What is Preventing the Development of Downtown Rochester?

Welcome back to Rochester Living with Mark Seawwick and Corey James Moran, brought to you by Alleian Homes by Mark Sewick and Associates. This is episode 195, and we've had quite a run, Mark, on guests from businesses that are family-owned, family, and continuing that with a third generation.

Right. Right. A family business. We have the president of Galina Development Corp., Andy Galina. Andy, welcome.

Well, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here on a bright sunny day in Rochester.

I know, right? It's We're This is What is this? 17th spring? What are we experiencing right now?

Perfect. I don't know. Up, down, but we're good. When is winter again? Do we have any winters left?

I think we're out, right? It's shocking that in what, eight days, it's the start of Memorial. I mean, yeah, we we we've had 30-some-degree temperatures as of two weeks ago. It's it's insane what's playing out. But hopefully, we we talk a lot about how we bring in the most people from outside of the area to the Rochester area. And boy are some of my clients mad at me because I've been telling them for the past five years, winters are so mild. It's been so f And then this one needs to get crushed. Sorry guys, it wasn't even a lot of snow. It was just like it's just this lingering malaise. But we're past that. Lilac festival is happening right now. We're we're in the the midst of it. So terrific fire. I'm fascinated to hear Andy's take on a lot of different things when it comes to Rochester. Um, but want to jump into real estate first?

Yeah, let's do it.

Okay. Yeah, let's get the market update here. Numbers still go up. They're still going up. Are the numbers going up or is there just more property lingering?

Little bit of column A, a little bit column B. Uh, yeah, right now in Monroe County, there are 467 single-family active listings. That's up from 435 last week. Uh, again, as as you alluded to, there's definitely things that are sitting longer than they have, you know, for the past few months. Um, six-county region, we're at 806. That's up from 758 under contract and pending. Monroe County is at 1106. That's up from uh 1044 last week. And then the six-county region's at 1597. That's up from 1507 last week.

Okay. And it's spotty. It's weird. It's wonky, right? I mean, properties that are in great condition in desirable areas that are on point, buttoned up, still going crazy, right? If there's, not literally, but if there's cracks in the foundation um of a property, it needs, you know, this, this, this, and this. It seems like buyers are getting pickier. Buyers are much, much pickier than they've been. M uh there are properties we we've got in our portfolio a few properties that have lingered now for the past two or three weeks. Um but as we've said to a few of our clients we need to make sure that their property is as we've said four walls in a roof.

Terrific. U prior to what was April Lance called independ independence day whatever whatever the hell he called it. Um prior to that four walls in a roof you know we you were doing great. um after the imposition of these tariffs um it's definitely a different story and so people need to be ready.

So see the other thing if I can jump in here is really not my conversation but I have a background in residential and stuff and and I I I was a residential broker in my younger years and uh we inspected property. We had uh an obligation to our buyers and sellers to make sure the property is in pretty good shape. No surprises. this whole trend without uh inspections and no contingencies and all. I've heard actually firsthand from individuals three or four horror stories.

Really?

Well, we've heard attorneys say the same thing. Yeah. It's just uh one young friend uh one of the bathrooms was not properly plumbed. They move in and there's water going down on the living room. Like who's checking this house? when we go to that way and we we diminish um this inspection component, it just uh it pushes, you know, some of these guys flip flip and flip flip without really improving to to a point. And as I say, I I that's just a commentary. Um I wish we kind of get a little back to where I'm going to jump in. And I'm going to say that, you know, we're really that hasn't happened with us. But what we're doing is something comes live on a Thursday, we're making our clients aware immediately. We're walking through on Friday. If on Friday they like the property, we're getting an engineer through on Saturday or Sunday. Someone immediately pay for it.

Immediat

Yes. Immediately. So that you can write an offer on Monday free and clear of any incumbrance having to do with an inspection. And you know when Mark, that's that's brilliant because and I've heard of that a lot. Some of the more, you know, conscious brokers, responsible are doing that are doing that because I I have two. One's a lawsuit, one's another. They want to sue, they can't. It doesn't make sense financially.

Ah, you just keep throwing money. And if you're a first-time buyer, you don't have a first-time buyer, you don't know.

Yep. You know, and and uh and that's why my strategy is always I'm almost trying to talk my clients out of buying the house because I'm pointing out every little thing that I see just because we don't want surprises.

Eyes wide open. You got to understand in this environment there's no contingencies. You sign all cash, that's it.

Yeah. You're closed.

Yeah. No. No. No two ways about it. It it is it is difficult. And increasingly first-time home buyers aren't having the kind of quality to choose from in the way that they could in the past because they're desperate to just get their foot in the door and begin building a legacy based on the equity that equity etc. What what home ownership leads to.

So, I agree with that 100%. Without a a healthy inventory, you're making those compromises. You're jumping in and you're fighting and you're hitting the escalation clause and I'll give you 30 more trying to get in.

Yep. So, you can participate in the economy.

Well, it's interesting, right? Because there's other states that have this due diligence period where an inspection is part of the law. They they have to have it done before the house can actually close and for whatever reason.

Did you say in other states that don't have the kind of power the real estate industry has in the state of New York? Is that what you said?

Yeah, I think that's what Okay, that's what I decided.

Yeah. Oh, let me just throw that in. Okay, it's okay. Slight caveat, but

Oh, I didn't want to get off trail.

No, no, no. I talked about this to a lot of folks and just be cautious. It's a battle out there. It's definitely a battle for sure. Um, economy update. Do you want to talk about CPI?

Um, yeah. Um, why don't we um What are we doing um with interest rates? Tell tell us a little about I want to talk about CPI first.

Well, I want I want you to explain why they're not going down.

Okay. So, so so CPI came in surprisingly low. Uh CPI came in at uh two 2.3.

Thank you. 2.3. It was down a tenth of a percentage point. Lowest, which is great. Since February of 2021, surprising.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very, very surprising. It took everybody's surprise. It was very, it was pleasant. And so, you know, um economics 101 is going to tell us that okay, great. Um we are even closer to the Federal Reserve's target rate is 2.0%. We're just a smidge above but um but we're not quite there. But the rug is being pulled out from under estimates. So So the qu the question is interest rates are are supposed to go go down as a result of the CPI fall. I mean, based off three years of podcasting, that's what's supposed to happen. Unless you're a bond vigilante and you're looking at what is going to be playing out in the economy in the future, and everybody knows that 30 days from now uh the imposition of tariffs and the trade war, you know, even though we came to some detent with uh with China uh this past weekend, it's it's it's still there's still it's not settled. It it is not settled and we still have higher uh tariffs. Um, and everybody knows that uh that the rate of inflation is going to start to tick up starting next month. I mean, it's happening right now. It's just not it hasn't been recorded. So, so why didn't they go down this past week? Because that's rearview mirror thinking that the uh the Treasury market uh they're thinking about what is to come and that's the reason why it is. Interest rates are 6.99.

Yep. I'm I'm I'm glad to report not seven.

No, I'm glad to report that within the past 35 minutes they've dropped.

Oh, really? Oh, 6.96. Oo, look at that. Spicy. Lock in now.

So, um, yeah. Yeah, this is Yeah, this is just and and again, part of the conversation, Andy, and I'm sure you would anybody who still has their real estate license and is still trying to make a go of it, you deserve a medal. I mean, you you you really do because uh there's just no product out there and everything, I mean, over the course of the past couple of years is conspiring against real estate agents um and in particular the buyers. It's it's it's it's ugly. It's nasty. So, I don't I don't see this changing any. I think the other reason um uh that uh that we've seen an increase in um uh in the 10-year I sorry, in the 30-year mortgage over the course of the past week is uh what happened with uh with the FOMC last week. the Federal Open Markets Committee uh met. Uh Drew Powell came out last Wednesday and said we're not uh we're not lowering rates anytime in the near future. We're just going to see sit uh we're going to we're going to watch and we're going to wait to see what happens, which is obviously the right move. Uh but again, the 10ear the 10-year Treasury um a deal on the 10-year Treasury rose um on that news and that which is to come. So there you have it. Um Rochester real estate in the news. A couple quick things to get to before we chat with Andy. Uh, Monroe County has emerged as a top real estate hot spot. Shocking, I know. Uh, let's see. This is the hotness ranking for March. We actually came in fifth for this one. Um, is is is this um uh New York Post?

Oh, New York Post. Okay, got it. Um, is is this based on the Zillow metric, the heat the heat index? There's so many.

Okay. All right. Same thing again, based on other spots in the country where I guess still hot even though it's wonky.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. I mean, in in short, it just, you know, reiterates and reaffirms what it is we've heard over and over and over again. It's just it's great if you're a seller, great if you're a homeowner. Terrible. And this is interesting. This is from um AP. They dropped a story about Rochester as an emerging uh spot for people who are climate conscious to relocate to, which again we've been talking about for several years at this point. But um again, people are over wildfires and hurricanes and droughts and uh you know, obviously here we don't really have that. We have gray and snow, which I guess comparatively isn't so bad.

Well, you know, 20 years from now, it'll be, you know, it'll be blue skies and sunny. It'll be 88 degrees.

Yeah. In the middle of February.

Yeah. Exactly. And then they also stated the fact that Rochester's has some progressive policies, um, including climate initiatives to cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.

Okay, there we go.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, God, how long ago was it that he wrote that blog post about, you know, it's it's it's coming. uh all these all these folks who are escaping um tornadoes in the Midwest, wildfires out in California, droughts in the in the South, and then hurricanes in the state of uh the state of Florida. Um it's it's going to happen. I mean, you remember was it Tom Fry, I think years ago, you used to tout the fact that we've got all this fresh water and that this is a place that people will eventually begin to migrate to.

I do think that he was he was correct. He was just, you know, well, part of the reason for that is try to get insurance. Uh I know some folks in Florida

Oh, yeah. Uh there's been a a tiny exodus. We can say an exodus, but we have some friends there that play pickle ball. Other pickle ball people are gone. Canadians, they're moving. You know, I can't get insurance. Why am I doing this after a while? You know, I'll wait for the next hurricane. And they've relocated maybe up the coast a little bit more, maybe not as severe weather, but you know, part of it is hitting them in their pocketbook.

Yeah. And well, you think about it, right? people left New York to escape property taxes and now you're in Florida and you're getting hit with the insurance stuff and there's there's other components.

Yeah, that's what you're that what you're conveying anecdotally is bearing out in uh in the report uh that we're reading which is people are moving to specifically uh South Carolina, North Carolina and Atlanta. We just chatted with a couple uh what uh yesterday that are going to be listing their house hopefully with us are moving to uh North Carolina.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. watch they watch the podcast too. So, thank you David and Nancy. Appreciate it. Yeah. Um and and and it is interesting like you know we're hearing fewer That's really an interesting point. We're hearing fewer and fewer people saying I'm moving to the state of Florida. We are hearing more and more I'm moving to and I should actually go and travel to North Carolina and to South Carolina because in my mind it's hilarious. I cannot differentiate like I have no idea what plays out in North Carolina. What I I mean so so we're we're sitting at the table. We're chatting to these uh sellers about their plans and and you know they're describing where they're going to go and Mark's just and in the back of my head I'm thinking you have been everywhere like in the globe everywhere but you know h haven't made it to Wilmington Delaware.

Yeah. You do been 19 safaris but you haven't been

I haven't been to Wilmington.

Yeah. Like

Yeah. Have you yourself?

No. I want to go to Savannah. Why haven't I been to Savannah? It's lovely. I actually I've been to Savannah and Savannah is gota go, right? So beautiful.

Yes, you should def definitely go.

Yeah. There's places like that.

Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Outer Banks. You guys would love it. Actually, I want I'm going to do this really really quickly.

Okay. Oh god. Duffy, my partner, was secretary of education and we're invited to some wedding. Somebody who's working on the second floor uh uh in Albany and all of a sudden we're shacking up in some house. um that belonged to I'm gonna forget all this who was a secretary of defense under um Clinton. Um we're we're at his house in the Outer Banks and like like and like there's and so it's it's Silda Spitzer um Elliot's wife. It's one of the aerises of the Salsberger fortune, the New York Times. Y and then it's um this this Duffy and I and like this house. There was one wing you couldn't go into because it was like their private residence like the rest was like opened off. Yeah. I had an elevator to my bedroom. That's how insane this house was. I'll think of the name and then I'll tell you. Anyway, all right. Let's let's let's move on to something more important. Andy Andy, you go. You do the nice lovely intro. Come on.

Um Gosh. Gosh, this is where he gushes. Don't get embarrassed. I I I like that is like that is so true because one of the privileges of having this podcast and I is I get to invite on over and over and over again. We get to invite on over heroes and and Andy is a hero because you're the you are the one guy who I can point to who has invested millions in downtown Rochester and you're the best thing happening in the city of Rochester specifically um as it relates to downtown Rochester. the buildings that you own, buildings that would literally be fall. It would it would be like a scene out of uh The Last of Us, you know, buildings just collapsing in on themselves and instead you've taken these buildings and you created uh viability and beautiful beautiful structures and beautiful apartments. Um it's it's a company that I think was founded by your dad. You've taken it over. Your kids are now involved and I would imagine you've got three granddaughters and and one of them will take over the company. So So thank you so much for being here, Andy, and thank you so much for everything you're doing for this community.

We're mine for WBE status now for the kids.

No, that's awesome. Three granddaughters. That's the future. But anyways, uh thank you for having me. I I I do appreciate that you're you're so kind in your words. But um part of that comes out of uh a commitment to our city and an understanding of what needs to happen to to to move the needle. And that's what we're trying to do. We're simply trying to move the needle. uh you know we can talk about opportunity and and we all in business take advantage of opportunities. So over 10 years ago we thought we stepped in an opportunity with our first purchase downtown of one east avenue um which was the old Bank of America building Bank of America Fleet Bank. It was a whole security trust, a whole history and Bank of America was the last banking tenant. And and just I'm going to just occasionally just because I know these buildings not everybody everybody listening might not. So that's the building when you get to East Avenue where it intersects or meets um Main Street, right across from Liberty Pole. Uh one of the things you may have seen is the 11th floor is the penthouse. It's an event space. So we host uh through Max Gordon who runs it uh a host of different types of events from weddings, showers, political events, uh corporate events, and on top of the building there's there's an outside deck. So you get an opportunity to really see uh the whole city and how pretty it is. Like it really is such a pretty city.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's a lot to look at.

Yeah. So yeah, we started there and then we uh we saw an opportunity at the um Chase Tower uh and we jumped in there and renamed it the Metropolitan, we decided that um that building could only survive if we did some uh conversions. you know, knowing the the market, knowing the office market, even back then when it was still relatively healthy, we knew we just couldn't take hundreds of thousands of feet of office space and fill it up again. Uh the bank was still occupying. They kept pairing down. Uh when we bought the building, the bank was in seven floors. They're down to one floor in the branch right now. It's not a knock on them. It's just the reality. All of our tenants are are cutting back. But we've been able to flip and we've got 15 floors of of uh market-rate apartments in there. They're beautiful. I've I've toured them with clients.

Phenomenal. I mean, we're pretty proud. The whole team is pretty proud. That wasn't just me. That was the kids and the design team and, you know, and where do we go from here? Let's make it st, you know, let's upgrade. No, we got to do a little better. Let's improve the tile. Let's make the bathrooms bigger. us. Do you know there's a lot of conversation and every unit um in the place is unique because of the angled fins. We have angled walls. If you notice, Cory, you walk in and everything's kind of angled.

Yep. To take advantage of the angled fins so you get a full view of the window. So, um so we did that and got into that pretty heavy and then we bought the Senica building which is Windstream and Guanette. Uh those are two great companies but they are severely downsizing. they they want to get rid of that space as well and we're working to get replacement tenants there. And then of course the next step was Innovation Square. Now that was an opportunity that Innovation Sphere being square being the old Xerox building Xerox building and when we bought the building there was really only one commercial tenant in it. And once again we were rethinking about before we bought it what do we do? How do we do that? And uh we also recognize that we can't just do the same old same old. So it required some sort of residential component. And uh I I I think my son Evan was the the first

Uh, one that said, "Hey, why don't we talk about student housing? Why don't we get some people involved?" And and this is pre-COVID, by the way. So remember, and we've got uh we get all the college presidents in a room. Uh, Sarah Megalosdorf was new to U of Jerry uh from um uh from Fiser. Uh, Don Braman from uh uh Nazareth, who is now gone, and Beth Paul isn't. So she was part of that conversation. And then, of course, Dave Mson from uh RIT and then later on we added Heidi McFersonson from uh from Brockport into the conversation.

Before we we hit COVID, everybody was very very excited about the project for two reasons. Number one, it would be a collaborative campus. And you think about bringing kids from different schools at different disciplines and how they would interact with each other and with the city too, right? I mean, and and in the city, you know, uh you're maybe not old enough, you're old enough. We've talked about brain drain for decades. Decades. Decades. We educate and the kids go. Yep. Well, how do we integrate students downtown and get them linked up with downtown innovation companies, uh, architects, the engineers, ad firms, uh, other folks, data, high-tech type of, uh, firms that they could intern with and get ingrained in the community, hopefully stay.

So, that was one of the components, right? Cuz they they go to the campuses, right? And you're pretty much isolated in the campus that you're in and you're not exploring what's around you, right? I mean, that's exactly so you don't even know what's out there and we don't. So, what happens? So, what happens is uh CO hits and all of a sudden all those commitments uh went by the wayside. So, we had a very tough conversation with our team and said, "Now what? We're under contract. Do we proceed? Do we pull the plug? Do we walk away?" Da da and and we all around on the table said it's too important. We can do this. That's beautiful. We can do this.

And I'll tell you it was very very difficult because um let's just jump forward fast forward. We did the construction. We started five floors then five floors and five floors. And fortunately there was enough demand primarily at the University of Rochester fill up the five floors. Then we did the next five floor and filled that up. And so currently we have about 400 students living there. Insane. Mostly mostly U of R students when before it was mostly RIT and some of the other students and it flipped and we have a a high percentage of international students which were a bit concerned about right now but it seems to be holding right now. We're not sure what's going to happen in the next couple months because you know any day there could be something that would destroy that market. But we're we're holding keeping our fingers.

Real estate isn't, and I really mean this. I mean, I I know that real estate is probably a mystery to most people who are listening or watching, but real estate, at least from from I'm sure from your perspective, from my perspective, yours, it's really not supposed to be this highwire balancing act. But every few years, you're getting your teeth kicked in, but you get up and it is so impressive that you get up and you're like, "Okay, great. Let's go round two." And you you end up victorious each and every time. I mean, if I'm putting money, I'm betting on you, bud. I mean, seriously.

Well, part of it is you have to you have to look further. And I don't want to talk about the term visionary or vision, but it it is taking a long view of what do you think is going to work. And if you look at some of the failures uh of some of the commercial buildings downtown, and I don't have to go through, you know, a bunch of them up and down Main Street. It's because they they didn't keep reinvesting and reinventing themselves. Yep. And if you don't do that, that's where you where you lose the appetite for tenants to come in. You know, you show tenants and they want you got to give them a compelling reason to bring your office here. Bring your employees here uh at Innovation Square. We have a YMCA on site. We have an auditorium on site, 718 seats in the auditorium. We have uh now a vibrant ecosystem for office tenants along with the 15 floors of students. We have two floors of co-work space that very very difficult. We're we're the franchisee. We bought it. We did it because we felt that concept would be very very important downtown. It's coming along. But it's hard. It's hard work, Mark. It it really is.

But you're continually innovating. I I think siblings Ken does a great job down at the old Siblings building for for the reasons you've just laid out. Um it you can't it's the integration of it's the ideation of all these really interesting outside of the box ideas and then and then just trying to make sure that your tenants have not just a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen, but then they walk out the door and they've got things uh that that a YMCA a place to work out uh etc. Is the Y available to I would imagine it's available to all of your tenants. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay. We uh they've negotiated discounts for our commercial tenants and the uh students uh can get discounts for certain uh programs, but they have 24/7 access to the to the Yeah. They can go run on a treadmill at 2 in the morning. They can fob in. Everything's secure fobbed in. And the Y that's our relationship with the Y that we allow the students to do that. So we control that and the membership is growing. I think it's pretty robust these days and we're just excited about that component.

So So Andy, where is this headed? Um where I mean what I mean by it is where's downtown Rochester headed? Where what is going to go on down there? The the the challenge we have guys and this is not surprising. I I I think I would I would ask you to walk take a or really very slow ride up and down Main Street and that's our problem. Mhm. That main street corridor is really really a problem and we're trying to do that and that's where we come into leadership and support and I'm very very disappointed with uh a lot of the uh city council members that didn't didn't support a business improvement district because here we are two years later and not one tenant has moved on Main Street. So that tells you what are you doing? What what now? We had some support, but not enough to get this over the finish line. And we didn't have enough discussion about what needs to be happening to entice and incentivize businesses to open up an art gallery, a restaurant, a uh boutique, men's a gift shop, anything. We have no commerce on Main Street, right? None. You think about it. We have our sneaker guy. Uh can can you even What's that? I don't even Can you even know the answer to this? Can you at this point in time buy a donut on Main Street? I I really I don't Can I don't think you can. No. No. I mean, a bagel like nothing. There's nothing. You can get down to the east end. I actually I think Dunkin Donuts closed down. We had Starbucks. They closed. Now they're opening up at U HSBC. Oh, fivear building. But it's it's hard. It's hard. We have a lot of people that love to walk. They come out of our building at Metropolitan. They don't go Main Street. They turn south and walk Innovation Square, Martin Luther King in Washington Square Park, you know, Midtown. I mean, what's happening at Midtown? Really great stuff there. Yeah. You walk that way. You don't walk main street. Why? Why? You got to change that. Why Why is it so difficult for Rochester? Because that's been this has been the debate forever, right? How do we get people downtown? And it's been a battle.

And the second part is does this happen in other cities? Are they experiencing this slog to make it happen? Well, it's it's it's leadership and it's investment. Uh some of these folks on city council, oh, this is great. It's all organic growth. Let me tell you something. I've been doing this a long time. You need to incentivize people to change behavior, right? What can I do to incentivize you to open up your dream of having a taco shop on Main Street, you know, or an art gallery? What could we do? Well, right now it's not clean. It's not it's not the parking is tough. We've got uh a number of issues uh that are that are pending that are what I would say barriers to really making that move. How do we remove those barriers, right? How do we incentivize people? Well, there's a couple things we can do. Number one, I've proposed with with uh the county executive uh to make a sales tax-free zone. Love that. That's a great idea. We're not getting any tax revenue right now. Right. Exactly. So, I mean, it's not going to hurt. It's like, excuse me. How much are we getting now? maybe that uh well, pardon me because I want you to go back to what you're saying, but if we're shy 18,000 housing units here in Monroe County, downtown is the obvious place for us to be putting people, but what comes first? And so, can you say whether or not Adam is supportive of this tax free? Well, we talk about it. Okay, I'm not going to, you know, but yeah, we're all always looking at options. That's just one of the many ideas. We have a a fund that ESL and the Ferris Foundation's putting up $50,000 per year for tenant improvement grants. That's big. Yeah, maybe that's an incentive. So, you say, "Okay, I'm going to, you know, open a little whatever here. Geez, I can get 50 grand and I can get uh no sales tax. that gives me an advantage over someone down the street that's got to pay sales tax and someone that's that's that's that doesn't have that ability to put that equity into a restaurant or something. So, we're trying to think about how to do that. Now, the one thing that one mechanism that we do have right now is a downtown enhancement district that's controlled by the city that was established in 1986 to support uh street improvements along Main Street. And all the property owners pay into that fund. Uh the budget for that is about uh 600,000. We have eight full-time employees of some equipment and stuff and they're city employees that clean Main Street and do some things and they're the ones that put up the Christmas decorations or plant the flowers. Well, what we've got is we've got a little extra money and starting within two weeks, we will be planting flowers in all the flower beds up and down Main Street from Liberty Pole all the way to Plymouth Avenue. That's great. That's awesome. We were doing this ourselves in front of our properties for a couple years, but it was just it it doesn't make an impact if it's just a spot here. And so now the whole street and uh part of the contract is to maintain it. So we have a landscape company that's got to plant and maintain, water it, weed, and we hope that's going to make a big difference. It just from walking down the street. Okay.

So So you're probably not familiar with something called the Rump Group, are you? Okay. Um, back in probably what, the late 80s, um, was it Snider? Some, somebody comes in from Buffalo, um, and he's going to build the Hyatt uh, Regency in downtown Rochester. He gets halfway through, he erects the other gerters go up, he erects the exoskeleton and then and then literally like all you see is girders for two, three years, and it just sits there and it stalls. So, was it Dutch? It was probably Dutch Summers who Dutch Tom Wilmont. Uh there was Karen who Karen um she ran for mayor. Yeah. Yeah. She was with um Wilmont. Uh but there are some folks that had that invested money in this group to finish the hotel to your point, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it was part of the rump group. Yeah. And and it wasn't all of them, but Karen Noble Hansen. Karen Noble Hansen. Um but they c business leaders came together to solve an eyesore in downtown Rochester. I'm and I'm literally just coming to this now. I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm nominating you. You You should re-convene a rump group because until we get a density down there and until we get um Jet who's opening up um a few uh Dunkin Donuts and others and until we get um the Flams and until we get uh the Glazers, etc., etc., Everybody is opening a restaurant or a dry cleaners, um, a CVS. Uh, you get Danny like, you know, let's put in a little tiny store of some sort. And you know what? He might lose money initially, but he's such a philanthropist. And then, and then we get you and the others just to put in more and more apartments. Shoot holes in that theory. Been trying it for 10 years. And talk to Wegman's, talk to all these individuals. Oh, no. It's not what we do. We don't want to do that. We can't we can't we can't do that. we can't do that. Did you propose it though as a collection of 20 business leaders coming together to create a rump group because individually it's going to fail? Well, maybe you're right. Maybe maybe it wasn't the right approach, but the problem is is quite obvious that we need investment and we need to we need to change the whole mindset. Uh we're showing a law firm, we're showing it in a space, oh, we can't come down. It's too dangerous. Well, you know, I like to say we have three things that are really killing us downtown. Public safety. Yep. Public safety. And public safety. Yeah. If you're not comfortable coming down, Corey, why would anyone come down? Mark IIO is a good friend of mine. He said two years ago when we were kind of in the midst of this spike and stuff, he says, "I'm feeling calls about safety downtown for JSFest I've never talked about before." And just for those who don't know, Mark Aakona is one of two owners of the the Rochester Jazz Fest. Jazz Fest. So he will he says it's hard and you know sometimes I even feel it. I'm downtown. I'm around. Well, I think that's that's calmed down a little bit. Uh we still have some nuisance crime downtown, but but not uh too many serious. Most of the crimes we have right now that we're experiencing in our buildings are homelessness, guys and and women that need help and bust in and break in and harass people and shake them down. So, it's it's kind of this nuisance thing. I don't think we're getting in the downturn up and down main street. I don't think we're getting really uh uh severe uh personal injury type crimes. The cars are still being stolen, but mostly in the in the outlying neighborhoods. They're not right off Main Street anymore. They melt the bikes yet? Do they get the the metal dirt bikes? Yeah. All the money they were making off that we get the the But it but they're doing that. They're destroying bikes. Yeah. And it's very interesting. I talked to the chief about this. I said, "Why this should I talk about that for a moment?" You know where they are. You got a hundred guys, mostly young teenage boys, but there's some women I don't want to categorize, but they're on dirt bikes, no helmets, no license. They're coming down Main Street. They gather as far as East Avenue up or, you know, near Culver in that area and they all gather. It's all, you know, social media. Oh, and they keep coming in and they're going down. I said, "Chief, you know where they're going. you not. He says, "We are very afraid of that because what happens, you start getting in their way. They're on the sidewalks. They're going to hurt somebody. And I know somebody that got run over." I said, "Okay, I'll pass on that." But what what they are doing what they are doing is we now have some drones. Oh, great. And license readers. Although if they don't have licenses, but they can track some people have been taking that footage and then the police are going to those homes because they'll watch them. Where do you go after things break up? Y and they that's where they've been successful. So they're thinking next step, how do we get ahead of this? How do we break this cycle? Because that's the problem. Well, that and of course uh bail reform legislation. I mean, That's just, you know, that's just how frustrating must it be to be a police officer and you're catching the same people on a weekly basis. It's like, what are we doing? What are we doing here? It's Yeah. Um, it's it's it's shocking. Yeah.

But, uh, okay. So, so you wake up on the 10th of November in some, you know, distant year, you know, this is, this is not meant to be um, uh, let me rephrase all this. you suddenly wake up one day and you you're mayor of the city of Rochester. What's the first thing that you do uh to um enhance what it is that's playing on playing out in downtown Rochester? What's the first thing that you do? Uh I suggested to uh Malik that we need to double and triple grants for tenant improvement type of things. We need to really try to accelerate uh the approval and the training of te uh of uh police officers or or have a second tier system where we put people on the street that don't have weapons but our city security. Now you can do that in a heartbeat. City council won't have any of that. Too many police, too many security. And that's why in my in our whole initiative, pardon me. Thank you, Mary Lupin. Yeah. Mary and Stanley Martin. I like you folks, you think you're doing a great job. No, you should be ashamed of yourselves. This city is this city is falling apart because of you. of you and oh, the growth will be organic and this is great. We have a candidate, Kelly Cheetto. She's horrendous. That's what she's talking about. It It's ridiculous. You want You want to save lives, make make for a make for a cleaner, safer downtown Rochester and provide opportunity, but stop with the Stop with the bleeding heart [ __ ] We're We're done with it. We're tired. We're exhausted by you, right? We're way past that. This is real life. People are failing. People are failing and they can't sustain themselves. Uh we we don't have enough job growth downtown in the core, but we'll have programs. Oh, you can we'll lend you money, but you have to have have employment from these neighborhoods. It's hard. You know, I was part of a presentation and I'll tell you when DAT first came in and we had some other companies. Data is a high-tech cyber security company coming in from out of town. This is the real growth we need. Out of town companies that bring new jobs, not moving from one to another. and they're talking about making them making them hire certain people from certain areas and the comment is like sure can they code can they do you know we can't take you know do they have the qualifications yeah you there's got to be a certain level of competency for our hires I I how do I how do I agree to that when I don't know what your employment pool is and what So, it's just counterproductive because I know another company that was so turned off by those requirements. They don't say, "Hi, how are you? We'd love to have you and this and they said, "Oh, this is great. If we're going to help you, this is what we see you later shooting in the foot over and over." And that's what's happening. And you you got to stop this. You got to stop it.

Could not agree with you more. And for those who don't know, Andy, I mean, you you you're you're a very very smart businessman. And yes, you're saying what it is, but you're also, you know, based on your comments just now, people are probably assuming, oh, Andy Galina's probably like some right-wing activist of some sort, which is just the opposite because you really are you you aren't you don't lean hard left, you don't lean hard right, you're simply pragmatic. And I know I know you personally and I know your heart and I know your concern for the underdog. This is not about oppressing the underdog. This is about creating opportunity and and to find ourselves continually stymied by by the politics that are playing out on city council is just I I appreciate that. Never in my life or my career I I would believe that I would be attacked by the progressive part side of the Democratic party. I mean, I've been Democratic supporter and voter all my life. Uh, but I am fiscally conscious. Let's let's make sure our finances because that's sustainability. But these folks are just not realistic about how to move the city forward or or our society or anything. You got to be realistic. Just think about the the analogy of if you have like a health issue.

And if your mentality is, "We'll just let it fix itself organically," when does that ever play out positively? Never. No. It's uh, it's it's very challenging.

So, we have some real, real problems, challenges. I, I don't like to use the word problem because they're challenges. Because with challenges, you have to look for solutions. And that's what we're lacking right now in our leadership. I need solutions. Mary Kelly, all these people, all they talk, they've got no solutions. She's never voted for a substantive bill that she started. It was just tacking on to somebody else's, you know. Uh, there she's in East District who represents me, represents most of downtown. She is not present. That's got to stop.

Yeah. Yeah. To be successful, you need to be present. You need to be around with people, encourage people, and you need to be pragmatic and you're right, and stop with the, the, the bubble that you're living in. Uh, I mean, I, I, I, I think that she honestly truly believes that she's doing the right thing. If only she were to look in the mirror and just analytically look at the problem. She's just continually making the problem worse for those that she feels as though she's trying to help. It's just awful.

So, so, so getting back to some of this, this leadership issue, you know, I'm, I'm a big supporter of Malik. I talk to him all the time and he's frustrated in many ways. Uh, he would like to move the needle much faster and much more significantly. Then why doesn't he? Because he has trouble uh getting support from city council.

Okay. And that's, you know, the ambassador program should have been a no-brainer. The city, uh, the county was coming up with money. We had private money. All we needed was a hundred thousand from the city on a $600,000 budget. That's a pretty good leverage. I had it all teed up. No, we don't think we can, we don't want people on the street. You know, it's more policing. It was a ridiculous argument. So, he couldn't, he faulted on, he couldn't get it done.

So, so he was out there saying, "I support the bid. I support the ambassador program." Unfortunately, the path is through city council. So, so and again as a friend and with, with enormous respect, let me know. Um, so if he, if he from my perspective, he could demonstrate greater leadership by going out on a limb and saying, "Here are my candidates and actively, not just passively, but actively raising money and making the case for the electorate to vote for those members of city council who are actually going to uh vote in favor of, of so many of the proposals that you're bringing to us this afternoon."

It's exactly what's happening right now. There's a slate of candidates right now. Uh, you don't get the city mailings, but if you're in the city, you get mailings. Malik just put out one of his, the usual political, but if you look in the backside, it was all the candidates. So, so who are the candidates? Actually, this is a great opportunity. Who are the candidates that you would encourage us to vote for? Josie McCclary. Okay. Uh, Niner Davis. She's a younger person involved in real estate. I've heard great things about her.

Yeah. Have you actually, Niner's a real estate agent, isn't she? An agent, young woman, a very, uh, a friend of landlords and understands the challenges. So, that's the other crazy thing. Well, let me, let me go through the slate first. Uh, Shandra, Shandra, um, uh, she's got a hyphen. I'm so sorry. I, I, No, that's okay. But, uh, there can't be that many Shandras on the ballot. So, and then of course, uh, Mitch Miguel, Miss Gruber Miguel. Uh, am I forgetting anyone? Uh, but you know, if we get those folks in and replace a couple of the, uh, very, very, very progressive, we will have balance and we will be able to get some of this stuff.

So how many seats, how many seats need, need to flip in order, we need two flips. How many, two, we flipped, take two away and add two, doable. Yeah. Okay. We think it's doable. So I'm looking you in the eye. Actually, the primary is coming up. The primary is coming up and I, I'll give you a pitch. We're hosting a, a fundraiser for the mayor, uh, on May 29th at Privy Top Floor. And, uh, I've encouraged anyone to please contribute to either the mayor's campaign or if you've contributed to any of the candidates' campaigns, please come as our guest because all the candidates will be there and they'll have an opportunity to say a few words. You know what? And then also in casual conversation. Hey Niner, what's going on with this thing? Right. You can talk to them offline too. You said so. It's a great opportunity.

What? May 29th. Is that what you said? May 29th at Privy. Yeah. Okay. And, and tell, tell us what that is because I wanted, this is a perfect segway. Uh, Privy is, um, the 26th floor. A unit on the 26th floor of the Metropolitan. This top floor. There are four units up there. Three are occupied. We built out very larger, larger custom units for, uh, individuals. We kept one unit that's about, uh, up to 4,000 square feet.

Oh, wow. It's a big, uh, living room, kitchen. We have a, a, a prep kitchen as well, a catering kitchen off with it. And it's basically a three-bedroom unit. So, it functions as an event space, but also as a high-end, um, uh, a place for, um, let's talk about maybe the A-listers that come to town or if business people want to close a deal, you come at the top and say, "This is my city. I want you here." And we've talked to the mayor. I've talked to Adam about it. How do we do that? I've talked to Bob Duffy. At any time, you want to bring somebody up there, let's do something. You should do one of your, uh, private dinners that you do up there. It's cool. We got the private chef. It's, it's fun. And, and, and I'm going there. I'm going to try and get the entire team to go there. David Carpenter, who was with the, um, uh, the convention center for years. And I'm not sure if you know David Carpenter, but he's incredibly talented, an incredibly nice human being. Great guy. Great guy. Um, and so we're in contact and I would very, very much like to tour and, u, with, with you know, with our videographer in tow and just promote this thing because it's spectacular.

Anytime. It's, it's, um, the kids developed this and this was a, a void in our marketplace. If you want to bring, uh, higher, uh, level entertainers or, or corporate folks or, uh, political people that come to town, we, we don't have that high level. Well, now we do place. Now we do. I mean, the mayor even said he was standing there looking out over the, it was the master bedroom that we have a priestaining tub overlooking, looking, looking west and he says, "Oh man, this is unbelievable." He says, "But the point is I go to other cities, sister cities and this and that. I'm whined and dying. I struggle where, where to bring people when I bring them downtown because I want to be downtown."

Sure. And I struggle, will you be using this? And I bring that, uh, to everyone's attention, uh, not only from a selfish standpoint, but use it as leverage. Close your deal up there. You know, bring some people in and say, "This is why you should be in Rochester." Look, here we go. You can see from that vantage point, you see down the river, you see the lake, you see the airport, you see the University of Rochester. You guys got to come up and understand what I'm talking about because it's a, it's a place where you can really show off Rochester and, and we want to do that in such a way to be productive. Uh, not only self-serving but productive where we do, we're doing a number of events, nonprofits and stuff, but it's always trying to leverage for the right reason.

Okay. We will, we will, we will definitely work with David and, and make sure that that happens. Um, and then we'll also, we're also going to include, um, in any of the notes that are attached to, uh, the publication of this podcast, we're going to include, it's the 29th, which is the last Thursday of this month. Um, it's, uh, downtown in the Metropolitan. Um, and it starts, I would imagine, what, 5:30? Yes. Okay, great. Okay. So, so, do you have the invitation yet? Nope. Okay. It was just the second round was going around, so you should be on that list. I don't know why you're not, but, uh, I'll make sure you get that this afternoon. That's terrific. And we'll be there and then distribute and I, I invite everybody because it's not always about just how much money you're giving. I want to get this conversation going about why we need these candidates elected.

Love that. That, that's, that's awesome. Yeah, that's where our focus is. Uh, Corey, how much time do we have, bud? Uh, a little bit of time. I, I've got a question. All right. Again, we've talked about, you know, vision and looking into the future. 10 years from now, if you could paint the picture and it all goes, you know, you get the people you need in place, what does it look like for Rochester? What's the dream more or less?

You know, Canada, I, I live there. Yeah. You drive up and down. There's stores. I was there last week. I think, I think I saw one bacon store. Yep. Fairport. Fairport. Fairport. My son-in-law's in Medina. They have a cute little functional downtown. Sure. Can East Rochester. We should have that. We should have that environment on our main street. And don't tell me about parking and this and that. Can, it was just got one line of parking on both sides. It got the same sort of thing. Parking was never, never an issue for the decades in which you could go to Raz Goldman's gallery or you could have a, a dinner at any number of, a different, parking was never a problem. So that's not the problem. It's I can help get rid of the meters. Get rid of the meters. You want people to come to your city. Get rid of the freaking meters or, or, or just ignore them as I do.

No, but practice parks in the median. In all seriousness, in all seriousness, those meters went up, uh, as a replacement for another program. And the city in their ultimate wisdom about five or six years ago, maybe it was, it was during the lovely war, they had meters and paid parking up until 8:00 at night. No, you're going to come to the restaurant at Arbanum or this or that and you got to get up and go change and add, No, no, no, no, that. How about stop that? Yeah. And then they said, "Well, let's make it all free all day." Like, no, no, no, no, no. Understand parking theory. Sure. Free parking on Main Street doesn't work all day. After 6:00, it works. Mhm. Because you're having dinner, you're doing something. But during hours of where commerce is being conducted, where people are in and out, you have to have turnover. Yeah. You can't have a guy that coming in to the office at 7 o'clock, parking on Main Street, and having that spot all day long. Yeah. So, you have to have some thought there. There's case studies all over the country about best practices, right? So, think about that. They're a pain in the butt. I, I, I agree. I mean, they're a pain in the butt. As much fun as it was to download the app and figure out how to work it and five minutes later, Yeah. Yeah, if you want to do away with, with parking on, on main, that may work, but what you fall into is people parking there all day long. Sure. Yeah. So, that's part of the strategy that if you don't do that, Corey, you're not going to get turnover. And we don't want office workers parking there for six hours or eight hours. That's that. So, there's thought gone into this. Mhm. I've had conversations a long time and, and myself and a group of people were really, really, really upset when they extended that to 8:00. I said, "You're killing us. Don't do that. Just do not get rid of that." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had the attorney at the time get up and walk out. He says, "You're never happy. We can never." I said, "Okay, it's not a huge request. Just think about what you're saying. Think about it." Oh, goodness. There's a reason why. Yeah. So, anyway, so that's where we go.

All right. Just a few questions rapid fire just to, to conclude things. One building in downtown Rochester that you think should just come down. A few sticks of dynamite just should, is there a building that comes to mind? Yeah, the Richford building should come down. Which one's that? That's the one with the face fell off and the city had, right, the old Greyhound station. Uh, no. Uh, it's right, uh, to the east of Midtown. Yeah, it wasn't Greyhound. What was the other bus station? Remember that? Okay. Yeah, I know. DMV was in there. Right. Exactly. Building's in rough shape. Right next to, right next to the Cadillac Hotel. Yeah. I, you know, the Cadillac, they've got a, a group that's going to do it. More power to you. Let's do it. I'm sure you walked through that one. Dear God, no. Well, Dave Andera wrote an article about it. Oh, that's right. He did. I forgot. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um, tough. Okay. But sometimes you throw enough money at it, it works, you know. And I'll give you an example of Maine and Clinton, you know, thank God for Brett and Nelson, uh, Lean House doing that project because otherwise it should just come down. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're throwing a lot of money, more money than should be thrown at it. Are you, are you going to miss the wig shop as much as I am? Well, I, it was like a, it's so important in our downtown. And, and this is history. Come on, man. This is one of the many reasons people think I'm an [ __ ], but um, yeah, it's time. Move on. And I, I would have liked, that's actually looking very, very, very nice. It's got it. The next thing is the, is the hotel, uh, along the river. Angela Graci. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. I spoke with him the other day. He's a year away. I, I don't, is it going to stay pink? Are they going to go different? Probably. I, I have no idea. Yeah. But, but, but that's, that's nice. You take that one. Yeah. You call him.

All right. Last question for me and then, and then, and then we'll turn it over to Corey if he's got any lingering. Is there a project that you turned down at one point in time in your career and you look back you're like, "Dang, I should have actually, I should have actually pursued that." Uh, did a couple, maybe I shouldn't have. There we go. But um, live and learn, right? I, I don't, I don't know. I don't have regrets about things, you know. Yeah. We have a way of digging in and just executing, just, well, and you learn from it, right? And you learn, you figure out how to do it and you know it's all in the execution, you know, I'll give you one story when we did, uh, the, the student housing conversions phase one or five, sto, five, five floors, phase two is five, you know, so we did that, we had a 20% increase in, in construction cost during COVID between phase one and phase two, another 12% between phase two and phase three, how do I recover that when I'm quoting rates to the universities and to yes, hard, that's these projects and everybody say, "Oh, you, you paid so little for the building. You did this." Tough, tough work. Hard work. Yeah. You pay little for the building, but dear God, I mean, the expense to renovate it and retrofit it. Yeah. Just, just insane. Yeah. I mean, that's all I have. I want to say thank you because again, it's not easy as we've alluded to throughout this entire podcast, but the fact that you are digging in and trying to make it happen and I'm optimistic that it can. Mark maybe a little less optimistic, but I'm feeling more optimistic having sat here with, with, seriously, I really am optimistic because we're not going anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, refreshingly also refreshingly, uh, forthright. Thank you so much for, for your, um, unadulterated comments. We really, really appreciate that. Seriously, just, just awesome. I have lots of other great stuff to get to too. Um, but I've got a showing in 20 minutes so I got to roll. Oh, okay, great. So we'll wrap. All right. So, so wrap it up, bud. Get us out of here. Hey, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time. [Music]