Good News York by Growth Mode Content - From Music to Building Homes | GNY EP.42 - James Williams

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Building Community and Middle-Income Housing with Jim Williams In this episode of Good News York, hosts Matt Masur and Mikey B. are joined by guest Jim Williams, a commercial construction expert from Syracuse, NY. Jim shares his journey from a music background to a career in building and revitalizing residential and commercial properties. The conversation focuses on his latest project, creating middle-income housing through infill development in Syracuse. Jim discusses the challenges and opportunities in urban redevelopment, the importance of supporting local contractors, and his vision for addressing the housing needs of everyday families. The episode highlights Jim's creative approach and dedication to improving his community. 00:00 Introduction and Co-Host Banter 00:51 Introducing the Guest: Jim Williams 01:48 Jim's Background and Career in Construction 04:21 Infill Housing and Community Development 10:39 Challenges and Opportunities in Real Estate 17:26 Public Information and Transparency 18:01 Building on Spec: The Process 20:08 Designing for the Neighborhood 21:54 Balancing Creativity and Practicality 24:10 Future Projects and Ambitions 26:51 Affordable Housing and Market Rates 28:19 Musical Influences and Personal Interests 30:19 Final Thoughts and Resources

You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your own.

your sign. Start free at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com.

Hey, folks, I'm Matt Major from Growth Mode content. Welcome to another edition of Good News, York. I'm joined again by my smiley co-host in his spiky hair ready to go. Yeah, it's finally getting back. Mikey B's here. Thanks, man. I'm glad to be here. You have hair.

It's Thursday. I do have hair. I'm in the club of always wearing the hat. I'm starting to get the, like, I'm blessed because I know I have friends now. Was it moving back? You got the... Yeah, I'm getting...

You know what? I didn't notice it until we started GNY. And I started watching the clips. I'm like, oh, my forehead's getting bigger. Yeah. I was like, it's growing. We need to billboard when we have my forehead. But we're here.

Enough about your billboard head. Yeah, yeah. Let's, uh, we got a great guest. Yeah, absolutely. Joining us today. Uh, Jim Williams is with us. And this is a gentleman that, honestly, we're not super familiar with them. We saw a story in the paper.

and we said, this guy is doing some good things, and that's the ideal type of thing we want to bring in on Good News York. It was one of the easiest bookings. I was like, Jim, we love the article. We'd love to have you on. He said, let me check you out, which was very smart. Because, you know, everyone these days can say, I have a podcast.

You don't want to get into, you never know what you're getting involved. Right. Check this out, and we passed the test, and he's here with us today. That's it. You passed a marker. I love it. Jim, how are you, man? Welcome to the show.

I'm doing great. I'm doing great. you know, another rainy CNY day, but I'm doing very good. And thanks for having me on. We're glad to have it. The umbrella business is really, their stock is through the roof these days. It seems like it's incredible. Jim, let's give folks a little background.

Tell us, you know, kind of what you do, what's your day job, and then we'll get into what got you some attention here. Sure, sure. So I've lived in Syracuse for over 30 years. I came here and went to, had a grad assistant ship in music up at you. Nice. So that's primarily where my background initially was, but always interested in building. So took my music degree and turned it into building stuff. So I do primarily commercial construction. Wow. Have an interest in music, art, building, structure, and really love this area. So that's my day job. I work for an

organization foundation, foundation, housing. And we do student, housing, renovate buildings completely. Wow. We're going to look at doing some ground-up projects. We're primarily all over New York State. So Troy area, Albany area, Syracuse, Binghamton, Cornell, Ithaca. And that's what my day job is. Wow.

You're keeping these kids in some nice safer places. I'll tell you, they, dramatic improvement from my college. Oh, my gosh. You know, the dorms and in all these places. Now they have like a gorgeous apartment. I live like. Yeah, and we primarily do take older structures. We do some historic tax credit projects.

That's great. And really convert them to something that's usable for them. So, but I came from a retail commercial construction background, did a lot of projects over at Destiny USA. Oh, nice. Did the IMAX over there, bridge over Hiawatha. Wow. A million square feet of structure, hallways, all sorts of stuff over there. That's incredible.

I live in Ithaca. So it's, especially over the last 10 years, the transformation of housing in dormitories, it's been just amazing. Yeah. And a lot of modern, from what I, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but from my point of view, it looks like a lot of modern architecture. It's really exciting. Yeah, we try to do things that are stylized that are going to, you know, be interesting for people as well. It's not just, you know, as you were saying, when I went to school in the 80s, when I was in college in the 80s, it was just, you know, cinderblocks. Yep.

Oh, yeah. So, and but again, enjoy this area, enjoy what I do and decided I had worked in for-profit industry, not-for-profit. There's been a lot of talk about infill housing. in the Syracuse area. And the article recently was really primarily about that. And Jim, tell people just real quick, what do you mean when you say in-fill housing? What's that term? So you're taking lots, either vacant lots or structures that have been torn down and created vacant lots. I see. And building residential homes on those lots. I see. Whether it's multiple parcels together or individuals, individual parcels, it's just coming up with an idea and an, in a

way to be able to use the existing retail, real estate that we have. So I just being involved with, again, for profit and not for profit, I saw there was a need for kind of middle income housing. Yeah, absolutely. My idea, you know, I've got a lot of friends who have been, are looking for houses now, some younger people, older people, and it's just not available. Yeah. There are plenty of excellent organizations, you know, home headquarters, Jubilee Homes, they do great work and do a lot of new structures. But a lot of that is grant-based and there's not a lot of houses available for people who are just looking for homes. Yeah. I live in Eastwood, love the city. Nothing better to me than jumping in my car and, you know, driving five or ten minutes and getting to some great restaurants.

Yeah, right. Seeing some great shows downtown, you know, going to. You know, going to be a lot of to the art museums that we have. And I think people really kind of lose track of that in the city. There's a lot of talk about negative things that happen, but that happens everywhere. Absolutely. And we're not an anomaly. Right. No, absolutely.

And that's honestly, it's one of the things that, you know, we've tried to focus on here with Good News, York, is, you know, the positive. Because you turn on the regular news and that's all you hear is that negative stuff. And you think it's horrible. And honestly, it's that way in every city. Sure. The crime rate doesn't. Good area, bad area. They'll find that one story and that is the entire 6 o'clock news.

And unfortunately, that becomes kind of the mindset. So folks that are really cheerleading for this area is something we're a big fan of. That's great. And again, I appreciate you having me on. And, you know, it's important to me to allow people to have a different view of the city. So I decided that I would have been interested in building. I have done this for 30 years and wanted to also put a little bit of a stamp for me. You know, there are people in the industry that know who I am.

Most people don't, you know, you said you saw an article and I'm sure that I have friends that said, I can't believe you're in the paper. Yeah. And other people that just say, you know, read the story and say, well, what's a big deal? I can do that. Right. And as we're talking briefly before this started, you need people that are going to act upon ideas, not just have ideas.

100%. You live by that. You live by that. I really do. It's the most simple concept, and yet is typically the biggest barrier. You have brilliant people, great ideas,

great plans that never make it out of the little notebook. And you always speak of that from like an entrepreneurial standpoint. Sure. But it really, it's across the board. It really is. In every industry. Yeah.

Yeah. And there are entrepreneurs in every industry. Absolutely. Yeah. And we, you know, people have an understanding of that. So this all kind of started with an idea over a year ago. I wanted to do some infill housing. I went down to New York City.

I played trumpet. I was just, I had some guys that I know some dudes down in the city, work out on some horns, was sitting around waiting for them, and just sketched up an idea that I had for a house. Wow. So the lots in the city are very small. Sure. And one of the problems is access to the lots, being able to build on them.

You have setbacks. There's a lot of intricacies that people don't really think about. But I had an idea to just design something. So threw it on paper and literally it was a cocktail napkin sketch. That's awesome. So then on the flight home, I ended up cleaning it up a little. Then over the course of a month or two, ended up talking to some friends of mine who are architects and sent them drawings, and they did an initial sketch for me.

Wow. And just kind of morphed into the idea that it is now. I met with Caitlin Wright at the land bank to see if they had any property. I had dealt with them when I was working at home headquarters, the construction department there. And she had some property available. I looked at it, and I said, I think this is a good transitional area. Yeah.

And so that's kind of morphed into the idea that it is right now. That's incredible. You, it seems like you're tapping into something that folks haven't yet in many places where you're talking about these lots, right? It seems like, you know, the land banks around and here's a building that's there and that you can rehab. But you're sort of really making use of the property more than a lot of other folks are. Is that accurate? Well, it's not more than a lot of other people are. It's a need to, there are lots that you can't expand.

Gotcha. So a lot of what's happening is on multiple lots, and they're dividing, you know, three lots into resubbing them into two. I see. To make them to allow for setbacks and necessities of kind of modern living. Yeah. You know, I had done a project 12 or 14 years ago on Park Ave. I was involved with, it was called the Five Sisters. So we took five Victorian houses, gut-renowed them.

Wow. That was something that people said would never, we'd never be able to sell them. And there were no comps in the area when we, the organization that I worked for every time, went to sell them. So we had some difficulty with banks. But ultimately, they all sold and everybody was happy. And that whole area within the city on Park Ave is beautiful now. Yeah. And that's over just a little over a decade.

Wow. One thing that I'm running into a little bit of a problem is that, you know, financing, I'll just have to do this kind of on my own. Sure. There are a lot of banks that say, well, you know, we, it's a great idea. Well, you know, if you're buying this for yourself, we can give you a construction loan, but you're in business, you haven't been in business long enough, and just kind of what people run into the problems they run into. And my response is always, you know, you're right. I'm a new business. I've just been doing this for 30, 35 years. So it done some pretty large right. Yeah. But, you know, I'll serve through that. And, uh, and, and, and, and, and,

And again, it's working with the land bank was great. And the, you know, they're providing a bit of a backstop. We'll call it backstop. That's great. Where if I gave them a budget that was overarching from, you know, kind of soup to nuts. And if I fall short of a sales price with a fixed fee for me, open book, they'll cover some of those costs. Now, if I hit my budget and don't need any money, to meet that. budget they don't do anything that's great other than sell me the property so um it was i you know

it's an idea that i'm sure a lot of people have had but again sure you know you need to act on it and i know within the industry everybody wants to do a bit of smoke and mirrors or yeah costs of things and want to make as much as you can sure um another idea that i had with this is i'm not looking for bottom dollar contractors yeah i want to work with dudes that i've known in the industry for decades. Right. Or even some new contractors that I think are fantastic. Sure. I've helped a lot of local MWBEs become established. There's some guys that I've worked with that used to just do, you know, staircases and porches and decks and now they're building homes and people have gone from, you know, $150,000 in revenue a year to $4, $4.4.5 million. Wow. So, and that's something I've

always been interested as well. Yeah. I'm a bit of a pie. Piper on occasion. I know my wife would say I'm aggravating as hell. Mine too. But, you know, it's something I feel I can motivate people and kind of bring them along. Yeah. And if this is, and the great thing about this above and beyond everything is it's just kind of been the impetus to begin discussion about it again. Yeah. I love that about you. You're a loyal guy. You're kind of like the Adam Sandler of commercial real estate. You know, you just keep employing all your friends and you got your core team. You got your core team. You got your core team, man.

No, but that's important. I always said no matter what it is that I, if I succeed in an area, you know, I want to, not just, not MC Hammer style where I'm just going to employ my friends for the fun of it. Plug my friends in who have these talents and skills so that, you know, we all do this together and we all succeed. You know, that's what a community is, right? That's right. Society is kind of a collection of people with diverse ideas and thoughts and interests. And you have a commonality at some point. So why not grab those people and take them along?

I love that, man. And I always say this, too. If somebody can do something better than me, please do it. Yes, yes. I am all about motivating people to be way better than me. I agree. In this industry especially, you find there's a lot of jealousy, you know, and you know you're in music and entertainment in general.

I heard the most simple statement a couple of years back that was like, just because someone is as talented or more talented than you does not take away from your abilities in town. there's enough to go around, you know? And so I think it's a really healthy attitude. Do it better than me. Yeah, and kind of to jump off that idea, there's funding available out there for it to help people. You know, people are afraid to build in the city.

Yeah. Every, I don't think there's been any, you know, mid-level scale of building or somebody that really reached the middle point of the market in 50 or 60 years. You have high-end stuff. You have grant-based building, Nobody is building for just kind of the common man. Right.

When you say they're afraid, what do you mean? People are afraid that they're going to have a material stolen. Oh. People are concerned. It's just like it's as if anybody that. So they're just like intimidated by the idea. Yeah, a sense of discomfort in being in the city. Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Now, there are people that say I wouldn't walk down streets in the city. Well, I'll walk down just about every street in the city. Right. Yeah. It's unfortunately there's that, you know, misconception and, in, I think a lot of that comes from. We are really a rural area in general, where we've got a couple of pockets of these cities, but there's a lot of folks from outside, and they still have that, which is as silly as it is,

the big city mentality, you know, and the big scary place. Well, to circle back, it's also the 24-hour news cycle. We were just talking at the top of the show, which is all they're seeing is the negativity going on in these, you know, metropolitan areas. And that's not really what's going on. I mean, Jim, what something I really appreciate is, you know, we're hearing all kinds of things about the real estate market. A, it's it's so tough, but also, you know, as things are booming here locally, we're getting all these investors and all these, whether that's, you know, local investors, whether it's these horrible, big, you know, venture capitalists that are coming in and buying up houses. They're all in it because of this massive profit, which, you know, listen, I'm a business man. I get it. That's cool. But I think what you're addressing is the fact that we're leaving behind

everyday families. You know, how are folks, you know. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month, if you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. Who, like you said, they're not super rich and they're not so poor that they can get some of those other programs.

They're right in the middle and, you know. they're getting priced out of the market. Right. And one of my idea is to address that the income for not only somebody buying the house, but develop. Yeah. So I look at churn. So if you do multiples of anything, you're going to make more money. So why not cut your profit a little, make it palatable for everybody? And I have no problem and no qualms with, you know, opening my books to the land bank.

And that was, you know, there was a program that was available in the county for, there was a few bucks that were available for houses if you made them accessible. Well, that's for five units or more. I tried to get some of that. And they said, you're only doing two units. And I said, okay. So I was actually talking to Caitlin at the land bank after that. And it was a teeny bit, you know, twerked about that. Sure.

I just mentioned that. And she said, well, let me see. Maybe we can do something internally. And that's turned into what was in the paper and what's. Just common knowledge and public knowledge and available publicly. So if people are interested, they can go on the land bank's website. They can see the board meetings that I had to speak at. Sure.

And again, it's not, you know, I'm not in this to denigrate anybody. I'm just, I just have an idea. No, you're helping. That's great. And, you know, there's pushback on a couple different ends on occasion, but it's, I think it's important. 100%. And it's a good idea and I hope more people do it. So Jim, tell me just a little bit about kind of the process. Is this the sort of thing where you have your buyer sort of lined up even beforehand?

Or is it more like a spec house? No, these are completely on spec. Okay. So it's completely on spec. It's spec house. What is spec house? Sorry. I'm going to play the role of the everyday guy that doesn't know what's going on.

You build the model without a person picked out for it. Got it, you know. Sorry. No, no. Is that a fair description? Yeah, yeah. You're just building something with the anticipation that somebody's going to be. Sure.

Got it. So speculation, right? Yeah. There's this, you know, you're speculating on the market and it's no different than what an entrepreneur does. Sure. So it's somebody has an idea. You think that your, your idea is worth a certain value, has a certain value and you move on. Yeah.

So, you know, just design is the first. part, finding the property, going through municipal approvals. It took several months because the lot that I bought, I re-subdivided into two lots. I see. So there was a problem with the width on both lots. They were actually three inches short of what the minimum city standard was. So it was, that held things up for about three and a half months, just getting approvals, going through the process. Now, I don't fault the city when I was owning and planning regulation. But there also needs to be maybe some administrative approval for something that's so minor. Right.

And the irony is that if the lot was a little short depth-wise, that there's administrative approval. But nobody had thought that, hey, if this is a couple inches narrower than what we meet, you know, it's 40, the minimum lot width is 40 feet. Yeah. These were 39 feet, nine inches. Wow. Instead of somebody just looking at it and signing off, it's three and a half months of waiting

in meetings. and drawing. Wow. So you do that and then just put together materialists and contractors and get the stuff up and get done. That's awesome. So. When you mentioned originally, you know, your original drawing and then you went to the architect and stuff. I'm just curious if when you're designing these things, do you design it sort of independent of the neighborhood or do you kind of factor it in to match other houses, things of that nature?

So scale. While I took a look at scale. I wanted something that would scale for the neighborhood and the location. Gotcha. The width was really, really dick. The width of the house, it's a 20-foot wide house. Gotcha. So everybody does things that are kind of center-loaded and makes the bedroom's really small. So I side-loaded the house. And again, it's nothing that other people haven't thought of. Sure. But just put that on paper so the bedrooms and living spaces are good size. The houses, I'm built one that's about 1,900 square feet. Oh, wow. The other one's just a single-story,

1,300 square foot home, but layout really well. And, you know, I'll modify the exteriors. One will be a little more modern, kind of straighter lines, streamlined a bit more. And then do something, essentially their shotgun style house. Gotcha.

Do something that's craftsman style. So I want something that's going to be indicative of the character of the neighborhood, but also be on occasion a little different. That's awesome. So just in and even going to the architect, it was really more to put it on paper. Yeah. Just have somebody throw the design and add and put it on paper.

Talk about some modeling of things. And I've already met with trust manufacturers to help with a trust design. And I'm going to do a bit of panelization of the houses. So they'll show up so I can just put panels up, not modular, but just so the structure can get up quick. Yeah. That's great. So you're a creative because you're a musician, and obviously you're in the field that you're in. Do you find that, like in music or entertainment, you wake up sometimes and you're like, I have this amazing idea for a house and you sketch it out?

Do you just get random, like, design ideas? Yeah, I think you just, it's just like keeping a diary, right? A journal. I never, never did that when I was a kid. So when I was younger, too, I played music. I went to school for music because I had a full ride. They gave me everything, you know, for room and board and tuition. But I did a ton of drawing and painting when I was younger, too.

Yeah. I used to do one-man shows in the – I grew up in Connecticut. Yeah. And had one-man shows at the high school, some stuff locally in a small town. Used to do designs for the newspaper that – for front pages of the paper they would pay me for. That's all. You know, which is better than working at McDonald's. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. But really kind of did a lot of stuff, drawing, you know, art, design, structure, building. That's great. Music. And I don't think, I think society limits people too much now. I agree. Sure. You can do, you can be completely multifaceted.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love a lot of things. Art, music, literature, academics. I love that, man. And you have to be willing and wanting to incorporate that into your personality and what you do. You know, people look at, you know, your line of work as blue collar and, you know, trucks and getting our hands, callous.

But people don't realize that there's also a very huge, there's a creative side. It's, it's, it's an art. It's an art. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad we can talk about that on here to showcase that. You know, and I like telling people that, you know, I,

so I run a general contracting. So, you know, I run everything. But if I'm walking around with a client and some dudes in a hole, mud hole struggling, let's hand somebody in my coat, jump in the hole, help the dude out. and then get out. I am as comfortable with people in a hole in a mud hole or at the top of a mountain smoking the world's best cigar

and drinking the best whiskey or bourbon. We got to hang out. This guy's good. You're great. I love this. Jim, a couple quick questions, and we'll let you get out of here. You mentioned this project here that we're talking about. You got two parcels, a couple of homes.

What's next? You got another one picked out after this? Where we go from here? I am looking at some other property. The land bank is floats lots by me. I just looked at one in Eastwood the other day. I'm looking at, I've had some people contact me directly to build some homes. So I'm talking to some people down Long Island right now about building some homes up here.

You know, it might be something where I only do two. I might do two a year. I might do, I don't know, 2,000, you know. And I want to incorporate it into everything that I do. Yeah. You know, it doesn't, just because I run a business and am fully invested in that doesn't mean I can't do other things. Absolutely. You know, again, my wife thinks I'm crazy.

I get up at 4.4.30 in the morning. I'm almost 60. I work out for an hour and a half. And then go to work and come home and do things, practice my trumpet. And, you know, go to bed at 10 or 11 o'clock at night and do it all over again. That's incredible. You're amazing, man. Incredible. Go ahead.

Yeah, no, I just want to show. The last thing I had for you is, you know, you're definitely inspiring a lot of people to look at this. So can you just talk a little bit about the opportunity for them? You know, how would they go about reach out to the land bank looking for these sorts of things? Yeah. They want to do that. Yeah, absolutely. You can look online in Syracuse Land Bank, Greater Syracuse Land Bank, find out information about them. Find out information about building in the city. You can talk to zoning, planning, the building department. There's a lot of stuff available now that wasn't available decades ago when I was younger. Yeah. And I never thought that I would start a business and do everything at the age I am. You know, there are times where I used to just say, I'll just kind of check in and check out. And that lasts for a day or two, maybe two weeks.

And I just want to be somebody that motivates other people. You know, we kind of jump to music. I love teaching. I figure I'm better than 98% of the trumpet players in the world. I've got a brother who's world-class trumpet players. So I know what the best of the best is. And just really want to push people to do whatever they want to do. And it doesn't just have to be in building.

Yeah. That's great. That's great, Jim. I'm trying to let the adults talk here. But I do have a couple quick questions. Yeah, go for it. And this is just going to be me dumbing. it down for the everyday person. We were talking earlier about affordable housing. And in Ithaca,

that's a very big hot button issue. I mean, it is everywhere. I guess, and it's a broad question, but what are some of the answers to getting affordable housing? Like, where does it start? Where does it begin? Is there anything we can do as citizens to push this process? Well, this isn't affordable housing. So the typical affordable housing would be 80% of median income or less. This is really just market rate housing. Kind of for the person that's got a family is caught in the middle. I mean, when I went to college, again, long, long time ago, we couldn't get, my parents had no money to give me when they went to college because they made too much money. So I want to keep the cost down to a reasonable cost, market rate what the market can be.

bear and make that available to everybody. Anybody can buy the properties. That it's not going to be dictated by either your wallet because you're, you know, you make a ton of money and you're going to spend five, six, eight hundred million, two million dollars on a house, or you're not going to get any grants to be able to assist you.

I just want to look at kind of the everyday person that's looking for a home that's getting priced out of the market with, you know, bidding wars on regular properties. That's great. Stuff that should be market rate that unfortunately has gotten out of control. And now the most important question, who were your biggest musical influences? Well, you know, I love Dizzy Gillespie. I had a feeling.

You know, I love Gillespie. I love all the earlier Clifford Brown, earlier trumpet players, Maynard Ferguson. I love jazz, classical, Maurice Andre. I play the gamut in music. I do classical jazz. You know, I've played with some rock bands. And it's really, there's earthwind and fire. Heck yes.

It's a fantastic horn section. So it's really, I think there's a huge value to a lot of things in everybody. I agree. I love artisanal stuff. You know, the coffee I came in from, I got it from recess. I love people that, that I want to support people in the area. Yeah. And, you know, you do the best you can't.

Oh, you're amazing. You heard Tower of Power? Yeah. Love Tower of my dad, I grew up listening to Tower Power with them. I had some buddies that played with him. Really? Yeah, in the 80s. You know, I had dudes that I was in Chicago,

and there were guys that came through that became friends of minds that played with us. Jesus. Tower of Power is, you know, Chicago gets kind of, they're like the face of horn bands. And Tower of Power within the music industry, people know who they are, but I think they're just completely underrated. So underrated. You know, tunes like What is Hip?

What is Hip? There's some great very sax parts. I'm trying to think, digging on James Brown. Yep, yep, Oakland's all. The Tower of Power Live album changed my life. That's great. Gives me a different perspective about you. Well, there you go.

Well, I'm a musician, too. I had played in bands in the past. So as soon as you said, you played music, I was like, I know I'm going to like this guy. Yeah, and I love classical stuff, too. But I like big horn classical stuff. Of course, yeah. Good music's good music. I love where you're sitting in a horn section.

and the people in front of you have to put a music stand that's plexiglass in front of them because you're playing too long. Yes. Or behind them. Yes. But no, I, again, appreciate you guys having me. Well, we love having me. Absolutely. Anytime, Jim, anytime you want to come back and chat it up, like I said, we're here to, on a very similar mission, it seems like the more we talk. And I love that.

I love your values, especially for this area. Jim, what, we got some plugs. We got a website, anything like that, where folks might look at these things? No, no website. I'm going to put something up. So the business is Apogee design-build services. I have a consulting business to Apogee Consulting Services. I consult with a land bank and working with the regional market, other people in the area.

That's awesome. But I'll put something up and make sure that it gets out there. Great. That's great, Jim. And then, you know, we're talking about the Syracuse Land Bank, but a good little tip for other folks that might be paying attention is they have these sorts of land bank. Sometimes they're city, sometimes it's a county thing, but all over New York and I'm assuming in other parts of the country, if you don't live in Syracuse and you want to explore this opportunity, look for your local land bank because it's a hell of a resource. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, my sense is that if this works locally, I think the funds that the land bank here, and, you know, this is my understanding. It could be a bit off. But the funds they're using are land bank initiative funds that haven't been used by other land banks. So if this works, you know, it's a small, kind of getting back to the large piece of pie. This is a small piece of the pie that other land banks can and potentially will use in New York. So I don't know. I like thinking that this is kind of a pilot program for the state. You're helping to prove the model.

That's for sure. Absolutely. Jim Williams, thank you so much for joining Good News, York. I think that's it for the week, right? I don't generally, yesterday I thought it was Thursday. Yeah, I know. Today it's actually Thursday. This is what day it is.

Yeah, we're, have a happy Memorial Day weekend, be safe out there. We'll be back Tuesday. Yeah, that's right. We'll be off on Monday. And our episodes always air at good newsyork.com, 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. And you can subscribe to our podcast, anywhere, podcasts. In every podcast app there is.

Just look for Good News York. Awesome. All right. Peace out.