The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Mitch Korte, Executive VP Development, Subtext; Subtext Building Verve Apartments On Stadium Rd

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Mitch Korte, Executive VP Development, Subtext Subtext Building Verve Apartments On Stadium Rd Verve Apartments: 729K+ SQF, 463 Apts, 1332 Beds How Will This Project Impact CVille & Albemarle Co? VA Dems Blocking Bryce Board Of Ed Appointment UVA Provost Named Middlebury College President Lazy Parrot Opening 2nd Spot In Louisa County Hoos Pound BC; Critical 6-Game Stretch Ahead Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Mitch Korte, Executive Vice President of Development at Subtext, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

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ILOVE SEAVILLE, ILOVE SEAVILLE, ILOVE SEAVILLE, ILOVE SEAVILLE, ILOVE SEAVILLE, away from where Charlottesville City Council meets on a dais and talks about key items of our economy, of real estate, of development, and kind of the cross-section of how politics impacts and influences our quality of life. Today's subject certainly fits those talking points with Mitch Cortay on the line. We will go to him in a matter of moments, the Executive Vice President for Development for Subtext, a national developer who's going to have a significant, significant local influence here in Charlottesville, Virginia, specifically on Stadium Road, a structure, a project, a development project of significant proportions, 729,000 plus square feet, more than 1,300 beds, nearly 500 apartments on the near horizon for the city. We will talk with Mr. Corte on how this project will impact the city of Charlottesville, surrounding Alamaro County, how it will impact the University of Virginia, and frankly, us, the viewer and listener, and our quality of life. Judah Wickhauer is the man behind the camera.

He makes the magic happen. I salute Judah for being a fantastic director and producer. We'll give some attention to one of our key partners, Charlottesville Sanitary Supply. More than 60 consecutive years of being in business, John and Andrew Vermillion and their family-owned business, Charlottesville Sanitary Supply on East High Street, have proudly served our community, guys,

online at charlottesvillesanitarysupply.com. Judah Wickhauer, without further ado, my friend, if we could go to Skype and welcome Mitch Cortay to the program. With a lot of the real estate and development and locally elected community on the line. Mitch, you are on screen first. An introduction to you, sir, for our viewers and listeners. Yeah, sure. Thanks, Jerry. Really appreciate you having me on.

Excited to talk about this project we have coming up. So like you said, my name is Mitch Cordy. I'm the EVP of development at Subtext. And a little background on Subtext. You know, we're a fully vertically integrated real estate company based out of St. Louis. We focus on developing both multifamily and student housing projects across the country. And that focus is really based around elevating the resident experience. That's something that drives all the projects, whether it's related to location, site selection, design, programming. Everything is really, you know, we like to say it's built from the resident up. A little background on us. So we delivered our first project in 2015 and we built a little over 10,000 beds since then and have another 6,000 or so that's currently under construction right now. And yeah, you know, we really just focus on pedestrian to campus locations in what we like to call tier one university markets, at least on the student side.

We also develop multifamily, but I think we'll focus sort of around student for this interview. But yeah, that's just some quick background on myself and Subtext and excited to talk about Verve Charlottesville. We're excited to learn about Verve Charlottesville. This is quite a project, 729,000 plus square feet. I mean, wow, we have more than 1,300 beds, nearly 500 apartments on Stadium Road in the shadows of Scott Stadium, basically on grounds at the University of Virginia. I will listen to learn here, Mitch. Put the project into perspective. Yeah, so yeah, really exciting project. One of our bigger projects to date. And I think obviously just starting out with the location, really what we would call sort of a

main-on-main location when it comes to a student housing project. And I can get into later kind of how we go about site selection and all those things. But just talking through the project generally, like you mentioned, over 1,300 beds in a great market, a great university, pedestrian to campus, like I mentioned, that we focus on. So something that we're really excited about. We've obviously just broken ground recently, and the project will deliver in the fall of 2027. So still a little ways to go here to work through construction, but it's exciting to break ground and really get everything moving forward.

Put in perspective for the viewers and listeners the flipbook of how a project like this materializes. We know Charlottesville is a fantastic place to live. We choose to live here. We know the impact of the University of Virginia, one of the most prestigious public universities in the country. We also understand that the University of Virginia is attracting the top applicants in the world to grounds. Every year it seems like they're increasing the student body from a size standpoint. I went to UVA personally.

I understand that the University of Virginia and Charlottesville are underserved from a housing standpoint. I have a fair amount of rentals myself, and I'm seeing the uptick in rents every year for 15 years. I see why it would be attractive to your firm, but please put in perspective how your firm targets a community like Charlottesville, how it finds the dirt, how it goes through the process of navigating a political ecosystem that can be, like all markets, a bit tumultuous, I think is safe, unpredictable is safe, all that. And give us the flipbook if you could.

Yeah, sure thing. So I can go back all the way to the top, I guess. So the way we look at markets, and we actually have a data scientist in-house that we work with and he has You know He's developed Basically a ranking model for all the universities across the country and there's a ton of different data that goes into that You can probably boil it down to really just basic real estate fundamentals though a lot of supply and demand analysis looking at rent growth occupancy, pre-lease velocity is something that is more student-specific. You know, when you think about multifamily, you open the building and you're leasing it, you know, over the first 12 to 16,

18 months. Student housing is a little bit different in that we're actually pre-leasing the year before. So we pay a lot of attention to how quickly that building is leasing, what we call pre-lease velocity. So looking at the market, seeing, you know, there's some student housing markets where you might start leasing in October and the entire market is 100% pre-lease by, you know, December, January, something like that. Other markets, it takes a little bit longer, but obviously in most cases, you're pre-leased by the next August and then your building is 100% full and everybody moves in in two days, which is a whole other topic that we can get into that's just a crazy experience

generally with student housing. But yeah, so this market showed up on our ranking model. Obviously, it's a great university, super prestigious. And we've been looking at sites in Charlottesville, I would say, probably for five or six years. And it's tough because you guys are very familiar with what's around the grounds and what those parcels look like. And it's not like there's five-acre sites just kind of laying around that you you can go pick up so we looked at a lot of sites up and down Main Street obviously you have a couple of their student housing projects there's a multifamily and then we found this site we were on a program I was looking at a program we use called land vision and it's basically a national GIS where you

can go in and click around on parcels and see who, you know, owns different sites and you get contact information and those things. And, you know, it was really as simple as realizing that one group had assembled pretty much, I guess, this entire site and it was under different ownership groups, but we were able to trace it back and realize that, Hey, this is actually the same ownership group that owns everything. So, and even taking, I guess, one step further back than that, when we're looking at different locations around the grounds or around campus where we would want to be located, we really take a high level approach at, you know, looking at different points of interest around,

not only on the grounds, but also looking at, you know, coffee shops and nightlife and restaurants, and then looking at what are the major, you know, colleges that are popular at this school? Where's the rec center? Where's the engineering school or the student union? And we basically draw a bunch of different radiuses on this map and look and see where those radiuses are kind of intersecting. And we just call those out as target areas. And, you know, this site, this location is sort of a no brainer. I didn't even think I need to draw a radius to realize that, you know, this is really where you want to be. And yeah, so we, like I said, we ran down some sites on Main Street, then we came across this site. And we, one thing that's a little bit unique about us,

we do almost all assemblage work. So rarely are we going in and just finding one parcel with one owner and being able to... we feel like it's really important to you know build that relationship and build rapport and you know sit down in a room with a property owner and really tell them the story and it's almost like a partnership because, I mean, in this case it is because this is actually a ground lease. It's a little bit unique, but you know, we're going to, we're going to be working together with that landowner for 12, 18 months as we're going through all the due diligence and entitlements design. And yeah, so, you know, we approach the owners directly and we're able to come to an agreement.

And from there, you know, you get everything kicked off. And it's, yeah, the process starts with, you know, really approaching the city and having a discussion. I think, like you mentioned, there was there are some zoning changes kind of in the works as we started this process so that was something that we had to work through we had a great time working with city staff I think the planning department was really helpful and you know same thing going sitting in a room with Matt and his team and just figuring out what we thought we could do with the site and you know we do a lot of upfront you know just talking and conversating with the city and figuring out like, you know, one, where do you guys want to see development? I mean, they're handling the master plan and really putting this, you know, grand vision together for the city and future growth and listening to them and thinking, where do they want to see development?

And then once we have a site, you know, what is ideal for this location? Are you looking for something, you know, that's really at scale and really going to add a lot of vibrancy to this area? And I think that was a lot of the feedback that we got was, you know, this is sort of a once in a lifetime location for student housing and making sure that we were just taking advantage of it and providing something to the community that everyone could benefit from. I'm so excited for this interview. As many who watch and listen to the show, they know that real estate is how we make our living. And I want to unpack a lot of what Mitch had to say for the viewer and listener who may not be in the space. First, the word assemblage. They found an opportunity here where one owner owned a number of parcels that were adjacent to each other.

And I believe if memory serves correct, this is the Catten Companies that have accumulated these parcels off Stadium Road. He utilized the term land lease. So for the viewers and listeners that do not know, Subtex is not the owner of this dirt. They have a long-term lease for these parcels off Stadium Road where they can build this project. Of course, I'm going to ask maybe some of those details of that land lease, if I could, Mitch, here in a matter of moments. I want to commend your firm. I think you have found an incredible opportunity here.

You guys are going to crush this. This portion of UVA is, frankly, a bit underserved. You are in walking distance of everything here. Nightlife, academics, athletics, quality of life with the dining halls and with the AFC, the Aquatics and Fitness Center. I used to live off Shamrock Road while suited at UVA, and that's very close to where Stadium is, as you know. There's a bus route. There's transportation. There's retail and food and beverage that's kind of booming in the Fry Springs area.

Paul Manning donated $100 million for a biotech facility, technology center on Fontaine, which is less than a mile from where these guys are building this. Six to 8,000 additional people are going to be coming to that biotech facility, which is less than a mile where Subtex is building this project. So these guys have pinpoint an opportunity that is massive upside here. I'd love to learn a little bit more of the land lease, how you got this deal with the Canton companies. Is there a risk with a land lease when you don't own the dirt? And is that how other projects you guys have done in the past usually run?

Or do you guys generally own the dirt when you're building projects like this? Yeah, great question. So we generally own the land. It is definitely something that's a little unique. We have done a land lease before on other projects, but I wouldn't say there's a ton of risk related to the ground lease. I think when you look at it from an institutional investment standpoint, it's looked a little bit different than a fee simple acquisition like we're used to seeing, but it is a long-term ground lease and when i say long term

like the bill i don't know if the building will still be here by the time the lease ends like that's how that's how long the term is um so i think it'd be different if this was you know like you can't do a project like this on a 20-year ground lease it really open to at the time. And they spent a ton of time and effort, like you said, assembling all of those parcels around it. They have student housing on the site, and that was sort of their livelihood. So I think they looked at that more as like a long-term revenue stream. It happened, and they've been a great partner up to this point and really excited with their involvement going forward. Man, you've got questions coming in here from viewers and listeners left and right. My screen is blowing up with comments here.

Viewers and listeners, I have a few of my own before we get to yours. So please be patient. Mitch, you are a popular guy right here across all these social media platforms. I'll throw this to you here. Walk us through what we can expect from the construction standpoint here. When you're building something that's 729,000 square feet, 1,300 plus beds, and 430 some apartments here, this is not something that is done overnight. So give us the flip book of this development project of time. Potentially, I think viewers and listeners I see are wanting to know how it's going to impact traffic or quality of life around the project, which I think is a fair question. Can you just put all that in

perspective for us? Yeah, absolutely. So it is, it's definitely a long process, you know, and are so we're using a contractor, John Moriarty, and they are, you know, really experienced with projects of this scale. So it's not like we're bringing someone in that goes into it leading, you know, all the way up from we started having these conversations, you know, a year, 14, maybe even 16 months before we broke ground. And a lot of that, you know, whether it was us or the contractor communicating with the city, communicating with planning and the building department and really working through all of that logistics. You know, there are going to be, you have to work through lane closures. I mean, the other part of this is it's an urban site. I mean, this is a little bit different. You know, you see a lot of, you know, what we would call like greenfield apartments that are out and you have plenty of room around the site where you can lay down materials and do deliveries and all those things, that's not really the case with a site like this just because it's an urban infill location. So there's a lot of planning that has to go into street closures and how deliveries are happening. And that's part of the reason that it's such a long construction

timeline. Our typical project is probably somewhere around 24 months to construct, you know, what I would say like a 700 bed project. And this is almost double that. So that's why we started back in, you know, really December, I think is when things officially kicked off and it won't deliver until July, August of 2027. And yeah, there's, and really working with the city on figuring out how the timing would work best with lane closures and deliveries. I mean, for example, you know, how Emmett is going to function during class. I think that's a big thing. I mean, Emmett is, you're directly across from campus. You have a lot of pedestrian traffic, even with us taking the buildings down and, you know, they're not being student housing on this site specifically.

You still have a lot of students that live further south or they're trying to cross and come down the steps and they come across Emmett. And it's also not, you know, the most pedestrian friendly now. I think we're making some great pedestrian improvements with the streetscape, with wider sidewalks and bike lanes and things like that that are really going to improve that experience of getting across the street to the grounds. But, yeah, there's just there's a lot of collaboration and a lot of planning that has to go into the logistics side of it. And just making sure that, you know, we're not impacting the community any more than we need to. And, you know, that also involved discussions with the neighborhoods. And, you know, when I talked about early on getting in and having discussions with the city and our local consultants and, you know, really, you know, really kind of,

you know, immersing ourselves in the city and making sure that we're spending a lot of time there. We understand everything that's around us, all the impacts that are potentially happening on the surrounding neighborhood. And we pride ourselves on being really good community developers. And we do a ton of neighborhood outreach proactively. There's some developers that they may try to sort of slide by.

And if things come up, they're happy to have conversations. It's not the approach that we like to take. We want to proactively go out and engage the neighborhood and we do things like you know having neighborhood meetings setting those up beforehand and early on in the process so that we can get feedback on whether it's you know the overall scale and size and height of the building but also on design you know there's certain things that we, you know, we're talking with community members that have been here their entire lives and it's valuable feedback when we're,

you know, designing the building and the programming. And for instance, having walk-up units along the street is something that we feel like is really important because that helps activate those streets and the sidewalks and provides a real safe environment because you constantly have people coming and going. So that's just one instance of some feedback that we got from local community members, but also talking to community members about construction and timelines and when they can expect certain closures and things like that. It's really just an ongoing dialogue throughout the whole construction process. You have a lot of folks at the University of Virginia watching the program right now. Some folks at the UVA Foundation watching the program right now. Some folks at Tallheimer watching the

program right now. I count five elected officials and a couple planning commissioners watching you right now, Mitch. Comments are coming in. Two more from me, then we'll go to the comments that were coming in from the viewers and listeners. What do you say to the folks that maybe multifamily is getting a bit soft? We've had a couple of, now these are not student housing. This isn't student housing. I've had two apartment complexes reach out to our firm about figuring out a game plan, an advertising campaign to drive occupancy with what is apartment complexes that are 50%, 60% full. Our firm specifically has tried to go into a six-unit and an eight-unit project with our own money and sizable down payment. And finding financing has been challenging, with one bank telling us we're not prepared to let on multifamily right now. So I'll throw you open-ended here. The softening of multifamily,

something that you considered, is that something that is a concern or is it completely different because it's student housing we're dealing with here? Yeah, no, great question. And obviously I know firsthand because we do build multifamily and, you know, we've had, we have actually, there's a high rise in Nashville that is delivering right now that we built. We built a project in Boise and I have projects also in Tampa and Phoenix. So I fully understand the pushback just generally on multifamily because we are experiencing that. I think just nationwide there has been, whether it was interest rates or other kind of macro trends that you're seeing that have had some pushback on multifamily. With that being said, it is a little bit of a different animal.

And I think a lot of that is just higher level supply and demand fundamentals. And with multifamily, you're looking at a lot of things like migration and job growth and, you know, people coming into the city. And that's a little bit difficult with a market like Charlottesville. That's a little smaller, you know, compared to, let's say, like a Tampa or Phoenix. And when you start getting some supply, yeah, it can be really difficult for a market like that to absorb. But the student housing is almost sort of like its own mini market, I would say. And we're really focused on the university and the fundamentals and the enrollment growth and kind of what that looks like. And I think when we looked at this market and you're just looking high level at supply and demand and looking at how the university plans on growing, I think

they grew somewhere around like two percent this year, which is great to see. And there really hasn't been a lot of purpose-built student housing supply in the past couple years. You know, we have our project coming. There's another project that is on the north side of campus that was going through entitlements the same time we were. Then there's one to the south of us, a smaller deal that should be under construction now if it hasn't started already. But when you look at that and what was the existing supply that was already there, I mean, we put together a full supply and demand report that has, you know, again, with our data scientists and he's looking at all these numbers, all the charts, and like, I'm projecting somewhere around 11,000 beds in what we would call uncaptured demand. And that's really just looking at, you know, the full time enrollment, and the number of beds that are on

the grounds currently, and the existing supply. And we have certain factors that we look at based on what we're projecting the uncaptured demand to be. And those fundamentals look really good from just a university standpoint. And I think that's what that's what really separates it from the multifamily side. When you look at a market that may not be growing as much from an in-migration standpoint or a job growth standpoint, but you could look at the university and say, well, the university is continuing to grow enrollment, or they have a master plan for the next five years that they want to add 10% to full-time enrollment.

I mean, that's a really good story there, and I feel like that really drives demand with the student housing. Well, I'm really curious to see how this plays out. I think the location is as good as it gets, and the reputation of your firm speaks for itself. I mean, anyone can visit the Subtex website and look at the fact that they're building this Verve brand and many other markets. So they have a proof of performance. They have this ironed out.

It's not like this is their first rodeo. I mean, these guys are rodeo champions here. One intriguing wrinkle here is in the very near future, the University of Virginia is going to require its second year class to live on grounds. So it's pulling a portion of the student body out of this type of housing and putting it into UVA housing. And UVA is doing this as the proverbial olive branch to Charlottesville and Alamaro County saying, hey, we're doing our part to try to stabilize, to try to create housing affordability for the community by asking these second years to live on grounds in our housing, which would

open up additional supply of housing for folks that are local or workforce or lower income housing, which to their point should stabilize price points. I'm going to get to comments here. This is from, we call our viewers and listeners family members. So this is number one in the family. And he has this comment on your point about urban infill versus greenfield. How much more expensive and slow do you think infill is versus greenfield? This is one concern he had about the idea that the NCO would lead to lots of affordable infill. And he also adds this. This is kind of a two-part for you here, Mitch. Curious if you will speak at all to the price point of the product. Is this something

competing with dorms or is this something competing with off-campus housing, off-grounds housing? Sure. Yeah, so with the first question, the cost of construction, it is significantly different. I think when you look at, well, just look at construction materials. So this is a concrete building, type one construction, so significantly more expensive than what you would see in a greenfield project, which is typically a wood building. And even beyond that, those are typically surface parked. So this is a structured parking building, which means we have the parking below grade in a concrete structure. So all of that adds costs and all that adds time. I mean, as opposed to when you think about your standard and let's just focus on Greenfield multifamily, you typically have basically buildings of 36 or 48 units that get placed around the site. And then you have structured parking that kind of fills in around the buildings. You can start constructing those buildings, you know, three buildings at a time, just because they're all spaced out. And, you know, you can have different contractors that come in and work on different

pieces, and you can sort of phase those projects. And that goes a lot faster than a project like this, where we have to go, you know, a couple levels below grade, and you have to build the building straight up from there. So you can't really phase it like you would on a greenfield project. And then, yeah, just the timing with the concrete and all that leads to higher construction costs. So I guess your comments about affordability with infill sites, and that's definitely something that we've looked into. We actually have an attainable housing platform that we're working through right now. And we have a couple of projects in Dallas-Fort Worth that we're working on. And I think through that process, like we've just seen increasing difficulty in getting deals to pencil that, you know, are not a little further out.

We're getting the land cheaper and you can have cheaper construction pricing, and you're getting to those lower rents, what we would call attainable or like workforce rents, and that's going to be extremely difficult. And I mean, in a location like this, and there's a lot of factors that go into it, but you know, even just as simple as assembling the land and what the seller is going to expect for a price on something like that compared to a greenfield site that's further out that may either be vacant or, you know, it may just be one or two houses or, you know, something like that. So, yeah, there's a lot of factors, but I would say it's significantly more expensive and the construction duration is significantly longer on an urban infill project like this i think i think you did you did and you've been very forthcoming with this interview

i can tell this isn't your first rodeo here we're doing interviews like this you're very good at this um more comments are coming in here for mitch um and i want to correction mitch corte i called him corte in the beginning of the interview so i I want to offer my sincere apology to Mitch there. So comments continue to come in. I believe, Judah, you have photos that we can put on screen. These are renderings from the Subtext website. Do we have your permission, Mitch? Can we put those on screen? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead, and if you could put those photos on screen. This guy is on Stadium Road, literally in the shadows of Scott Stadium here. I mean, it's a hop, skip, and a jump from the University of Virginia. We're talking a pretty significant project, 729,000 plus square feet, ladies and gentlemen.

1,300 plus beds here, folks. A massive project, massive scale here. How about this one that's come in for you? Do you consider the success or the struggles of two student apartment towers on Main Street, the flats and the standard when building this project? I'd say the flats has had enormous success, built by a local developer in corn capsule and then since sold. And the standard has had pretty good success.

How do you utilize those as comps or their history when building a project like this? Yeah, it's definitely a major factor. Really, when we're first analyzing the market, I think, obviously, I talked about supply and demand fundamentals and just looking high level at enrollment growth. And, you know, and we also do look, I mentioned multifamily and looking at migration and job growth, that those are also factors that we look at more at a macro level and just kind of making sure that, you know, there are continuously people coming in. The market is growing as a whole. But looking at the comps in depth and we tore the comps. I've probably been through both of those projects 10 times at this point.

But those are, you know, a pretty early and a pretty solid indication of market performance. And, you know, I think we like to tell ourselves that our project is probably just a step above both of those projects. And I think in two, you know, two things, one location, which is obvious with this site specifically, but also just in level of finish and design and programming, resident experience, what we're doing on site with the residents and the programming day to day and providing, you know, different entertainment and groups and just really sort of fostering collaboration within the property itself. And I think that's something we really pride ourselves on. So to answer your question more specifically, we're definitely

focusing on those comps and it's giving us an early indication that there is demand in this market and looking at the occupancy, the pre-lease velocity, like I mentioned before, I think both of those deals lease up fairly well every single year. And it's not like they're having to drop rate as it gets closer to the end of lease up to make sure the building gets full. Like they're having no issues, you know, getting to 100% occupancy. And they've also been pushing rents. And, you know, I think that's something you've hit on a couple times. And obviously, price point is something that needs to be considered. And the university is adding this, you know, second year live on. And I think what we've, you know, in talking with the city, talking with the university, we really feel like the best way to hit on price point or I guess increasing prices is additional supply. I mean, it really just comes down to the existing supply that's there right now will continue to push rents while people will pay it while there is an unmet demand.

And right now, there's just not enough institutional pedestrian to campus or pedestrian to grounds product available for students. And, you know, until you have some additional supply that comes in and gives people other opportunities, they'll, you know, those projects and rightfully so will continue to raise rates. And I think that's why we feel like there really is that uncaptured demand in this market. And I'm not saying this, this project alone will not meet that. I think it helps that you have this project, a couple others, you have the university that's going to build some additional housing and all that should potentially tamper down just probably the continued rising rates. But on the other side of

that, one reason that we really focus on pedestrian to campus locations and being, you know, main on main is that that's where we want the students to be. I mean, that's really, whether it's from, you know, a safety perspective or them just a pedestrian or resident experience. You know, we want them as close to campus, as close to downtown so that they're able to walk everywhere. They're not having to use cars. They're not adding traffic to the infrastructure. And that also allows those students to come out of the neighborhoods and into a building that's right next to campus. It's professionally managed, on-site management 24-7, and it frees up those houses that are further back into the neighborhood for owner-occupants or more affordable housing and helps on that

side of things as well as the student housing side. The role of University of Virginia, the influence of the University of Virginia. We saw the University of Virginia on the Ivy Corridor as they're kind of expanding westward, kind of get in the ear of elected officials, highlighting that if you approve a project like this, it's going to change the landscape or the look and feel of this critical gateway to the University of Virginia. And they vehemently opposed it. They lobbied against it. Curious of the rule of the influence of the University of Virginia with this project as it applies to, you know, landscape look and feel. I mean, this is right next to one of their trophy properties, Scott Stadium. So curious of curious the influence and what they had to say with this.

Yeah, we've had some great conversations with the university. And, you know, I've sat in a room and talked with plenty of people from the university several times. And, you know, a lot of it was about, you know, there was a pretty big discussion about views. And, you know, looking from the rotunda, what the effect of, you know, our project and kind of looking in the distance and what that looks like. And we did a bunch of different height studies to show what the views were going to be from there. Aside from that,

I think really focusing on pedestrian safety was one thing that we wanted to make sure we're bringing a lot of people to this location. And like I mentioned before, Emmett is not the most pedestrian friendly street the way it is right now, the way cars kind of come around and swoop down around that curve. And that intersection is also just a little funky the way it's designed right now. And that's something that we had conversations with the city about. And maybe in the future there will be some kind of path to helping just clean that up a little bit but really making sure that you know we're focusing on the resident experience but we're also having a major focus on the general pedestrian experience and how is this

you know how is everyone in the surrounding community experiencing this project so we have 1300 people that are living in the building but you also have all in the surrounding community experiencing this project? So we have 1,300 people that are living in the building, but you also have all of the surrounding community that's going to be walking the sidewalks, riding their bikes, walking to game day, you know, using these sidewalks. So when you think about that and making sure that we have all the space to accommodate that and really making it, you know, feel like it's a great pedestrian experience and, you know, increasing the vibran a great pedestrian experience and, you know, increasing the vibrancy. And I think that's one thing that really gets us excited when

you walk around this location right now. It's it almost feels like sort of a dead zone. And a lot of that relates to the street, the current streetscape and the sidewalks. The topography is somewhat unique. You have a lot of fall on the site and it's just not a great pedestrian experience. But with all the upgrades we're making, really making sure the building has that pedestrian scale at the first floor. And you can see how, you know, I talked about the walk up units and adding really high quality materials at grade and even up the building. The building is all, you know, high quality metal panel and brick. Yeah. So, I mean, those, all of those things factor in. That's, again, that's just collaboration, whether it's getting feedback from the university or the neighborhood and also just pride of ownership. Like we are, you know, we

really pride ourselves in building projects that will stand the test of time. And, you know, we want to be able to stand out there with the golden shovel or whatever on groundbreaking and cut the ribbon on opening day and be able to say, like, we are really proud of this building, whether it's the location, the materials, the general design, the programming, everything that goes into it. Well, I am very mindful of your time. You've exceeded my expectations with this interview. I'll ask you two questions left, and the last one, I'll throw a bone to subtext. It's a substantial contribution this firm is making to the Affordable Housing Fund in Charlottesville. So these folks are, in a lot of ways, walking the walk and talking the talk here with trying to improve the community. I also find this project extremely intriguing.

I find it intriguing because I think Mitch and his team clearly see that the University of Virginia is expanding its applicant pool and accepting more students to grounds. I've highlighted on this network multiple times that the population is going to grow in the very near future. Depending on who you talk to, it's a six to ten thousand person increase in the very near future with the impact of the UVA Data Science School, the Paul Manning Biotech School, and with just frankly this being a coveted place to live. And now folks can work hybridly and remotely in D.C., Northern Virginia, Manhattan,

up and down the eastern seaboard, but come to Charlottesville, where the cost of living is lower than those communities that I just mentioned. I also find it intriguing because we know Graystar is building a 500-unit-plus project off of Old Ivy Road. So there's two projects coming here at the same time that the University of Virginia is requiring its second years to live on ground. So there's a lot of layers to this onion. It's a very dynamic storyline here, which is why we wanted to interview Mitch.

First, I want to close with a two-part question. I want to give you an opportunity to highlight the positive you're doing for the community with the affordable housing contribution to the fund. And then I want to just offer the show and the platform with a lot of folks watching for you to go anywhere you want on anything that you think we haven't covered appropriately. Okay, great. Yeah, with the affordable housing, that was something that, you know, that was a conversation again with the city. And we understand that affordable housing is a real issue. I mean,

not just in Charlottesville, but across the country. And we want to do our part to help contribute to that. I mean, I think there was a lot of discussion. And one thing that we come across on a lot of our projects is should there be affordable housing in the building? And we've done that on some other multifamily projects, which makes a lot of sense. I think what we get to on the student housing side is, is that really the same demographic that you want to be bringing into a student housing building that would be looking for a more workforce attainable, affordable product type? And generally, it's not a great mix. So I think that's where it comes to just the collaboration and working with the city and figuring out like what's going to have a real impact in the area. And, you know, the dollar amount. Yeah, it's we want to do as much as the project can support.

And I think that's where we came to with the city. And I think it's going to go to great use. And yeah, we're just excited to see what comes of it. Thank you, Mitch. I cannot wait to see the ribbon cutting. We'll continue to follow the project. I'm sincerely grateful for your time and for your straightforwardness. I mean, you shot us straight the entire interview. We wish you the best and good luck with the project. Yeah, thank you very much. Really appreciate you coming on or you having me on. And I guess you probably have my contact info. So if there are guests or people that were listening and they want to contact me with other questions, always happy to have a discussion about the project or talk real estate or whatever it might be. Absolutely. We'll keep that in mind and enjoy the day and thank you for

the time. All right. Thanks a lot. Mitch Corti, guys, the Executive Vice President for Development at Subtex. I'll recap the project. Are we – put me on a one-shot, if you could, please, sir, Judah. Okay, this is a 729,262-square-foot project. It's called the Verve Charlottesville. It's being built by Subtex, a national real estate company that's focused on elevating the resident experience. If you go to Subtex's website, you'll see a number of projects branded Verve. So this is a project that has a pretty substantial proof of performance.

This project on Stadium Row, literally in the shadows of Scott Stadium, will feature 1,332 beds and 463 units. They will range from studios to four-bedroom apartments. I was very impressed with his straightforwardness. He highlighted, these were Mitch's words, not my words, Mitch's words, that this is a land lease. He put in perspective the land lease term, 90 to 100 years, his words, not my words. He highlighted that they utilized a software that's basically a national GIS, his words, not my words, where they were able to target this particular opportunity by looking at his words, assemblage. And the Canton companies, which is an institutional operation here locally, had assembled land right next to Scott Stadium. And one of those parcels was that stone house that the community was up in arms at last week

that was recently torn down. So they assembled a number of parcels to build a structure, to build infrastructure and development that is substantial. I mean, this is 729,000 square feet, folks. What makes this story really dynamic is the following. A, we know that we are underserved with housing. The whole reasoning behind the new zoning ordinance is to create more density and more density, more housing, extra supply, additional supply, and in some people's minds will stabilize

price points. So we have the additional supply that's coming. B, the University of Virginia is going to require, I think in the year 2027, it's in the next couple years here, students of second-year distinction to live in UVA housing. So that's going to take a portion of the tenant population, a portion of the renter population, out of the leasing ecosystem. You potentially are shrinking your pool of tenants. C, Graystar is building a project probably a mile away, maybe a mile away from this Verve project that's 500 plus units.

So you have two massive projects that are currently under construction within a mile apart of each other by two national established developers. I mean, think about that. Another layer to this onion is the fact that some folks are saying that multifamily is getting a bit soft right now. Whether you buy that or not is the question. Whether you buy that this is multifamily or more specifically student housing and there are two distinct classes of real estate, that's up for you to decide. We do know that the multifamily housing project at the shops of Stonefield is extremely vacant right now. Very vacant.

And it's struggling to rent its units. Is student housing distinct and different enough from multifamily housing? Probably so. Probably so. It's going to be probably at a more affordable price point. And it's got mommy and daddy paying for it, as opposed to what the Elysian is doing at Stonefield, where it's thousands of dollars a month, which is pretty much equivalent to a mortgage payment.

You know, is today's tenant, is the key aspect for today's tenant, or is the, let me choose my words carefully here, is the best position to be if you're a landlord of any kind, a landlord of student housing, workforce housing, and low-income housing. Because student housing, workforce housing, and low-income housing is a type of housing stock that is going to cater to individuals that cannot afford a home purchase. If you're in luxury rental housing, which is a lot of what the Elysian is, that type of tenant that is being asked to pay $3,000, $4,000 a month, they can afford to buy a home.

So perhaps that's the softer aspect of multifamily, that luxury category, that luxury subcategory of multifamily, where workforce and student housing is where the demand is. Very intriguing element there. I'm curious to see the impact this has with a lot of, some would say tailwinds. The tailwinds for the Gray Star Project and the tailwinds for the Verve Project are UVA student bodies increasing in size. The population is increasing in size. And the folks that are being admitted to the University of Virginia, frankly speaking, especially if you're out of state, are 1% families, students from 1% families, 1% of wealth. I mean, you're paying over $80,000 a year, $85,000, $90,000 a year

to attend UVA out of state. Those are 1%ers that are coming here. the one percenters out of state that are coming here can afford these type of rental rates now the the headwinds for these projects are the following you got two massive projects coming online at the same time gray stars and subtext the other headwind is is the university of virginia requiring its second years to live on grounds and those second years are the type of tenants that would pursue the Graystar or the Verve models. So a lot to unpack. We'll follow it very closely as

they start pre-leasing. They're in the construction stage now, but as they start pre-leasing. There's some other elements of the talk show that I want to get to, or other topics of this talk show that I want to get to. Can you go studio cam? Do we have the headlines on screen? We do? All right. And I want to commend Judah for helping the audio visual and the behind the scenes for this interview. Thank you very much, Judah. Why don't we go to, why don't I set the stage of what we can expect

for the rest of the show and then we'll weave you in on a two-shot. Okay, so we got a little bit of breaking news here first. Why don't you put the UVA provost named Middlebury College president, lower third on screen. This is some breaking news for the viewers and listeners. The provost of the University of Virginia, executive vice president of the University of Virginia, this is Jim Ryan's right-hand man, is now the new president of Middlebury College. This is in Vermont. He's going from Charlottesville to Vermont.

I mean, good night. You go from freezing cold to even more freezing cold. But still, you're going to be the president of a school. I'm going to butcher his last name. His first name is Ian. I'm going to say Balcom. I'm terrible with pronouncing the last names. B-A-U-C-O-M. I should know that. I'm going to call Ian Balcom. He's the University of Virginia Executive Vice President and Provost, and he was just named the President of Middlebury College. This news was literally posted on Middlebury's website today, and I think a lot of you are hearing it for the first time from the I Love Seville show. Mr. Baucom, the Provost, has has served as the executive vice president and provost

since 2022. In this position, he's responsible for managing the academic schools of the University of Virginia. He oversees education, research initiatives, libraries, arts, art museums, and public service. I mean, this guy is the lieutenant of Jim Ryan. He served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for eight years. And before that, he was at Duke University for 17. So folks, Jim Ryan has lost his right-hand person who is now headed to Middlebury in Vermont, where he will be the president of that university. So first, props to Mr. Baucom for, on paper, a promotion. On paper, a promotion.

It's interesting. These types of positions, the turnover is pretty substantial. John Castine's run as president at UVA is in some ways an anomaly. Since Castine, we saw what? Teresa Sullivan and the Board of Visitors try to do a coup, a behind-the-scenes initiative to have her ousted. If it wasn't for faculty who stood by Terry Sullivan, she would have been knifed in the back by the Board of Visitors,

in particular Helen Dragas, the developer from Virginia Beach. After Terry Sullivan, Jim Ryan. And Jim Ryan is under tremendous fire, as we all know, president of UVA. I think the next headline we should put on screen, Judah, and this is something that I could weave you in, because I think you may have some perspective on this, is Virginia Democrats looking to block Meg Bryce's appointment to the Virginia Education Board. This is an absolute travesty here. And frankly, the article, and I hope Dr. Bryce hears this. Please, friends of Dr. Bryce, or if Dr. Bryce herself is watching or listening to this show, I hope she hears what I have to say. I've been a tremendous advocate of Dr. Bryce since she ran for the Atmore County School Board.

It is a travesty how she's been portrayed by local media, by activists in this community, and by folks we see at the grocery store and at church or on the mall or at local restaurants, folks that pride themselves in otherwise living their life by the golden rule have attacked this woman specifically because she is the daughter of a late Supreme Court justice, specifically because of perhaps conservative ideology, and specifically because she has chosen to have her children in a private school setting instead of a public school setting. It is unfair what they have done and portrayed of her. And frankly, local media, and here's pointing at the Daily Progress, the photo they continue to run of her and some of the language chosen in today's Daily Progress and Richmond Times Dispatch article is more commentary than reporting the news. who had an agenda, who wrote this article, who chose this photo, who chose the language in the story that appeared

in the paper of record in Charlottesville and the paper of record of Richmond, where Virginia Democrats are moving to block Dr. Bryce's appointment to the Board of Education, a Glenn Youngkin appointment. I said when this news first broke that Glenn Youngkin was going to appoint her to the Board of Education, that he did appoint her, I said that Virginia Democrats would do this. And that's exactly what has happened.

It is no surprise that she is being blocked. That's just reading the tea leaves correctly. However, it's the Commonwealth's loss not having Dr. Bryce on the board. Because having a board that is made up of differing mindsets and opinions is a better board. Having a board that is strictly one mindset or one ideology is governing in a silo. That's why I highlight all the Democrats that are sprinting to the social media application blue sky and avoiding Facebook and avoiding Twitter because of Elon Musk. Facebook is a Mark Zuckerberg, right? I just don't understand the mindset. siloed learning environment as opposed to spending your time and opening your mind, expanding your mind into a learning environment that is of differing opinion and differing thought.

Curious of some perspective you'd like to offer, if any, on this one, Judah, and we can go to the next topic if you'd like. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I would add is that they also don't like Meg Bryce because she – Who is they? Those who voted against her to the local media? I mean just out of curiosity, the word they. All of the above. I mean anybody that's opposed to her.

I think some portion of that is due to the fact that she's been to – was it Moms of Liberty? I don't remember the exact events, what they were. But I think they pin every single belief in that the Moms of Liberty ascribed to Meg Bryce, perhaps unfairly. So I think there is at least a little more to their, what is it, irrational hatred. But that being said, I do think that overall what we've seen here is just hateful and frankly despicable

actions from the people that have not only blocked her candidacy now, but as we saw in the board campaign, we saw... He's talking school board. What? School board campaign. We saw... He's talking school board. What? School board campaign. Yeah. Yeah.

This is Board of Education and the Almore County School Board. So you're talking school board campaign. Yeah. Spray painting her signs. Yep. And other stuff. Politics have become a playground of nastiness and a battlefield of hatred, as opposed to being the melting pot of conversation, the water cooler of conversation. And it's just terribly unfortunate. And it's just terribly

unfortunate. And it's the loss of the public schools in the Commonwealth, not having a perspective like Dr. Bryce's that is a different where others can learn from. I sincerely mean that. I got two other items that I want to get to out of the notebook here. If you could put the lower third on screen about the Lazy Parrot, a beloved brand in the Pantop Shopping Center. Kevin Kirby and his family opened the Lazy Parrot Grill in the Pantop Shopping Center. They've had two iterations, in fact, in the Pantop Shopping Center. The first one where you could legitimately smoke inside

to the one that we currently know and love, an end cap next to the old Lloyd's Hallmark. The Lazy Parrot is opening a second location in Louisa County. I want to give Ginny Hu some love for putting this on our radar. Louisa County, it's going to be their gain. The Lazy Parrot is going to open in a new shopping center, ladies and gentlemen, that owners Stephanie and John Corrin are building. They're the former owners of Lake Anna Tractor and Hardware, now Lake Anna Cardinal Home Center. It's located on Chopping Road,

just west of the intersection of Route 208 and Route 522. They are working with state and county staff to build Roundabout Plaza. And Roundabout Plaza is going to be two 12,500-square-foot commercial structures on a 13-acre track. And the tenants of these two 12,500-square-foot commercial structures will be a gym, an indoor pickleball center, an arcade, a bakery, offices, and the Lazy Parrot restaurant.

And Kevin Kirby has said that he is going to stay true to what has made Lazy Parrot successful in the Pantop Shopping Center. Good food, priced fairly, and a family-friendly, sports-oriented environment. So congrats to the Kirby family for having a second location that will open in the relatively near future later this year. Very excited about that, and congrats to them. I know Kevin fairly well. Good guy right there. Last item out of the notebook for this show.

Virginia, if you want to put the lower third on screen, the Wahoos beat Boston College, and they pounded the Eagles last night. And congratulations to Ron Sanchez for ending a pretty significant losing streak. It's very important to highlight this. And that losing streak, ladies and gentlemen, was five games. Virginia has a stretch of games against Notre Dame, one, Miami, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech again. Six games that they could win all six of these. And it's paramount that Virginia wins as many of these as possible. Because if you follow the Atlantic Coast Conference closely, and a lot of us do, but many of us may not know that the teams in the regular season standings that are in the final, in the bottom three slots in the regular season standings that are in the bottom three slots

of the regular season standings, they will not earn an invitation to the ACC tournament. I'll repeat that. If you finish in the last three positions of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season standings, you will not earn an invitation to the ACC tournament and the automatic berth to the big dance for winning the ACC tournament and the automatic birth to the big dance for winning the ACC tournament. So it's Paramount Virginia not finished in the bottom three positions. And this stretch of six games

against average, if not below average competition, Notre Dame at home, Saturday, John Paul Jones Arena, at Miami, last in the conference, Virginia Tech below 500500 at Pittsburgh. Host Georgia Tech and at Virginia Tech. This is the stretch where they've got to win. Because after that stretch, the competition gets much more stiff.

Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Clemson, Florida State, and Syracuse to close the year. So giddy up and get ready, Wahoo fans. And props to Ron Sanchez, the embattled interim head coach, for snapping a five-game losing streak last night against the Boston College Eagles. I want to thank Judah Wickhauer again for really behind the scenes making that interview happen. With the interviewing of guests through Skype, we are synergizing four and five different pieces of software and all the social media platforms the show streams upon. It is not an easy task, okay? Especially for a little shop right here in a little studio in downtown Charlottesville.

But we may be small, but we are mighty. And we epitomize it's not the size of the dog that matters. It's the size of the fight and the dog that matters with everything we do in our lives. Everything we do in our lives. We epitomize that mindset. For Judah Wickower, I'm Jerry Miller. Thank you. Thank you.