress into your small development project. Step 8 focuses on how to decide to move forward, bring your team together, and deliver on your vision. Now is the time to pull together what you’ve learned, and make the hard choices. How do you do that? How do you decide to proceed with confidence? What information do you need? What are your advantages and disadvantages in the marketplace?