The CRE Connection · Samy Soussan

0:00:01 - Speaker 1
Welcome to the Commercial Real Estate Connection Podcast, the place where we connect with the brightest minds in commercial real estate, uncovering their secrets, strategies and captivating stories. I'm your host, sami Sousan, here to serve as your guide and connector-in-chief on this exciting journey. Together, we'll dive deep into the world of commercial real estate, exploring the ins and outs of this dynamic industry. So get ready to unlock the power of connections and elevate your commercial real estate journey. Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Commercial Real Estate Connection Podcast.

I'm excited to welcome with us today our guest, mr Uri Mandi, founder and CEO of the Lagoon Development Company, which develops these large, crystal clear lagoons with beach lights and water sports for master planning communities, as well as standalone attractions. This is an incredible company. Their mission is to make luxury beach life accessible to the general public, and we're really, really excited to have Mr Mand joining us on this episode. Uri has an extensive background in commercial real estate, with over 20 years of commercial real estate experience. Uri has been involved in real estate development since 2002 and has overseen developments including more than 4,000 apartments and homes and over the past 15 years, uri's overseen ground-up development projects that range from single-family homes, master planning communities, high-rise apartments and condominiums to a 300,000 square foot retail lifestyle center all different types of commercial real estate. And we're really, really excited to welcome you to our show today and get to learn a little bit more about your commercial real estate journey. So welcome, uri, to the show.

0:01:32 - Speaker 2
Tammy, thanks for having me on. It's exciting to be part of your prestigious podcast and I've seen some of the other guests you've had. It's a really great lineup, so I'm excited and hoping to add some value to your show.

0:01:43 - Speaker 1
Thanks so much, uri. I appreciate that and for those who don't know, I actually met Uri going back probably a little over a year ago where we met standing side by side at a restaurant called Dino's Restaurant. We were both just waiting to order lunch and we had a conversation. You started telling me a little bit about your projects and I was really intrigued by what you were doing and that kind of led me down this path of exploring and learning more about your business and what you were doing, and we're just really excited to have you on the show. So let's dive into your journey and just to kind of get started a little bit, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your backgrounds, where you kind of grew up and how that led into commercial real estate.

0:02:19 - Speaker 2
Sure. I'm originally born in Israel, grew up in South Florida. I grew up in Boca Raton. I studied business in college, got my MBA and I worked right out of the MBA program in real state development. I always thought it would be interesting to be building buildings where people will live and work and enjoy themselves and have something to look back on as productivity. You know, when you work in finance you're moving money around. You don't necessarily have something that you can look back at and be proud of, and I first worked on Wall Street but really wanted to make build projects.

I think from a young age playing with Legos, I always had this idea of building and I'm not a construction expert by any means, but I got my general contractor's license, got into real estate development, worked for a number of great firms. I was very lucky to be hired by the related group in Miami. I worked as their vice president and that's when I met Fernando Fishman, who is the founder of Crystal Lagoon. And Fernando Fishman was bringing the Crystal Lagoon concept to the United States. It didn't exist here yet. He needed somebody to be the CEO of his company. I joined. I had 10% of the company as the CEO and it helped bring the concept to America and I flew around the United States, kind of like as a highly paid pool salesman you could call it convincing real estate developers. Hey, you got to put these Lagoons in your projects because the projects will make more money, they'll be more profitable, you'll finish them sooner, you'll be able to develop apartments and places where you wouldn't necessarily be able to develop hotels and apartments and restaurants, because a lot of these projects are kind of further outside of the urban corridor.

And just a few years ago, when I left Crystal Lagoon, I teamed up with Al Brendi, who's the founder of Lante House Communities. We transformed the company from a top 10 master play community developer to being number one in the market with the Lagoon concept. Our projects ended up having record sales. We had one project, for example, that sold 740 homes in a single year, over 2000 lots in a singery, and that elevated us to being the most prestigious residential development company in the Houston market.

And that's when Starwood came in and bought a portion of our company. It was a large transaction, over $400 million, which was a great day for all of us who had equity in the company. And now what we've done is we formed a company called Lagoon Development which owns the Lagoons in perpetuity. Our concept is to build the Lagoons, allow the residents to use them. There's a stream of income from the homeowners association for using the Lagoon and then we also open the Lagoons to the general public with kind of a public access Lagoon concept. And we have two Lagoons built, one of Balmoral and another one of Lagomor, and we're building a third now. So that's basically the general background.

0:04:52 - Speaker 1
That's quite a journey, going from building Legos to developing these massive Lagoons.

0:04:57 - Speaker 2
Yeah, for your audience they should definitely look at our website LagoonDevelopmentcom. You can see lots of great images. These are essentially like crystal clear lakes, basically giant swimming pools the size of lakes, where we have manmade beaches around the Lagoons and they serve as a centerpiece or an amenity for the master plan community. They're powered by different technology. They use crystal Lagoon technology, which is patented, so we license the technology from the Crystal Lagoon company and then these Lagoons are an amenity for the residents that live in the community.

So imagine families getting to know each other sitting on lounge chairs, their kids making sandcastles together. It's really an amazing amenity that creates more of a fabric of community that you wouldn't see necessarily in other parts of the country where they don't have these. So we now have about 10 Lagoons built and operating in the United States and we own two of them. The others are in Florida and other states as well, and the important thing is that the Lagoons themselves they serve as a great amenity. People can paddle board, kayak sail, they can buy a Pina Colada Margarita, they can sit in a VIP cabana, but we also have concerts and shows and the Lagoons allow for the development of commercial uses on the perimeter. A lot of these projects are further away from the urban core and you wouldn't see restaurants popping up or hotels popping up, typically in the middle of a master plan community. But now, with the Lagoon concept, for example, at LaGomore we have a restaurant that does $20,000 a week in revenue, and it's because it's right on the Lagoon.

0:06:29 - Speaker 1
That is. That's actually incredible. So it's interesting because I think the way that most people get involved in the commercial real estate scene is that they work things a little bit differently. Where it's either it's retail, either it's multifamily, either it's residential, and everything is kind of broken apart and separate individual, and it seems that what you've tried to create is a unique blend of the master pie communities that are really kind of attracting and creating new commercial real estate that's going to be developed in those areas. Yeah, absolutely.

0:06:58 - Speaker 2
For example, at Lagomar we're developing 500 apartments, five-story, eight-story high-rise apartments on the Lagoon, in the middle of the suburbs. We're developing an embassy suites branded Hilton condo project, which are six-story buildings on the Lagoon. We're developing a sports illustrated branded hotel and resort on the actual Lagoon and we have a beach club that's open to the general public. Right now it's called Lagoon Fest Texas, so the general public can go to LagoonFestTexascom, they can buy tickets, they can come to the concerts and shows at LagomarLivecom. And right now we're doing incredible numbers. I give you an idea we had 4,700 people come in with paid tickets on Saturday. That's in one day. We're doing sometimes over 10,000 people a week at the Lagoon and we're going to make over 10 million in revenue this year just from public access.

0:07:50 - Speaker 1
That's incredible. I mean the vision that it takes to truly execute such a unique and innovative project where I think most people would view these commercial real estate pieces of land and these very far out of, like you said, out of the urban core as being useless. What value is there in those areas? And you've kind of really taken a unique approach and I would say, perhaps gutsy approach in taking those areas and really transforming them. So that's truly impressive. All right, thanks for sharing that. I imagine that introducing the crystal clear Lagoons to the US market and in particular to developers, must have been a serious journey. Can you maybe share a little bit about the challenges you faced during that process and maybe how you overcame them to actually make this vision a reality?

0:08:35 - Speaker 2
Yeah, when I was dealing with big developers like LaFrac or Steve Nguyen, with Nguyen Resorts, convincing them to put the Lagoons in their projects, the first thing that they would always talk about well, how much does it cost and how much does it cost to maintain? So those are big numbers and they were pretty much unknown because no Lagoons had been built in the United States. So it's a big liability. And what we transformed the opportunity from hey, how much does it cost to maintain? To how much money could you make with this if you were to open it to the public. And when Steve Nguyen announced that he was going to have 10,000 people a day paying $40 to come to the Lagoon $40,000, $400,000 a day in revenue, that he basically would have the cheapest show in Las Vegas and it'd be extremely popular he set the tone for hey, these Lagoons can really be open to the public. And that's what we've really done with our Lagoons. And the struggle with getting developers to see this as something they should incorporate is that it requires a complete transformation of your mindset for your project and a lot of land developers don't have pioneering visions to change the way they've been doing business for 20, 30 years, to take on a bigger investment in the amenity to really be willing to get involved in the operating business. That's what it is. It's an operating business. The Lagoon is not just an amenity, it's literally it's restaurants, it's bars, festivals, it's concerts there's so many. There's a sailing club, there's so many things that are labor intensive and require people to have the like you said, the guts and the pioneering vision to realize it's going to make a big difference.

And I worked with gentleman Al Brandy who was very pioneering. I was lucky to find him in Texas because he would bring the first splash pads to Houston. He wanted to have the first gigabyte communities with high-speed access. He really wanted to be the first and he also, by coincidence, grew up going to Priest Lake in Idaho and seeing crystal clear water. So he knew the value of crystal clear water and I took him with me to see the Lagoon in Cabo, along with a lot of other developers, and he could see the value right away.

And it's hard to you know when you first build the first Lagoon in Texas, which was Balmoral. It's hard to know what the value is going to be because you don't know if you're going to be able to sell the lots at a higher price. You don't know how much faster the homes will sell. We did some studies. We estimated the increase in the sales velocity, the increase in the lot prices. The reality brought all out of the water was much more successful and Balmoral became the number one selling community in Houston. So we kind of checked the boxes on what the Lagoon was supposed to do and it did much more than that.

0:11:06 - Speaker 1
That's a really interesting approach and I'm kind of curious about how you and Albedo got connected, because it seems like that relationship really had a tremendous impact on your growth in these Lagoon. Can you share a little bit about that?

0:11:19 - Speaker 2
That's a good question. You know I searched the Houston market for the top developers. He was always in the top five, top 10 developers in Houston for over 20 years and all of these developers were willing to add a curiosity they would take my meetings. You know I would request meetings. Howard Hughes called well many other big developers and Al took the meeting. I came in and then I said, listen, we'll go down to Mexico. Worst comes to worst, we have some good Margaritas.

0:11:46 - Speaker 1
I love it. It's a great way to sell a development project. So I'm curious, erie, you have an extensive experience in real estate development. You know, like you said, master planning communities initially, and as well as other mixed development projects. What would you say makes the Lagoon Development Company stand out from your other ventures?

0:12:04 - Speaker 2
So it's very pioneering and creative. The Lagoon Development Company. It's different than being a traditional apartment developer. I built over 5,000 apartments as an executive of various development companies. I was involved in developing master planning communities prior to working with Lantana. I said Kenco communities are related. We built single family communities as well.

This is a completely different type of venture because it's really focused on not just creating real estate value but also being proficient and experts in operating businesses. So I'm visiting the Lagoon on a regular basis. We have professional management, but at the end of the day, we need to generate an EBITDA, generate profits, and every day is a beta test. So we're testing different concerts, we're testing festivals, we're checking different price points, we're deciding to include the bumper boats in the slide as part of the ticket price or charge for the floating obstacle course. There are many things that go on that are not really traditional real estate development related. But we also have the incredible ability to do joint ventures with commercial developers. So we seek out best in class hotel developers, apartment developers. We can do joint ventures with them on the land around the Lagoon or we could sell them the land at a profit. So there's a lot of involvement in looking at the highest and best use for commercial development around the Lagoon and making sure we have the right partners to develop those projects together.

0:13:27 - Speaker 1
That's fascinating, wury, and you know, one of the main focuses of our podcast is trying to find the intersection between relationships and success, and it seems like you've really mastered that because, as you mentioned, finding those key relationships, identifying them and understanding how to bring everyone together is key in truly being successful. So it's truly impressive to see what you've built up and seems like over the years, your experiences and all the various facets of industry really led you to this point. So, just to move on a little bit about your leadership and impact, I imagine you're leading a very talented team of professionals. Obviously, you have a lot of people that are involved in the operations side and the business side and development construction marketing. Can you share a little bit about what are some key elements to take into consideration when you're trying to build and develop this solid?

0:14:16 - Speaker 2
and reliable team. Well, I've got a great team. I'm really lucky and I've been able to recruit some of the great, passionate people that really are interested in these lagoons From the folks that build lagoons, like Jeff Sheehan and Scott Jaworski, who have worked tirelessly to build the projects, to Greg Singleton, who we hired from. He was president of Metro Development Group, which for over 13 years and built the first lagoon in Florida, and he's my business partner in lagoon development.

We've got a great head of accounting, alyssa, and we really work as a team to move the projects forward. We also hire professional management to manage the operations of lagoons. So we did a best in class search. We did a search for the best in class operators that could operate amphitheaters, water parks and things of that nature, and we interviewed five of the best firms in the country. We selected American Resort Management. That's the group that's managing our lagoon. They're doing a great, great job, which is led by Rick Coleman and Frank, and we're very lucky that, in a way, the stars have aligned and we've had some great people as part of the project.

0:15:23 - Speaker 1
Those people are definitely keen to get at least a function properly. This question is probably a little bit more selfish, because I'm a huge hockey fan and, growing up in Montreal, canada, I grew up playing ice hockey pretty much my whole life as a little kid, and so I'm really curious. You were involved in the Florida Panthers HL hockey team in an executive capacity. First of all, how did you get involved in that capacity and, in particular, in regards to this podcast, how did your experience in sports entertainment influence your approach to real estate development and particular youth projects?

0:15:56 - Speaker 2
Yeah. So at the end of the you know, when the real estate market crashed in 2008-9, I was contacted by the ownership group of the Florida Panthers hockey team, who knew of my kind of background, and they asked me to become an executive of the team to oversee the development of the commercial land around the arena. So I was developing the 90 acres of commercial land. I developed a new training facility for the team, also in Coral Springs, and our goal was to transform the arena into a theater district. So I flew to New York. I met with the Nederlander family that owns 10 of the Broadway theaters in New York City. I convinced them to become our partner in the project and we were endeavoring to build four new Broadway theaters and we that required extending the lease on the land to 99 years. We got through a lot of the approvals but at the end of the day the economy was doing very poorly. Real estate development did look like it was coming back and the ownership group of the team decided to sell the team, so that that role kind of ended.

But it was pretty interesting because I was really in the depth of entertainment working inside of a concert arena. My office was next to the president's office of the team. I was involved in a lot of meetings, with negotiating things with artists and sponsorship sales and how do we increase ticket sales, and so you know, at the time I never imagined that my career would eventually end up in a place where I was focused on entertainment and hospitality. But that was my first taste to it and I look back at that as a great experience that I can bring a lot of the lessons and a lot of the things that I learned during that time Working in entertainment, even though I was on the real estate development side. I was in all the executive meetings for the Ford Panthers and the concert arena, and I take some of those lessons and apply them to what I'm doing now.

0:17:47 - Speaker 1
That's fascinating. What a great way to incorporate those lessons into your current development projects. So I've only recently learned about this. Already and I'm going to throw this out there. You're an author of a book called Job Tactics, and I'm really curious because, again, a big part of our podcast is trying to share with others how to learn from key experiences from our guests and, ultimately, to see how those experiences will actually impact their own future, and so I'm curious to maybe you can share a little bit about what that book was about and what drove you to actually write that book.

0:18:22 - Speaker 2
So, yeah, I wrote that book in my 20s and I was the only person at the university that got a job offer from all top five of the five investment banks, goldman Sachs, etc. And the year behind me, the students that were a year younger than me wanted to all meet with me from the business school to learn what I had done during the interview process or to prepare for the interview process and how did I secure all these jobs? So I started writing a short paper to provide to these students, which turned into a book, and I tell people one of the most powerful things to do is use the alumni database from the university where you graduated, because people are willing to meet with you. They're willing to talk to you. You can set up informational meetings, and that book ended up leading to me having some appearances on news shows talking about how to get a good job in a tough economy, and I usually give that book away for free.

It's not really a way for me to make money, but people enjoy. You know, there's some useful lessons there which I wish somebody had provided to me early years earlier. A lot of those lessons were passed on to me by a guy named Jim Black, who was a Harvard student, and I was at Golden Sacks while I was with him, while working with him, and he kind of told me all the things that he did and I took them and put them into a book, all the steps that I took to secure jobs in his and I think it's a powerful way to manage the process.

0:19:48 - Speaker 1
I love that and I'm definitely going to be sharing a link in our description, so check it out. I'm actually excited to take a look at the book. I really enjoy reading new books, so excited to take a peek at it. So, uri, with your experience in real estate markets, just to move on to some industry insights, what do you foresee as the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the commercial real estate sector in?

0:20:08 - Speaker 2
the near future. Well, in the near future, it's certainly the lending environment. You know, getting construction loans today or refinancing properties, it's going to be a huge challenge in the short term. What's going to? There's, I think, an avalanche of problems coming ahead and we should all be prepared for that. So if someone's trying to refinance a property or get a development construction loan, it's extremely challenging and I think that environment is going to become even more difficult with interest rates where they are possibly moving even much higher. That's definitely going to be the biggest challenge going forward. Another challenge, which is just, you know, how do we meet the demand of an increased there's still pent up demand for housing in America Tremendous pent up demand. People want to own homes, they want to find a place to rent. Prices of skyrocketed interest rates have gone up, making it more expensive to buy home, but people still need a place to live. So that's going to be the challenge that we have to figure out how to meet going forward.

0:21:03 - Speaker 1
I definitely appreciate that and you know I see that a lot on our end in the title business. We are absolutely seeing that financing is one of the major issues where principals are struggling with. Do you have any tips that maybe you'd suggest on how people can take some proactive measures to overcome those challenges?

0:21:22 - Speaker 2
The key thing you need to have very good relationships with your bankers and, because you want to, that can make all the difference in the world in order to be able to secure the right kind of financing to your projects.

0:21:33 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I love it. That's really true. I feel like we get the question all the time hey, do you know anyone who's a good lender? And I think you're right. The key is to not wait for those relationships to happen, but is to constantly developing and nurturing those relationships in any given market. Thank you, and so you know talking about building relationships. How do you approach building relationships? You know building those connections and the real estate industry. Maybe you can share some tips that you use on a personal level.

0:22:02 - Speaker 2
Well interesting. I learned a lot from Al Brendy on this point is that we typically have three or four business dinners a week. It's not unusual to go to either a happy hour or a business dinner, and we're constantly drinking wine and having a good time. That's very important. People love to be entertained and we do a lot of it. I think that's a great way to build relationships. I also invite people to the concerts we have at the Lagoon. The Lagoon is a great tool for us to generate great relationships with our business partners, with our lenders, et cetera.

0:22:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I love that. I feel like I've been doing coffees and lunges every single day for the past two years. All right, and just to wrap up, a couple more questions, some rapid-fire questions. We'll go through getting to know Ooryman a little better. What is one thing that you do every day to start your morning off? Right, Oory?

0:22:47 - Speaker 2
Workout. I wake up in the morning, I have an incredible espresso and I go to the gym. Usually I'm at Barry's Boot Camp or taking Pilates. I like the hardcore workouts.

0:22:57 - Speaker 1
Love it. What's a hobby or interest that you have outside of work that most people wouldn't know about you?

0:23:03 - Speaker 2
I love to snowboard, sailing, anything on the water, boating, and one of my hobbies is dancing salsa and bachata and things like that.

0:23:12 - Speaker 1
That's awesome Any book or podcast that you've been enjoying lately.

0:23:15 - Speaker 2
Yours, yours, your podcast is fantastic, sammy.

0:23:19 - Speaker 1
I appreciate the plug. I have not paid Oory for this, by the way, but I appreciate the kind words and Oory. Just to wrap up, what is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self?

0:23:30 - Speaker 2
Start your business and be entrepreneurial sooner in life. Don't wait to feel like you're two seasons Just start earlier.

0:23:38 - Speaker 1
That is a great piece of advice and I appreciate those words, oory. Thank you again so much for joining us on the podcast. Any last words you'd like to share?

0:23:46 - Speaker 2
with our audience. No, sammy, thanks for your time today. It was a great pleasure to be on your show. It's fantastic that you're providing all this knowledge to people with so many guests and so many entertaining podcasts. And thanks for having me on and I appreciated the invite.

0:24:00 - Speaker 1
Absolutely, and, for everyone who's not familiar, check out their website at thelagoondevelopmentcom, and we're going to be posting those links below in our description, so check it out. I encourage everyone to reach out and connect with Oory on LinkedIn. He's a rock star and has been doing incredible things in the industry, and thanks again for joining us on the podcast.

0:24:18 - Speaker 2
Really means a lot to have you as a guest, any of your guests that they want to email me. They can always email me at oory, at lagoondevelopmentcom.

0:24:25 - Speaker 1
Thanks again so much for tuning in to another episode of the Commercial Real Estate Connection podcast. We really appreciate you joining and if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share it on your social media or LinkedIn profiles. Hit that subscribe button for some more episodes that are going to be coming out. We look forward to sharing more opportunities and episodes with you. And don't forget ABC always be connecting, always search for those opportunities to be constantly growing your network. Have a great day and looking forward to the next episode.